of mind, the hall messenger entered the apartment, and said a lady wished to see him.

'A lady!' exclaimed Furlong, in delighted surprise.

'She won't give her name, sir, but

'Show her up! show her up!' exclaimed the Lothario, eagerly. All anxiety, he awaited the appearance of his donna,-and quite a donna she seemed, as a commanding figure, dressed in black, and enveloped in a rich veil of the same, glided into the

room.

'How vewy Spanish!' exclaimed Furlong, as he advanced to meet his incognita, who, as soon as she entered, locked the door, and withdrew the key.

'Quite pwactised in such secwet affairs,' said Furlong, slily. 'Fai' lady, allow me to touch you' fai' hand, and lead you to a seat.'

The mysterious stranger made no answer, but lifting her long veil, turned round on the lisping dandy, who staggered back to the table, on which he leaned for support, when the dowager O'Grady appeared before him, drawn up to her full height, and anything but an agreeable expression in her eye. She stalked up towards him, something in the style of a spectre in a romance, which she was not very unlike, and as she advanced, he retreated, until he got the table between him and this most unwelcome apparition.

'I am come,' said the dowager, with an ominous tone of voice.

'Vewy happy of the honou', I am sure, Mistwess O'Gwady,' faltered Furlong.

'The avenger has come.'

Furlong opened his eyes.

'I have come to wash the stain!' said she, tapping her fingers in a theatrical manner on the table, and, as it happened, she pointed to a large blotch of ink on the table-cover. Furlong opened his eyes wider than ever, and thought this the queerest bit of madness he ever heard of; however, thinking it best to humour her, he answered, 'Yes, it was a little awkwa'dness of mine—I upset the inkstand the othe' day.'

'Do you mock me, sir?' said she, with increasing bitterness. 'La, no! Mistwess O'Gwady.'

'I have come, I say, to wash out the stain you have dared to put on the name of O'Grady, in your blood.'

Furlong gasped with mingled amazement and fear. 'Tremble, villain!' she said; and she pointed toward him her long attenuated finger with portentous solemnity.

'I weally am quite at a loss, Mistwess O'Gwady, to compwehend

Before he could finish his sentence, the dowager had drawn from the depths of her side pockets a brace of pistols, and presenting them to Furlong, said, 'Be at a loss no longer-except the loss of life which may ensue ;-take your choice of weapons, sir.'

'Gwacious Heaven!' exclaimed Furlong, trembling from head to foot.

'You won't choose, then?' said the dowager. 'Well, there's one for you';-and she laid a pistol before him with as courteous a manner as if she were making him a birthday present.

Furlong stared down upon it with a look of horror.

'Now we must toss for choice of ground,' said the dowager. 'I have no money about me, for I paid my last half-crown to the post-boy, but this will do as well for a toss as anything else' ;—and she laid her hands on the dressing-glass as she spoke. 'Now the call shall be "safe or "smash"; whoever calls "safe," if the glass comes down unbroken, has the choice, and vice versâ. I call first "Smash," said the dowager, as she flung up the dressing-glass, which fell in shivers on the floor. 'I have won,' said she; 'oblige me, sir, by standing in that far corner. I have the light in my back,—and you will have something else in yours before long ;-take your ground, sir.'

Furlong, finding himself thus cooped up with a mad woman, in an agony of terror suddenly bethought him of instances he had heard of escape, under similar circumstances, by coinciding to a certain extent with the views of the insane people, and suggested to the dowager, that he hoped she would not insist on a duel without their having a friend " present.

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said the old lady; 'I quite forgot that form, in the excitement of the moment, though I have not overlooked the necessity altogether, and have come provided with one.'

bell.

'Allow me to wing for him,' said Furlong, rushing to the

Stop!' exclaimed the dowager, levelling her pistol at the bell-pull; 'touch it, and you are a dead man.'

Furlong stood riveted to the spot where his rush had been arrested.

'No interruption, sir, till this little affair is settled. Here is my friend,' she added, putting her hand into her pocket and pulling out the wooden cuckoo of her clock ;—'my little bird, sir, will see all fair between us ' ;-and she perched the painted wooden thing, with a bit of feather grotesquely sticking up out of its nether end, on the morocco letter-case.

'Oh Lord!' said Furlong.

'He's a gentleman of the nicest honour, sir,' said the dowager, pacing back to the window.

Furlong took advantage of the opportunity of her back. being turned, and rushed at the bell, which he pulled with great fury.

The dowager wheeled round with haste, 'So you have rung,' said she, 'but it shall not avail you,—the door is locked; take your weapon, sir-quick !-what-a coward!'

Weally, Mistwess O'Gwady, I cannot think of deadly a'bitwament with a lady.'

'Less would you like it with a man, poltroon!' said she, with an exaggerated expression of contempt in her manner. 'However,' she added, ‘if you are a coward, you shall have a coward's punishment.' She went to a corner where stood a great variety of very handsome canes, and laying hold of one, began soundly to thrash Furlong, who feared to make any resistance, or attempt to disarm her of the cane, for the pistol was yet in her other hand.

The bell was answered by the servant, who, on finding the door locked, and hearing the row inside, began to knock and inquire loudly what was the matter. The question was more loudly answered by Furlong, who roared out, 'Bweak the door! bweak the door!' interlarding his directions with cries of 'mu'der!'

The door at length was forced, Furlong rescued, and the old lady separated from him. She became perfectly calm the moment other persons appeared, and was replacing the pistols in her pocket, when Furlong requested the 'dweadful weapons' might be seized. The old lady gave up the pistols very quietly, but laid hold of her bird and put it back into her pocket.

'This is a dweadful violation!' said Furlong, and my life is not safe unless she is bound ove' to keep the peace.'

'Pooh! pooh !' said one of the gentlemen from the adjacent office, who came to the scene on hearing the uproar, 'binding over an old lady to keep the peace-nonsense!'

'I insist upon it,' said Furlong, with that stubbornness for which fools are so remarkable.

'Oh—very well!' said the sensible gentleman, who left the room.

A party, pursuant to Furlong's determination, proceeded to the head police-office, close by the Castle, and a large mob gathered as they went down Corkhill, and followed them to Exchange Court, where they crowded before them in front of the office, so that it was with difficulty the principals could make their way through the dense mass.

At length, however, they entered the office; and when Major Sin heard any gentleman attached to the Government wanted his assistance, of course he put any other case aside, and had the accuser and accused called up before him.

Furlong made his charge of assault and battery, with intent to murder, etc., etc.

'Some mad old rebel, I suppose,' said Major Sin. 'Do you remember '98, ma'am?' said the major.

'Indeed I do, sir-and I remember you, too.

I have the honour to address, if I don't mistake.' 'Yes, ma'am. What then?'

Major Sin

'I remember well in '98, when you were searching for rebels, you thought a man was concealed in a dairy yard, in the neighbourhood of my mother's house, major, in Stephen's Green; and you thought he was hid in a hayrick, and ordered your sergeant to ask for the loan of a spit from my mother's kitchen, to probe the haystack.'

'Oh! then, madam, your mother was loyal, I suppose.' 'Most loyal, sir.'

'Give the lady a chair,' said the major.

'Thank you, I don't want it—but, major-when you asked for the spit, my mother thought you were going to practise one of your delightfully ingenious bits of punishment, and asked the sergeant Whom you were going to roast ?'

The major grew livid on the bench where he sat, at this awkward reminiscence of one of his friends, and a dead silence