'But what Brady says is true,' continued he; 'it's a hard thing to give a lad counsel who is in such a far-gone state as you; but, believe me, I know the world, and if you will but follow my advice, you won't regret having taken it.

Nora Brady has not a penny; you are not a whit richer.

You are but fifteen, and she's four-and-twenty.

In ten years, when you're old enough to marry, she will be an old woman; and, my poor boy, don't you see--though it's a hard matter to see--that she's a flirt, and does not care a pin for you or Quin either ?' But who in love (or in any other point, for the matter of that) listens to advice?
I never did, and I told Captain Fagan fairly, that Nora might love me or not as she liked, but that Quin should fight me before he married her--that I swore.
'Faith,' says Fagan, 'I think you are a lad that's likely to keep your word;' and, looking hard at me for a second or two, he walked away likewise, humming a tune: and I saw he looked back at me as he went through the old gate out of the garden.

When he was gone, and I was quite alone, I flung myself down on the bench where Nora had made believe to faint, and had left her handkerchief; and, taking it up, hid my face in it, and burst into such a passion of tears as I would then have had nobody see for the world.