"You have; but I tell you again, I loathe her as I do poison. I never
can forgive her the art with which she wheedled that jotter-headed old
sinner, your uncle, out of twelve hundred a year. Unless it returns to
the family, may my bitter malediction fall upon her and it."

"Well, never mind, my dear mother, leave her to me--I shall have the
girl and the property--but by hook or crook, the property. I shall ride
over there, now, and it will not be my fault, if I don't tip both her
and them the saccharine."

"By the way, though, Harry, now that I think of it, I'm afraid you'll
have opposition."

"Opposition! How is that?"

"It is said there is a distant relation of theirs, a gentleman named
O'Connor, a Ferdora O'Connor, I think, who, it is supposed, is likely
to be successful there; but, by the way, are you aware that they are
Catholics?"

"As to that, my dear mother, I don't care a fig for her religion; my
religion is her property, or rather will be so when I get it. The other
matter, however, is a thing I must look to--I mean the rivalry; but on
that, too, we shall put our heads together, and try what can be done. I
am not very timid; and the proverb says, you know, a faint heart never
won a fair lady."

Our readers may perceive, from the spirit of the above conversation,
that the son was worthy of the mother, and the mother of the son. The