NOT THE MAN FOR GALWAY. 307 



crowd, and a stout, red -whiskered, do-no-good looking 

 gentleman presented himself upon the chain-pier, and 

 claimed his * gentle cousin,* a pang of agony shot across 

 my breast, and for the first time I felt the curse of 

 jealousy. And yet, God knows, she was not the person 

 from whom * little Popes ' might be expected ; her 

 tender pledges would be better qualified for rangers 

 and riflemen than denizens of the world of letters. 

 But marriage is decreed elsewhere, and mine had been 

 already hooked. 



" * What's in a name ? * observed somebody. I 

 assert — everything. Will anybody deny that ' Drusilla 

 O'Shaughnessey ' was not sufficient to alarm any but 

 a Shannonite ? Such was the appellative of the lady, 

 while her honoured kinsman favoured me with an 

 embossed card, on which was fairly engraven, * Mr. 

 Marc Antony Burke Bodkin, Ballybroney House.' 



** On minor matters I will not dilate. It appeared 



that Miss Drusilla O'Shaughnessey had come to London 



in hopeless search after a legacy she expected in right 



of her great-uncle, Field-Marshal O'Toole ; that the 



Field- Marshal's effects were undiscoverable ; and no 



available assets could be traced beyond certain old 



swords and battered snuff-boxes ; and consequently, 



Drusilla, who had been an heiress in expectancy, was 



sadly chagrined. Furthermore, it appeared that Mr. 



Marc Antony Bodkin formed her escort from Connemara, 



and, being a * loose gentleman,'* and a loving cousin, 



he bore her company.' 



♦ No attempt is made here to insinuate aught against the morality 

 of Miss O'Shaughnessey 's protector. " A loose gentleman," in the 

 common parlance of the kingdom of Connaught, meaneth simply a 

 gentleman who has nothing to do, and nineteen out of twenty of the 

 aristocracy of that truly independent country may be thus honour- 

 ably classed. — Ed. 



