They had not been many weeks in their new quarters, when they began to pine over their altered fortunes, and it was with a sense of delight, which a few months before would have been incomprehensible to them, they discovered, that one of their officers had a brother, a young priest in the college: he introduced him to some of his confrères, and the natural result followed. A visiting acquaintance began between the regiment and such of the members of the college as had liberty to leave the precincts: who, as time ripened the acquaintance into intimacy, very naturally preferred the cuisine of the North Cork to the meagre fare of “the refectory.” At last seldom a day went by, without one or two of their reverences finding themselves guests at the mess. The North Corkians were of a most hospitable turn, and the fathers were determined the virtue should not rust for want of being exercised; they would just drop in to say a word to “Captain O’Flaherty about leave to shoot in the demesne,” as Carton was styled; or, they had a “frank from the Duke for the Colonel,” or some other equally pressing reason; and they would contrive to be caught in the middle of a very droll story just as the “roast beef” was playing. Very little entreaty then sufficed—a short apology for the “dereglements” of dress, and a few minutes more found them seated at table without further ceremony on either side. Among the favourite guests from the college, two were peculiarly held in estimation—“the Professor of the Humanities,” Father Luke Mooney; and the Abbé D’Array, “the Lecturer on Moral Philosophy, and Belles Lettres;” and certain it is, pleasanter fellows, or more gifted with the “convivial bump,” there never existed. He of the Humanities was a droll dog—a member of the Curran club, the “monks of the screw,” told an excellent story, and sang the “Cruiskeen Lawn” better than did any before or since him;—the moral philosopher, though of a different genre, was also a most agreeable companion, an Irishman transplanted in his youth to St. Omers, and who had grafted upon his native humour a considerable share of French smartness and repartee—such were the two, who ruled supreme in all the festive arrangements of this jovial regiment, and were at last as regular at table, as the adjutant and the paymaster, and so might they have continued, had not prosperity, that in its blighting influence upon the heart, spares neither priests nor laymen, and is equally severe upon mice (see Æsop’s fable) and moral philosophers, actually deprived them, for the “nonce” of reason, and tempted them to their ruin. You naturally ask, what did they do? Did they venture upon allusions to the retreat upon Ross? Nothing of the kind. Did they, in that vanity which wine inspires, refer by word, act, or inuendo, to the well-known order of their Colonel when reviewing his regiment in “the Phœnix,” to “advance two steps backwards, and dress by