me to preserve my incognito, as Mr. O'Leary
concluded his story, and I was obliged to join in the mirth of Trevanion,
who laughed loud and long as he finished it.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

A REMINISCENCE.

O'Leary and Trevanion had scarcely left the room when the waiter entered
with two letters--the one bore a German post-mark, and was in the
well-known hand of Lady Callonby--the other in a writing with which I was
no less familiar--that of Emily Bingham.

Let any one who has been patient enough to follow me through these
"Confessions," conceive my agitation at this moment. There lay my fate
before me, coupled, in all likelihood, with a view of what it might have
been under happier auspices--at least so in anticipation did I read the
two unopened epistles. My late interview with Miss Bingham left no doubt
upon my mind that I had secured her affections; and acting in accordance
with the counsel of Trevanion, no less than of my own sense of right, I
resolved upon marrying her, with what prospect of happiness I dared not
to think of!

Alas! and alas! there is no infatuation like the taste for flirtation
--mere empty, valueless, heartless flirtation. You hide the dice-box and
the billiard queue, lest your son become a gambler--you put aside the
racing calendar, lest he imbibe a jockey predilection--but you never
tremble at his fondness for white muslin and a satin slipper, far more
dangerous tastes though they be, and infinitely more perilous to a man's
peace and prosperity than all the "queens of trumps" that ever figured,
whether on pasteboard or the Doncaster. "Woman's my weakness, yer
honor," said an honest Patlander, on being charged before the lord mayor
with having four wives living; and without having any such "Algerine act"
upon my conscience, I must, I fear, enter a somewhat similar plea for my
downfallings, and avow in humble gratitude, that I have scarcely had a
misfortune through life unattributable to them in one way or another.
And this I say without any reference to country, class, or complexion,
"black, brown or fair," from my first step forth into life, a raw sub.
in the gallant 4_th, to this same hour, I have no other avowal, no other
confession to make. "Be always ready with the pistol," was the dying
advice of an Irish statesman to his sons: mine, in a similar
circumstance, would rather be "Gardez vous des femmes," and more
especially if they be Irish.

There is something almost treacherous in