“Little, I thought, my dear Charley, that I should have to cross this already long letter,--little suspected that its real and only interest was to have been suggested as I drew to its close; and here, if I had the heart for it, were the place to scold you for a pretty piece of mystification you once practised upon me, when you induced me to offer the hospitality of this poor cottage to an humble gentlewoman, whose poverty would not deem even _my_ life an existence of privation,--the sister of a fellow-soldier you called her, and made me to believe--whose the fault I am not sure--that she was some not very young or very attractive person, but one whose claim lay in her friendless lot and forlorn condition. Say what you will, such was my impression, and it could have no other source than your description. [Illustration: 244] “Yes, Charley, my mind-picture was of a thin-faced, somewhat sandy-haired lady, of some six or eight and thirty years, bony, angular, and awkward, greatly depressed, and naturally averse to intercourse with those who had not known her or her better fortunes; shall I add that I assisted my portrait by adding coarse hands, and filled up my anticipation by suspecting a very decided Irish brogue? Of course this flattering outline could not have been revealed in a vision, and must have come from your hands, deny it whenever and however you may! And now for the reality,--the very prettiest girl I ever saw, since I left off seeing pretty people, when I was young and had pretensions myself: even then I do not remember any one handsomer, and with a winning grace of manner equal, if not superior, to her beauty. You know me as a very difficult critic on the subject of breeding and _maintien_. I feel that I am so, even to injustice, because I look for the reserved courtesy of one era as well as the easy frankness of another. _She_ has both; and she is a court lady who could adorn a cottage. Of my own atrocious sketch there was nothing about her. Stay, there was. She had the Irish accent, but by some witchery of her own I got to like it,--fancied it was musical and breathed of the sweet south; but if I go on with her perfections, I shall never come to the important question, for which you care more to hear besides, as to how I know all these things. And now, to my horror, I find how little space is left me to tell you. Well, in three words you shall have it. She has been here to see me on her way somewhere, her visit being prompted by the wish to place in my hands some very curious and very old family records, found by a singular accident in an Irish country-house. They relate to the claim of some ancestor of yours to certain lands in Ireland, and the right is asserted in the name of