ever see a shilling of it, if you live to the age of a
Hebrew patriarch. See what it is to fix the heart upon money. You are
now, what you wish the world to believe you to be, a poor man."

"Ho! ho!" howled the miser, "he darn't, he darn't--wouldn't God consume
him if he robbed the poor--wouldn't God stiffen him, and pin him to the
airth, if he attempted to run off wid the hard earnings of strugglin'
honest men? Where 'ud God be, an' him to dar to do it! But it's a
falsity, an' you're thryin' me to see how I'd bear it--it is, it is, an'
may Heaven forgive you!"

"It's as true as the Gospel," replied the other; "why, I'm surprised
you didn't hear it before now--every one knows it--it's over the whole
country."

"It's a lie--it's a lie!" he howled again; "no one dar to do such an
act. You have some schame in this--you're not a safe man; you're a
villain, an' nothin' else; but I'll soon know; which of these is my
hat?"

"You are mad, I think," said Cassidy.

"Get me my hat, I say; I'll soon know it; but sure the world's all in a
schame against me--all, all, young an' ould--where's my hat, I say?"

"You have put it upon your head this moment," said the other.

"An' my stick?"

"It's in your hand."

"The curse o' Heaven upon you," he shrieked, "whether it's thrue or
false!" and, with a look that might scorch him to whom it was directed,
he shuffled in a wild and frantic mood out of the house.

"The man is mad," observed Cassidy; "or, if not, he will soon be so; I
never witnessed such a desperate case of avarice. If ever the demon of
money lurked in any man's soul, it's in his. God bless me! God bless
me! it's dreadful! Richard, tell the gentleman in the dining-room I'm at
leisure to see him."

The scene we have attempted to describe spared O'Brien the trouble
of much unpleasant inquiry, and enabled him to enter at once into the
proposed arrangements on behalf of Connor. Of course he did not permit
his sister's name to transpire, nor any trace whatsoever to appear, by
which her delicacy might be compromised, or her character involved.
His interference in the matter he judiciously put upon the footing of
personal regard for the young man, and his reluctance to be even the
indirect means of bringing him to a violent and shameful death. Having
thus fulfilled Una's instructions, he returned home, and relieved her of
a heavy burthen by a full communication of all that had been done.

The struggle hitherto endured by