my boy, I've hopes for you yet—yes, ha! ha! ha!I've hopes for you still." "Well, Bob, we'll consider the dinner a settled thing," said the alderman: "so now let us be jolly. How stands the Boyne water?" "There are two good quarts of it yet," replied Coates, weighing the kettle in his hand. "And I earnestly entreat that we shall not desecrate the blessed fluid by applying it to base purposes. Only consave a servant making tay or biling eggs with Boyne water: the very idaya is disgusting. Let's conshume it all in the same loyal style we've begun. It's an immense thing to do, to be sure; but, for all that, let's go through it like Let us turn it all into Protestant punch." men. "By all means, Bob,—so let us make a night of it,” was the willing response. And we are bound to add that they did make a night of it, and a morning also, for they did not separate until the small hours were pretty far advanced; when, we regret to add, the worthy alderman was in a condition decidedly unbecoming a respectable burgess holding the dignified position that he did; but as for his companion, it was a miracle that he retained his perpendicular. "Good night!-Bl-less you! bl-less you, Davy!" uttered the old toper, as, while "willing to go, but yet loth to depart," he still lingered on the threshold. "Bl-less you! and mind," he added, for, though drunk as Bacchus, the old fellow had his wits about him-"mind now, Davy, don't forget-to call upon the widow." "Never fear me, Bob, I'll wait upon her to-morrow," said the alderman, the recollection of the important duty before him restoring him to some degree of steadi ness. "And settle everything--eh? Davy," asked Bob Coates. "Yes, Bob, I'll settle everything, depend upon it." "All right and tight, my boy,-that's what I call bizz-bizz-buisness," returned Coates, shutting one eye, and pressing his forefinger to the side of his nose; by which performance, though he intended to look remarkably knowing, he only succeeded in getting up a drunken leer, which thoroughly satisfied the other, far gone as he was, that Coates was all but in the last stage of intoxication. And the old fellow jogged homewards, hiccuping as he went, and singing at the top of his voice the Orange ditty, “July the First, in Oldbridge Town, there was a famous battle;" or rather attempting to do so, for he never got beyond the first line. CHAPTER V. "She was a phantom of delight, To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; To haunt, to startle, and waylay." THE ensuing morning Alderman Elliott arose, strong in his magnanimous determination of calling upon the Widow Lonergan, and putting an end to all further intercourse between their respective children. Having been occupied with business the early part of the day, he postponed his visit until the afternoon,-an arrangement which suited him admirably, as, after disposing of affairs at the widow's, he had only to proceed from thence to the Lodge, and inform Mr. Coates and the rest of the brethren of the result of his interview. We accordingly find the worthy alderman at about seven o'clock in the evening knocking at Mrs. Lonergan's door with all the gravity and solemnity that the occasion demanded. The widow happened at the time to be engaged with customers in her shop, in which she carried on an extensive business; for in those days there were no monster drapery establishments such as there are at present, which, like Aaron's rod, swallow up all the rest, and leave no chance for the industrious small trader to eke out a livelihood. The servant accordingly invited him to enter, and await her mistress's coming. David Elliott was loth to enter this stronghold of Popery and treason; his desire was to have met the widow on the threshold, and have there disposed of his business without entering her house. As it was, however, he had no alternative but to do as the servant had requested. The room he was shown into, which was comfortably and even elegantly furnished, had for him a novelty and freshness about it that surprised and pleased him. Everything around bespoke the civilizing presence of woman: the vase of flowers on the table, which enriched the air with perfume, and the numerous other elegancies and pleasing trifles which the refined taste of woman delights in surrounding her home with, seemed to shed a halo of peace and happiness around him. There was a range of books in a cabinet to which his attention was attracted: here he expected to find disloyalty and ultramonantism in its most revolting form. He read over the names:- -"The Life of Charles the Twelfth;" "The Mysteries of Udolpho;" "Every one his own Gardener;" "Robinson Crusoe;" "Miss Edgeworth's Tales of Fashionable Life;" and a few more of the same diversified class. There was no volume of a sectarian character amongst them; and the alderman, in his own words, was "surprised and astonished." He turned to the scrap-book that lay open upon the table, and to his surprise found that it contained none of the offensive caricatures of public characters which in those days the print shops teemed with, most of them being directed against the members of the Dublin Corporation and the Orange body to which he belonged. The piano lay open, with a piece of music upon it, as if the notes had just thrilled to the touch of its presiding genius; he ran his hands listlessly over the notes, and the familiar sounds recalled the memories of other days, and brought a pleasing sadness to his heart. He thought of his own expensive "Broadwood" at home, which, not having been opened for years, lay neglected, aside, dusty and gloomy, like a coffin waiting to receive its tenant; while the hands "that had waked it so often" were long crumbled with their kindred dust. He paced the room, and sighed; yet his feelings were of a pleasurable kind. The object of his visit for the time was forgotten; and the memories of bygone years crowded upon his mind. Mrs. Lonergan remained away a long time, and David Elliott took a seat on a sofa, as one will do who feels himself at home. Those who have passed years of their lives in wild and uncultivated scenes with rough and rude companions, and then, on returning to civilized life, enter some home, such as a mother, a sister, or a wife may have once graced with her presence, can form some idea of the pleasing though undefinable feelings that possessed him. Oh, how his own dull lonely house, that never echoed to |