'"Frailty, thy name is woman!"' (Shakespeare; this is good to begin with!) 'Bidelia never had an ounce of sentiment in her. D----n sentiment! I don't regret her. Pshaw! not I; in fact, I'm pleased--pleased, no, rejoiced, that she's well married. What's this Noll says? "She who makes her husband happy leaves nowhere in the running the novel-reading hussy, whose sole aim is to murder mankind with shafts from her quiver."' (This is better: substantially, it is Goldsmith, but it has been very, very queerly committed to memory. Poor fellow! his nerves must have been unstrung.) 'To Connaught with Bidelia I'll marry the Frenchwoman through spite. I'll throw myself at her feet next week, or next year--I'll swear I love, I do love her--that is to say, I do not dislike her--and I'll send Missus Beatrice Clarke--oh, the short-sightedness of some girls!--an invitation to the ceremony and the wedding-breakfast to follow, with a promise of a bit of bride-cake to cheer her if she is debarred by previous engagements from the pleasure of accepting my very kind invitation. Good! "Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me."' (Holy Writ; this is getting serious, friend O'Hara.) 'Caroline was evidently designed for me by nature. My mind is made up.' O'Hara rose, and nearly tripped over Pat, his faithful dog, the last henchman of the clan. He stroked him fondly on the back; and Pat, jumping up, licked his master's hand with his moist red tongue, and then went through a favourite gymnastic exercise--that of pursuing his own tail. When he was tired of this canine form of search for a chimera, he stood still, panting, and yelped and agitated his tail like a fan. 'Biscuits as usual,' said O'Hara to the quadruped. 'By my troth, it would be a great saving to me if _you_ were in love, but you're not. You've the appetite of an ogre. * * * * * O'Hara and the O'Hoolohan might have been discovered outside the Café de Suède one evening a month afterwards. They were deep in conversation. 'I do not believe in the constancy of woman--you know my reasons; but I do in the necessity of marriage. You know Caroline intimately now. Do you admire her?' It was O'Hara who spoke. 'Much,' answered O'Hoolohan; 'but some people are prejudiced in favour of brunettes.' 'Ah! you mistake me. I referred to disposition, to mind--which, after all, counts more in a union than complexion, or figure, or hair. Can I confide in you?' 'You are not obliged to give your confidence if you mistrust.' 'Then I shall give it. I have spoken to her of marriage. She frankly told me that she felt she could not love, and I as frankly told her that neither could I.' 'Then the affair is finished?' 'Yes, but not as you think. We have agreed to marry, and trust to love to come afterwards.' 'Mother of Moses! I hope it may,' and O'Hoolohan leant back surprised. 'Ah! friend, have you forgotten what Moore sang?'