Sweeping measures, of whatever nature they be, have always been in favor with the masses; never was any legislation so popular as the guillotine! Evening was closing in, the gloomy ending of a gloomy day in winter, and Sybella Kellett sat at the window anxiously watching for her father's return. The last two days had been passed by her in a state of feverish uneasiness. Since her father's attendance at the custom-house ceased,--. for he had been formally dismissed at the beginning of the week,--his manner had exhibited strange alternations of wild excitement and deep depression. At times he would move hurriedly about, talking rapidly, sometimes singing to himself; at others he would sit in a state of torpor for hours. He drank, too, affecting some passing pain or some uneasiness as an excuse for the whiskey-bottle; and when gently remonstrated with on the evil consequences, became fearfully passionate and excited. “I suppose I 'll be called a drunkard next; there 's nothing more likely than I 'll be told it was my own sottish habits brought all this ruin upon me. 'He 's a sot.'--'He 's never sober.'--'Ask his own daughter about him.'” And then stimulating himself, he would become furious with rage. As constantly, too, did he inveigh against Dunn, saying that it was he that ruined him, and that had he not listened to his treacherous counsels he might have arranged matters with his creditors. From these bursts of passion he would fall into moods of deepest melancholy, accusing his own folly and recklessness as the cause of all his misfortunes, and even pushing self-condemnation so far as to assert that it was his misconduct and waste had driven poor Jack from home and made him enlist as a soldier. Bella could not but see that his intellect was affected and his judgment impaired, and she made innumerable pretexts to be ever near him. Now she pretended that she required air and exercise, that her spirits were low, and needed companionship. Then she affected to have little purchases to make in town, and asked him to bear her company. At length he showed a restlessness under this restraint that obliged her to relax it; he even dropped chance words as if he suspected that he was the object of some unusual care and supervision. “There's no need of watching me,” said he, rudely, to her on the morning that preceded the sale; “I 'm in no want of a keeper. They 'll see Paul Kellett 's not the man to quail under any calamity; the same to-day, to-morrow, and the next day. Sell him out or buy him in, and you 'll never know by his face that he felt it.” He spoke very little on that morning, and scarcely tasted his breakfast. His dress was more careful than usual; and Bella, half by way of saying something, asked if he were going into Dublin.