1832.] The Procrastinator. 95 



to partake of the " bit and the sup," and the cast-off raiment of those 

 who had it to bestow. " His honour, God bless him, 'ill never miss it/' 

 was echoed in the kitchen and acted upon in the parlour. And, as 

 from hour to hour from day to day from week to week and from 

 month to month the amiable, but indolent, Mount Doyne, put off 

 every thing where investigation was concerned, he was, it may easily 

 be believed, in as fair a way to be ruined as any gentleman could 

 possibly desire. He knew that his agent was any thing but an honest 

 man ; and yet his habits prevented his looking into accounts, where 

 fraud could have been detected by the simplest school-boy he felt 

 that he was surrounded by a nest of sycophants who slandered the very 

 bread they consumed, and daily resolved that f< on the morrow" he would 

 get rid " of some Tom this, or Jack that, or Paddy the other," who was 

 preying upon him, without drawing a veil even over his mal-practices. 

 But no " morrow" ever dawns on a genuine procrastinator. His wife's 

 delicacy of constitution could ill support the noisy company and late 

 hours of an Irish house at the period of our story, and she shrank from 

 what she could not save, into a somewhat solitary turret of the rack- 

 rent castle ; she had now also the duties of a mother to perform, and felt 

 a sweet and holy tranquillity in watching her lovely infant, in whom 

 a mother's fondness daily discovered increased beauty. 



" You do not smile as cheerfully to-night as usual, darling," said 

 Mount Doyne, at the same time pressing his wife to his bosom, and 

 parting her golden curls on a brow that might rival the snow in its 

 mountain purity ; " and yet I never saw our little Charles look so 

 beautiful." 



et He is beautiful," she replied, " to you I may surely say so ; I can 

 almost see the blood circulating on his cheek as it presses the soft down 

 pillow, and those blue veins, marbling his noble brow, which is so 

 like your's, dearest ; and now as he lays, his cherub lips just parted, 

 look at his small teeth, shining like pearls encased in richest coral. 

 My blessed boy," she continued with all the earnestness of truth, " I 

 often think, when I behold you thus, that God will take back to him- 

 self so fair, so bright a creature !" 



" Silly, silly girl- and can such folly make you sad to-night ? for 

 shame." 



" It is not that exactly : I have had a letter from Dublin and 

 that situation is gone." 



" D n it !" muttered Mount Doyne, bitterly. 



" Had your application been sent in one day sooner, you might have 

 had it and you know " 



" Hold your tongue," he interrupted, angrily ; " I know I am a 

 most unlucky fellow. Who could have imagined it would have been 

 snapt up in that way ? but I suppose you will set that down also to 

 my procrastination, as you call it." 



His wife made no reply, but busied herself in adjusting some portion 

 of the drapery of her child's couch. Again he spoke 



" It is a greater disappointment than you dream of; and one I can 

 ill bear for to confess the truth my rent-roll has become unprofitable, 

 and I cannot exactly tell how to lessen my expenditure." 



" If the latter is necessary, nothing is. more easy. Why, out of the 

 twenty servants employed, five only are effective/' 



(f I could not turn off the old servants and leave them to starve." j 



