But I can think of nothing else, and therefore I am determined to think of this to some good purpose.
You remember Murtough O'Hara's defence of the Catholic doctrine of confession; because, 'by his soul, his sins were always a great burden to his mind, till he had told them to the priest; and once confessed, he never thought more about them.' I have tried his receipt, therefore; and having poured my secret mortification into thy trusty ear, I will think no more about this maid of the mist, Who, with no face, as 'twere, outfaced me.
-- Four o'clock.

Plague on her green mantle, she can be nothing better than a fairy; she keeps possession of my head yet! All during dinner-time I was terribly absent; but, luckily, my father gave the whole credit of my reverie to the abstract nature of the doctrine, VINCO VINCENTEM, ERGO VINCO TE; upon which brocard of law the professor this morning lectured.

So I got an early dismissal to my own crib, and here am I studying, in one sense, VINCERE VINCENTEM, to get the better of the silly passion of curiosity--I think--I think it amounts to nothing else--which has taken such possession of my imagination, and is perpetually worrying me with the question--will she write or no?
She will not--she will not! So says Reason, and adds, Why should she take the trouble to enter into correspondence with one who, instead of a bold, alert, prompt gallant, proved a chicken-hearted boy, and left her the whole awkwardness of explanation, which he should have met half-way?
But then, says Fancy, she WILL write, for she was not a bit that sort of person whom you, Mr.Reason, in your wisdom, take her to be.

She was disconcerted enough, without my adding to her distress by any impudent conduct on my part.

And she will write, for--By Heaven, she HAS written, Darsie, and with a vengeance! Here is her letter, thrown into the kitchen by a caddie, too faithful to be bribed, either by money or whisky, to say more than that he received it, with sixpence, from an ordinary-looking woman, as he was plying on his station near the Cross.
'FOR ALAN FAIRFORD, ESQUIRE, BARRISTER.
'SIR, 'Excuse my mistake of to-day.