“Into Dublin! I suppose I am, indeed,” said he, curtly, as though giving a very obvious reply. “Maybe,” added he, after a few minutes,--“maybe you forget this is the seventeenth, and that this is the day for the sale.” “I did remember it,” said she, with a faint sigh, but not daring to ask how his presence there was needed. “And you were going to say,” added he, with a bitter smile, “what did that matter to me, and that wasn't wanted. Neither I am,--I 'm neither seller nor buyer; but still I 'm the last of the name that lived there,--I was Kellett of Kellett's Court, and there 'll never be another to say the same, and I owe it to myself to be there to-day,--just as I 'd attend a funeral,--just as I 'd follow the hearse.” “It will only give you needless pain, dearest father,” said she, soothingly; “pray do not go.” “Faith, I'll go if it gave me a fit,” said he, fiercely. “They may say when they go home, 'Paul Kellett was there the whole time, as cool as _I_ am now; you 'd never believe it was the old family place--the house his ancestors lived in for centuries--was up for sale; there he was, calm and quiet If that is n't courage, tell me what is.'” “And yet I 'd rather you did not go, father. The world has trials enough to tax our energies, that we should not go in search of them.” “That's a woman's way of looking at it,” said he, contemptuously. “A man with a man's heart likes to meet danger, just to see how he 'll treat it.” “But remember, father--” “There, now,” said he, rising from the table, “if you talked till you were tired, I 'd go still. My mind is made up on it.” Bella turned away her head, and stole her handkerchief to her eyes. “I know very well,” burst he in, bitterly, “that the blackguard newspapers to-morrow will just be as ready to abuse me for it. It would have been more dignified, or more decent, or something or other, if Mr. Kellett had not appeared at the sale; but I 'll go, nevertheless, if it was only to see the man that's to take our place there! Wait dinner for me till six,--that is, if there 's any dinner at all.” And, with a laugh of bitterest meaning, he left the room, and was soon seen issuing from the little garden into the road. What a sad day, full of gloomy forebodings, was that for her! She knew well how all the easy and careless humor of her father had been changed by calamity into a spirit fierce and resentful; that, suspectful of insult on every hand, he held himself ever prepared to meet the most harmless remark with words of defiance. An imaginary impression that the world had agreed to scorn him, made him adopt a bearing at once aggressive and offensive; and he who was once a proverb for good temper became irritable and savage to a degree.