der what sort of a grill old Kate would make? cursed tough, I
fancy._"

"'I have added my mite to a fund already established to send
assistance there--'"

"_Ay, to Christianize, and, in return, be carbonadoed. I wish I had
charge of the gridiron I would broil one or two of the new recruits._"

"'I have called in, under Mr. Sly's advice the mortgage granted to
the late Sir George O'Gorman, by my ever-to-be-lamented husband, and
the other portions of my property being in state securities, are
reclaimable at once. My object in writing this letter is to convey to
my dear nephew my heartfelt prayers for his spiritual amendment, and
also to intimate that the 2000l.--a rent-charge on he Kilnavaggart
property--with the running quarter's interest, shall be paid at La
Touche's to the order of Messrs. Kettlewell and Sly. As the blindness
of the New Zealanders is deplorable, and as Mr. Kettlewell has already
enlisted some gallant champions who will blow the gospel-trumpet,
although they were to be served up to supper the same evening, I wish
the object to be carried out at once--'"

"_Beautiful!_" said my poor father with a groan; "_where the devil
could the money be raised? You won't realize now for a bullock what,
in war-time, you would get for a calf. Go on with the old harridan's
epistle._"

"'Having now got rid of fleshly considerations--I mean money ones--let
me, my dear James, offer a word in season. Remember that it comes from
an attached relation, who holds your worldly affairs as nothing--'"

"_I can't dispute that_," said my father with a smothered groan.

"'But would turn your attention to the more important considerations
of our being. I would not lean too heavily upon the bruised reed, but
your early life was anything but evangelical--'"

Constance laughed; she could not, wild girl, avoid it.

"'We must all give an account of our stewardship,' _vide_ St. Luke,
chap. xvi.--'"

"_Stop--Shakspeare's right; when the devil quotes Scripture--but, go
on--let's have the whole dose._"

"'When can you pay the money in? And, oh! in you, my dear nephew, may
grace yet fructify, and may you be brought, even at the eleventh hour,
to a slow conviction that all on this earth is vanity and vexation
of spirit--drums, colors, scarlet and fine linen, hounds running
after hares, women whirling round, as they tell me they do, in that
invention of the evil one called a waltz, all these are but delusions
of the enemy, and design