me now into
my study, and we'll be safe there from all interruption.'

CHAPTER XLVI

SAGE ADVICE

'So then you're in a hobble with your aunt,' said Mr. Kearney, as he
believed he had summed up the meaning of a very blundering explanation by
Gorman O'Shea; 'isn't that it?'

'Yes, sir; I suppose it comes to that.'

'The old story, I've no doubt, if we only knew it--as old as the
Patriarchs: the young ones go into debt, and think it very hard that the
elders dislike the paying it.'

'No, no; I have no debts--at least, none to speak of.'

'It's a woman, then? Have you gone and married some good-looking girl, with
no fortune and less family? Who is she?'

'Not even that, sir,' said he, half impatient at seeing how little
attention had been bestowed on his narrative.

''Tis bad enough, no doubt,' continued the old man, still in pursuit of his
own reflections; 'not but there's scores of things worse; for if a man is a
good fellow at heart, he'll treat the woman all the better for what she has
cost him. That is one of the good sides of selfishness; and when you have
lived as long as me, Gorman, you'll find out how often there's something
good to be squeezed out of a bad quality, just as though it were a bit of
our nature that was depraved, but not gone to the devil entirely.'

'There is no woman in the case here, sir,' said O'Shea bluntly, for these
speculations only irritated him.

'Ho, ho! I have it, then,' cried the old man. 'You've been burning your
fingers with rebellion. It's the Fenians have got a hold of you.'

'Nothing of the kind, sir. If you'll just read these two letters. The one
is mine, written on the morning I came here: here is my aunt's. The first
is not word for word as I sent it, but as well as I can remember. At all
events, it will show how little I had provoked the answer. There, that's
the document that came along with my trunks, and I have never heard from
her since.'

'"Dear Nephew,"' read out the old man, after patiently adjusting his
spectacles--'"O'Shea's Barn is not an inn,"--And more's the pity,' added
he; 'for it would be a model house of entertainment. You'd say any one
could have a sirloin of beef or a saddle of mutton; but where Miss Betty
gets hers is quite beyond me. "Nor are the horses at public livery,"' read
he out. 'I think I may say, if they were, that Kattoo won't be hired out
again to the young man that took her over the fences. "As you seem fond of
warnings,"' c