hasty strides to the house of Dennis M'Gwiggan, solicitor, and found that gentleman in green slippers and pie-balled dressing-gown, shaving himself at his black bureau.

"Sit down, sir," said he, when I entered his office; "sit down, sir. Your case must be desperate, since you drop in so early; but nil desperandum," sputtered this limb of the law, as he plunged his face into a large basin of water, and then, turning round, like Niobe, all in tears, sought for a towel to hide his blushes; the towel, to use a legal term, non est inventus, and Mr. M'Gwiggan rang the bell furiously, till the meagre youth who had ushered me into the office made his appearance. Here a most refreshing dialogue passed between master and man, the latter declaring he had left the towel upon certain deeds and papers, and the former vowing vengeance upon his negligent and deceitful servant, ending by assuring him-"By the virtue of my oath, and as sure as my name is Dennis M'Gwiggan, I'll warm the wax in your ear, if you don't get me something to wipe my face while I say Jack Robinson."

"Take my praskeen, take my praskeen, till I run up to the mistress for a towel," cried the youth, hastily divesting himself of an apron, once white, which he threw towards his indignant master, and escaped from the office, round which the attorney moused for the lost towel, tossing deeds, papers, and parchments to and fro, and ever and anon directing some of his rambling conversation to me.

"Sit still, sir-don't let me disturb you—that boy will be hung. I'll attend to your case immediately. Nothing's too hot or too heavy for him. I'll give him a mark of my affection one of those days, the scurvy

hound! You want to have a writ marked, or a letter"

Here I thought it high time to declare the object of my visit as briefly as possible. Never was Dennis M'Gwiggan more confounded. He blushed to the ears as he grasped the rejected apron, scrubbed his round potato face withal, twisted an orange and green silk shawl round his short bull-neck, buttoned his pieballed dressing-gown, ejaculated "Ballycragmorris!" and without further delay caught up the newspaper, and read the advertisement in a loud and sonorous voice, though I begged to assure him I had already read the advertisement, and wished to hear the particulars.

"Sixteen hundred and ten acres, two roods, and nineteen perches, be the same more or less," said he. "English or Irish measure?" said I.

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Plantation, plantation, sir!" quoth he. "Is the property open ?"

"It lies in a ring fence,” replied the solicitor. "I mean, is it entailed? In short, has the advertiser a right to sell it ?”

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Right, sir!" said Dennis, with a stare; “have I a right to sell this house ?"

I supposed that was best known to himself.

Well, sir, I have a right to sell my own property."

I was happy to hear it, and hoped the advertiser enjoyed the same privilege; I was induced to make the observation from the well-known fact, that it was easier to advertise a property for sale than shew good title to a purchaser. I spoke from experience, having gone through many fatiguing preliminaries, and all but purchased an estate, a chancery suit, and the onus

of providing for nine younger children, and a widow into the bargain.

"Make yourself easy on that score," said Dennis, "for the widow and children are already provided for in this case, and my client is free as air to do what he likes with Ballycragmorris. The title is most unexceptionable. I have the skins under my thumb. The land is part of the confiscated property of the O'Toole. In fact, Ballycragmorris was the favoured retreat, the fastness, the stronghold, of that arch rebel

"Here's the towel, sir," said the trembling lad, peeping into the room.

"D-n your towel!" thundered Dennis, indignant at this futile interruption to his peroration. "D—n your impudence!" exclaimed the man of law, hurling a bundle of deeds at the head of the intruder, who scamped off like a rabbit, while Dennis resumed. "Where was I?" said he; "O'Toole-the O'Toole, as I said before. D-n that boy-he provokes me. Indeed, I must apologize to you, sir, a stranger, though I flatter myself we will be better acquainted when you purchase Ballycragmorris. Here is the map. You perceive the great military road runs through the heart of the property; and then, it is all in hand. That mark, like a brick, is the shooting lodge -capital shooting on the hills, you know."

"But the arable land," said I; "please to inform me how many acres of arable land. I cannot discern any marks or tokens of enclosure on the face of the map."

“This is an old map," said Dennis. "I admit the property is not very highly cultivated; if it was, we would ask a larger price for it. Twenty years' pur

chase is no great price for one of the best mountain grazing farms in Wicklow, and besides, entre nous,” said Dennis, mysteriously lowering his voice, "the property must be sold, and whoever gets it will get a precious bargain.”

"I doubt it much, for mountain farms in this weeping climate are very unproductive, I understand."

"And what signifies a mere farm, the dirty acres, the crops and superficies of the richest lands in Meath or Kildare, when compared with the high bold headlands of Ballycragmorris," said Dennis, with a smile. "In fact, sir, it is impossible to say what this property may be worth in the hands of an active and enterprising capitalist. No, sir," continued he, “I will no longer keep you upon the thorns of suspense. Know, then, young man, that you are upon the eve of buying what my client (God pity him!) is compelled by the tide of misfortune to sell—a mine of gold,” said Dennis, sinking his voice into a deep whisper, and thumping his fist upon the desk before him.

"Indeed!" said I, not expecting to hear such a valuable communication.

} "You may well cry indeed!" said Dennis. "Bless your stars, my good sir, you are on the high road to Fortune's lap. Once in possession of Ballycragmorris, you'll sink a shaft in the hill-side, and reap a golden harvest. O, if I had the money, the gold mine should not go a begging," said Dennis, who then informed me, that the country people had found bits of gold in the gravel and sand washed from the hill-side by a torrent; and further, that several miners had declared that from the aspect of the country a second Potosi might lie beneath a very unpromising exterior.

Look before you leap being my new maxim, I declined making a written agreement or verbal promise with the sapient M'Gwiggan, who nevertheless furnished me with a line of introduction to the care-taker of this precious farm, and further indicated the route in a very friendly manner.

"Caravan to Baltinglass, and car to Ballycragmorris," said he, following me to the hall-door, on opening which a gust of wind rushed into the hall, and for the first time I perceived that the learned Dennis had not yet invested his nether man with the most indispensable parts of dress, and apropos to mountains and mountaineers, shewed a pair of brown knees to the public, and the select boarding-school girls who marched past the door, while an ill-suppressed titter escaped even from the sour-visaged governess, who affected to hide her blushes under a faded parasol held sideways, from that magnus Apollo of Mountjoy, square Dennis M'Gwiggan, solicitor.

Following that gentleman's advice, I started at twelve o'clock for Baltinglass, supporting the inconvenience and misery of being wedged into the caravan, a hearse-like machine, with eleven unhappy bipeds, not including four squallers, held upon the knees of four nurses, returning from a certain respectable institution, laden with fresh proofs of the anti-Malthusian spirit of the good people of Dublin. I bore all this, I say, and more than this, with the fortitude of Pizarro, or any other ancient Spaniard traversing unknown lands with El Dorado in his mind's eye. Ballycragmorris, and Potosi as connected therewith, sustained me in the midst of my woes, even when the exuberant nurse on my right requested me "to hould