About half an hour previous to the reception of Lady Ormond's note, Mr. Fitzmaurice, in his capacity of magistrate, had been enquired for by a young man, decently habited, tall, meagre, and incessantly harassed by an ominous short cough, who, with an air of settled melancholy, a sunken chest, a hollow eye, but full of the fiery lustre brought on by fever, and a bright hectic spot on each cheek, betrayed, by every possible symptom, the fearful ravages which confirmed disease was making on his constitution.

Mr. Fitzmaurice, hearing he came upon business, and pitying his blighted youth, encouraged him to sit down. /

‘I thank you, Sir,’ said the poor man in a feeble, husky tone; ‘I thank you for the permission. I have much to tell, and am so short-breathed and weak, that I could hardly get through my task were I to stand.’

Some refreshment was then offered him before he began; but he declined everything except a draught of fresh spring water, begging, when it was brought, that the decanter and glass might be left upon the table.

After these preliminaries, a tale was poured into Mr. Fitzmaurice's ear that rivetted his whole attention. It appeared that the man with whom he was conversing, was not wholly unknown to him, though mental suffering, combined with bodily, had so altered him, that he no longer seemed the same being. The substance of what he related was as follows:

He was the nephew, he said, of Mrs. Nelson, who had lived many years at Ormond Hall as the nurse of Mr. de Gray. His father was one of Sir Everard's tenants, and cultivated a small farm on his estate. ‘