The history of my parents must be intermixed. Lieutenant-Colonel Denis O’Halloran was now some thirty-one, but he looked older by a dozen years. He was a tall, athletic man, well formed and well set-up, with an air and bearing which did not require the attestation of an empty sleeve, to prove him “no carpet knight” and stamp him soldier. He entered the service a boy of sixteen--and at six-and-twenty, the women said he was the handsomest fellow in garrison. At twenty-seven, the old major having signified his intention to retire, my grandsire, _more Hibernico_, secured his son’s promotion by parting with another town-land. At twenty-eight, Major O’Halloran further promoted himself, for he carried off the pretty brunette who was now demurely knitting stockings in the corner. Heaven forgive him!--my mother was boarder in a convent--and one blessed moonlight morning, when the nuns were dreaming of heaven, and the superior sleeping “fast as a watchman,” with the assistance of a ladder and three grenadiers, Miss Emily Clifford was liberated from holy pupilage, and at Gretna Green she became Mrs. O’llalloran, and that too, without taking the opinion of the parish as to whether there was just cause or impediment against the same. My mother was the only daughter of a Catholic gentleman of large estate, he had however a son by a former marriage, fifteen years older. The boy grew up wild and extravagant--and at twenty-one had dissipated a handsome fortune. At last his angry parent totally discarded him, and to support his endless debaucheries, the unhappy youth resorted to discreditable means for obtaining the money he required. With some profligate companions he became involved in a transaction which rendered them obnoxious to the law, and in consequence, Edward Clifford left England secretly. Eighteen years had elapsed--none eould say whether he was dead or living--but the general belief was, that he filled an early and dishonoured grave. Mr. Clifford was a bigot in religion. All his hopes had long since centered in his daughter; and the great object of his life was to marry her to a person of his own persuasion, and a union was negotiated, and nearly concluded, between Emily and the son of a Catholic peer. In the meantime, her education had been entrusted to the sisterhood of a convent, alike celebrated for sanctity and strictness, where, as Mr. Clifford believed, his daughter would be equally secure against attempts upon her faith or her affections. What must have been his rage and astonishment when the news of her elopement was communicated! She who had been designed to wed a peer--whose loved society he had relinquished, that her religious opinions might be confirmed by spiritual instruction--she was lost to him for ever; united by an indissoluble tie to the son of a distressed gentleman--and worse still, to the professor of a creed from which Mr. Clifford fearfully recoiled, as a system founded in heresy and error.