All I say is, that I wish I had one classical lick at their provost, I would let him know what the master of a plantation seminary (*--a periphrasis for hedge-school) could do when brought to the larned scratch ?" "How does Tom look, uncle." asked Corbet; "we can't say that he has shown much affection for his friends since he went to college." "How could you expect it, Charley, my worthy nepos." said the schoolmaster--"These sprigs of classicality, when once they get under the wing of the collegium aforesaid, which, like a comfortable, well-feathered old bird of the stubble, warms them into what is ten times better than celebrity--_videlicet_, snug and independent dulness--these sprigs, I say, especially, when their parents or instructors happen to be poor, fight shy of the frieze and caubeen at home, and avoid the risk of resuscitating old associations.

Tom, Charley looks--at least he did when I saw him to-day--very like a lad who is more studious of the bottle than the book; but I will not prejudge the youth, for I remember what he was while under my tuition.

If he be as cunning now and assiduous in the prosecution of letters as I found him--if he be as cunning, as ripe at fiction, and of as unembarrassed brow as he was in his schoolboy career, he will either hang, on the one side, or rise to become lord chancellor or a bishop on the other." "He will be neither the one nor the other then," said the prophetess, "but something better both for himself and his friends." "Is this by way of the oracular, Ginty ?" "You may take it so if you like," replied the female.
"And does the learned page of futurity present nothing in the shape of a certain wooden engine, to which is attached a dangling rope, in association with the youth?
for in my mind his merits are as likely to elevate him to the one as to the other.

However, don't look like the pythoness in her fury, Ginty; a joke is a joke; and here's that he may be whatever you wish him! Ay, by the bones of Maro, this liquor is pleasant discussion!" We may observe here that they had been already furnished with a better description of drink--"But with regard to the youth in question, there is one thing puzzles me, oh, most prophetical niece, and that is, that you should take it into your head to effect an impossibility, in other words, to make a gentleman of him; _ex quovis ligno nonfit Mercurius_, is a good ould proverb." "That is but natural in her, uncle," replied Corbet, "if you knew everything; but for the present you can't; nobody knows who he is, and that is a secret that must be kept." "Why," replied the pedagogue, "is he not a slip from the Black Baronet, and are not you, Ginty---- ?" "Whether the child you speak of," she replied, "is living or dead is what nobody knows." "There is one thing I know," said Corbet, "and that is, that I could scald the heart and soul in the Black Baronet's body by one word's speaking, if I wished; only the time is not yet come; but it will come, and that soon, I hope." "Take care, Charley," replied the master; "no violation of sacred ties.
Is not the said Baronet your foster-brother ?" "He remembered no such ties when he brought shame and disgrace on our family," replied Corbet, with a look of such hatred and malignity as could rarely be seen on a human countenance.
"Then why did you live with him, and remain in his confidence so long," asked his uncle.
"I had my own reasons for that--may be they will be known soon, and may be they will never be known," replied his nephew--"Whisht! there's a foot on the stairs," he added; "it's this youth, I'm thinking." Almost immediately a young man, in a college-gown and cap, entered, the room, apparently the worse for liquor, and approaching the schoolmaster, who sat next him, slapped his shoulder, exclaiming: "Well, my jolly old pedagogue, I hope you have enjoyed yourself since I saw you last?
Mr.Corbet, how do you do?
And Cassandra, my darling death-like old prophetess, what have you to predict for Ambrose Gray," for such was the name by which he went.
"Sit down, Mr.Gray," said Corbet, "and join us in one glass of punch." "I will, in half-a-dozen," replied the student; "for I am always glad to see my friends." "But not to come to see them," said Mrs.Cooper--"However, it doesn't matter; we are glad to see you, Mr.Ambrose.I hope you are getting on well at college ?" "Third place, eh, my old grinder: are you not proud of me," said Ambrose, addressing the schoolmaster.
"I think, Mr.Gray, the pride ought to be on the other side," replied O'Donegan, with an affectation of dignity--"but it was well, and I trust you are not insensible of the early indoctrination you received at--whose hands I will not say; but I think it might be guessed notwithstanding." During this conversation, the eyes of the prophetess were fixed upon the student, with an expression of the deepest and most intense interest.
His personal appearance was indeed peculiar and remarkable.

He was about the middle size, somewhat straggling and bony in his figure; his forehead was neither good nor bad, but the general contour of his face contained not within it a single feature with the expression of which the heart of the spectator could harmonize.