self again. Never was she more vivacious, more sparkling, or more
charming. O'Halloran joined the conversation in a manner that showed
the rarest resources of wit, of fun, and of genial humor. Marion, as I
said before, did not hold aloof, but took a part which was subordinate,
it is true, yet, to me, far more effective; indeed, incomparably more
so than that of the others. Indeed, I remember now nothing else but
Marion.

So the evening passed, and at length the ladies retired. Nora bade me
adieu--with her usual cordiality, and her kindly and bewitching glance;
while Marion's eyes threw upon me their lustrous glow, in which there
was revealed a certain deep and solemn earnestness, that only
intensified, if such a thing were possible, the spell which she had
thrown over my soul.

And then it was "somethin' warrum." Under the effects of this, my host
passed through several distinct and well-defined moods or phases.

First of all, he was excessively friendly and affectionate. He alluded
to our late adventure, and expressed himself delighted with the result.

Then he became confidential, and explained how it was that he, an old
man, happened to have a young wife.

Fifteen years ago, he said, Nora had been left under his care by her
father. She had lived in England all her life, where she had been
educated. Shortly after he had become her guardian he had been
compelled to fly to America, on account of his connection with the
Young-Ireland party, of which he was a prominent member. He had been
one of the most vigorous writers in one of the Dublin papers, which was
most hostile to British rule, and was therefore a marked man. As he did
not care about imprisonment or a voyage to Botany Bay, he had come to
America, bringing with him his ward Nora, and his little daughter
Marion, then a child of not more than three or four. By this act he had
saved himself and his property, which was amply sufficient for his
support. A few years passed away, and he found his feelings toward Nora
somewhat different from those of a parent--and he also observed that Nora
looked upon him with tenderer feelings than those of gratitude.

"There's a great difference intoirely," said he, "between us now. I've
lost my youth, but she's kept hers. But thin, at that toime, me boy,
Phaylim O'Halloran was a moightily different man from the one you see
before you. I was not much over forty--in me proime--feeling as young
as any of thim, an' it wasn't an on