always anticipate danger. If he does not go astray in
any other way, he will probably mismanage his money matters. And then
there are so many other ways. A house, if it be not made pleasant by
domestic pleasant things, must be made pleasant by pleasure. And a
bachelor's pleasures in his own house are always dangerous. There is
too much wine drunk at his dinner parties. His guests sit too long
over their cards. The servants know that they want a mistress; and,
in the absence of that mistress, the language of the household
becomes loud and harsh--and sometimes improper. Young men among us
seldom go quite straight in their course, unless they are, at any
rate occasionally, brought under the influence of tea and small talk.

There was no tea and small talk at Hap House, but there were
hunting-dinners. Owen Fitzgerald was soon known for his horses
and his riding. He lived in the very centre of the Duhallow hunt;
and before he had been six months owner of his property had built
additional stables, with half a dozen loose boxes for his friends'
nags. He had an eye, too, for a pretty girl--not always in the way
that is approved of by mothers with marriageable daughters; but in
the way of which they so decidedly disapprove.

And thus old ladies began to say bad things. Those pleasant
hunting-dinners were spoken of as the Hap House orgies. It was
declared that men slept there half the day, having played cards all
the night; and dreadful tales were told. Of these tales one-half was
doubtless false. But, alas, alas! what if one-half were also true?

It is undoubtedly a very dangerous thing for a young man of
twenty-two to keep house by himself, either in town or country.

CHAPTER II.

OWEN FITZGERALD.

I have tied myself down to thirteen years ago as the time of my
story; but I must go back a little beyond this for its first scenes,
and work my way up as quickly as may be to the period indicated. I
have spoken of a winter in which Herbert Fitzgerald was at home at
Castle Richmond, having then completed his Oxford doings; but I must
say something of two years previous to that, of a time when Herbert
was not so well known in the county as was his cousin of Hap House.

It was a thousand pities that a bad word should ever have been spoken
of Owen Fitzgerald; ten thousand pities that he should ever have
given occasion for such bad word. He was a fine, high-spirited,
handsome fellow, with a loving heart within his breast,