“She has heard it,” replied her father, “and I have just left her in tears; but upon my soul, I don’t think there is one of them shed for him.  Well, Mr. Strong, I believe, after all, there is likely to be no marriage, but that is not your fault; you came here to do your duty, and I think it only just—­a word with you in the next apartment,” he added, and then led the way to the dining-room.  “I was about to say, Mr. Strong, that it would be neither just nor reasonable to deprive you of your fees; here is a ten-pound note, and it would have been twenty had the marriage taken place.  I must go to Sligo to see the unfortunate baronet, and say what can be done for him—­that is, if anything can, which I greatly doubt.”

The parson protested, against the receipt of the ten-pound note very much in the style of a bashful schoolboy, who pretends to refuse an apple from a strange relation when he comes to pay a visit, whilst, at the same time, the young monkey’s chops are watering for it.  With some faint show of reluctance he at length received it, and need we say that it soon disappeared in one of his sanctified pockets.

“Strong, my dear fellow,” proceeded the squire, “you will take a seat with these ladies in their carriage and see them home.”

“I would, with pleasure, my dear friend, but that I am called upon to console poor Mrs. Smellpriest for the loss of the captain.”

“The captain! why, what has happened him?”

“Alas! sir, an unexpected and unhappy fate.  He went out last night a priest-hunting, like a godly sportsman of the Church, as he was, and on his return from an unsuccessful chase fell off his horse while in the act of singing that far-famed melody called ‘Lillibullero,’ and sustained such severe injuries that he died on that very night, expressing a very ungodly penitence for his loyalty in persecuting so many treasonable Popish priests.”

The squire seemed amazed, and, after a pause, said: 

“He repented, you say; upon my soul, then, I am glad to hear it, for it is more than I expected from him, and, between you and me, Strong, I fear it must have taken a devilish large extent of repentance to clear him from the crimes he committed against both priests and Popery.”

“Ah,” replied Strong, with a groan of deep despondency, “but, unfortunately, my dear sir, he did not repent of his sins—­that is the worst of it—­Satan must have tempted him to transfer his repentance to those very acts of his life upon which, as Christian champion, he should have depended for justification above—­I mean, devoting his great energies so zealously to the extermination of idolatry and error.  What was it but repenting for his chief virtues, instead of relying, like a brave and dauntless soldier of our Establishment, upon his praiseworthy exertions to rid it of its insidious and relentless enemies?”

The squire looked at him.