eg him to put off other
engagements if he can, and come to us at once."

"And that terrible pickle, as Lucy calls him, your Irish friend, Mr
Adair, are we to have the honour of renewing our acquaintance with him
before you go away?" asked Mary. "I must protest against having him
here unless you are present to restrain his exuberant spirits, and the
various eccentricities in which he may take it into his head to
indulge."

"Oh, Paddy Adair is as gentle as a pet lamb if you only manage him
properly," answered Jack, laughing. "Those various eccentricities are
merely his little frolicsome ways, which can be restrained by silken
cords. There isn't a quieter fellow breathing in the society of
grown-up young ladies, such as you now are. Remember, you were school
girls when you saw him last, and he possibly did not think it necessary
to treat you with the respect he now would."

"He must indeed be much altered then," observed Lucy. "He had then a
curious fancy for standing on his head, jumping out of windows, and
climbing in at them too, dressing up the dogs and cats in costume,
letting off squibs under horses' noses, putting gunpowder into candles,
etcetera, while his tongue kept up a continued rattle from morning till
night."

"Avast there, sister," cried Jack, interrupting her; "I beg your pardon;
you have made me speak like a sailor on the stage. I assure you that
Paddy would not dream of committing any of the atrocities you enumerate;
on the contrary, if you ask him what is the chief drawback to his
pleasure in society he will tell you that it is an overpowering
bashfulness, which prevents him from expressing himself with the fluency
he desires, and that his great wish when mixing in society is to receive
sympathy and gentle encouragement to enable him to feel at his ease."

"From what I recollect of your friend, Mr Adair, I should have thought
it difficult to find a young man more at his ease in any society into
which he may be thrown," observed Lady Rogers, who was somewhat matter
of fact; "I beg therefore, my dear Jack, that you will not persuade your
sisters to give him any of that sympathy and gentle encouragement he
wishes for, or I do not know where he will stop short."

"Depend on me, mother, I will be as discreet as a judge," said Jack, who
had thus succeeded as he desired in turning the thoughts of Lady Rogers
and his sisters from the yellow fever and hurricanes of the West Indies,
and the conversati