how can it possibly
concern any one but myself that I have taken this resolution?"

"There you have me! a hazard and no mistake! I may be your match at
billiards; but when it comes to repartee, you are the better man,
Heathcote."

Coarse as the flattery was, it was not unpleasing. Indeed, in its very
coarseness there was a sort of mock sincerity, just as the stroke of a
heavy hand on your shoulder is occasionally taken for good fellowship,
though you wince under the blow. Now Heathcote was not only gratified by
his own smartness, but after a moment or two he felt half sorry he had
been so "severe on the poor fellow." He had over-shotted his gun, and
there was really no necessity to rake him so heavily; and so, with a
sort of blundering bashfulness, he said,--

"You 're not offended; you 're not angry with me?"

"Offended! angry! nothing of the kind. I believe I am a peppery sort of
fellow,--at least, down in the West there they say as much of me; but
once a man is my friend,--once that I feel all straight and fair between
us,--he may bowl me over ten times a day, and I 'll never resent it."

There was a pause after this, and Heathcote found his position painfully
awkward. He did not fancy exactly to repudiate the friendship thus
assumed, and he certainly did not like to put his name to the bond;
and so he walked to the window and looked out with that half-hopeless
vacuity bashful men are prone to.

"What's the weather going to do?" said he, carelessly. "More rain?"

"Of course, more rain! Amongst all the humbugs of the day, do you know
of one equal to the humbug of the Italian climate? Where's the blue sky
they rave about?"

"Not there, certainly," said Heathcote, laughing, as he looked up at the
leaden-colored canopy that lowered above them.

"My father used to say," said O'Shea, "that it was all a mistake to talk
about the damp climate of Ireland; the real grievance was, that when it
rained it always rained dirty water!"

The conceit amused Heathcote, and he laughed again.

"There it comes now, and with a will too!" And at the same instant, with
a rushing sound like hail, the rain poured down with such intensity as
to shut out the hills directly in front of the windows.

"You 're caught this time, Heathcote. Make the best of it, like a man,
and resign yourself to eat a mutton-chop here with me at four o'clock;
and if it clears in the evening, I 'll canter back with you."

"No, no, the weather will take