“They were most discreet in their observations,” remarked Daly, significantly. “One young fellow, it is true, coughed twice or thrice as a signal to a friend across the room, but I ordered the waiter to bring me a plate, and, taking three or four bullets out of my pocket, sent them over to him, with my respectful compliments, as 'admirable pills for a cough.' The cure was miraculous.” “Excellent! Men have taken out a patent for a poorer remedy. And now, Bagenal, for the reason of your journey. What, in the name of everything strange and eccentric, brought you up to town? Don't affect to tell me you came for the debate.” “And why not?” said Daly, who, unwilling to reveal the true cause, preferred to do battle on this pretence. “I admit as freely as ever I did, I'm no lover of Parliament. I have slight respect or esteem for deliberative assemblies split up into factions and parties. A Government, to my thinking, should represent unity as the chief element of strength; but such as it is,--bad enough and base enough, in all conscience,--yet it is the last remnant of national power left, the frail barrier between us and downright provincialism. But I had another reason for coming up,--half-a-dozen other reasons, for that matter,--one of them was, to see your invaluable business man, Gleeson, who, from some caprice or other about a higher rate of interest, has withdrawn my sister's fortune from the funds to invest it in some confounded mortgage. I suppose it's all right, and judicious to boot; but Maria, like every other Daly I ever heard of, has a will of her own, and has commissioned me to have the money restored to its former destination. I verily believe, Darcy, the most troublesome animal on the face of the globe is an old maid with a small funded capital. At one moment deploring the low rate of interest and dying for a more profitable use of the money; at another, decrying all deposit save the Bank, she inveighs against public theft and private credit, and takes off three-and-a-half per cent of her happiness in pure fretting.” “Is she quite well?” said the Knight, in an accent which a more shrewd observer than Daly might have perceived was marked by some agitation. “I never knew her better; as fearless as we both remember her at sixteen; and, save those strange intervals of depression she has labored under all through her life, the same gay-hearted spirit she was when the flattered heiress and beauty long, long years ago.” The Knight heaved a sigh. It might have been for the years thus passed, the pleasant days of early youth and manhood so suddenly called up before him; it might have been that other and more tender memories were crowding on his mind; but he turned away, and leaned on the chimney-piece, lost in deep thought.