"What's come over you?" said she, at last; "what 's the meaning of all these elegant fine sentiments and scruples? Are you going to die, Mr. D.? Is it making your soul you are?" "However unmannerly the confession, Mrs. D.," said I, "I 'm afraid I 'm not going to die; but the simple truth is that I can't be a rogue in cold blood; maybe, if I had the luck to be born a M'Carthy, I might have had better ideas on the subject." This was a poke at Morgan James M'Carthy that was transported for altering a will. She could n't speak with passion; she was struck dumb with rage, and so, finding the enemy's artillery spiked, I opened a brisk fire at musket-range; in other words, I told her that all we had been hitherto doing abroad rarely went beyond making ourselves ridiculous, but that, though I liked fun, I could n't push a joke as far as a felony. And, finally, I declared, in a loud and very unmistakable manner, that as I had n't a sixpence to settle on James, I 'd not go through the mockery of engrossing a lie on parchment; that I thought very meanly of the whole farce we were carrying on; and that if I was only sure I could make myself intelligible in my French, I 'd just go straight to the Countess and say,--I 'm afraid to write the words as I spoke them, lest my spelling should be even worse than my pronunciation, for they were in French, but the meaning was,--"I 'm no more a Prince than I 'm Primate of Ireland. I 'm a small country gentleman, with an embarrassed estate and a rascally tenantry. I came abroad for economy, and it has almost ruined me. If you like my son, there he is for you; but don't flatter yourself that we possess either nobility or fortune." "You 've done it now, you old--------." The epithet was lost in a scream, Tom, for she went off in strong hysterics; so I just rang the bell for Mary Anne, and slipped quietly away to my own room. I trust it is a good conscience does it for me, but I find that I can almost always sleep soundly when I go to bed; and it is a great blessing, Tom,--for let me tell you, that after five or six and fifty, one's waking hours have more annoyances than pleasures about them; but the world is just like a man's mistress: he cares most for it when it is least fond of him! I slept like a humming-top, and, indeed, there 's no saying when I should have awoke, if it had n't been for the knocking they kept up at my door. It was Cary at last got admittance, and I had only to look in her face to see that a misfortune had befallen us. "What is it, my dear?" said I. "All kinds of worry and confusion, pappy," said she, taking my hand in both of hers. "The Countess is gone." "Gone?--how?--where?" "Gone. Started this morning,--indeed, before daybreak,--I believe for Genoa; but there 's no knowing, for the people have been evidently bribed to secrecy." "What for?--with what object?"