adduced an additional argument when we were alone, and in this wise: What was to be done with the wedding finery if we should return to Ireland; for all purposes of home life they would be totally inapplicable. You might as well order a service of plate to serve up potatoes as introduce Paris fashions and foreign elegance into our provincial circle. "We have the things now," said she; "let us have the good of them." I remember a cask of Madeira being left with my father once, by a mistake, and that was the very reason he gave for drinking it. She made a strong case of it, Tom; she argued the matter well, laying great stress upon the duty we owed our girls, and the necessity of "getting them married before we went back." Of course, I did n't give in. If I was to give her the notion that she could convince me of anything, we 'd never have a moment's peace again; so I said I 'd reflect on the subject, and turn it over in my mind. And now I want you to say what disposable cash can we lay our hands on for the winter. I am more than ever disinclined to have anything to say to these Drainage Commissioners. It's our pockets they drain, and not our farms. I 'd rather try and raise a trifle on mortgage; for you see, nowadays, they have got out of the habit of doing it, and there's many a one has money lying idle and does n't know what to do with it. Look out for one of these fellows, Tom, and see what you can do with him. Dear me, is n't it a strange thing the way one goes through life, and the contrivances one is put to to make two ends meet! I remember the time, and so do you too, when an Irish gentleman could raise what he liked; and there was n't an estate in my own county wasn't encumbered, as they call it, to more than double its value. There's fellows will tell you "that's the cause of all the present distress." Not a bit of it. They 're all wrong! It is because that system has come to an end that we are ruined; that's the root of the evil, Tom Purcell; and if I was in Parliament I'd tell them so. Where will you find any one willing to lend money now if the estate would n't pay it? We may thank the English Government for that; and, as poor Dan used to say, "They know as much about us as the Chinese!"