On the day after the outrage we have described, the indignant old squire\'s carriage stopped at the hall-door of Sir Robert Whitecraft, whom he found at home. As yet, the latter gentleman had heard nothing of the contumelious dismissal of Miss Herbert; but the old squire was not ignorant of the felonious abduction of the priest. At any other time, that is to say, in some of his peculiar stretches of loyalty, the act might, have been a feather in the cap of the loyal baronet; but, at present, he looked both at him and his exploits through the medium of the insult he had offered to his daughter. Accordingly, when he entered the baronet\'s library, where he found him literally sunk in papers, anonymous letters, warrants, reports to Government, and a vast variety of other documents, the worthy Sir Robert rose, and in the most cordial manner, and with the most extraordinary suavity of aspect, held out his hand, saying:

“How much obliged am I, Mr. Folliard, at the kindness of this visit, especially from one who keeps at home so much as you do.”

The squire instantly repulsed him, and replied:

“No, sir; I am an honest, and, I trust, and honorable man. My hand, therefore, shall never touch that of a villain.”

“A villain!—why, Mr. Folliard, these are hard and harsh words, and they surprise me, indeed, as proceeding from your lips. May I beg, my friend, that you will explain yourself?”

“I will, sir. How durst you take the liberty of sending one of your cast-off strumpets to attend personally upon my pure and virtuous daughter? For that insult I come this day to demand that satisfaction which is due to the outraged feelings of my daughter—to my own also, as her father and natural protector, and also as an Irish gentleman, who will brook no insult either to his family or himself. I say, then, name your time and place, and your weapon—sword or pistol, I don\'t care which, I am ready.”

“But, my good sir, there is some mystery here; I certainly engaged a female of that name to attend on Miss Folliard, but most assuredly she was a well-conducted person.”

“What! Madam Herbert well conducted! Do you imagine, sir, that I am a fool? Did she not admit that you debauched her?”

“It could not be, Mr. Folliard; I know nothing whatsoever about her, except that she was daughter to one of my tenants, who is besides a sergeant of dragoons.”

“Ay, yes, sir,” replied the squire sarcastically; “and I tell you it was not for killing and eating the enemy that he was promoted to his seirgeantship. But I see your manoeuvre, Sir Robert; you wish to shift the conversation, and sleep in a whole skin. I say now, I have provided myself with a friend, and I ask, will you fight?”

“And why not have sent your friend, Mr. Folliard, as is usual upon such occasions?”

“Because he is knocked up, after a fit of drink, and I cannot be just so cool, under such an insult, as to command patience to wait. My friend, however, will attend us on the ground; but, I ask again, will you fight?”

“Most assuredly not, sir; I am an enemy to duelling on principle; but in your case I could not think of it, even if I were not. What! raise my hand against the life of Helen\'s father!—no, sir, I\'d sooner die than do so. Besides, Mr. Folliard, I am, so to speak, not my own property, but that of my King, my Government, and my country; and under these circumstances not at liberty to dispose of my life, unless in their quarrel.”

“I see,” replied the squire bitterly; “it is certainly an admirable description of loyalty that enables a man, who is base enough to insult the very woman who was about to become his wife, and to involve her own father in the insult, to ensconce himself, like a coward, behind his loyalty, and refuse to give the satisfaction of a man, or a gentleman.”

“But, Mr. Folliard, will you hear me? there must, as I said, be some mystery here; I certainly did recommend a young female named Herbert to you, but I was utterly ignorant of what you mention.”

Here the footman entered, and whispered something to Sir Robert, who apologized to the squire for leaving him two or three minutes. “Here is the last paper,” said he, “and I trust that before you go I will be able to remove clearly and fully the prejudices which you entertain against me, and which originate, so far as I am concerned, in a mystery which I am unable to penetrate.”

He then followed the servant, who conducted him to Hennessy, whom he found in the back parlor.

“Well, Mr. Hennessy,” said he, impatiently, “what is the matter now?”

“Why,” replied the other, “I have one as good as bagged, Sir Robert.”

“One what?”

“Why, a priest, sir.”

“Well, Mr. Hennessy, I am particularly engaged now; but as to Reilly, can you not come upon his trail? I would rather have him than a dozen priests; however, remain here for about twenty minutes, or say half an hour, and I will talk with you at more length. For the present I am most particularly engaged.”

“Very well, Sir Robert, I shall await your leisure; but, as to Reilly, I have every reason to think that he has left the country.”

Sir Robert, on going into the hall, saw the porter open the door, and Miss Herbert presented herself.

“Oh,” said he, “is this you? I am glad you came; follow me into the front parlor.”

She accordingly did so; and after he had shut the door he addressed her as follows:

“Now, tell me how the devil you were discovered; or were you accessory yourself to the discovery, by your egregious folly and vanity?”

“Oh, la, Sir Robert, do you think I am a fool?”

“I fear you are little short of it,” he replied; “at all events, you have succeeded in knocking up my marriage with Miss Folliard. How did it happen that they found you out?”

She then detailed to him the circumstances exactly as the reader is acquainted with them.

He paused for some time, and then said, “There is some mystery at the bottom of this which I must fathom. Have you any reason to know how the family became acquainted with your history?”

“No, sir; not in the least.”

“Do you think Miss Folliard meets any person privately?”

“Not, sir, while I was with her.”

“Did she ever attempt to go out by herself?”

“Not, sir, while I was with her.”

“Very well, then, I\'ll tell you what you must do; her father is above with me now, in a perfect hurricane of indignation. Now you must say that the girl Herbert, whom I recommended to the squire, was a friend of yours; that she gave you the letter of recommendation which I gave her to Mr. Folliard; that having married her sweetheart and left the country with him, you were tempted to present yourself in her stead, and to assume her name. I will call you up by and by; but what name will you take?”

“My mother\'s name, sir, was Wilson.”

“Very good; what was her Christian name?”

“Catherine, sir.”

“And you must say that I know nothing whatsoever of the imposture you were guilty of. I shall make it worth your while; and if you don\'t get well through with it, and enable me to bamboozle the old fellow, I have done with you. I shall send for you by and by.”

He then rejoined the squire, who was walking impatiently about the room.

“Mr. Folliard,” said he, “I have to apologize to you for this seeming neglect; I had most important business to transact, and I merely went downstairs to tell the gentleman that I could not possibly attend to it now, and to request him to come in a couple of hours hence; pray excuse me, for no business could be so important as that in which I am now engaged with you.\'”

“Yes, but in the name of an outraged father, I demand again to know whether you will give me satisfaction or not?”

“I have already answered you, my dear sir, and if you will reflect upon the reasons I have given you, I am certain you will admit that I have the laws both of God and man on my side, and I feel it my duty to regulate my conduct by both. As to the charge you bring against me, about the girl Herbert, I am both ignorant and innocent of it.”

“Why, sir, how can you say so? how have you the face to say so?—did you not give her a letter of recommendation to me, pledging yourself for her moral character and fidelity?”

“I grant it, but still I pledge you my honor that I looked upon her as an extremely proper person to be about your daughter; you know, sir, that you as well as I have had—and have still—apprehensions as to Reilly\'s conduct and influence over her; and I did fear, and so did you, that the maid who then attended her, and to whom I was told she was attached with such unusual affection, might have availed herself of her position, and either attempted to seduce her from her faith, or connive at private meetings with Reilly.”

“Sir Robert, I know your plausibility—and, upon my soul, I pay it a high compliment when I say it is equal to your cowardice.”

“Mr. Folliard, I can bear all this with patience, especially from you—What\'s this?” he exclaimed, addressing the footman, who rushed into the room in a state of considerable excitement.

“Why, Sir Robert, there is a young woman below, who is crying and lamenting, and saying she must see Mr. Folliard.”

“Damnation, sir,” exclaimed Sir Robert, “what is this? why am I interrupted in such a manner? I cannot have a gentleman ten minutes in my study, engaged upon private and important business, but in bolts some of you, to interrupt and disturb us. What does the girl want with me?”

“It is not you she wants, sir,” replied the footman, “but his honor, Mr. Folliard.”

“Well, tell her to wait until he is disengaged.”

“No,” replied Mr. Folliard, “send her up at once; what the devil can this be? but you shall witness it.”

The baronet smiled knowingly. “Well,” said he, “Mr. Folliard, upon my honor, I thought you had sown your wild oats many a year ago; and, by the way, according to all accounts—hem—but no matter; this, to be sure, will be rather a late crop.”

“No, sir, I sowed my wild oats in the right season, when I was hot, young, and impetuous; but long before your age, sir, that field had been allowed to lie barren.”

He had scarcely concluded when Miss Herbert, acting upon a plan of her own, which, were not the baronet a man of the most imperturbable coolness, might have staggered, if not altogether confounded him, entered the room.

“Oh, sir!” she exclaimed, with a flood of tears, kneeling before Mr. Folliard, “can you forgive and pardon me?”

“It is not against you, foolish girl, that my resentment is or shall be directed, but against the man who employed you—and there he sits.”

“Oh, sir!” she exclaimed, again turning to that worthy gentleman, who seemed filled with astonishment.

“In God\'s name!” said he, interrupting his accomplice, “what can this mean? Who are you, my good girl?”

“My name\'s Catherine Wilson, sir.”

“Catherine Wilson!” exclaimed the squire—“why, confound your brazen face, are you not the person who styled yourself Miss Herbert, and who lived, thank God, but for a short time only, in my family?”

“I lived in your family, sir, but I am not the Miss Herbert that Sir Robert Whitecraft recommended to you.”

“I certainly know nothing about you, my good girl,” replied Sir Robert, “nor do I recollect having ever seen you before; but proceed with what you have to say, and let us hear it at once.”

“Yes, sir; but perhaps you are not the gentleman as is known to be Sir Robert Whitecraft—him as hunts the priests. Oh, la, I\'ll surely be sent to jail. Gentlemen, if you promise not to send me to jail, I\'ll tell you everything.”

“Well, then, proceed,” said the squire; “I will not send you to jail, provided you tell the truth.”

“Nor I, my good girl,” added Sir Robert, “but upon the same conditions.”

“Well, then, gentlemen, I was acquainted with Miss Herbert—she is Hirish, but I\'m English. This gentleman gave her a letter to you, Mr. Folliard, to get her as maid to Miss Helen—she told me—oh, my goodness, I shall surely be sent to jail.”

“Go on, girl,” said the baronet somewhat sternly, by which tone of voice he intimated—to her that she was pursuing the right course, and she was quick enough to understand as much.

“Well,” she proceeded, “after Miss Herbert had got the letter, she told her sweetheart, who wouldn\'t by no means allow her to take service, because as why, he wanted to marry her; well, she consented, and they did get married, and both of them left the country because her father wasn\'t consenting. As the letter was of no use to her then, I asked her for it, and offered myself in her name to you, sir, and that was the way I came into your family for a short time.”

The baronet rose up, in well-feigned agitation, and exclaimed, “Unfortunate girl! whoever you may be, you know not the serious mischief and unhappiness that your imposture was nearly entailing upon me.”

“But did you not say that you bore an illegitimate child to this gentleman?” asked the squire.

“Oh, la! no, sir; you know I denied that; I never bore an illegitimate child; I bore a love-child, but not to him; and there is no harm in that, sure.”

“Well, she certainly has exculpated you, Sir Robert.”

“Gentlemen, will you excuse and pardon me? and will you promise not to send me to jail?”

“Go about your business,” said Sir Robert, “you unfortunate girl,............