We exchanged a few words with Captain Finn, who, together with the mate, was keeping a bright look-out, and then resumed our walk, and in a quiet chat that was ended only by a small bell on the forecastle announcing the hour of ten by four chimes, Miss Laura gave me the story of my cousin’s introduction to her family, described the marriage, talked to me about Melbourne and her home there, with more to the same purpose, all very interesting to me, though it would make the merest parish gossip in print. Her mother was dead; her father was a hearty man of sixty who had emigrated years before in dire poverty, ‘as you will suppose,’ said she, ‘when I tell you that he was the son of a dissenting minister who had a family of twelve children, and who died without leaving money enough to pay for his funeral.’ Mr. Jennings had made a fortune by squatting, but he had lost a considerable sum within the past few years by stupid speculation, and as Miss Laura said this I could see, by hearing her (to use a Paddyism), the pout of lip; for, bright as the moonlight was, the silver of it blended with the golden tint of her hair without defining any feature of her clearly saving her eyes, in which the beam of the planet would sparkle like a diamond whenever she raised them to my face. She told me her father was very proud that his daughter should become a lady of title, and yet he opposed the marriage, too. In short, he saw that Wilfrid’s mind was not as sound as it should be, though he never could point to any act or speech to justify his misgivings. But this was intelligible enough; for, to speak of my cousin as I remembered him in earlier times, the notion you got that he was not straight-headed, as I have before said, was from his face, and the suspicion lay but dully in one, so rational was his behaviour, so polished and often intellectual his talk; till on a sudden it was sharpened into conviction on your hearing that there was insanity in his mother’s family. ‘What had Lady Monson to say to your father’s misgivings?’ I inquired. ‘She accepted him, and insisted upon marrying him. He was wonderfully fond of her, Mr. Monson.’ ‘And she?’