Kind reader! the shortening space we have prescribed to our volume warns us we must draw our story to an end. Nine months after this Killarney excursion, Lord Scatterbrain met Dick Dawson near Mount Eskar, where Lord Scatterbrain had ridden to make certain inquiries about Mrs. O'Connor's health. Dick wore a smiling countenance, and to Andy's inquiry answered, “All right, and doing as well as can be expected.”
Lord Scatterbrain, wishing to know whether it was a boy or a girl, made the inquiry in the true spirit of Andyism—“Tell me, Misther Dawson, are you an uncle or an aunt?”
Andy's mother died soon after of the cold caught by her ducking. On her death-bed she called Oonah to her, and said, “I leave you this quilt, alanna—'t is worth more than it appears. The hundred-pound notes Andy gave me I quilted into the lining, so that if I lived poor all my life till lately, I died under a quilt of banknotes, anyhow.”
Uncle Bob was gathered to his fathers also, and left the bulk of his property to Augusta, so that Furlong had to regret his contemptible conduct in rejecting her hand. Augusta indulged in a spite to all mankind for the future, enjoying her dogs and her independence, and defying Hymen and hydrophobia for the rest of her life.
Gusty went on profiting by the early care of Edward O'Connor, whose friendship was ever his dearest possession; and Ratty, always wild, expressed a desire for leading a life of enterprise. As they are both “Irish heirs,” as well as Lord Scatterbrain, and heirs under very different circumstances, it is not improbable that in our future “accounts” something may yet be heard of them, and the grateful author once more meet his kind readers.