"If you will keep my secret, I will tell you all." Morgianna, as fond of mischief as Terrence, agreed to do so, and he told her everything. She laughed until the tears coursed down her pretty cheeks. She said it was a good joke and as soon as she got home, she would tell her papa and he would, she knew, enjoy it. "But you must not drink any more wine," she added. "It affects your head." Fernando admitted that he was not used to it, and he promised to desist. After waltzing for an hour with her and getting a tender squeeze of the hand, he restored her to an affable old lady who acted as Morgianna's chaperon, and then Fernando retired to new conquests, his head in a whirl and his heart in a flutter. Lord Kildee soon had him under his care and introduced him to some friends, among them Lieutenant Matson, who had early in the evening made so many unsuccessful attempts to attract Miss Lane's favorable notice that Fernando had come to regard him as a dangerous rival. Despite the injunction of the fair Morgianna, he found himself half unconsciously quaffing three or four glasses to the good health of somebody; he really did not know whether it was King George or President Jefferson. Fernando, naturally witty, soon ingratiated himself into this well occupied clique, and he dosed them with glory to their heart's content. He resolved at once to enter into their humor, and as the wine mounted up to his brain, he gradually found his acquaintance and politics extending to every country and political creed. "Did you know Thomas Matson of his majesty's ship _Spit-Fire?"_ asked the lieutenant. "Tom Matson!" cried Fernando. "Indeed I did sir, and do still! and there is not a man in the British navy I am prouder of knowing." Of course he had never heard of Thomas Matson until this moment. "You don't say, sir?" said the lieutenant in astonishment. "Has he any chance of promotion, sir?" "Promotion!" cried Fernando, in well-feigned astonishment. "Why, have you not heard that he is already in command of a ship? You cannot possibly have heard from him lately, or you would have known that!" "That's true, sir; I have not heard from him since he quitted the _Black Cloud_ in the South, I think they said for his health; but how did he get the step?" "Why, as to the promotion, that was remarkable enough," said Fernando, quaffing off a tumbler of champagne to aid his inventive faculties; but Fernando, despite his native shrewdness and wonderful inventive powers, was liable to get into trouble. He knew as little about a ship as a landlubber might be supposed to know, and his companion saw at once that he would make a mess of the story, so he came to his rescue by informing the assembly that a fine vocalist at the other end of the room was going to sing, and asked that the story be deferred until after the song. They all hurried away save Fernando, who, overcome by too deep potations, sank upon a sofa temporarily unconscious.