bankrupt, or close on one, and would be locked up. in a day or two if he didn't pay his debts.'

Miles Hartigan turned a furious red with uncontrollable passion.

'You lie! coward!' he cried out.

'Don't you be abusive, you little-son of a beggar!' retorted the other, in his most bullying tones, and with an indescribable sneer.

'Beggar! beggar! beggar!' he kept repeating, advancing jeeringly towards Miles, while his sister Eleanor began giggling out the same taunt: 'My papa and Mr. Delaney said so. Beggar!'

Miles could stand it no longer; every muscle of his body trembled with rage at hearing his father thus abused; his eyes seemed to dim all over for a moment with passion.

'Yes; and ma says your ma's a nigger woman!' put in the spiteful Eleanor, who backed her brother Edmund up in everything.

That was too much. In an instant Miles's eyes cleared again, his muscles regained their firmness; he made a quick spring forward, dashed his right hand into the much bigger and stronger Edmund's face, and in about three minutes had administered to that young gentleman the first and most useful thrashing he had ever received, until the big, cowardly bully yelled again with pain, and Miss Eleanor and the other children ran off to tell their

mamma.

Now you must not think that Captain Fred at all, as a rule, approves of boys fighting; but he is bound to confess that there are some lads of such an ill and perverse nature that nothing but a good sound thrashing has any effect on them, and when they get it they are often for ever after much the better for the operation. Of such a nature was Edmund Hartigan; and Captain Fred is not at all disposed to be sorry that his cousin Miles gave him a lesson he did not forget for many a long day.

Out came Aunt Ruth flying from the house in a terrible state of maternal rage; and if Miles had not cleverly vaulted over the palings on to the road, and made the best of his way down to the boat, that resolute woman would assuredly have made his ears tingle again under the influence of her bony American fists.

The bruised Edmund, howling like a great baby, was led into the house, and nursed, petted, and sweetied; but his father was told nothing of what had occurred, because, for solid reasons of his own, doubtless, he had given the strictest orders that Miles was never to be joked or teased about his father's affairs; and Mr. Isaac Hartigan was not by any means the man whose commands, even to his own family, were to be disregarded with impunity. Half-an-hour afterwards he was sailing up the lough, with Shauneen Gow steering, while Miles was for'ard, acting as look-out man.

CHAPTER II.

THE OUTCOME OF EARLY ERROR.

'I CANNOT, Tom; it's no use reading them to me, or asking me about them. You know I never did and never could understand business!' So spoke Miles's mother that day he was speeding down the lake to Ballynawhack.

'Well, but Celeste, do be reasonable; I can't make anything of them, you know-can't see head or tail to them, in fact—and you women can sometimes make these things out clear enough.'

They were talking about the ominous papers that morning's post had brought-papers from a firm of Dublin solicitors who had become mixed up, through Uncle Isaac's introduction, with the monetary affairs of Tom Hartigan in a manner that was neither pleasant nor profitable to that gentleWhat the papers actually were, Captain Fred can no more tell you than could Tom Hartigan, and for much the same reason—viz. that he never understood them; but you may take it on his authority that they threatened to 'foreclose-i.e. to sell up a considerable portion of the Drumcondra estates if certain sums were not

man.

paid by a certain date. That was at least the pith of them; and it is quite sufficient to enable me to tell properly, and for you to understand, the rest of the narrative.

'I cannot, Tom,' answered the poor lady, who looked ill and weak enough from care, anxiety as to these horrible documents, and the effects of nearly ten years of the dreary, damp climate of Ireland on a constitution born and reared in the splendid tropical sunshine and heat of the West Indies; 'there is no use asking me; you know I always let you manage everything from the very day of our marriage'--she gave a gentle half-sigh, for until quite lately her life had been a very happy one, only tinged with grief when her husband's excesses and recklessness forced themselves too plainly even on her indulgent nature- and you must not ask me now to help you. I only wish I could; but my head aches so dreadfully when I try and make things out, that I become more stupid than ever.'

'Well, it's no use, I suppose, our trying to puzzle them out; all will turn out right in time, no doubt.' Here a violent fit of coughing came on, which so exhausted the enfeebled man that he had to lie down for half-an-hour after it on a couch, and sip some brandy-and-water; and by that time the very thought of the lawyers' communication made him. sick, and he thrust the papers from him in disgust.

Now Celeste Hartigan only spoke the strict truth when she said she did not, and never could, understand business matters. Born and reared in luxury, with every want gratified almost before it could be expressed, with devoted servants ever around her, with a doating father who shielded her from every atom of what he considered would be 'trouble' for her, brought up in utter ignorance of the world, and looking upon money merely as some stuff of which bankers sent you any amount when you might want it-it need not be wondered at that Miles's mother was more ignorant than most English children even of the ordinary transactions of life, and that to her 'business' was an undefinable monster, utterly strange and incomprehensible, and not to be approached under any circumstances whatever. Her husband was of a very similar nature-in this respect, at least—and it would be hardly too much to say that, though he had been supposed to be in early life a man of business, in reality he never had, for one single half-hour, any real personal acquaintance with its meaning. In her case, it was, the fault of her entire want of useful training; in his, it arose altogether through his own culpable, if not criminal, neglect.

That afternoon Uncle Isaac, borne by the dashing Water Sprite,' appeared in due course at Drumcondra, and, after a long and utterly fruitless