O'DONNEL.

VOLUME I

VOLUME II
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Notes on Volume II

VOLUME III

CHAPTER I.

WHEN the cloth was removed, and Mc. Rory had placed the table near the fire, and the chairs round it, he still seemed to linger with an obvious anxiety in the room. It was evident, by his efforts, that he was solicitous to excuse his master's absence, and apparent neglect of those hospitable rites, which, in the estimation of this genuine Irishman, were the first of virtues.

Lady Singleton, who always suspected something, even where there were least grounds for suspicion, merely to show her superior acuteness and penetration, now observed in French to her party, that the sudden retreat of the master, and the lingering of the servant, were odd circumstances, that the whole had une mauvaise mine, and that she wished they were safe out of the horrible mountains, where none but a man of desperate fortunes would reside. - "She did not like," she added, "the air of the place altogether," and observed, that the immense sword or sabre over the chimney-piece was a singular piece of furniture in any place, but the retreat of a captain of a band of "White Boys," or some such outlawed desperado. As she spoke, she directed her eyes to the sword; and Mr. Glentworth, laughing at the folly of her suspicion, said aloud, that "he supposed the sword was some family relic."

"Is it the sword, your Honor?" said Mc. Rory, whose eyes were fixed on the stranger's, though he was affecting, in his own words, "just to ready up the place."

"Yes," said Mr. Glentworth, "it looks as if it had seen service, Mc. Rory."

"O! then it's itself that has," returned Mc. Rory, taking it down, and blowing the dust off it: "many a tall fine fellow it laid low in its day, any how, I'll engage."

"Indeed!" returned Lady Singleton, looking round significantly at her party, while her daughters and Lady Florence turned pale: "so it has committed great havoc, has it?"

"It's truth I am telling you, Madam; the world would'nt get the marks of the blood out of the blade, so it would'nt. They say it is the blood of an O'Neil, which an O'Donnel killed in these very mountains."

"Indeed!" said Lady Singleton, becoming gradually the victim of her own idle imaginings: "and pray, Sir, who does this sword belong to?"

"To the great O'Donnel, my lady, who beat the English troops fairly out of the province."

"Lately?" asked Lady Singleton eagerly.

"O yes, Madam; that's when the master's people were kings of the county round, I may say, and bate the world before them, which they did in great style."

"You mean, I suppose," asked Lady Singleton in a tremulous voice, "in the late tumults which we have heard so much of in England, as disturbing this country?"

"O yes, my Lady, I do! - surely."

"And pray, Sir?" asked Lady Singleton still more faintly, "do the White Boys or the Oak Boys, prevail in these mountains?"

O, my Lady," returned Mc. Rory, "we have no call to the likes of them at all, at all; there never was any RUCTION to signify in these mountains since the ould times, when the great O'Donnel Baldearg, that's 'O'Donnel the Red,' cleared the country fairly with this same sword, of all the rogues and rapperies, that wanted to drive us into the bogs and mountains like wild bastes, when he fought at the battle of Balintubber for the glory of Ireland."

"And this O'Donnel the Red," said Mr. Glentworth, who had been much amused with the equivoque of a dialogue, he had hitherto forborne to interrupt; "and this O'Donnel the Red was, I suppose, some famous ancestor of your master?"

"O! he was, your Honour, the 'Star of the North' he is call'd to this day, - long life to him!"

"An ancestor!" repeated Lady Singleton, recovering from her transient panic: "oh, that is another thing."

"Stay, Madam!" exclaimed Mc. Rory in a hurry, putting up the sword, and running to a book-shelf, from which he took down a little volume in primmer size: "see here, my Lady, sure here is the whole story, covered with elegant red morocky; and, troth, and it will amuse you greatly till the master comes; you'll be highly delighted with it, I'll engage. Myself used to get it by heart of a winter's night. That's the fine ancient ould copy of it, which was wrote with Abbé O'Donnel's own hand, but the master got his done out fairly by the Torney Costello's clerk."

Lady Singleton took the book; it contained but a few pages, and was done in a neat printed hand. Mc. Rory trimmed the lamp, put fresh turf on the fire, and wishing them "every amusement in life," left the room; when, at the request of all, Lady Singleton read as follows: -

O'DONNEL THE RED,

OR,

THE CHIEFS OF TIRCONNEL.

A FRAGMENT.

THE Irish annalist has boasted, - the English historian has avowed, that Ireland first submitted to England in the reign of James the First; and his Irish subjects fondly believed that is his veins flowed the blood of their own royal line.*

[* "It was not till the 12th of James I. 1614, that the Irish were considered as subjects," they "were then taken into his Majesty's gracious protection, under one law, as dutiful subject." - Borlase, p. 188.]

Till that period, the English settled in Ireland, neither "governed the land in peace by law,* nor could they root out the natives by the sword in war."**

[*Sir J. Davis.]

[**They offered the English sovereign 8000 marks to grant them the benefit of the English law, and were refused. (See Sir J. Davis's Historical Relations.) They were, therefore, governed by their own laws so recently as the reign of Henry VIII. for the then Chief Baron observes, "Those laws and statutes, made by the Irish on their hills, they keep firm and stable, without breaking them for any favor or reward." - Baron Fingloss, Breviate of Ireland.]

Till that period, the few eastern districts which the Saxon arms had won, were, by harassing encroachments, partially extended; but the Irish chiefs of the north, of the south, and of the west, nay, even those who raised their castles on the borders of the pale, were of necessity left to the enjoyment of their own rude independence.* Their septs in the days of Elizabeth, as in the days of Henry the Second, paid submission only to their respective chiefs, and lived in federal alliance with each other. When in amity with the English power, they were termed friends and allies;** when refractory, they were called "the Irish enemy." The epithet of rebel was not applied to them, till, by being admitted to the benefits of the English laws, they were considered as subject; which did not take place till the twelfth year of James the First's reign.

[*As in the instance of the O'Beirnes, Chiefs of Glen-Maluva.]

[** "They were sworn to keep the peace, but in every other particular retained their own distinctions and independence." - Leland, Volume 2.]

In the latter days of Queen Elizabeth, flourished Calvagh O'Donnel, chief of Tirconnel.*

[*Tirconnel, modern Donegal.]

On the north-west of Ulster, over a region of rocks and marshes, of lakes and mountains, deeply indented with the sea, and skirted by precipitous head-lands, the chiefs of Tirconnel had reigned in a regular, though not tranquil, succession from the tenth century.

Their national title was Tanist, or Chief: that bestowed on them by foreign potentates bore a loftier sound. - Henry III. of England,* solicited their alliance by the title "King;"** Francis I. of France, sought their assistance by the name of "Sovereign Prince;" and the Roman Pontiff and Spanish Monarch gave them these titles so lately as in the days of Elizabeth.

[*The letter of Henry III. to the Irish Chief is extant in Rymer, Volume I, page 426. In which he writes to him, "Rex, Donaldo Regi de Tirconnel, Salutem."]

[**Francis I. failed to induce the Irish Chief to unite with him against Henry VIII. And James I. acknowledges the hereditary fealty and attachment of the O'Donnels to the Crown of England, until the Irish Lords, President, and Deputies, drove O'Donnel the Red to desperation in Elizabeth's reign. This acknowledgment is made in the King's letter to Earl Rodwick O'Donnel, the brother of the deposed Chief, extant in the Irish Rolls.]

To the chiefs of Tirconnel stood opposed the powerful sept of the O'Neils, chiefs of Tyrone. Descended from the same stock, they were yet hereditary rivals, and waged a warfare for ages against each other, under the operation of all those passions, which break out with greatest violence, among a people unsophisticated and unrefined.* Hugh O'Neil, the celebrated Earl of Tyrone, alternately the favorite and the foe of Queen Elizabeth, who, in the end, threw off allegiance with his English Earldom, and re-assumed the state and independence of an Irish Prince,** saw, and loved, the Lady Johanna O'Donnel;*** and the feuds of ages were extinguished upon the altar of family alliance. - The fair daughter of Tirconnel became Countess of Tirowen, and the nuptials were celebrated in the Castle Donegal, in all the rude magnificence of the times, and consequence of the parties.

[*It was between these haughty Chiefs that the well known anecdote occurred of "pay me my tribute or else," &c. &c. &c.]

[***Hugh O'Neil, Baron of Dungannon, lived much in the court of Elizabeth, had command of a troop of horse, and received letters under the great seal of England for the Earldom of Tyrone, &c. - See Morris's Ireland.]

The septs pledged each other in draughts of meadh from the Corna, which had so often sounded them to battle;* and the bards of the O'Neils and of the O'Donnels swept their harps to the praises of the descendants of "Niall of the Nine Hostages."

[*See note at the end of the Volume.]

FRAGMENT II.

The nuptial feast, according to the boundless hospitality of the times, was held for many days; and the carousal was only interrupted by an event, which speard desolation and misery in the House of O'Donnel, caused the annihilation of its glory, and gave birth to conflicts, from which Ireland had not recovered at the end of the succeeding century.*

[*The successes of O'Donnel and O'Neil had unquestionably a great influence upon English affairs in Ireland, for a considerable time after even the death of those celebrated chiefs.]

In the family of the Chief of Tirconnel a star had arisen, which, though but just verging above the horizon of life, already shed around a light, destined never to be quenched, but with the independence of the land, which it for a brief period illuminated. Hugh O'Donnel, called O'Donnel the Red,* the eldest son of Calvagh, a boy in years, a hero in spirit, a being "out of the common roll of men," had already given proofs of such extraordinary valour and virtue, that in the language of the chronicle, "his fame had gone throughout the land."** He had assisted at the nuptials of his beautiful sister, and on the third night of the carousal, had risen from the nocturnal revels, to enjoy the fresh sea breeze on the ramparts of the castle: thither he had been followed by two young and gallant friends, John and Henry O'Neil. As they descended towards the shores, a sound, sweeter than their native harp, caught their ear; it came from a rocky cove, where a Spanish vessel, which had put in a few days before, lay anchored.

[*O'Donnel Baldearg, or O'Donnel Roue, from a red mark in the centre of his forehead.]

[**See note at the end of the volume. All the accounts given of this Chief, both by friends and enemies, represent him as a most extraordinary person. - See Leland, Abbé Oseaghagan, Annals of the Four Masters, &c. He was as remarkable for his eloquence and personal beauty, as for his humanity and military prowess.]

The ship was said to be the property of a Cadiz merchant, and had furnished out the marriage feast with the racy wines and luscious fruits of Iberia. The Spanish captain had, by his urbanity and fair dealing, won upon the opinion of the inhabitants of the town and Castle of Donegal, and received a promise from the younger chiefs to pledge him to the health of his kind on board his vessel.

As O'Donnel and his friends approached the cove, they perceived a Spanish minstrel seated on the prow of the bark, and accompanying with his mandoline the sweet strain, which he had raised over the stilness of the moonlight waters. The youths approached and mounted the deck; the minstrel changed to a bolder measure. He sung of the common origin of the Spanish and Irish nations; of the prowess of the Sons of Milesius; of the times gone bye, when the O'Donnels, raised the standard of their blood-red cross, in the fields of Arragon, against the Pagan Moors.* The spirits of the listening youths kindled at the song of the strangers. O'Donnel pointed to the cannon mounted on the ramparts** of his castle, which the King of Spain had presented to his father. The captain of the vessel sent round the cup, and pledged the chiefs in the name of his sovereign. The sailors who manned the vessel, a hardy band, crowded on the deck, gazed with respectful wonder on the grandeur of the young chief's powerful figure; approached - surrounded him.

[*In all the accounts of the capture of the young O'Donnel, these arts of seduction were attributed to the feigned captain of the vessel.]

[**Historic.]

FRAGMENT III.

It was midnight - the torches were extinguished in the Castle of Donegal; the watch-fires on the faughgard were lighted. The warder paced the ramparts, and threw from time to time a look towards the beach; for the young chief and his friends had not yet returned from their visit to the Spanish vessel.

The moon went down; a profound darkness settled over the face of the deep; no noise was heard but the murmur of the refluent tide. The dawn broke, the night-guard was relieved. The warder descended the rock towards the sea-side; he secretly condemned the want of dignity in the young Irish Lords, who condescended to join in the nocturnal wassailage of a foreign trader. He turned his eyes towards the cove, where the vessel had been moored, but he saw not the glittering of the white sails amidst the darkness of the cliffs. - He turned his eyes to the north, and to the south, to the east, and to the west; but all, to the utmost verge of the horizon, was one broad expanse of illuminated waters. The sun rose magnificently from the ocean, but no vessel speckled its placid bosom. The truth flashed like lightning on the warder's mind - the heir of Tirconnel was carried off by a strategem; he flew to the castle with the intelligence, but he had not power to tell the tale to the aged father: he fell speechless at the feet of the venerable chief.

FRAGMENT IV.

The seeming Spanish vessel was an English frigate, fitted out by the Lord Deputy Perrot, for the purpose of betraying into his power the young heir of Tirconnel. The youth and his friends, surrounded and overcome by numbers, were placed under the hatches, coveyed to Dublin Castle, and thrown in the depths of a noisome dungeon. The reason assigned for this act of treachery, which filled a whole province with dismay, was, that the Earl of Tyrone having married the Lady O'Donnel, would inevitably seduce the chief, his brother-in-law, to unite the forces of Tirconnel to those of Tyrone, in opposition to the English power, from which the Earl was suspected of deserting; and that the great promise of the youthful chief bespoke a fearful enemy in future times.* Five years elapsed; and the first emotions of rage and grief, which preyed upon the life of the young O'Donnel, resolved themselves into a rooted principle of hatred to oppression, and vengeance on his own oppressors. Of the feelings which belonged to his age, hope only remained; and her cheering dream was nearly realized by the ingenuity and efforts of his young fellow-sufferers. The O'Neils, less strictly guarded, because of less consequence than O'Donnel, contrived their own and their friend's escape; broke his chains; and unsuspected, unobserved, in the midst of darkness and of danger, crossed the castle fosse, escaped the vigilance of the guards, and fled to the Wicklow mountains. Overcome at last by suffering and fatigue, torn and wounded by the briary underwood, which crept over their perilous and unfrequented paths, they at last grew desperate, approached a humn dwelling, and sounded the horn that hung suspended at the gate of the Castle of O'Tool. The warder appeared, and they claimed protection for the son of the great O'Donnel, of Tirconnel. O'Tool granted a seeming protection, but betrayed his trust. The next day the young chief was delivered into the hands of the English government, conveyed to the Castle of Dublin, and with his young and faithful friends, was again consigned to captivity, and loaded with irons heavier than before.**

[*Annals of the Four Masters. Others assert that Sir J. Perrot, by this act, sought to conciliate the English government, whom he had displeased by his lenient measures in Ireland. But though Sir J. Perrot planned this scheme, the severity of its execution was left to his successor, Sir W. Fitzwilliam.]

[** "His manner of usage was most dishonourable and discommendable, and neither allowable before God or man: for O'Donnel being young, and being taken by this strategem, having never offended, was imprisoned with great severity, and many irons laid upon him, as if he had been a notable traitor," &c. - Lee's Memorial to Queen Elizabeth. MSS. Trinity College.]

Another two years of captivity elapsed, when the attachment of one of the warders of the castle to his young and unfortunate prisoner again procured his escape.* His keeper knocked off his irons, and conducted him and his friends beyond the gates of the city. The fugitives sought once more the intricate wilds of the Wicklow mountains, where the passes were alone unguarded. The depth of the snows, the darkness and horrors of the night, the apprehension of pursuit, distracted and bewildered the unhappy wanderers; and in the confusion and precipitancy of retreat, the younger O'Neil was lost. The voices of his friends were in vain raised; in vain O'Donnel and his brother turned back, at the risk of liberty and life, to seek him - he was gone for ever! In distraction and despair, the brother and the friend pursued their dreary course, amidst the horrors of the night.** The strength of the surviving O'Neil failed. O'Donnel, more vigorous and robust, in vain supported him in his arms - O'Neil sunk under his sufferings. O'Donnel laid him under the shelter of a rock, in the Valley of Glendaloch; stripped off his own wretched garb, and placed it over the shivering body of his friend,*** and stretched himself beside him, in the hope of communicating warmth to his chilled and lifeless limbs.

[*The great tie which existed between the keeper and his prisoner was, that he spoke Irish, says the Chronicle.]

[***Ibid.]

On the borders of the Valley of Glendaloch stood the Castle of Maluva, the ancient seat of the O'Beirnes. It was reserved for the chief of that powerful sept to discover, amidst the rocks which screened his castle, two youths nearly buried in the snow. The one lay dead in the other's arms; the other was alive, but speechless; and when the humane attentions of the chief, who summoned his attendants to the spot, restored the faculties of the survivor, O'Beirne found in the object of his charity the son of a prince! - the son of his own kinsman and friend, the Chief of Tirconnel!

The body of the unfortunate O'Neil was consigned to the Abbey of Glendaloch.* O'Donnel was carried on the backs of some of O'Beirne's sept, to the defile of Glen-Maluva.** His name, his youth, his rank, his misfortunes, had gone before him. The clan of the O'Beirnes came forth from their strong holds and castles to receive him. They met the northern chief, the descendant of the royal line of Eirin, with shouts of exultation, mingled with expressions of implacable animosity to his enemies.

[*The ruins of this abbey are still visible in the beautiful valley of Glendaloch, in the county of Wicklow.]

[**Annals of the Four Masters.]

FRAGMENT V.

The flight of the illustrious captive was soon discovered. The Lord Deputy posted guards on the fords of the Liffy, to prevent his escape; but the chief of Glyn-Maluva, true to his trust, risked his own life to save his friend's. He placed himself at the head of a troop of horse, and conducted O'Donnel towards Dublin, foreseeing the security of the attempt in its unsuspected boldness. As he imagined, the fords so near the capital were carelessly guarded, and on the banks of the Liffy the friends embraced and parted. When the aged warrior wept, the eyes of the young chief were not dry; national suffering had not yet subdued national sensibility.

A messenger, in disguise of a harper, was sent before the fugitive, to prepare the old chief of Tirconnel for the return of his son. Accompanied by eight horsemen only, O'Donnel took his perilous way through the heart of the English pale,* passing near many an English garrison, beholding in distance the night-fires of many an Irish Faughguard,** retreating among the heights of the mountainous region of Sleeve-gullion, while the troops stationed in Balbreken Castle wound along the river beneath. He successively caught a view of Rose Castle;*** of the blue waters of Lough Erne, and the banner of the chief of Fermanagh, floating on the mast of the barge, which the brave Mc. Guire had prepared to carry him across the lake, to the foot of his father's fortress at Ballyshannon. Soon distinguished by the friends of his House, the long stilled cry of "O'Donnel nel aboo,"**** rent the air. Borne in joyous triumph over the waters of the lake that bathed his native domains, he was received by the inhabitants of Tirconnel, who came in multitudes from the remostest districts to hail the restoration of their betrayed chief to liberty, and to his country.***** They knelt in his path; they kissed his feet; they clasped his hands; and, in the midst of the acclamations of thousand of voices, the aged Lord of Tirconnel resigned his chieftanry to his son, to give him a free scope to avenge his own injuries, and to protect his people. O'Phryle performed the ceremony of inauguration,****** and the harpers of the family sung the feats of the heroes, which it had produced, calling upon the new chief to emulate the glory of his ancestors.

[*His way lay through Meath, Louth, Armagh, and Fermanagh. The ruins of the fortress of Ballyshannon still remain; and the town takes its name from a ford, where the old chief of Tirconnel was drowned. - Ballyshan Eye, the mouth of the ford.]

[******A kind of Bardic priest; the hereditary performer of this ceremony.]

FRAGMENT VI.

Indignant feelings of personal oppression and injustice sharpened the sympathy of national suffering. The outrages committed by the Lord Presidents of Ulster and Connaught suffered not the wounded spirit of O'Donnel to heal. While his limbs were still galled from the weight of the chains, he had so miraculously broken, the protection of his arm was claimed by the cries of his countrymen.* All Ulster rose, and ranged itself under the red banner of the O'Donnel and the O'Neil; and he, whose young and balmy blood had been so early "turned to gall," whose warm and amicable feelings had been so prematurely roused into vindictiveness, was elected the champion of the oppressed, and triumphantly styled by compatriots,

"The invincible Hero of the North,"

for, in the successive conflicts which tore and distracted his country, he was invincible.

[*The injustices and atrocities committed on the Ulster and Connaught chiefs, by Bagnall and Bingham, in their presidencies, were by all contemporary historians assigned as causes of the insurrection in those provinces. Queen Elizabeth was so well assured of it, that she publicly accused them of their enormities, and thus alludes to it in her instructions to the Lord Deputy:

Queen Elizabeth made frequent attempts in favor of the Irish; "but her gracious intentions were neglected or disobeyed by her principal ministers in that kingdom."]

The young chief of Tirconnel soon spread the fame of his prowess throughout the kingdom. Those who had wept his unbought misfortunes, now triumphed in his unequalled succcesses. In a short space of time he had overrun the province of Connaught, restored those chiefs who had been deposed,* punished others who had become apostate,** expelled the unjust stewards of an abused sovereign, and scattered those "bands of landless resolutes who had been sharked up***" by borrowed power to spoilate his own possessions, and lay waste the land of his fathers.**** Pursued by disciplined armies and distinguished leaders, he turned back upon thier multitudinous forces with a desperate, but successful valour; overcame the troops of the famous General Norris at the battle of the Curlieus, and routed the English army, though led on by the gallant Clifford, in the plains of Dunaveeragh; held parleys with the Essex's and the Mountjoys, and won "golden opinions" alike from the enemy he vanquished, and the friend he redressed.

[*The sheriffs and other officers of the Lords President followed their example; entered the several counties, attended with large bodies of armed men, pillaging the inhabitants, whom they affected to despise. - Leland's Hist. of Ireland, p. 302.]

[****A great part of the unquietness of O'Donnel's country came by Sir W. Fitzwilliam placing there one Willis as Sheriff, who had with him three hundred of the very rascals and scum of the kingdom, who did rob and spoil the people, &c. &c. - Lee's Memorial to Queen Elizabeth, MSS. Trinity College.]

FRAGMENT VII.

O'Donnel, covered with glory, retired to the Castle of Donegal, to celebrate his union with the fair object of a long-cherished and romantic passion. The Lady Avelina O'Neil, the daughter of the Earl of Tyrone, by a former marriage with and English lady, had alone shared with his country the feelings of his heart. To years of suffering, disquietude, and hardships, some months of domestic felicity succeeded; when the family compact, formed by double alliance between the chiefs of Tirconnel and Tyrone, obliged him to draw his sword in a cause, which, unlike all other contests, in which he had engaged, brought not its excuse along with it.

His fortunes changed with the cause, in which he was led, by his ambitious kinsman, to embark them. The unexampled rapidity of his marches from the north to the south of Ireland, his distinguished feats of personal prowess, availed him not; the red cross banner of the O'Donnel was trampled in the dust before the walls of Kinsale; his castle was seized, and garrisoned by the English forces in Donegal; his life was forfeited with his possessions; but his first and last defeat, though it maddened,* did not subdue him. After wandering, with a few faithful friends, through the bogs and mountains of Munster, with nothing left but his life, his honour, and his sword, he excaped an ignominious death by flight from his native land; and (in the words of the chronicle) sailed, "with his heroes for Spain." The little vessel in which he embarked anchored in the port of Corunna, in 1602,** under the mouldering tower of Breogan,*** named after the hero who was supposed to have raised it, and from whom the first conquerors of Ireland were descended.

[*O'Donnel (says the Irish Chronicle) grew desperate and furious, after his defeat at Kinsale; so that he would neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep, for three days and three nights successively. - Annals of the Four Masters.]

[***Annals of the Four Masters.]

The exile chief knelt and kissed the earth, consecrated by the memory of his progenitor, and hailed the tower of the son of Milesius, as a happy omen on the arrival of his descendant in a strange land.

FRAGMENT VIII.

The King of Spain received the Irish chief as a sovereign prince, promised him redress, and established him in a royal palace at Corunna. But the king slumbered over his promise, though the spirit of the chief slept not. Ireland, the land of his affections, was the goal of his hopes. Soon weary of his splendid dependence, he panted to behold his country, his children, his wife: his patience brooked not delay; he had not been used to wait upon fortune, but to command her. Though worn out and exhausted by bodily and mental anguish, he pursued the king to his court at Valladolid, and within view of the Moorish palace where the sovereign resided, the Irish chief died in the arms of his attendants.* His heart was broken; his gallant spirit fled for ever in its last stuggle for independence:

"Peace to the soul of the hero."

[*Annals of the Four Masters.]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER II.

ALL pride, however diversified its features, is the mere offspring of human weakness. In its best sense, perhaps, it is but the mean which gives to vanity the air of virtue; in its worst, it is a puerile veneration for the accidental circumstances of life; a rigid exaction of respect from others, for things of qualities, independent of all will or power inherent in ourselves.

The pride of the Irishman was immoderate. Still, however, it might find its apology, if not its justification, in the circumstances of his life, and the history of his family. The one had been an incessant struggle between a lofty spirit, and an untoward fortune; the other was a register of the deeds of chiefs, of the feats of heroes; interwoven in the history of his country, sharing its glory, and participating in its misfortunes. This high and inherent sentiment, nurtured rather than weakened by physical senisbility, sharpened rather than obliterated by moral suffering, was now deeply wounded, not in its most vulnerable, but its least laudable point; not where it was felt with most acuteness, but where it was sustained with least dignity. Though one "out of suits with life," he disdained complaint, he contemned pity, and shrunk from displaying his unhappy fortunes before those, from whom he could not hope for sympathy, nor have accepted relief. The chances were now against him: he was baited to his den; and what was still worse, he had exposed a weakness of feeling; he had deprived poverty of that dignity, which could alone have rendered it respectable.

Blushing for the involuntary error of mortified pride, and anxious to repair it, he returned to his guests, just as Lady Singleton had laid aside the little historical fragment of his family memoirs; and with all the sterner feelings of his nature, relaxed into the smooth courtesy of high and polished refinement, he apologized for his absence, and excused it by the arrival of some letters from the continent, in which he was much interested, though they contained no public news. Meantime the ladies discovered that not only his manner, but his appearance, was much improved. He had changed the rude habit of his wanderings, the threadbare jacket which had shrouded his gentility from Mr. Dexter's eyes and observation, for a suit of deep mourning. With an excusable foppery, natural to the soldier, he had also assumed the order of Maria Theresa, and the cross of St. Louis, both the badges of distinguished military merit; and though in his marked and intelligent countenance a mind was dipicted which

"O'er informed its tenement of clay,"

yet the enchantment of a noble form absorbed his spectators in the first moment of his return, and left them no leisure to reflect upon the moral superiority, by which it was evidently accompanied and dignified.

As soon as he entered the room, he informed Mr. Glentworth, that he had procured a messenger from a neighbouring cabin, to go to the town for proper workmen, to refit the broken vehicle; and begged to know if he had any commands, of which the man might be the bearer.

Lady Singleton, having suggested the necessity of acquainting their fellow travellers with their situation and misfortunes, wrote a note of three pages to Mr. Dexter, made up of orders and reproaches, interwoven parenthesis within parenthesis.

"And now," said Colonel O'Donnel, assuming a cheerful face, "I shall not importune you with apologies or excuses: the master of a hut can only offer the best his hut affords; and, to confess the truth, mine contains but one sleeping room, and an adjoining closet with a camp bed; yet are there five fair candidates for a complete repose, after so much discomfort and fatigue."

Lady Singleton then went to look at the rooms, and make arrangements herself. On her return it was settled, with much good humor, that the sofa was to be wheeled into the bed-room, and prepared by the old woman, to the best of her ability, for the accommodation of the ladies; and that Mr. Glentworth should tête-à-tête with his host in an arm chair. The party then surrounded the tea-table, at which the governess presided, and conversation circulated with freedom and gaiety; for the absence of the two vapid men of fashion, and of the pert presumtuous man of no fashion, was a sensible relief to the Irish host.

Surrounded by women thrown upon his hospitality, and in communion with a man, whose liberal and enlightened mind assimilated with his own, O'Donnel gradually unfolded into confidence, and brightened into cheerfulness. A true Irishman - warmly reflected upon by the circumstances of society, his spirits took their tone from his situation; and his conversation, at once amusing and desultory, was brilliant as the eyes, from whence, perhaps, after all, he chiefly drew his inspiration.

"But, Colonel O'Donnel," said Lady Singleton, admiring some remark he made in unison with her own opinion, "I cannot at all understand how a man of your time of life, professional rank, talents, and accomplishments, can choose to bury yourself in this wild and solitary place."

O'Donnel bowed to the compliment, and replied to the curiosity which had given birth to it: "It is not, Madam, exactly a matter of choice."

"Oh dear! then, I dare say you history is quite a romance; pray indulge us with a little biographical sketch."

"You do not, my dear, consider," said Mr. Glentworth, "that our short acquaintance with Colonel O'Donnel does not warrant this intrusion upon his confidence, and that we are already too much his debtors to..."

"There is nothing," interrupted O'Donnel, "in my short life worthy your attention, nor has it even the merit of singularity. It is an oft-told tale, repeated in my family from generation to generation, for three hundred year back."

"Any tale of which you are the hero," said Lady Florence, with a smile full of blandishment, "cannot fail to interest us."

"Your Ladyship is very flattering," he returned, slightly colouring, as he met those soft eyes, which gave so good a comment upon the text her lips had expounded: "but in this instance I must believe with Rousseau, that, il vaut mieux offenser les grandes dames, que de les ennuyer; which inevitably would be the case, if I became the hero of my own story."

"You are quite mistaken," cried Lady Singleton: "a story never can ennuyer: we have already been entertained beyond every thing with a little family romance of your's, put into our hands by Mc. Rory, called 'O'Donnel the Red:' pray, was he an ancestor of your's, Colonel O'Donnel"

"My immediate ancestor, Madam," he replied; - "a very brave and very unfortunate man, who lived the Lord of this region, and died with only this sword to bequeath his posterity."

Mr. Glentworth made some just observations on the causes which had driven the chief of Tirconnel to the measures he had adopted; - and Lady Florence said that Colonel O'Donnel must be amazingly vain of being the descendant of such a hero.

"No, Madam," he replied: "I may say in this instance, as the old Earl of Tyrone did, when his harper, striking up a martial strain, sung the heroic conduct of his ancestors: 'I ambition not so much,' said he, 'to derive honor from my ancestors, as to reflect back upon them the lustre they have shed upon me.' - I am however justly proud of the character and virtues of Hugh O'Donnel."

"I am astonished I never heard of this O'Donnel," said Lady Singleton, "for I am a pretty good historian."

"You will find his name mentioned with honor," he returned, "in all the histories of Ireland, whether traced by her enemies of her friends.* But I beleive the most authentic, though the simplest account fo him, will be found in the old national chronicle, called the Annals of the Four Masters, from which the pages you have read are extracted."

[*See note at the end of the volume.]

As he spoke, he took the volume which lay on the desk, and running over its pages, he said: "This is one of our most curious chronicles extant. The late master of this retreat, my dearest friend and nearest kinsman, was engaged in translating from it the history of our family, when death closed his own. Here is a part of his manuscript, which his own hands placed among these pages."

The stranger sighed deeply; and every one examined the book, and the loose leaves it contained: they were a rough draught of the fair copy from which Lady Singleton had read the little story of the chief.

"You must perceive," said their host, "that what has been done by my late venerable kinsman, has been done carelessly, and is indeed rather a loose abridgement, than a just translation; exhibiting that want of connection, so frequently obvious in the last efforts of declining intellect; when all links of association hold feebly together, when the mind only recovers itself by starts, and imagination, if not wholly extinguished, sends forth but brief and sudden sparks from its decaying fires, yet the author of these feeble fragments, the original of that interesting picture (pointing to the portrait impannelled in the door) had once nerve, spirit, and talents, adequate to fill the highest station, to crown the boldest enterprise. The Abbé O'Donnel distinguished himself in the diplomacy of Spain. His services, however, less known than felt, were marked rather by their success than their recompense."

"It is lamentable," said Mr. Glentworth, "that talents, so rarely found, should be employed in the service of any country but their own."

"True," said O'Donnel, "it is indeed lamentable - destructive to the country, and fatal to the individual. But to command the services of genius, it must be unrestricted. It is the equal right, the equal hope, shining on all alike, which gives vigor to ability, and a right direction to the vague impulses of ambition. Sink the individual in the scale of social consideration, withdraw from him the natural motives, which should give strength to resolution, and energy to action, and you banish or degrade him: he remains at home, alternating between the torpor of disgraceful indolence, and the wildness of sullen disaffection; or he retires to other countries, to offer those talents, those energies to foreign states, for which he finds no mart at home. Like the liquid element, the human mind flows cloudy and polluted through narrow and prescribed channels, and derives its brilliancy, its purity, its wholesomeness, and its utility, alone from the freedom of its course, and the agitation of its own natural and unrestrained motions.

"To this alternative of idleness or banishment, were the gentlemen of Ireland reduced by religious disqualification, at the period when the original of that picture, accompanied by a younger brother, bid adieu to the land of his fathers. The brothers offered their services in causes with which their feelings held no alliance. Then younger O'Donnel entered the Austrian army, where so many of his kinsmen had already distinguished themselves. He rapidly attained the rank of a general officer - lived in honour, and died in glory. The elder brother, with an early imbibed taste for philosophical diplomacy, became an efficient agent in the court of Madrid, and expiated his illusion by his disappointment. He found himself involved in the narrow and illiberal views of a crooked and intricate policy; and discovered too late, that the labours of an unfortunate alien, received alternately with a necessary distrust, are viewed with suspicion, and rewarded with parsimony. In a moment of his melancholy conviction (his strong passions ever veering to extremes) he abandoned the world, and threw himself into the Abbey of La Trappe.* He was soon, however, again sought for, because his talents were soon missed; and the royal entreaty and papal authority once more dragged him on the scene of life, at the moment he was found digging his own grave. Yet when death, after a course of years, robbed him of the prince he served, he remained uncompensed, unprovided for; advanced in life, and care-worn in spirits. Then it was that his affections (having completed the circle of objects, which in turn possess the bosom, and mark the stages from the cradle to the tomb) returned to the goal from whence they started. His country, his home, awakened his heart's last warm impulsion; and the fond desire, so common among the Irish, that his eyes should be closed by the hands of kindred affection, led him back to that paternal roof, and to those ties, whose images, time and absence had rather strengthened than obliterated from his remembrance. He had left an elder brother, the representative of the faded honours and lesseneed fortunes of his family; and to the sons of this brother he looked forward for the bright reflections of his own ardent youth - for the solace of his declining years. He returned after thirty years of exile; but found nor home, nor brother, nor brother's children."

[*See the account of Abbé Hussy in Cumberland's Life.]

The stranger paused; then, with some emotion, and great rapidity, he added:

"There was at the period to which I allude a penal statute* in force, which struck at once against the law of God and man, and tore asunder the holy bond, which forms the type of every social institution - the tie of filial and parental love. By this law, it was enacted, that the son of a Catholic parent, by conformity to the established church, could legally possess himself of the property of his family, and for ever alienate it (when so gained) from the rightful heirs. A crime thus sanctioned, did sometimes, (not often) find its motive in the sordid selfishness of human depravity. Oh! then many a blessed tie was rent asunder - many a grey head was bowed with shame and sorrow to the grave. The offence was neither solitary nor unproductive. Brother raised his hand against brother." .... He paused again in emotion - and again continued: .... "In a word, such was the event which hailed the Abbé's return to this country... The youngest of his two nephews had abjured a faith which only intailed misfortune; and reaping the fruits of his apostacy by taking the letter of the law, left his family and its natural heir destitute. The injured brothers, maddened with the double wrongs of himself and his infant son, gave vent to nature's bitterest indignation. The brothers faught....fratricide was added to apostacy; and the guilty survivor, not able to appear on the scene of his crimes, left his country for ever.

[*This law, which in the present age requires not to be characterised by its appropriate epithet, was enacted at a period when the worst passions were admitted to legislate for Ireland. It has long since ceased to disgrace the Statute Book; the abrogation of it being one among the first remissions in the severity of our penal code. The legislation of every country has had some cause for blushing; and if we have fallen upon happier times, let us pity rather than reproach the errors of our ancestors; or rather let us forget them for ever.]

"He who was thus at once breaved of property and life was...my father!

"The venerable exile, thus welcomed to his native land, sought his last asylum among these mountains; and, with the poor remains of his hard earnings raised this shed, in a region over which his ancestors had reigned, and at no great distance from the rock, on which, in ruder times, they were inaugurated. Here, too, he watched over the infancy and boyhood of his orphan grand-nephew; and gave up the first sixteen years of his solitude to my education. Thus, but for him, I should have remained for ever 'one of the wild shrubs of the wilderness:'* to his learning and science I am indebted for whatever information I possess; to his taste I owe that cultivation of mind and love of letters, which is now almost my only enjoyment.

[*See note at the end of the volume.]

"Having thus bestowed upon me all that he had to give; he sent me, as he himself had been sent, to earn an honourable subsistence in a foreign land. After many years of absence, the public events, which changed the face of Europe, once more brought me back to these solitudes. I returned with that sword, which I had taken out with me, my only property, and this ribbon, my only reward. I found my venerable kinsman, with the extraordinary energies of his character still unsubdued, approaching to a patriarchal age, and still devouting his lingering faculties to letters and to science. Permitted at length to serve my king and country, I again left the asylum of my early home, and drew my sword with a joyful emotion, suited to the cause in which I was allowed to embark; but on my return from a short and fatal campaign in the West Indies, circumstances of necessity, as well as feelings of attachment, drew me back to these solitudes; and I arrived but in time to fulfil my aged kinsman's long-formed wish. - He died in my arms, and his eyes were closed by the hand of kindred affection."

The stranger ceased: he had been listened to with attention; but there were few among his auditors who had directed their interest to the point which naturally called for it. They thought not of causes, though they were moved by effects. Even the matter of the relation struck them less than the manner. It was the rapid modulation of the speaker's voice; the changeful expression of his countenance; it was the warm effusion of a soul prone to enthusiasm; it was the language dictated in the energy and emphasis of the heart, which charmed their imagination, and held attention captive.

Mr. Glentworth sighed and was silent; Lady Florence fixed her full eyes on the narrator's face; and Lady Singleton said:-

"I wish you would give me the heads of this little story, Colonel O'Donnel. I know a lady who would work it into a charming pathetic tale. I am very glad those stupid penal laws are at an end: I suppose they are all long since repealed?"

"Not all," said O'Donnel. "It is but just, however, to observe, that the wisdom and policy of the present times have done much towards their total abrogation; and that great and noble sacrifices have been made of ancient prejudices and exclusive privilege, to general benevolence and national prosperity. To these sacrifices I pay a willing tribute of praise and gratitude; for I do not agree with Fra Paolo,* that mai alcuno si pretende obligato a chi l'habbi fatto giustitia. I acknoweldge the good that has been done, and I look forward with patient expectation for the final completion of this great work of natural justice."

[*On the Venetian government.]

"We have already done so much," said Mr. Glentworth, laughing, "that I suppose you think we may as well throw you in the little that remains. For myself," he added, more seriously, "I have always felt and interest for this country, for which, it has been truly said, God has done so much and man so little; and I have always lamented those religious disqualifications, which, in all countries and in all ages, have equally produced evil to the rulers and to the people. The penal statutes of Queen Ann against her Catholic subjects; and the revocation of the edict of Nantz by Louis XIV. (the exterminator of French Protestants,) are alike in my opinion. Abhorrent from good policy, as they are shocking to good feeling; nor can any thing be imagined more injurious to the cause of all religion, than thus to arm it with the authority of the law, and make it the scourge of opinion. To

Employ the countenance and grace of Heaven,
As a false favourite doth his prince's name
In deeds dishonourable,

Is surely the worst impiety."

"Oh! then," said O'Donnel, with enthusiasm, "liberal and enlightened, benevolent and temperate, as you appear, remain amongst us. Extend your pacificating influence to the utmost verge of your sphere; and encourage by the success of your example, our other great English landholders, who draw their ample revenues from our plenteous soil, to visit, to know, and to acknowledge us. Let them come with minds detached from every bias, which can influence passion, or revive prejudice; let them come unfettered by office, unsuing for place - more prompt to heal than to irritate, to sooth than to excite. With such high examples of conciliation, we should sleep over the memory of sufferings, which, whether inevitable or unjust, are passed by, and would, indeed, be forgotten, were they not industriously revived by many a commemorating distinction; for though the tint of a flower, or the colour or a ribbon, the echo of a song, or the triumph of a toast, be but idle and puerile causes of irritation; yet upon imaginations, too prone, perhaps, to kindle; upon hearts too prompt to feel; upon spirits, which, though yielding to conciliation, are yet too apt to swell against the appearance of insult; they must, and do, produce a more than adequate effect; and are borne, perhaps, with less patience than more serious greivances."*

[*Les personnes, a qui la fortune n'est pas trop favorable, sont je ne say comment plus soup conneuses que les autres, et prennent tout en mauvaise part. - Terence de Dacier. Les Adelphes.]

The stranger paused abruptly: "I fear," he added, "you will think me an enthusiast; I am nothing less: - at least I would not be one; but the little circle in which I am now placed is not calculated to chill reflection, or subdue fervor. The imagination of an Irishman will kindle when his country is his subject, and woman his auditor: and an Irishman's heart will expand, when an Englishman advocates the cause of Ireland, sympathizes in her destiny, and acknowledges her merits."

O'Donnel, with that brilliant illumination of countenance, which caught its fire from the soul, stretched out his hand to Mr. Glentworth, who shook it with cordiality and emotion.

"I shall not," he said, "Colonel O'Donnel, love and admire this country less for having known one who reflects so much honour upon it."

"I assure you, Colonel O'Donnel," observed Lady Singleton, "I like your enthusiasm of all things; and I wish it was bon-ton in London to be enthusiastic; but it is not. I was myself quite an enthusiast when I was abroad. By the bye, I wonder we never met. You say you were for twelve years upon the continent."

"In the Austrian service, I suppose, Sir?" said Mr. Glentworth.

"I served six years in the Austrian service," he replied. "The name of O'Donnel carried a certain influence with it, from the fortunes of my kinsmen, one of whom, at the time I entered the service, was Field-Marshal, Governor-General of Transylvania and Grand Croix of the military order of St. Theresa.* My rapid promotion followed of course; and an act of boyish temerity was so far rewarded beyond its merits, that I was made by the imperial order, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Emperor's Body Guards. But this irregular promotion of a foreigner over the heads of a national corps was not suffered to pass unnoticed, and the intruder had literally to fight his way to the distinction, vainly lavished on him by the sovereign. Every officer was anxious to prove my claim on the point of his sword. After being wounded in the arm, I declined contesting the matter further. I felt that these brave men were right;** I felt too that I was a stranger; and with the folly of a hot-headed Irishman, I yielded to my first impression of mortified pride, and took my leave of the Court of Vienna, receiving this order as a bouquet d'adieu, and a letter of introduction from the Emperor to his illustrious kinswoman, the beautiful and unfortunate Maria Antoinette. Thus presented, I could not fail to succeed. In a few years service I had risen to the rank of Colonel of Cuirussiers, when the French Revolution took place.

[*This General O'Donnel was a great favourite and friend of the Empress Queens.]

[**See note at the end of the volume.]

"A devotion to hereditary monarchy has always been attributed to the Irish gentry, even by their enemies. To this of old they owe their misfortunes; to this in the present times they may look for the full restitution of their rights. With an inconsiderably few exceptions, the Irish gentlemen, whose misfortunes had driven them into the French service, were faithful and loyal to the king they served, as they would have been, if so permitted, to the natural sovereign of their native realms. The six regiments of Irish brigades were, to a man, true to the cause of royalty; and after fighting well, and suffering much, in the allied armies, the offices repaired to their native land, obtained leave to raise regiments, succeeded in the attempt, and were permitted to enroll themselves in the British army, under their old designation of the Irish Brigades.* I had followed the course of these brave men, and when sinking under infirm health, from two wounds, which had nearly proved fatal, I was ordered to try my native air. Obliged to leave the army in Flanders, where I was serving as a volunteer, I again, on my recovery, joined the new-raised corps of a friend and fellow-soldier; and too happy to be employed in the service of England against regicide France, I accepted a majority in the --- regiment of Irish brigades, and embarked for St. Domingo. There, in a sanguinary and remorseless war, contending with the climate, famine, and the sword, amidst royalists and republicans, negroes and maroons, I left many a gallant countryman and friend buried on the burning sands of that pestiferous region; and have returned once more to these solitudes, perhaps, as their last tenant used to say, with little else to do that to dig my own grave and die."

[*See note at the end of the volume.]

"You surely do not mean to give up the service?" asked Mr. Glentworth.

"The service, I fear," he replied, "means to give me up."

"Have you applied for your military rank?"

"I have no interest in this country, no kinsman high in the service; and my letters of nobility, which served me abroad, would here be ridiculous."

"Still you ought to have applied."

"I did apply, for a majority, a company, a lieutenancy:* I did not succeed, and I went no lower. My relation, General O'Donnel, of the Spanish service, has offered me a majority in his own regiment; but having once fought in the cause of England, I will never draw my sword against her. But," he added cheerfully, "though I state facts, I do not complain of grievances. I know not how I have been induced to enter upon this tale of egotism: it is in truth and ungracious subject to me, as it must be tiresome to you."

[*See note at the end of the volume.]

He then gave a new turn to the conversation, by displaying some very fine fossils, which he had himself collected; and shortly afterwards the ladies retired for the night.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER III.

THE next morning Mr. Glentworth and his host walked to the heath before the ladies had risen, and found the workmen employed upon the carriage, which was by no means so much injured as might have been supposed, and which would be ready before noon for use.

On their return to the cottage, the ladies were at the breakfast table, and Mc. Rory (though he had relieved guard on the carriage in the middle of the night) brisk, and busied in attendance; doing the honours by the griddle cake, pledging himself for the freshness of the eggs, and eulogising Katty Mulloy's elegant butter, which was in the churn surely not one hour ago, my Lady.

When the salutations of the morning were mutually exchanged, Lady Florence declared she had dreamed of Irish chiefs and heroes the whole night: the young ladies expressed their pretty fears, to which the dashing of the torrent had given birth every time they awoke; and Lady Singleton observed that she had never closed her eyes all night, from the variety of schemes and plans which were working in her brain, relative to a new mode of legislation for Ireland; - to cultivating bogs, opening roads through mountains, and raising a supplementary corps in addition to the Ballynogue Legion, of which she should make Colonel O'Donnel the captain; for though Mr. Dexter was an excellent officer, owing to some hints of her own, and a book she had put into his hands (for he had only got his commission in the Legion since their acquaintance with him), yet as he had not see foreign service, Colonel O'Donnel would naturally be of all possible advantage, and -

Before she could finish the sentence, the entrance of the hero of the Ballynogue Legion put all her schemes to flight; nor could Mr. Dexter's pleading look, submissive bow, and contrite visage, save him from the lecture, which her Ladyship had prepared for his reception, whenever he should appear.

Mr. Dexter heard her out uninterruptedly in silence, standing beside her chair, with a countenace in which he endeavoured to mingle an expression of grief and penitence, till she was checked in her career by Mr. Glentworth's observing with a smile:

"Come, Lady Singleton, if you do not intend imposing a fast as well as a penance on Mr. Dexter, I think you had better defer for the present the conclusion of this exordium and reproof, and suffer him to get some breakfast."

Mr. Dexter now took the opportunity of laying his misfortunes to the darkness of the night and the intricacies of the roads; but confessed that his crime, his only crime, was, in the first instance, having neglected to avail himself of her Ladyship's advice - a crime he had expiated by the most miserable night he had ever passed; for though part of his sufferings were abated by his knowledge of the safety of his friends, coveyed by her Ladyship's note, yet her displeasure alone was more than he was able to endure, and he had the most horrible nightmare in consequence that had ever disturbed repose.

At this contrite speech, all Lady Singleton's anger vanished, and Mr. Dexter having received his pardon at her hand in the form of a cup of tea, resumed his natural pertness. Having paid his compliments to Mr. Glentworth and the ladies, and given a familiar nod of recognition to Colonel O'Donnel, he wriggled about the room, threw his eyes from the earthen floor to the old sword, and from the old sword to the old pedigree: he then smiled, and smirked, and took his seat at the table; helped himself to the hot cake, recommended it to the ladies, to whom he handed it round, and replied to Lady Florence's inquiries for her two friends; whom he assured her Ladyship had got safe into the town, about an hour after himself; and whom he left in bed sleeping away their fatigue; while he had rise before daylight, had been the means of sending off the workmen at so early an hour, and had only waited till the lazy Irish hostess was up to give orders for their reception; as not exactly knowing the state of the carriage, he was uncertain how long they might remain at the inn.

About an hour after breakfast, notice being given that the carriage was ready, and the horses harnessed, the party set out, accompanied by their host, and walked to the opening on the mountain ravine. After a few paces, however, O'Donnel was obliged to return to the house for a tippet, which Lady Florence, whom he escorted, had forgotten and left behind. As he was proceeding to join the party, he was met by Mr. Glentworth, who, taking his arm, abruptly accosted him.

"Colonel O'Donnel," he said, "I am an Englishman: mine is not the country of professions: it is not our way to say more than we mean; it is perhaps our affectation to say even less. When, therefore, I make you an offer of service, I trust you will understand me to the letter, that I mean what I say. Interest, at the present moment, I have none, but - " he paused, and raised his eyes furtively to O'Donnel's face. A deep crimson burned on the cheek of his host, and Mr. Glentworth quickly added, "but should you ever deem it possible, that I could in any way be of use to you, I hope, I trust, you will call on me. Under all circumstances I shall expect you will give me an opportunity of discharging some small part of the obligation I owe you, by becoming my guest as soon, and as often, as you can. We propose returning to Ireland in two years; and pray believe me, that we shall not be less interested to do so, from the hope of enjoying more readily the pleasure of your society: meantime, however, we shall hold you in our remembrance, as an expected guest at Glentworth Hall, whenever it may answer your convenience to afford us your company."

To this invitation, and to the offer which preceded it, Colonel O'Donnel had only time to make his acknowledgments by a bow; for Lady Singleton, catching the last words of Mr. Glentworth, turned round and added:

"I beg leave, Colonel, to join my request to Mr. Glentworth's, that you will give us the pleasure of your company in Derbyshire. As to London, I say nothing, though I should be happy to meet you any where; but the fact is, for the short three months one is in Town, one is so entrainê by the set one lives in, so borne away in a sort of turbillon of engagements and dissipations, that one sees nobody but those one meets every night in the rounds. I long, however, to shew you our improvements at Glentworth Hall, all made since my residence there, and you must try and come over to us in the dead time of the year, when one can afford to be a little rational."

O'Donnel again bowed his thanks; and Mr. Dexter observed:-

"If Glentworth Hall be any thing superior to Ballynogue, it must be a Paradise of a place; which, indeed being in England, it cannot fail to be."

"O, I hope you will judge for yourself, as soon as possible, Mr. Dexter," returned Lady Singleton. "I trust you will endeavour to make such arrangements that you will be able to follow us about Christmas."

As Mr. Dexter liked to hear this invitation repeated as often as possible, and had merely made his remark for that purpose, he now bowed and smirked with great satisfaction, and assured her he would sooner give up his paltry situation altogether, than fail in paying his respectful devoirs at Glentworth Hall, in the Christmas holydays; for his place was no further of value in his eyes than as it gave him something to do. He hated lounging about on any pretence, but if he did forfeit his place to his feelings, yet there might be something as good on the cards for him in store; and the exertion of a little interest might yet turn up a lucky trump in his favour."

As he concluded his speech, his voice lowered; and the last observation met Lady Singleton's ear only, who replied:

"Well, I am sure you have my best wishes at all events."

They had now reached the extremity of the mountain. The party placed in their carriage, and Mr. Dexter on the favourite mare, which the avant-courier had rode, they made their acknowledgments and adieus to their host, and drove off; while Mc. Rory, bowing and scraping behind his master, took off his shoe, and flung it after the carriage for luck-sake, crying:

"Well, God speed them, and send them safe, I pray Jasus; for if I never see them again, nor any belonging to them, they shall have my good word, for they are the real sort: long life to them! Amen."

Colonel O'Donnel, when he had caught the last view of the carriage turning the angle of the mountain, sighed, and returned towards his hut. Of a sanguine and social disposition, prompt to receive favourable prepossessions, and easily won upon by an appearance of confidence and kindness; to part was, with him, under such feelings, always to suffer. The persons with whom he had become so accidentally associated, and whose recent intrusion had, in the first flush of wounded pride, given him much annoyance, though they were not on his level either in feeling or intellect, were yet persons of education and refinement, of elegant habits of life, and of liberal modes of thinking. Such was the society in which he had hitherto lived, and from such he was now utterly secluded. There were many cogent reasons to confine him within the boundary of the rocks, which enveloped his retreat. The few persons at all within his reach were of an inferior description; and as he had no mode of returning their civilities (if they had been inclined to offer them), he scrupulously avoided their society. Almost all the great landholders for twenty miles round were absentees; and to the few who had visited the country, since he had taken up his residence in it, his existence was unknown. Thus condemned by the elevation of his character, and the poverty of his circumstances, to abstain from all neighbourhood and communion, he saw with something of regret the departure of his polished guests. Though in their two first interviews he had endeavoured to escape any further intimacy with them, yet during the few hours they had been his guests, they had won upon his partiality. The beauty and pointed attention of Lady Florence had awakened certain sensations, not quite strangers to one, who had taken his course in the lists of foreign gallantry. With Mr. Glentworth's character he was infatuated; with Lady Singleton's he was amused. The Miss Singletons and their governess alone went for nothing. The slight mortification, which the latter had given to his vanity, had died away, and no succeeding brusquerie had tended to revive it; for they had held no further intercourse, than what the morning's salutations had included.

Though O'Donnel had as much confidence in Mr. Glentworth's sincerity of profession, as so short an acquaintance could warrant, he yet felt that he never could have an opportunity of putting it to the test. He had himself confessed that he had no interest; his kindness, therefore, could only exhibit itself through a medium, at which he thought Mr. Glentworth had himself glanced - pecuniary benefaction; and from that proof of his friendship the spirit and feelings of the gentleman alike revolted. The delicacy, however, of the offer, and the kindness which dictated it, were appreciated and felt; and O'Donnel's heart told him, that in parting with his acquaintance he was losing a friend. Influenced by these emotions of regret, although he thought his acquaintance with the English tourists had ended among the mountains of his own solitary retreat, he was by no means prepared to learn with indifference an event, with which he accidentally became acquainted, about six weeks after their departure.

One morning, as he was arranging some family papers, Mc. Rory, whom he had sent to the post-house to inquire for some expected foreign letters, entered the room, holding a torn newspaper in his hand. He exclaimed in a whining voice:

"Here is a pretty bit of news I have for your Honour. - Jasus preserve us all, evermore, I pray Christ! Amen. To think of the cratur that stood here in this same room, brave and hearty, little more nor a month ago, being dead and buried; and far from his place, - the sowl! - And an undoubted gentleman he was, any way. And is'nt it the best always goes first? Sure it is: and I'll engage it's long till that spalpeen, that wanted to do me out of my dewotion, would be after taking himself off. Well, pace be to him any how: and troth, and I'd buy a mass for the rest of his sowl with all the veins, so I would, only that he would have no faith in it himself, which is remarkable; only nobody's affair but his own: and any way he shall have my prayers, for I am entirely obliged to him for his extraordinary kindness in regard of the two golden guineas he gave me, going away, long life to him! and troth, and if it was the last farthing I had, I'll change one of them to drink a glass to his memory, this blessed night, before I close my eyes, so I will."

Colonel O'Donnel had frequently asked, "What is the matter, Mc. Rory? Who is dead?" during this funeral oration, which was pronounced with great feeling and emphasis: for though the lower Irish are strangely careless of life, yet death is always to them a subject of lamentation and moralizing, even when they are indifferent to the party deceased.

Before Mc. Rory had got to the peroration of his mourning eulogium, his master had taken the newspaper from his hand. It was the fragment of an Edinburgh paper, nearly a month old, and in the obituary column, Colonel O'Donnel read as follows:

"At Berwith upon Tweed, died of a three days fever, Charles Frederick Glentworth, Esq. of Glentworth Hall, Derbyshire; twenty years a member for ---, in successive parliaments. Mr. Glentworth's death was the result of a severe and neglected cold, caught on his unprosperous voyage across the Channel, on his way from Donaghadee to Prot-Patrick. Mr. Glentworth was returning from visiting his Irish estates, accompanied by his family, and some persons of distinction, who had joined his travelling party. He is succeeded in his large estates by his only son, Charles Glentworth, Esq. of Christ-church, Oxford."

This melancholy and unexpected intelligence gave a natural shock to the feelings of Colonel O'Donnel. Besides a personal regret for the death of this excellent and enlightened Englishman, he felt as an honest man feels for the loss of an honest man, in a world where it is so difficult to fill up the place he has vacated.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER IV.

TWO years sound but as a brief term of time, as a point in the interminable scale of eternity; and even in the short period of human life, they are considered as trifling in anticipation, and as nothing in regret. Yet, in that "petty space," what events may there not be crowded to frustrate the calculation of human probabilities! - what changes may there not be produced in the condition of an individual, of an empire! There is nothing, perhaps, which reduces the importance of the whole system of existing things so low in the estimation of the philosopher, as this rapidity of succession, which dissolves the most important combinations of society, and gives to the circumstances of life, the fugitiveness of a dream.

Two years had soon elapsed from the time at which the English tourists bade farewell to their solitary host, on the wild shores of Lough Swilly; yet, swift as its flight had been, it had been productive of unlooked-for change to all. To him alone, whom they had left behind, in solitude and obscurity, time had brought, in its course, no alteration; with him it had moved on in the slow and tiresome succession of undeviating uniformity, unmarked but by artificial notices; for, in him, no consciousness of existence arose from the testimony of new and successive sensations. All was blank; and season followed season in a cheerless series, undistinguished by action, unvaried by event, and unblessed by reciprocated feelings or social enjoyments. The vigorous passions, the inherent energy of O'Donnel, struggled hard against the obvious torpor of his destiny; his spirit, though overborne, was not subdued; it brooded in silence over the hopelessness of a life which offered its possessor no portion but obscurity and neglect. But, though days and weeks of listlessness may be endured; yet, when year follows year, and in its flight brings no hope, no promise of alteration, the mind must lose its elasticity, and assume a tone proportioned to the trifling call which is made upon it for exertion. By degrees, therefore, O'Donnel remitted from his accustomed amusements, and sullenly rejected those resources, which in the first period of suffering had cheated the heart of its anguish, and spared the intellect the horror of contemplating its own ruin. He now ceased to find distraction or relief in the researches of science, gave up his wanderings and his books, and suffered the principle of life to prey upon itself. He had no longer a motive to excite volition, nor impulse to rouse to action. Had there been difficulties to vanquish, he had wrestled with their force; the contest would have sharpened his skill, and strengthened his nerve; but he had only to submit. Poverty closed against him every road to occupation and subsistence, such as a gentleman and a soldier could pursue: nor did any method present itself, by which he might hope to be restored to the walks of enlightened and refined society. In all probability, a few more years of inactivity and neglect would have bowed his high spirit to a melancholy acquiescence with his fate, had he not been roused from his increasing lethargy by an effort of petty and local oppression, and by a sentiment of generous and compassionate feeling.

In almost all the villages and little towns of Ireland may be found a sort of plebian oligarchy, composed of beings, whose sole distinction consists in belonging accidentally to, what Edmund Burke has happily called,* "The Master Cast;" who feel and assert a sort of constitutional superiority over the less fortunate of their immediate neighbourhood. At the head of such a ruling faction, in the village nearest to Colonel O'Donnel's retreat, stood a Mr. Brian Costello, Attorney-at-Law; a man who had raised himself from the lowest class of society by arts, which enable such men to attain to a state of comparative affluence; and who finally became agent of the gentleman, in whose kitchen he had often plied as a menial. Mr. Constello had, upon speculation, purchaseed a large tract of mountain, and obtained a considerable portion of commonage attached to it; he had also become master of some small but fertile farms, of which he had obtained perpetual leases of his own employer, and which, as is common in Ireland, he again let out at premiums to tenants-at-will: among these tenants was the late Abbé O'Donnel. The little sum of ready money, of which he was master on his arrival in Ireland, he had expended in purchasing the romantic site of his cottage and small garden, and he took of Mr. Costello a little farm in the neighbourhood, from which he derived the whole means of his subsistence.

[*See Letter to Sir H. Languish, by the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.]

As the Abbé led the life of a hermit, and was too much a cynic to interest himself in the concerns of others, he had lived in his retreat more feared than known, and was suffered to remain unmolested. By some he was deemed a saint, by others a wizzard, and by many as little better than a maniac. The high-spirited and impetuous boy, whom he had made the companion of his solitude, felt the superiority, which nature, birth, and education had given him over the LITTLE GREAT of his neighbourhood; and as his youth and activity carried him in more frequent contact with the vicinage, he took little care to disguise his opinion of himself and them. But to the natives of the soil, the poor Irish servitors, he was condescending and gentle; for he considered them as the descendants of the brave peasantry who had so often fought the battles of his ancestors. Without losing sight of his own dignity, he mingled in their sports, and carried off many a prize of superiority in their athletic exercises.

The impressions which he left behind him, when (yet a boy) he quitted the country to enter into foreign service, were revived when he returned in manhood; and though his paternal lands were situated in another part of the country, the name of O'Donnel was still loved and revered. Since his return, he had more than once been the advocate of the unfortunate, and the champion of the oppressed. Though a tenant-at-will for the spot, which afforded him his sole means of subsistence to Mr. Brien Costello, he had, in a feeling of indignation for violated justice, opposed his power, in an instance, which too often occurs, and too often is past over in Ireland unnoticed and unstigmatized. Costello had let some of his mountain land to cotters, at a rent far beyond its value; and, to reconcile them to a bargain closed under the pressure of necessity, he had allowed them a certain portion of commonage: to the cultivation of these wild spots, the cotter had given the overplus of his time and labour; but, when it began to wear the air of cultivation, to repay his industry, and assist him in paying off a part of his exorbinant rent, the sordid landlord, contrary to all equity, and to his compact, inclosed the ground, and deprived his tenant of the only means, which could make his bargain tolerable.*

[*To causes such as these, Mr; Young, the learned and impartial English traveller, in his Irish Tour, Vol. 2, attributes all the tumults which so long disturbed the interior of Ireland, and was committed by the cotters and lowest classes of the people, under the name of "White Boys:" they were chiefly Roman Catholics: but the insurgents who appeared in Ulster, under the names of "Steel Boys," "Oak Boys," "Peep of Day Boys," were the manufacturing Protestants and Dissenters of the north, and their insurrection arose exclusively from some variations in the manufacture, &c. but they were all confounded in one; and the causes so "instigating, were neither enquired into nor known." - See Young's Tour.]

An instance of this kind had occurred in the case of a poor man, to whose door it brought ruin. After the manner of the lower Irish, when they appeal for relief in their necessities, he had thrown himself on his knees at O'Donnel's feet to supplicate his interference with his landlord. That he was the brother-in-law of his own foster-brother, Mc. Rory, was not his faintest claim to the service he demanded. - O'Donnel much against his inclination, condescended to intercede with Mr. Costello; to argue, to entreat; but failed in every attempt: he then informed this equitable landlord, in language no way equivocal, of his opinion of the whole transaction; and it required no very acute powers of induction on the part of Mr. Costello to draw from the peroration of O'Donnel's speech, that he believed him to be a rascal. So satisfactorily to his own mind had he, indeed, concluded upon this point of the Colonel's creed, that he wanted only the courage to call him out: he did, however, what lie thought safer, and quite as much to the purpose - he gave him due notice to quit his farm, unless he chose to continue a tenant at a rent somewhat more than double the possible product of the land. The result was, that O'Donnel was ejected, and left destitute of all means of subsistence beyond the produce of a scanty garden. - There was, indeed, other ground within his option to take at a lower price; but it had much to create, much to reclaim; and O'Donnel, full of spirited activity in other fields, was no agriculturist, either in practice or speculation: his sword lay idle in its scabbard, and yet he knew not how to "turn it into a plough-share." From his early habits of life, he knew nothing of the less dignified, less refined, modes of existence so necessary in the common order of things, but so little attainable by those, whose lives have been a series of brilliant emotion of whose characters can only be influenced by strong and powerful excitements. With Want thus knocking at his door, Charity still found an altar beneath his roof: the day after Mr. Costello had turned him out of his farm, an aged female presented herself to his notice, claiming his assistance, as her nearest surviving relation. Of her person he had no recollection, though he had seen eyes that resembled the still bright and keen orbs, which, unextinguished by time, still sparkled in the stranger's head; but, when she mentioned her name, and alluded to her story, he acknowledged without hesitation the only sister of his deceased kinsman.

It is not long since, a mesalliance in an ancient Milesian family was deemed no less degrading by the good gentry of Ireland, than by the highest of the French nobility; and they claimed the few distinctions left them with religious pertinacity. Honor O'Donnel, once the beauty of her time and country, had made an unfortunate match, and had been thrown for ever from the bosom of her family: after a long life of suffering and misfortune, reduced to the last extremity of want, of misery, and of age, she sought relief from the only one of her kindred, who had not yet rejected and disowned her: the last appeal she had made to family compassion, was the first which had not been refused. O'Donnel considered her rights to the little possessions of her late brother, as, at least equal to his own; and her age and indigence as still more importunate than his own misfortunes: he resigned, therefore, to her, for her life, the cottage and the garden, which was all he could claim as his: the one afforded her the first home, of which she had been mistress, since (forty years before) she had fled clandestinely from that of her youth; the other was sufficient to supply her few wants; and the vigorous old woman, who had served her brother, was a fit attendant for her years and infirmities.

For himself there now remained but one step to take, but one effort to make; and that was once more to seek a foreign service. This was a step abhorrent to his feelings; for he fondly hoped, that having once served his own king and country, he would never have been driven to serve another: but it was a step he reconciled to his principles and loyalty; for he resolved to perish with want, rather than raise an arm against the banner of an empire, of which he was a natural subject, and in whose cause he had before been proud to spill his best blood.

Austria was then in alliance with England, and both were opposed to France: his nearest kinsman and friend was a general in the Austrian service, and to him he wrote, in the certainty of receiving a commission in his own regiment; desiring him to direct his answer to the General Post-office, London, where he hoped to be able to meet it. Such, indeed, was his intention: to remain where he was, was impossible; and even if there was a chance of failing in his application to General O'Donnel (which scarcely could be, since he had pressed him to accept a commission a few years before), he resolved once more to make an effort for obtaining even an ensigncy in the British service; and if all failed, to go out as a volunteer, and subsist on the pay of a private.

But the obstacle, which impeded these speculations, moderate as they were, was want of money, even to bear the expences of his journey. He had distant relations of his own name, both in the south and the west of Ireland, who, though the original splendor of their family greatness was "something obscured," still enjoyed rank, opulence, and high consideration; but he shrunk from claiming the privileges of poor relationship; and from every branch of the O'Donnel family, still remaining in Ireland, he had carefully concealed his situation and circumstances. His books, left him by his uncle, were valuable, but few; and he had obtained a due price for them from a bookseller in Belfast, to whom he had sent the catalogue; but the sum he obtained did not make up the third part of that, which was requisite to defray the expences of his journey to the continent, even without a servant, with which he would be obliged to dispense, though that servant was the faithful and warm-hearted Mc. Rory. He had, besides his books, but two articles in the world, which he could turn into money; and when they suggested themselves to his mind, the blood rushed from his heart to his face, and again returned to its source with an icy coldness; these articles were the sword, which still hung suspended over the chimney-piece, and a small diamond ring. He was alone in the parlour of the cottage, which he now no longer considered his, when the necessity of parting with these, to him, holy relics, suggested itself. The ring was suspended round his neck by a ribbon - He drew it forth and gazed on it: a train of intimate associations arose in quick succession as he read the date engraven on its "golden round;" for the ring was all that remained to him of the earlier and most brilliant period of his existence; when full of hope and joy, his light and gallant spirit had received no impression from time, but such as love and glory gave; when new to life, and flushed with passion, he feared no change, and suspected no illusion - when alternately bound in the silken cords of pleasure, or braced with the rude hardness of war, he sprung from the couch of voluptuousness, to rush into the field of combat, and to carry with him, even into scenes of warfare, that buoyancy of spirit, which once distinguished the gallant leaders of the Gallic armies, and which lent to the rudeness of the camp, the gaiety and grace of the drawing room.

He had won that little ring at a court lottery at Versailles, when the loveliest sovereign that ever received the affections of a devoted and loyal people, distributed the prizes. From the hands of Maria Antoinette he had received the ring, on the night before he accompanied his regiment to the fields of ----. The ring was his talisman - he confided in its influence as the pledge of his success; and the distinction he obtained in that year's campaign, procured him shortly after the military rank, which rendered him the youngest colonel in the French service.

The value of this trinket was inconsiderable; but it was the bequest of a beautiful woman, and an unfortunate queen; and there was still enough of the spirit of a Milesian cavalier in his breast, to estimate the gem by the standard of sentiment, and not by the cold calculation of a lapidary. He kissed and replaced it - arose from the table at which he sat - walked towards the chimney-piece, and fixed his eyes on the sword of a hero, whose memory he revered, of whose kindred he was so proud, of whose character he was enamoured.

With that sword the chief of O'Donnel had avenged his own wrongs, and redressed those of his country. O'Donnel took down the sacred weapon - sacred at least in his estimation, and examined it with the scrutiny of one who beheld it for the first time; but it was, in fact, with the emotion of one who feared he was looking on it for the last.

The basket of the weapon was of pure Irish gold, such as is frequently found in various forms in the bogs of Ireland;* and he supposed from the price obtained by his uncle for a golden corslet, that its value could not be under one hundred pounds. This was a considerable sum to a man who had scarcely a guinea, and he resolved on the sacrifice of a relic, dear alike to his pride and his affections; yet as he drew the blade from its scabbard, he stooped his head so close to it, that it touched his lips, and a tear dropped upon its rusted steel. He hastily pushed it back into its sheath, and with an unsteady hand, was endeavouring to replace it in its old station, when Mc. Rory entered the room. His arms were laden with books, which he was about to pack up to send by a carrier to Belfast. He threw them beside a box that was to contain them, and kneeling down to pack them, he turned up his eyes, and perceived O'Donnel replacing his sword.

[*The handles of swords of the ancient Irish were frequently incrusted with gold, according to O'Halloran, 1744. Some gold-handled swords and golden gorgets were found in the bog of Cullen, in Tipperary, which is since called by the country-people, "the Golden Bog." Several golden corslets were also found in Kerry. - See O'Halloran, and Smith's Kerry.]

"Will I give the hilt of that a rub, your Honor," he said, "with the shammy, for it's mighty dusty?"

O'Donnel made no reply, but stood with his arms folded, and his eyes fixed, lost in thought.

"I wonder, your Honor," continued Mc. Rory, going on with his employment, "I wonder if it be's true, what I hear tell from one of the followers of the O'Connors, when I was keeping my station at Lough Dergh, this time two years; that the great O'CONNOR, Don of Cloonalis, sould the fine ancient ould golden crown of the family, which the Kings of Ireland, his own kin, long life to them! used to wear in the ould times, Sir.* The cratur! - well, it was hard run with him before he did that same, any how, I'll be bound. And well it might, in troth, in regard of his extraordinary hospitalities. Devil a one ever left the gate of an O'Connor yet dry or fasting, and signs** on them, God bless them: in respect of selling the fine ancient ould crown, the sowls!"

[*This affecting circumstance, which occurred a few years ago, is so generally known, in Ireland at least, as to need no comment. Two golden crowns also were found in the Bog of Cullen: the first, of chased work, and without a cross, was purchased by the Cumerford family: the second was bought by Mr. Kinshanlloe, a jeweller in Limerick; it weighed six ounces, and when melted, had very little alloy. - See Harris's Works, Vol. 2, and O'Halloran's History of Antiquities of Ireland.]

[**Signs on them: the sign or symptom of it is apparent on them.]

"I am certainly not ruined by my hospitality, Mc. Rory," said O'Donnel, starting from his reverie, and affecting a tone of cheerful firmness; "and yet I must part with something I value quite as much as my kinsman O'Connor did his crown."

"How is that, your Honor?" asked Mc. Rory, raising his head.

"The fact is, Mc. Rory," returned O'Donnel, in a hurried voice, "I cannot go on here any longer, for many reasons. I mean to pass over immediately to the continent, and to enter the Austrian service. I shall have no means to defray the expences of my journey, but by raising money on this sword, and I wish you to take it with you to-morrow to L. Derry, and to dispose of it."

"Is it the sword, Colonel?"

"Yes, yes," returned O'Donnel, with humour, and annoyed by the expression of Mc. Rory's countenance.

"O, very well, Sir; surely I will; that is, I'd rather nat, if your Honor plases, for a raison I have - quit the place! to be sure, your Honor, why would'nt we quit; what use is there staying, when we hav'nt as much ground we can call our own, as we could lay the track of our foot in, in regard of that dirty spalpeen, Torney Costello, bad luck to him; it's little the likes of his mother's son, ever thought he'd see the day that he'd turn one of the great O'Donnels out of their own real and undoubted land's, and within view of their own rock,* as I may say, barring the mountains of Kilmacrennan, that's between us and it; but he's come of a bad breed, any how; the scum of the earth - but as to parting with the sword, your Honor, it's what I'll never consint to, while I breathe the breath of life: for what would you part with her, Sir? Is it the great O'Donnel Bal-dearg's sword you'd be after selling in the face of the whole country: would'nt it be a burning shame; and what would the family in County Leitrim say to it,** and the family of New Port, and the family in Country Waterford? and what would yourself say, Colonel, if ye heard of the gold rings being sould that were found on your great ancestor's fingers,*** near Ballyshanny, that your third cousin, once removed, wears to this day in Spain, that's if he is in it; or if you heard of your own cousin-german in France, selling the blessed and holy Cathach which was bequeathed to the family by the greatest of saints, Columb-kill."****

[*The rock of Inauguration.]

[****See note at the end of the volume.]

"It is no matter, Mc. Rory," said O'Donnel in a decided tone, "what any one thinks; the sword I must and will part with; nor is that the most difficult effort I shall have to make, for I must part with what I prize still more than the sword."

O'Donnel sighed deeply.

"And what's that, your Honor?" asked Mc. Rory, in a subdued voice, sighing in his turn, and putting in and taking out the books, as if thoughtless of his occupation. "Is it Bran, the baste, in respect of the trifle of mischief he does, betimes, among the neighbours' cattle? Sure, if they'd let the hound alone, he would never ax to trouble them; but they worry the life out of him, fairly, so they do; that's the gassoons, Sir."

"No," returned O'Donnel, with a forced smile; "I don't mean to sell Bran, but I fear I must part with one quite as faithful, and much more valued."

O'Donnel paused for a moment, and then with an effort at firmness, yet with a tremulous motion of the under lip, he added:

"In a word, I must part with YOU, Mc. Rory."

The books dropped from Mc. Rory's hold, and still remaining on his knees, he clasped his hands, and with a look of grief, almost amounting to despair, but in a tone at once supplicating and determined, he replied:

"Oh! no, Colonel - Sir, if you plase, you will nat - part with me! For what, Sir? for why would you part with me? Sure if I have offended you, Colonel, dear, I ax your pardon now, on my two bended knees - take my life, Sir - is'nt it your own? Who saved it for me in the wars, when I fought cheek by jowl with you, Sir? - only yourself, Colonel: troth you did, and for why would you part with me, Phaidrig Mc. Rory, if it was only in regard of being your own foster-brother, who took the same mother's milk with you, and who was a hurler* with you, when we were gassoons together, playing among the mountains? And would'nt I have followed you to foreign parts, when we were grown up fine slips of lads, only the mother that bore me left her dying curse on me, if I deserted my fine ancient ould father, until God had taken him; which he did'nt till five years ago, come Lamas; and for all that, did'nt I go into foreign parts to see you, Sir, and brought you the present of the finest mare that ever was strode, following you through the world wide, into Germany, without knowing a word any foreign language, good or bad, but my own, and I never came ACRASS you, till I saw you go to mass in your elegant regimentals, with the King and Queen, and all the Royal Family,** long life to them; and when you came back here after the troubles, Colonel, did'nt I list with you in the brigade, and follow you to the wars, Sir? and from that blessed moment to this, hav'nt I been your true and faithful servant; and why shouldn't I, Colonel? what abler boy in the Barony could you get to serve you? ante I your Honor's own age, thirty-four last Holy-eve, and your own Honor's height, six feet? and if I don't answer you, Sir, shew me the lad that will, Colonel, to say nothing of fosterage."

[*The hurling matches were frequently played, even within a few years back, by the youth of two counties opposed to each other, and frequently led on by young men of birth and fortune.]

[**See note at the end of the volume.]

During this appeal, in which one association had arisen rapidly out of another in the mind of the affectionate and devoted Mc. Rory, his master vainly endevoured to interrupt him, to raise him from his supplicant posture, and before he had concluded, which he did with tears in his eys, he vainly endeavoured to recover back his own firmness, which the looks, even more than the words of Mc. Rory, had put wholly to flight.

"No, your Honor," said Mc. Rory, when Colonel O'Donnel stretched out his hand to raise him, "I have made a vow to myself, never* to rise off my bended knees, which is as good as being book sworn until it's what your Honor recalls your words, and says, 'Phadrig Mc. Rory, I'll never part with you, as long as you can be of the laste use in life to me, Phaidrig;' and for why should you, Colonel?"

[*A very old Irish custom. - When the celebrated Earl of Tyrone went to demand assistance from the King of Spain, he made a vow, not to rise from his knees till his request was granted.]

"Because, Mc. Rory," returned his master, with a mixture of kindness and irritation in his voice and manner, "because I can no longer either repay your services, or maintain you; for I am a man of desperate fortunes. I am about to seek the means of supporting life in a foreign land, by my sword; nor can I think of rewarding your generous attachment so ill, as to take advantage of your disinterestedness, and involve you in my uncertain destiny, my certain difficulties. But should any thing like independence ever again be mine, my friend, believe that you shall share it, aye, to the last farthing, Mc. Rory."

"Shall I, Sir?" said Mc. Rory, starting on his feet with a look of wildness; and then pausing for a moment, he ran out of the room: returning, however, almost immediately, and emptying the contents of an old worsted stocking on the table, he cried:

"There are four of the ten gold pieces your Honor gave me for a keepsake, when I brought you the mare to foreign parts. There is the five pound note the fine ancient ould Abbé left me by will, and there is the silver gilt watch which ould Thady Dogherty, my father's ould croney, left me with his dying breath; and you know right well, Sir, that when I offered you this same to help to pay the fine for the farm,* to that thief of a Costello, you would'nt intirely oblige me by taking it; and now you see, it will maintain and keep me, till we land in foreign parts, when your Honor will be a great General, and myself a Corpolar, I'll be bound, for your sake, Sir; so you see, Colonel, I'll be no trouble in life to you, and never ax you for bit or sup, only your old coats; and now, Sir, there is no delay in the world, only to pack up the portmantle, and quit the place, which is to the fore for your Honor, whever God takes the fine ancient ould gentlewoman, your grand-aunt, Mrs. Honor Kelly, to himself."

As the attachment and resolution of Mc. Rory were now equally and evidently firm and unvanquishable, and as his master was well assured that he would follow him at all risks, if he was not permitted to accompany him, Colonel O'Donnel, unconsciously pleased to shelter his own inclinations under his servant's, replied:

"Well, Mc. Rory, be it so, if you are willing, for my sake, to encounter hardships without the hope of recompense: if you are satisfied to take the wages of kindness and confidence instead of - " He paused in some emotion, and unable to proceed, he smiled benevolently, and held out his hand to his now happy servant; but Mc. Rory, bowing down to the ground, retreated respectfully, deeming himself unworthy the high honour tendered to him, and with a cry, that something resembled the funeral ullulation of his own country, he rushed out of the room.

Within the space of a few days, O'Donnel received the money for the books he had sent to Belfast; perfected a deed, by which he put his kinswoman in possession of the cottage during her life; had a case placed over the picture of the Abbé O'Donnel, which he commended to her care; and made the few arrangements necessary for his journey to Dublin; where he meant to dispose of the basket of his sword, to a liberal purchaser of such articles, and from whence he meant to sail for England.

On the evening previous to his departure, as he was wandering thoughtfully at sun-set along a ridge of rocks which hung above the ravine leading to his cottage, he perceived a man on horseback riding beneath, and stopping at the cottage-door. He saw Mc. Rory receive a paper from his hand and point to himself. The man threw his eyes upon the heights where he stood, and suddenly gallopped away. Before O'Donnel had reached the glen by the most rapid descent, the echo of the horses' feet had died into silence. Mc. Rory advanced towards him with a letter, or rather a small packet.

"Here is a letter for your Honor," said Mc. Rory. "God send it may bring good news. I tould the young man that brought it, that he'd have his answer in a minute, if he'd step in and take an air of the fire, and give his baste a breathing time; for troth th' animal smoked like the kitchen chimney."

While Mc. Rory was speaking, his master was employed in breaking open cover after cover: one blank envelope succeeded another; and he began to think that all was a blank, and that the whole was some stupid practical joke, when he at last came to the letter thus carefully inclosed, and found within its folds two English bank bills for a thousand pounds each. The letter only contained two lines, which alluded to the inclosure: they ran as follows -

"Use it freely, for it is your own;
Use it discretely, for it is a woman's gift."

Mc. Rory stood watching the rapid changes in his master's countenance, as he cast his eyes fro mthe bills to the letter, from the letter to the bills, and alternately examined the seal and the direction: the former was simply the impression of a dial plate, the motto,

"CHETO FUOR COMMOTO DENTRO."

On the letter there was no post-mark - no post-town; it was simply superscribed to Lieutenant-Colonel O'Donnel.

"I am afraid no good comes of that letter, your Honor," said Mc. Rory, anxiously.

"Would it be possible to overtake the messenger?"

"O! it would, Sir," said Mc. Rory, eagerly; "that is, your Honor, it would nat; but morally impossible in respect of his being at th' other side of the mountain by this - Jack o' the lanthorn was nothing to the lad, in regard of his being mighty quick.

"Are you Colonel O'Donnel's servant?' says he.

"I am, Sir," says I, 'in lieu of a better.'

"Is he at home," says he.

"Yes he is,' says I, 'as your may see;' and I pointed to your Honor on them rocks, with the sun setting like a glory on you. With that he says no more, but gives me the letter, and claps spurs and away with him, though I kept calling to him to come back for the answer; but sure I'll go to the village and inquire for him, your Honor, for he must bait there any how, Sir."

"Pray do then, Mc. Rory," said O'Donnel, with his eyes fixed on the letter.

"O, I will, your Honor; I'll be there in a whiff, though I would'nt know the fellow's face again, in respect of never seeing it, for his hat was flapped so in his eyes, Sir, and his surtout was wrapped round him; but I'll go, your Honor, and look for him."

Still he lingered with an expression of countenance that O'Donnel happily construed, and he observed: -

"You may set your heart at rest, Mc. Rory: there are no bad news. This letter is from a friend; but I wish much to return an answer; so much, that I will walk to the village myself, and inquire for the messenger."

"Well, God be praised, Sir; for I had mighty ugly dreams last night; and thought I saw the ancient ould Abbé, sitting on the Rock of Kilmacrennan, bidding us good bye, which is as much as to say we shall never tread this ground again any way, and Mary says the bracket hin never roosted the whole night long, only flitting about: well, she's a wonderful bird."

During these observations, Mc. Rory was walking after his master, and having opened the little gate for him at the end of the glen, he took out his beads and prayed his way back, observing at every decade, "Well, that letter must mean something good or bad, any how, to say nothing of the dream, which was remarkable."

Colonel O'Donnel returned late to the cottage, and much heated by the rapidity with which he had walked; but all inquiry was fruitless. No person to answer the description of the messenger had been seen in the village, or had stopt to refresh himself or his horse at the public-house.

He remained, therefore, lost in amazement at an event so extraordinary, so unexpected, so mysterious. The number of envelopes, which he had to undo, were intended probably to give the messenger time to escape; for there could be no other clue to discovery. - Who then was this invisible and guardian angel, who thus secretly and unostentatiously administered to his wants. It was evidently a woman, as it was asserted to be; it was a woman's hand, a woman's pretty seal and device, and the act, at once delicate in its conduct, as prodigal in its nature, was a woman's; but what woman? His thoughts suddenly reverted to the English tourists. They wandered for a moment to Lady Singleton. Nothing could be less like her, than the mystery with which so liberal a benefaction was conferred; they fixed on Lady Florence. She was nobly born - might be noble-minded, and perhaps imprudently generous. Two years were a long space to elapse without testifying this liberal interest in his favour, which now fell like a thunderbolt on him; but if it was not her, it was utterly impossible to fix on any other. Her eye and her smile still lived in his memory; for since he had beheld her, no eye so bright, no smile so bland, had met his view to efface their influence. Every man is vain, where woman is in question, and though O'Donnel was as little so, as most men, yet the play of Lady Florence's vanity had been so successively directed against his own, that even at this remote period it influenced his conjectures, and he remained almost convinced that she was his invisible benefactress. The person entrusted with the commission was well acquainted with the intricacies of the mountain roads, and the scite of his retreat; and the Admiral's domestics knew the country well.

He sealed up the bills, and placed them in a letter-case, till on his arrival in London he should have an opportunity of returning them to the prodigal donor; resolved that no want, no misfortune should ever induce him to touch a shilling of a bounty, which, coming as it did, he would have deemed it nothing short of infamy to touch. Few women were so situated as to be able to make such donations, even when the object sanctioned the liberality: a married woman could scarcely do it without the knowledge of her husband, still less probably with his permission; but from any woman, under any circumstances, he would have shrunk from receiving pecuniary assistance: the very idea wounded the finest feelings of his nature, humbled his pride, and revolted his principle. With respect to his wordly circumstances, this princely gift, therefore, went for nothing; but it interested and perplexed him, and kept his spirits buoyant, which would else have sunk, as he again saw himself on the point of quitting the shades of his youth, thrown destitute on the world, with a mode of existence to seek at four-and-thirty. Where now were the hopes that misled, the illusions that dazzled, the motives that impelled, and the fresh unworn imagination that threw its brilliant halo over all? Time and experience had damped or dispelled them, and he was now undeceived without being insensible; he felt not less deeply, but less promptly; and expected nothing, for he had been disappointed in every thing.

The poor and the peasantry of his neighbournood, who heard of his intended departure, crowded the avenue of his dwelling on the morning of his journey, and followed the chaise that carried him to the town where he was to take the mail. While Mc. Rory, who would not be prevailed to go inside, sat on the portmanteau behind, shaking hands with some, waving his hat to others, bidding farewell, and giving a tear or a prayer to all; while Bran, with his old collar newly furbished up for the occasion by his friend Mc. Rory, followed the carriage, and shared the adieus and good wishes of the affectionate crowd.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER V.

IN Dublin, Colonel O'Donnel received the full value for the basket of his sword, carefully preserving the blade till better times might enable him to remount it; and the day after his arrival in the capital of his country, he sailed for Holyhead, in the Dublin Packet, in the hope of making acquaintance with its popular commander, of whose urbanity and attentions Mr. Glentworth and his party had spoken much and gratefully.*

[*It is unnecessary to mention Captain Sk--r.]

Pursuing their route to London by the mail, the Irish travellers reached the metropolis of England in less than two days; and Mc. Rory having discovered a countryman in one of the waiters, at the house where the coach stopt, procured through his recommendation, lodgings more adequate to the pecuniary resources of his master, than to his spirit or rank. But Mc. Rory, who loved change, and loved travelling, and who was in high spirits, declared the place was nate and clane, but the floor might be slippery, though no ways damp, but quite the contrary, which was remarkable.

The morning after his arrival, O'Donnel's first intention was to seek out the residence of Lady Florence Grandville. He had no interest in renewing his acquaintance with any other of his quondam guests; for with the exception of him, who was no more, he considered them as mere people of the world, disciples of that doctrine whose wisdom is to make the most of the present. In the memory of such he well knew absentees have no place: the few who contribute to their immediate amusement, or supply their actual want, make up to them the whole sum of society; and even those few, adopted rather than chosen, tolerated oftener rather than preferred, occupy attention but for the existing moment; and then, as chance or interest decides, pass on, like the little circle which preceded them, to make room for others, who in succession amuse, and are forgotten like themselves. - O'Donnel knew enough of life to feel that with such persons a permanent connection was not to be expected; and that fortune, rank, and consideration, could alone give body to a floating prepossession, or durability to fugitive esteem. Too proud to seek, where he was certain he should not be sought, he confined his researches in the Red Book to the residence of Commodore Grandville; upon this point, however, he obtained no information from its pages. The house of his brother, Earl Grandville, he found was in Portman-Square, and thither he directed his steps. As he was proceeding along Bond-Street, he heard his name loudly pronounced, and turning round, perceived a footman running after him, and still calling him by his name. He stopped, till the man, bustling through the crowd, could come up to him and deliver his message; which was, that his lady, Lady Singleton, begged to speak with him.

O'Donnel followed the man, and perceived Lady Singleton's head stretched out of her carriage window, at a considerable distance. "Colonel O'Donnel," she exclaimed, as he approached, "I am quite rejoiced to meet you here. How long have you been in town? Why did you not call on me? Do you know I have sent you three letters successively, these three last days, begging you would come over as quickly as possible." "Indeed," said O'Donnel, involuntarily gratified by the unexpected cordiality of her manner, and astonished at the nature of her communication; "three letters to me, Madam!" "I have a great deal to say to you," she continued eagerly. "Here, John, open the door. Pray come into my carriage, Colonel, for a few minutes."

O'Donnel prepared to obey; but the thing was impossible. The vis-a-vis was so heaped up with books, papers, parchments, pattern, new music, and old china, that not only O'Donnel could not get in, but a quanitity of the light freighting fell out. "What a bore!" said Lady Singleton. "Take care, John, of that piece of silk; pick up Davy's Researches. There is Lady Llanberis's femme-ornée entirely spoiled - Oh heavens! the Dresden cup! and poor Winter's M.S. ballet!"

O'Donnel and the footman had by degrees reinstated all these valuable and inconguous articles; and her Ladyship, satisfied of their safety, again addressed the former, with an air of confidence and mystery. "I must see you," she said, "immediately. I have something to communicate which cannot fail to gratify and interest you. There is a person extremely anxious about you, a distinguished person."

"About me!" interrupted O'Donnel, eagerly, hoping that he had come at clue of his mysterious benefaction. "I can tell you nothing now," she continued; "for here is the shopman with my lace. I am, as usual, accablèe with business. But will you dine with me to-day in Baker-Street? No, not to-day. By the bye, we all meet this evening at my brother's to sign the marriage articles. To-morrow then - but to-morrow Horatia is to be married. However, you may breakfast with me to-morrow before the fuss begins: we don't go to St. George's till eleven." - O'Donnel accepted the invitation, and the next moment, perceiving her Ladyship deep in all the treasures of Mecklin and Valenciennes, he made his bow, and retired from the carriage, resolved to postpone his enquiries after Lady Florence, till he heard more of the distinguished person who was so deeply interested for him. Aware, however, of the inconsequence of Lady Singleton's character, he resolved not to entrust her with a confidence which she had not the delicacy to estimate. It was not his own secret, but that of another which he held in keeping; and Lady Singleton was perhaps the last person in the world to whom such a trust should be confided. He remembered "the discretion" recommended, and felt no inclination to swerve from the counsel.

The next morning he was punctual to his appointment, and found her Ladyship in her dressing-room, as he had found her in her carriage, encompassed by all the insignia of the bustling office which she had assigned to herself in the world. Lady Singleton was no longer the personage she had been: she was no longer upheld by the influence of twenty thousand per annum, by the respectability of her late inestimable husband, nor by what in London tells more than all, the size and situation of her house. She had lost her hotel with its court, and porte-cocher, and lived in a comparatively small house in Baker-Street. Her character had also undergone some modification, as well as her state. Her self-importance was diminished. But though in heself she had very limited materials to work upon, her wonted restlessness and inherent tendency to dictation still found vent, and was officiously busied for others. She made good matches; broke off bad ones; directed the fêtes she could no longer give, and made lists for assemblies she could no longer hold. Still preserving the bon odeur of her former fashion, she was consulted as counsel, or accepted as umpire, in contests between those rival follies which so often wage mutual and unrelenting war amongst the great. She was the oracle likewise of all those who were not, could not, and yet would be great; and was assiduously cultivated by the nouveaux nobles and the nouveaux riches. She gave the tasteful direction of fashion to the innumerable fopperies in which new-gotten wealth sports away the burthen of its superfluity. There was one person, however, to whom she was at this moment exclusively devoted, whose rank, fashion, and opulence, gave consequence to the connection, and whose character and pursuits afforded ample materials for her "strenuous idleness" to act upon. This person was Adelaide, Countess of Llanberis.

"Well, Colonel," said Lady Singleton, extending her hand to him as he entered; "here you find me, as usual, sur le grand trottoir, in the service of my friends. You do not know that I have been your proneuse en titre since we parted: I have indeed, and to some purpose too. I have not forgotten L'ame Paladin, as Lady Florence used to call you."

"Where is Lady Florence?" eagerly interrupted O'Donnel.

"Oh, poor Lady Florence! you have not heard then? However, you have no loss: she could be of no use to you in London. They had a wretched twopenny house, and lived entirely among their own knot. The Grandvilles are poor as poor can be. Still, however, she was good ton; but there is an end of her. She had twins - Only think of Lady Florence having twins! She lost her health after a bad confinement, and with it her beauty - and you know she had nothing else - she is ordered to the Madeiras, as her last hope, where the Admiral (for he is now an admiral) is stationed. There they have been these twelve months, and there they are likely to remain, as my daughter Vandaleur tells me, who heard from her friend Lady Florence last week."

"Your daughter Vandaleur!" repeated O'Donnel, endeavouring to recollect the members of the group, of whom few had made any great impression upon his memory.

"Then you did not hear that my daughter Caroline had married Mr. Vandaleur? You know he could not really follow his friend Lady Florence to the Madeiras; not that he is less devoted. But exclusively of the necessity of observing the decencies, it could not be expected that a man whose habits are made up to London life would expatriate himself out of sentiment. Au reste, he lived in the same set with my family, and you know men like to marry in their own set; and so cela va sans dire! It is a good match, but not so good as Horatia's, which I call my match; for Mr. Henshaw is one of the most rising young men of the day, and heir to the richest commoner in England. Of course, you read his maiden speech. I have had every thing my own way, from the bridal veil to the jointure. Indeed, I had no one to act for me; for a melancholy change has taken place in my family and circumstances since I saw you, Colonel O'Donnel, which of course you heard."

She paused and sighed, and after a silence of some minutes, which O'Donnel, absorbed in feelings of unaffected regret, did not interrupt, she again resumed:

"My step-son is gone to the Greek Islands with Lord Boston, the son of my most particular friend; but apropos, of this friend, for we have not a moment to lose. There is, as I mentioned to you, a very distinguished person, very much interested for you indeed: and not to faire valoir my little services, I must confess it was I who first mentioned you to her; and that, too, in a manner calculated to make the impressions she had received in your favour lasting; for Je connois ma femme! She expects you at her villa, to which she has particularly invited you. Her invitation is now on its way to Lough Swilly; but it shall be repeated immediately, in due form, as I shall write this day to inform her of your arrival in London. I should not be so anxious to bring about this acquaintance, but that I know, in the end, you will be both mutually obliged to me. She has a powerful interest, great influence; and whatever may be your views (for I suppose you have done nothing yet), she cannot fail to forward them, if her prevention in your favour continues; and this will depend on yourself. Your talents and accomplishments are just the sort of thing to catch her. Indeed, from my description of you, and all that sort of thing, she is already quite eprise, on ne le peut plus. I promised her, when I thought you in Ireland, that you would come over, and spend the Christmas holidays at her "palais d'Alcine," for such her villa literally is. Now that you are here, there can be no question about it, for you are not aware how much she is your friend."

"And who, Madam," said O'Donnel, at last getting an opportunity to ask the question, as her Ladyship paused for breath, "who is this unknown, but propitious deity? Under what name is she to be invoked and thanked?"

"Why, the person in question," said Lady Singleton, importantly, "is no other than Adelaide, Countess of Llanberis, Baroness Boston of Llanberis in Wales, and of Boston Hall in Sommersetshire; and heiress in her own right, at the head of a Welsh principality, and an English estate, which would make the territory of a German prince. She holds five boroughs in her hands; is mistress of one of the largest hotels in London, and one of the most delightful villas in Surrey: add to this, that she is supreme bon-ton, a widow in the prime of life, with an only son, not yet of age, and that nothing can exceed her societies in London, except her Christmas and Easter parties at Longlands. There you are sure to find whatever is most recherchè. I must tell you, also, that Lady Llanberis is quite in our way...not the least English. She is a Welshwoman, with strong feelings and great animation of character; and, as we would say in France, toute petillante. She married, unhappily, at eighteen, was a widow at twenty, and has maintained her enviable independence for seventeen years, refusing the best matches in England...But I must be off; there are the carriages drawn up. I am obliged to accompany the bridal party to Shropshire, to Henshaw's uncle's; but I shall certainly meet you at Longlands in less than ten days; for you must go immediately, if you mean to go at all. Meantime leave me your address, for I shall enclose you the Countess's invitation the moment I hear from her. I am now sending her off a packet of music and china, and shall have an answer by express to-morrow; for she has as many expresses on the road as your Irish secretaries. Remember Longlands is neard the town of ----."

O'Donnel gave his card of address for a coffee-house in the neighborhood of his obscure lodging; and Lady Singleton, without affording him time or opportunity for reply or observation, rung for her woman, and bade him a friendly good-by; adding that all this time her daughters were waiting for her in the bride's dressing-room.

The character, which Lady Singleton had given O'Donnel of Lady Llanberis, appeared to him romantic, as was her predeliction in his favour, which evidently arose out of Lady Singleton's exaggerated descriptions; and now thoroughly convinced that Lady Florence, poor and absent, could not be his unknown benefactress, his suspicions turned upon this "distinguished person," whose immense wealth, caprice, expresses, and above all, sending six hundred miles to ask a stranger, unseen, unknown, to become an inmate of her family, seemed to warrant any unlikelihood, imagination could suggest; for he deemed it next to impossible, that he could have been invited to come such a distance, for any thing but his own benefit and advantage; and he had nearly decided on accepting an invitation, which, as he could not expect an answer from Germany for a fornight to come, would at least involve him in no difficulty, or lead to any inconvenience; but which would enable him to verify or disprove his doubts, and perhaps become the means of discharging an obligation, by which he was still resolved not to benefit. The length of his visit would of course be determined by circumstances; but as he paid it with reluctance, he calculated upon its being short. To one in his tone of mind and spirits, it could not fail to be wearisome and oppressive. The next evening he received the following letter from Lady Singleton.

Dear Colonel,

I enclose Lady Llanberis's answer and invitation. You will perceive our Countess is quite tête monté about you.

Your's,
a la hate et au revoir,

C. SINGLETON.

Letters inclosed.

To the Lady Viscountess Singleton.

My dear Lady S.

The arrival of our hero is really quite too good, too lucky an event. My secret is, however, I hope quite safe. At all events send him off without a moment's delay. I want to have him here before the house fills, that we may understand each other a little. Dispatch him, then, immediately, I beg - I COMMAND!

Adieu,

ADELAIDE LLANBERIS.

CARD.

The Countess of Llanberis requests the honour of Colonel O'Donnel's company, during the holidays, at Longlands.

Dec. 20th.

O'Donnel had scarcely run his eyes over these notes and card, when he wrote and dispatched the following billet.

To the Lady Viscountess Singleton.

Dear Madam,

I beg earnestly to know whether I am concerned in the "secret" alluded to by the Countess of Llanberis; entreating your Ladyship to suspend your judgment on the seeming impertinence of a curiosity, which is, however, justified by the feeling, out of which it arises.

I am, dear Madam,
Your Ladyship's most obliged,
and obedient servant,

O'DONNEL.

London, Dec. 20th.

In return to this note, he received a little twisted paper, containing the following answer.

Mais quelle bevue! to send you Lady L's letter. The fact is, I scarcely read it; but you ought not to have seen it. I entreat that you will not notice the secret, when you see the Countess. She will take her own time for explaining herself to you; suffice it to say, she did not ask you from Ireland for NOTHING. She has views in your favour, which - but I cannot tell you more without telling all. Only think of Mr. Henshaw forgetting the ring, and no one minding it till the ceremony was half over! Lady Llanberis will expet you without delay: pray don't disappoint her. She has the best heart in the world; but she is not used to disappointments.

Adieu, dear Sir.

C.S.

These notes fully justified O'Donnel's suspicion. It was this "best heart in the world," to which he was known only by his misfortunes, that he stood so largely indebted; and with something of the reluctance with which pride owns itself indebted, and with something of the eagerness with which self-love longs to behold the person who has done the honours by its feelings, he resolved to set off the next day for Longlands. When there, he determined to abide by Lady Singleton's advice, and suffer the generous delicacy of his unknown benefactress to take its own time for explanation. He thought it natural she should wish to know the object of her beneficence, and felt uncomfortable at the difficulty, which must arise in rejecting a gift, bestowed with such confidence in its acceptance. There was one term, however, he did not like in Lady Llanberis's note: it was the term, "our hero." He had all the susceptibility of ridicule which men feel who have lived in the great world, and know its influence. What exaggerated descriptions could Lady Singleton have made in his character, to obtain him what was in his own opinion so ridiculous a sobriquet. He trembled, lest, when forced upon the irksomeness of speaking of himself, he had let fall some idle word, out of which the busy fancy of his auditress had woven a tale of wonder. Conjecture, however, was idle. "Time and the hour" would unravel all. Having first, therefore, expended more upon the equipment of Mc. Rory, than his circumstances could afford, and commited Bran to the care of his landlord (who consented to take him en pension till his master's return), O'Donnel and his servant set off in a hack chaise for Longlands.

This magnificent villa was but fifteen miles from London. Although every object was involved in one hue, by a deep snow which had fallen on the preceding night, still it appeared an highly ornamented spot. It was near three o'clock in the afternoon, when he arrived; and he was evidently not the first guest, for his humble chaise was for some time prevented from drawing up to the door, till a carriage, which had arrived a few minutes before, was unloaded.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER VI.

WHEN the carriage, which had preceded O'Donnel's, had driven from under the porte-cocher, the folding doors were shut; for the porter supposed that the hack chaise, which followed, contained some of the servants, and would drive to the offices. Though several servants appeared at the windows of the anti-rooms on either side of the hall, yet the porter, when apprized of his mistake, had rung his bell repeatedly, before any footman or groom of the chambers appeared to receive a guest, who approached in so humble a vehicle.

The appearance of Mc. Rory, who was the first to leave the chaise, and who stood gazing with astonishment at the splendour of the hall, was not much calculated to do away the the impression, which the shabbiness of their equipage had made. With the little sum which O'Donnel had spared him, he had purchased a tawdry livery of some longpast sheriffalty, which was so much too small for its gigantic wearer, as to suspend his arms at a considerable distance from his sides.

O'Donnel had not perceived the outré appearance of his man, until he had taken off his great coat in the hall; but mortifying as it was, the circumstance was then irremediable.

Mc. Rory's strange figure instantly excited a titter amongst the servants, which the distinguished air and appearance of his master as instantly suppressed. O'Donnel gave in his name, which Mc. Rory (though previously instructed) had forgetten to do; and leaving his servant in the hands of the footman, was ushered by a groom of the chambers through a suite of rooms to the saloon, which terminated the range. It was a room of geat dimensions and magnificence. The servant announced him in a low voice, and O'Donnel walked to the head of the apartment, which he perceived was already occupied.

On two loungers, at either side of one of the fire-places, sat, or rather reclined, two gentlemen, evidently but just arriaved. The one with his hand in his waistcoat pocket, and his eyes half-closed, leaned back upon a pile of cushions; the other, a little more upright in his posture, though not less torpid in his air, sat in motionless contemplation of the seal of his own watch. To O'Donnel's slight bow, they returned an almost imperceptible inclination of the head; and though he remained standing for nearly ten minutes at the fire, they neither moved nor spoke.

O'Donnel, to relieve the awkwardness of his situation, then walked to another fire-place, and taking down a volume of Voltaire's plays, which lay upon the chimney-piece, soon lost sight of his silent and unsocial companions, in the sufferings of "Merope."

A silent quarter of an hour had thus elapsed, when the gentleman of the seal, addressing the other in a low voice, said:

"Charles, did you observe any thing near the third mile-stone?"

"A man hanging from a tree?" asked Charles, in the same tone and key.

The interrogator nodded assent, and Charles nodded an affirmative. Another ten minutes of silence ensued; and it is impossible to say how much longer it might have lasted, but for the interruption of sounds of distant laughter, which, though they made O'Donnel start and turn round, effected no change of position in either of the silent gentlemen.

A scarlet curtain was now suddenly drawn aside by a little page in a fantastic dress, who came from behind it, and held back a glass door, which disclosed a beautiful conservatory, "redolent of spring," amidst the snows of December. Along this conservatory glided a group on the very tiptoe of high spirits, preceded by one who appeared to be the leader of the party in the most literal sense of the word. It was a woman, who seemed to have just touched on that period of life, ou l'on n'est plus jolie, mais ou l'on est encore belle. Her figure was distinguished, her air decided; and there was in her countenance and laugh (for she was still laughing when she entered the saloon) an exuberance of spirits, beyond what habitual cheerfulness, or even casual gaiety, bestows.

Without observing O'Donnel, who stood parallel with the door of the conservatory, she advanced to the gentlemen at the head of the room, and giving her hand to the knight of the seal, who but half rose to meet her, exclaimed:

"Good Heavens, Duke! who would have thought of finding you here? Why this is really too good! I did not expect you these ten days. - Lord Charles, you never wrote me a syllable of this." As she spoke, she put her hand into that of the other silent gentleman, with a little air of intelligence, which spoke much more than her address to him conveyed.

"I thought," she continued, "you could not possibly get off that Lady Loton's invitation, and her plays, and all the rest of her set-out."

"It was not easy," said Lord Charles; "but my brother at last decided upon not going to her, and came to you by preference."

"This is all de mieux en mieux," said Lady Llanberis (for she it was), with the most lively satisfaction in her countenance. "People imagine it is easy to get good society in their villas; it happens to be just the contrary, especially good men; and this, perhaps Lady Loton will find, notwithstanding her French plays - but, oh! I wish you had come a little sooner: we have been really quite amused this morning." While her Ladyship went on, the rest of the party, who knew the Duke and Lord Charles, made their bows and nods; and those who did not know them, grouped round the fire. "We are just returned from the ferme ornée," she continued, "where we had quite a scena between my Scotch steward and Mr. Dexter. You must know Mr. Dexter, Duke; he has asked me for a letter of introduction to your Grace, which I mean to give him. - You will like him most amazingly, I promise you: he was introduced to me by Lady Singleton. He is passionately fond of agricultural pursuits, and brought me a letter from her to permit him to visit my ferme ornée: well, he wanted to try a mode of fattening turkeys here, which he has effected with great success at the late Mr. Glentworth's place in Ireland; and which is by cramming them with pebbles. We all went with him to be present at the experiment, and out of two turkeys, only one was choaked. - But so bored a person as poor Mc. Farlane! he stood by, absolutely writhing in agony for the fate of his turkeys, till unable any longer to suppress his emotion, he burst out in such a tirade of Scotch invective! oh! he is worth any thing! his accent alone is worth his wages; nothing can be more ridiculously entertaining. - I shall certainly raise his salary next year, and then, Mr. Dexter - by the bye, Miss Carlisle, what has become of Mr. Dexter?"

"Why, don't you remember," replied the young lady, laughing, "that you sent him for some sort of patent cork, he recommended for shuttlecocks: he will be frozen to death, poor man, on the top of that horrible stage, Lady Llanberis."

"Poor man! so he will," returned Lady Llanberis: "but it was his own fault; he was in such a hurry to deliver his letter of introduction to Lord N. which I gave him; for he wants something in the Treasury, I don't know what; and when the Treasury is in question, Lord N. is the person beyond every one. - but, good heavens!" exclaimed her Ladyship in a tone of amazement, to Lord Charles: "who is that very magnificent looking person, at the lower fire-place?"

"Don't know at all," replied Lord Charles, coldly.

"Not know! Was he here before you?"

"I rather think not."

"And was he not announced; and did not you hear his name?"

"Not exactly. I believe it was a Major something, or a Colonel somebody - Major O'Flaherty, perhaps; for it was an O, and sounded Irish."

"O'Donnel?" said her Ladyship, eagerly.

"Possibly," replied his Lordship, laguidly, and sunk again on his cushions; while Lady Llanberis bounded forward to welcome her unknown guest. With equal ease, though not equal eagerness, Colonel O'Donnel advanced to meet her Ladyship.

"I am afraid," he said, with a smile, "that I am reduced to the awkward necessity of announcing myself to the Countess of Llanberis."

"No, no," she interrupted: "there is no necessity. You are," she added, throwing her eyes rapidly over him, "you are not to be mistaken, Colonel O'Donnel."

O'Donnel bowed, and her Ladyship seating herself on a sofa near the fire-place where he stood, motioned to him to take a seat beside her, and began a conversation with him with all the ease of familiar acquaintance. The group at the other fire-place raised their eyeglasses, directed their glances to the stranger, and, after a few vague enquiries of "who is he?" "does any one know him?" they turned away their eyes, and resumed the topics of conversation, which their curiosity about the stranger had for a moment interrupted.

Meantime, Lady Llanberis had run over a variety of subjects with astonishing rapidity, which Colonel O'Donnel endeavoured to follow, without being able to join; she asked several questions about his romantic retreat in Ireland; talked of Milesian chiefs and heroes; of the Emperor of Germany and the late Queen of France; of Irish mountains and foreign courts; of Voltaire's little theatre at Ferney, and the wonderful bridge of Carrick-a-rede; of her obligation to Lady Singleton for presenting so desirable an acquision to her circle of friends, and of his kindness in so readily accepting her invitation. She then, failing to prevail on him to take some refreshment in the adjoining coffee-room, proposed that they should walk on the terrace, which skirted the back of the house, from whence the view at sun-set was splendidly fine; and rung for her page to bring her snow shoes.

"I know," she continued, "you are a worshipper of the picturesque: - I hear there is nothing so beautiful as your descriptions; and I expect, after having seen Longlands with you, that I shall have a much better opinion of it; for, I am told, you give interest to the most trifling object by your mode of detailing it; but, as Lady Singleton says, that is a gift from Heaven. I really long, Colonel O'Donnel, to hear some of your beautiful Irish stories. I love stories beyond every thing, and I hear your are a raconteur of the first order." To all this, her guest had only an opportunity to bow or smile, yet, pleased with an empressement so flatteringly in his favour, struck by the seeming freshness of character, which seemed but too romantic for the circumstances of its owner, he forgave the incoherence, the whim, and idle curiosity, which accompanied them. While her Ladyship was still talking, in expectation of the snow shoes, a gentleman advanced from the group at the further end of the room, and in passing her, threw a fine, rather than a gentlemanlike figure, into the most extraordinary pantomimic contortions.

Lady Llanberis burst into an immoderate fit of laughing: "Go, Mon Arlequin," she cried: "you are too ridiculous." Mon Arlequin now twisted his head upon his shoulders, with a celerity of rotation not inferior to that of Grimaldi himself; and, affecting to make a vaulting leap, jumped through the door, and disappeared. Lady Llanberis observed, still laughing: "I suppose you know who that is, Colonel O'Donnel?"

"No, indeed, Madam," said O'Donnel, unable also to repress a laugh: "I have not that pleasure."

"Indeed! I thought every body knew him; why that is the celebrated green parrot."

O'Donnel opened his eyes.

"Yes," continued her Ladyship, seriously: "that is the famous Mr. Frederick Carlisle, who made the fortune of my masquerade, and of his own reputation, last winter, in the character of a green parrot. Nobody had ever heard of the Carlisles: they were complete mauvaise ton, or rather no ton at all; till Lady Singleton, who picks up all sorts of odd people, met them at a Lady Mayoress's assembly, where the two Mr. and three Miss Carlisles made the whole frais of the night. The Mr. Carlisles did a number of comical tricks, and danced a pas de deux upon stilts, and Miss Carlisle turned a wax candle into a city procession, making such astonishing likenesses of the Mayor and Sheriffs in a few minutes, that models were taken from them the next day, I am told, by Bacon. Then, the other Misses waltzed and sung glees with their brother; and, in short, there was nothing so good, as Lady Singleton told me; so I had them all at my masquerade; the girls played, sung, and danced, as Savoyards; Mr. Carlisle went first as an Hessian boot; and then imitated a knife-grinder's wheel, till all the teeth in the room were on an edge; but Mr. Frederick Carlisle completely carried the night. Since that, the whole family are quite recherché; they make every thing go off well; and if they refused to come to me, I should certainly shut up my house. - There is a tiresome old mother, who always insists upon being asked with them, and that is a bore; but it is always the case, whenever you pick up a genius, or something amazingly amusing, you are sure to have the clog of a vulgar father, a quizzical mother, or something of that sort; but the fact is, every thing has its price, and if one must be amused, one must pay for it, that's all."

As her Ladyship concluded this speech, a tall, pale, shadowy looking young man, with his mouth and eyes puckering into a look of thoughtfulness, and a pair of black-rimmed spectacles raised above his eye-brows, entered the room, and laid at Lady Llaberis's feet a large book, bound in green velvet, applying to the act, the worn-out French anecdote of the court wit to his queen: "L'uni-vers est a vos pieds."*

[*A bad French pun - the queen was sitting as the edge of a bowling green, uni-verd.]

"Is that your own, Mr. Mussen?" asked her Ladyship: "it is very pretty. Well, have you written quanitites of pretty things in my album?" turning over the leaves carelessly.

"No, Madam," he replied, with an air of pendantry: "Queen Mab hath not been with me; the muses have turned jilts; Pegasus become restive; and the waters of Helicon muddy as a London fountain."

"O, by the bye, Mr. Mussen," said her Ladyship, yawning: "do repeat your impromptû on Frederick Carlisle, for Colonel O'Donnel. - Colonel, I beg to present Mr. Mussen to you." The gentlemen bowed.

"Pray excuse me, Lady Llanberis. I never could repeat from memory any thing I either said or wrote; besides, it was severe, and I wish the thing to be forgotten."

"Not at all," said Lady Llanberis, yawning again with an increasing languor, as if she had exhausted her vitality: "you know he likes to be talked of, well or ill. I have been just telling Colonel O'Donnel, what an amazingly clever person he is. Don't you think so, Mr. Mussen?"

"Why, Mr. Frederick Carlisle has his talents, Madam," replied Mr. Mussen: "he has what GALL names the Organ of Pantomime in great perfection."

"Organ of Pantomime!" repeated Lady Llanberis, reviving by the force of her own laugh: "oh, how good! I must read Gall; you must write to town for me for Gall, Mr. Mussen; you must indeed; - is he a poet?"

"On the contrary, Madam, he is a German physiologist. I believe his system is the most ingenious thing in the world, and I think we have now pretty substantial grounds for believing that there is an organ in the brain, for every affection of the mind, for every act of volition, from the whipping of a top to the writing of an epic."

"I must have that book by return post, Mr. Mussen; I must, indeed. Sit down immediately and write for a set; nay, you may as well write for two or three sets, one for each of the rooms - those are just the kind of books one should have lying about, they are so very amusing."

"I will obey your Ladyship this moment," returned Mr. Mussen; "but I must first give this little volume of Rousseau to Lady Mary Savill, which she begged me to bring her."

"Well, there she is at the other fire-place," said Lady Llanberis; and as he moved away, she observed: - "That is an amazingly tiresome young man. At first I thought him amusing enough, but he hangs so on hands after a little. He is a protegée of Lady Mary Savill's, who is at the head of all the bas-bleus in town. - There, that is Lady Mary, that lady netting, who looks so triste, but who has no reason in the world for it, only that she likes a little misery. The Dowager Duchess of Belmont, a great friend of mine, and out and out the most brilliant person I ever knew, says Lady Mary always puts her in mind of the French actress, Du-mesnil's speech: 'Ah! c'etoit des beaux jours; J'etois bien malheureuse alors.' However, Lady Mary is a very clever person, and nearly connected with the present Duke of Belmont, whom I believe you found here on your arrival, with his brother, Lord Charles Savill; and, as I happen to live particularly with that family, she is often with me: but come, I'll present you to them all."

Lady Llanberis then arose and led the way, accompanied by her new guest, and followed by the dwarf page and the snow shoes.

Colonel O'Donnel was now introduced in form to the Duke of Belmont and Lord Charles Savill, General and Lady Mary Savill, Mrs. Carlisle, her eldest son, and three daughters, a Sir Gilbert Curzon, and a Mr. Augustine Wharton: the latter gentleman was so like, and yes so unlike, Lord Charles Savill, that is was quite a puzzle to discover where the similitude or the dissimilitude existed. He was younger by some years, and yet he had his Lordship's air of languid gravity and cold reserve; he was lower by a foot, and yet he had his Lordship's dignified elevation of carriage; while his dress, even to the fold of his cravat, was a fac-similie of Lord Charles's. He was, however, no relation to the House of Savill: he was merely Lord Charles's double, whom he considered as the mirror of fashion, the standard of bon ton,

"The glass, indeed, in which each noble youth
Should dress himself."

As soon as Lord Charles left the room, which he did almost immediately on being presented to O'Donnel, this "shadow of a shade" arose also from his pile of cushions, and with the self-same step and stride, followed his prototype. After the bow of introduction was over, the group fell into their previous positions. Old Mrs. Carlisle was trying to keep the Duke awake, by an enumeration of her daughters' accomplishments, and the pains she had taken with their education. Lady Mary sat netting a purse in her hair, while Mr. Mussen read to her in a low murmur the Pygmalion of Rousseau. She threw her eye, however, occasionally on the General, who sat flirting with the eldest Miss Carlisle, who, as well as her sisters, was giving the attention of her eyes of Colonel O'Donnel: and Sir Gilbert Curzon was playing tetotum by himself, at a spider table, and winning every game with an exclamation of triumph of - "Well done, egad! A, for all," every turn.

Lady Llanberis, who was beginning to yawn, suddenly roused on perceiving the book with Colonel O'Donnel had inadvertantly carried with him from the other chimney-piece.

"What have you gotten there?" she asked.

"I have just opened the Merope," he replied.

"Voltaire's Merope!" said Lady Llanberis, with the most pleasurable surprize marked in her countenance. "You admire then Voltaire's tragedies?"

"Some of them: at least, I infinitely prefer him as a dramatist to any other French writer, as being less cold, less declamatory, and - "

"You do," interrupted Lady Llanberis, smiling: "how very extraordinary!"

"I am afraid then," said O'Donnel, "my preference is not sanctioned by your Ladyship's opinion."

"On the contrary; I quite idolize the tragedies of Voltaire; there is nothing like them. Now pray, Colonel O'Donnel, tell me which of his pieces you prefer."

"It is so long since I looked over any of them, Madam, that I am at a loss how to offer an opinion; but as well as I recollect, I preferred Mahomet for its strength, and Merope for its situations: but by far the finest acting play of all is, what the French called la Tragedie Chretienne, Zaire.",

"Zaire!" repeated Lady Llanberis, in a tone of extasy; "you really prefer Zaire? Good heavens, how extraordinary!"

All her Ladyship's first brilliant flow of spirits now returned.

"Colonel, get me a chair, and another for yourself, and let us talk over this subject. How very odd!"

O'Donnel obeyed, wondering in what the oddity of his opinion consisted, which evidently had her approbation; yet extremely reluctant to renew a conversation which he conceived would lead to the common places of verbal criticism, upon works and subjects long worn out, which he considered as the very worst taste, and fit only for the insipid discussions of blue stocking ladies and literary young gentlemen.

"So," said Lady Llanberis, seating herself, and drawing the chair she intended for O'Donnel close to her own, and towards the fire-guard - "so you prefer Zaire, Colonel O'Donnel."

"Not perhaps critically," said O'Donnel, "but sentimentally, or rather by association. Many years are gone since I saw it acted at Paris. I was then at an age to be pleased with every thing, and most of all with such high wrought struggles between feeling and principle, love and religion, as are exhibited in the tender character of Zaire. I was enchanted with the overstrained sentiment of

"Je me croirois hai d'être aimè foiblement;"

and looked down upon every thing less energetic than

"Je VEUX EXCES vous aimer et vous plaire."

"A note for your Ladyship," interrupted a groom of the chambers.

"No, Madam," said O'Donnel, laughing. "I believe I have just stopped where I ought."

"On the contrary, you have no idea how interesting, how peculiarly delightful - "

The page now advanced and said:

"Your Ladyship's snow shoes."

"Snow shoes!" she replied angrily. "I don't want snow shoes, I am frozen; take them away and bring that fur basket. So, Colonel, La tendre Zaire is your favourite; and le grand Orosmane - "

"The footman waits for your Ladyship's answer to the note," said the man.

"What footman? Whose note?" said Lady Llanberis. "There never were such tiresome servants! I have no note."

"Dear," said Miss Carlisle; "you have torn it to pieces, Lady Llanberis."

"Well then, why will people send their notes so mal apropos."

"Who is it from, Saunders?"

"From the Lodge, my Lady; from Mrs. St. Leger."

"Oh, I thought so," said Lady Llanberis; "that woman has such a rage for note writing. Well, say I am busy, I am engaged. - I'll send an answer; there, go."

The servant retired.

"I thought," said Lady Mary, who had advanced upon hearing the last quotation from Voltaire: "I thought Mrs. St. Leger was a great favourite; you talked of nothing else last winter."

"Yes, last winter, Lady Mary; but one cannot really go on admiring and talking of the same person, winter after winter; besides, all that sort of thing depends upon the set you live in. In the winter, and in the country, Mrs. Leger was all very well, but when I returned to town in the spring, it was quite another thing. It is impossible to get at any one in London. You know my affection for my aunt Selbourne; it amounts to a positive passion; yet though we live within two streets, I never could contrive to see her during the whole of last season. She lives among a description of persons, with whom it is impossible to get on."

"I know very little of Mrs. St. Leger," said Lady Mary, "but I think her interesting. She is very unhappy," added Lady Mary with a sigh, "in her married life, and this vein of sadness runs through all her tales: there is an exquisite pathos in all she writes: do you not think so, Mr. Mussen?"

Mr. Mussen, who never spoke but "in quaint and courtly phrase," and who, though but a blockhead by nature, was a coxcomb and a pedant by assumation, was marshalling his critical forces for an answer, when Lady Llanberis exclaimed in her usual quick way: -

"I think her still a very charming writer, Lady Mary, if you mean that; and I have indeed a very high opinion of her taste and discrimination. Last winter, when I was so low, at the time of your sister-in-law's death, Duke, poor Lady Charles, I was going to give up the world, and I entrusted Mrs. St. Leger to make out a list of particular friends for me, with whom I meant to live exclusively. I left it all to her; but you know I did return to the world, and the list went for nothing. However, I'll ask her here, Lady Mary, if you like; she only lives at the end of the park. Stay, my page shall write to her."

She beckoned to the page, a French lad of the most diminitive size, with a face, in spite of ugliness, full of intelligence. He was now holding the fur basket, as he before held the snow shoes.

"Mon main," said her Ladyship, "va-t-en m'ecrite le plus joli billet du monde a Mad. St. Leger, et pries la de nous donner sa societé."

The dwarf, with a familiar grin, flew to obey her orders, and to write "le plus joli billet du monde," upon any subject it pleased Heaven.

"Oh, say, mon main, don't trouble yourself. Lady Mary, we will walk to her cottage some day and ask her. She likes people of fashion to visit her cottage. There, Florio, you may go. Did you ever see such a little monster," she continued, looking after him with a smile of admiration: "he is such a treasure. I have been teized to death with pages: they would all grow so tall, and just as one has broken them in."

"I think, however," said the General, "your La'ship has nothing to fear from the aspiring views of that young gentleman, nor Mrs. St. Leger from the charms of her correspondent."

"Is Mrs. St. Leger," asked the Duke, gradually rousing from his stupor by the excitement of reiterated pinches of snuff - "is Mrs. St. Leger the woman that writes the books?"

"Yes," said Lady Mary: "your Grace must have read her Tales of Sorrow, her Tears of Sensibility, and Luxury of Woe."

"No," replied his Grace: "I make it a rule never to read any thing which can affect me. I dare say she is a very larmoyante personage. Lady Llanberis, an't she?"

"On the contrary, she is extremely amusing, and tells very good stories. I think you will like her of all things, Duke."

"Does she tell as good stories as the Duchess?" asked Mr. Carlisle.

"Good heavens! no; there is nothing, there never was nor could be any thing like the Duchess."

"Of course you mean THE Duchess par excellence," said the General; "the Duchess Dowager of Belmont."

Lady Mary and Mr. Mussen sneered.

"To be sure," said Lady Llanberis, "there is no such creature. I intended to surprize you all, but truth must out: she comes here to-day."

A pretty general exclamation of pleasure followed this intelligence. Mr. Carlisle spoke of her in raptures, and his sister said she was a talented creature. Lady Mary and her tall thin sentimental looking friend were silent, and exchanged looks.

"I wonder she is not arrived," sad Lady Llanberis impatiently: "pray, General, step into the anti-room, and send one of the grooms of the chambers to the porter, to know if any of her people are come."

At that moment a servant entered, and uttered something in a low voice to Lady Llanberis, who returned:

"Oh, very well: I'll go directly." She then in a half whisper said to the Duke: "Lord Charles is in my dressing-room; will you join us?"

The Duke nodded his head. Lady Llanberis then left the room, and the circle broke up.

O'Donnel, happy to be released, and more fatigued than amused by all that had passed, retired to the apartment prepared for him, under the guidance of one the servants; and then throwing himself into a chaise-longue, he endeavoured to form some opinion of Lady Llanberis's character, from the little he had seen of her. He well knew that it was the natural tendency of power, in whatever form it came, to swell the human heart; but its effects in her seemed only to have unbridled the imagination. It was difficult to form an estimate of her character on so short an acquaintance, but she appeared to him to be a person possessing great natural vivacity; feeling quickly, acting promptly, and deciding inconsiderately. Her approbation of such a character as Mr. Dexter, and other little instances of false judgement and idle whim, he considered as vices common to her class, when undistinguished by natural superiority of character or education; they were rather generic than individual, and were by no means incompatible with that generous prodigality which had lavished its bounty on a stranger at the mere representation of another. Her enthusiasm about Voltaire he did not at all understand, neither did he enter into her regret for the loss of Lady Charles Savill, when by Lord Charles's summons to her dressing-room, he appeared to be her favoured lover: but least of all did he understand her inviting himself, at a distance of six hundred miles, to her house, after having already done so much in his favour. What further benefit did this warm-hearted and prodigal woman mean to confer upon one, who had no claims upon the generous interest which she took in his fate? If she had interest to restore him to his rank in the English service, it would be romantic folly, little short of madness, to decline it; but her money, her pecuniary benefaction - on that subject he had no second opinion, and he resolved on carrying her letter and its contents, which he had brought from London, always about with him, for the purpose of being always ready to return it, whever the wished-for opportunity should occur.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER VII.

IN addition to those who already had made their appearance in the saloon, a few strangers took their place at the dinner-table, at which conversation circulated languidly, in murmurs neither general nor audible, save only on the part of Lady Llanberis: who talked chiefly to her Maitre d'Hotel, as he stood behind her chair, in terms of reproof or approbation of the several dishes which decked the table. The Duke, who sat on her right hand, and Lord Charles, who was on her left, commended or disapproved, as their opinions dictated. Before the second course was removed, the sound of carriage wheels passing the dining-room window caught Lady Llanberis's ear.

"It is the Duchess," she said, dropping her knife and fork; and she immediately sent one of the servants to know if it was, indeed, this ardently expected guest. The man returned with answer, that it was the French cook, going to town for the opera.

"How tiresome!" said Lady Llanberis: "poor Le Maitre's passion for the opera amounts absolutely to folly. Do you know, he might have had double the wages he gets from me, if he would have engaged with the Irish Lord-Lieutenant; but there is no opera at Dublin, and he refused. But I wonder what can detain the Duchess."

"I did not know you expected this new passion of your's," said Lord Charles, peevishly.

"Who - the Dowager? To be sure, you are quite right: she is my passion, I confess; there is nobody so amusing, nobody so brilliant. Is it not so, Duke?"

"She is very out of the way, I think; very eccentric. Don't you, Charles?"

"Eccentric enough," returned Lord Charles, with an equivocal smile, between superciliousness and irony, which was immediately repeated by the servile muscles of Mr. Wharton.

"A little too eccentric," said Lady Mary, with a contemptuous laugh, which was re-echoed by Mr. Mussen. Every symptom of irritation now exhibited itself on the countenance of Lady Llanberis, and her delightful smile was instantly overshadowed. She struggled a little with her peccant humour, and then with a laugh, more in anger than in gaiety, she said:

"Oh! you are jealous of her, Lady Mary; you know you are."

"Who, I, Lady Llanberis?" said Lady Mary, colouring deeply - "of her? of such a person as that?"

The General threw a fearful look at his wife, and affected to laugh.

"Oh! yes, you know you are," said Lady Llanberis, gaily: and now quite composed by the discomposure of her guest: "You know that is happens to be just now the fashion to admire such a person as that, and the General - "

"Les gens, les gens," said the Duke, looking round at the servants; and Lady Llanberis, which difficulty submitting to the prudent caution, added: "Well, I have done; but you may all say as you will: you men, at least, either are, or must be in love with her. She will be a personage with you all, yet, I promise you that."

"Elle l'est, le fut, ou le doit être, I suppose," said O'Donnel.

"Exactly," said Lady Llanberis. "Colonel O'Donnel, I'll take wine with you. Saunders, go to the porter, and enquire if any of the Duchess of Belmont's people are come. By the bye, Duke, I hear she has retained all your uncle's old establishment."

"Very possibly," returned the Duke. "We are not particularly interested in her arrangements," said Lord Charles, dryly.

The conversation was now changed by Sir Gilbert's giving an account of a riot at the opera, which every body had read in the "Morning Post," and before the servant had returned, the object of his enquiry was, for the present at least, forgotten.

When the ladies rose from the table, the noble hostess appointed Lord Charles to do the honours, and as she passed O'Donnel, who stood up to open the door, she said, with a gracious smile:

"I shall tell the Duchess of your prophetic quotation, you may depend upon it."

The gentlemen sat but a short time after the ladies; and though O'Donnel took no part in the conversation, which was at once cold, feeble, and desultory, he was happy to be released from a situation, in which, in every sense, he found himself a stranger. Accustomed to foreign manners, he disliked a mode of society which excluded that sex upon which the variety and contrast, which gives charms to all society depends. With woman there is always some point of sympathy to be found; but men, holding together in accidental societies, chiefly by general discussions, are repelled rather than attracted, by the display of opinion, which, from the varieties of habits, interest, and education, seldom tends to agreement. What, therefore, such conversations gain in strength they lose in enjoyment, even at the time when social pleasure is, or ought to be, the sole object of pursuit. With women, on the contrary, conversation rarely dwells upon abstractions; feelings the most gracious naturally arise, and insensibly animate the speakers, by an almost imperceptible play of the passions, imparting to discussion a charm, rather felt, perhaps, in its operation, than understood in its cause.

O'Donnel loved in the sex that heart which never lays by, that imagination which never reposes, and even that little vein of honest coquetry, which exists more or less in all, from the desire, almost innate in woman, of pleasing, and being pleased. As far as he could judge, he would not have chosen his friend, still less his mistress, from the circle he was going to join; but, after all, they were women; and the first view of their light draperies, as he entered the drawing-room, gave a cheering impulse to his spirits, which the coldness and insipidity of the party, he had left, had sunk to their lowest ebb.

Notwithstanding the little severities which had passed between Lady Llanberis and Lady Mary Savill, he found them amicably seated over a chess board; Lady Mary very philosophically sustaining a compleat defeat; Lady Llanberis in all the wildest intoxication of conquest. It was impossible to conceive spirits more raised, by a cause more trivial. Lady Mary refused to play any more; Lady Llanberis had declared she would play all night, and that all amusements in the world were reduced to nothing, when placed in comparison with chess.

"Come then, Colonel O'Donnel," she added, on his making some observation on her excellent play, "you shall convince me I am the best player in the world; for I dare say you are the next best, and I mean to beat you."

"I hope your Ladyship will pardon my firm resolution to disappoint you," said O'Donnel, taking Lady Mary's seat.

"I have an hereditary right to be a good player: there was even a tenure in my family held upon a game of chess,* the moves of which are only made once in a century."

[*See Miss Brook's relics of Irish poetry.]

"Oh, charming! delightful!" said Lady Llanberis, arranging her men with the greatest eagerness. "I expect every thing from this game. Now, do your worst; and do not act as Mr. Dexter does, play like an angel, till the game is nearly ended, and then let me win it, one cannot tell how. Not but I should infallibly beat him, at all events, but one would like a little play for it."

"Mr. Dexter, perhaps," said O'Donnel, "is like Voltaire's protegé, who made it a point to let the philosopher beat him at chess; for chess, like the tooth-ache, is too much for even philosophy itself. I mean Pere Adam, who, however, was not le premier des hommes."

"Who? Mr. Dexter," said Lady Llanberis, making her first move.

"I was speaking of Le Pere Adam," said O'Donnel drily.

The game went on now with great spirit on the part of Lady Llanberis, who exclaimed from time to time, "There is no such game, nothing like it. I shall certainly introduce chess-parties, regular chess-parties, in London - there, check again! you may as well give over, Colonel; you are beaten, or next to it; you are, you may depend on it."

O'Donnel was indeed playing with great carelessness; in the first instance, because he at once perceived her Ladyship's play was without plan or system, and might be overtaken, whenever he pleased; in the next, because while her Ladyship thought him pondering over a move, for the last five minutes, had been wholly ingrossed by another object.

It was fixed upon a person, a lady, who, unannounced and unperceived, had entered by the folding-doors at the extremity of the room, and gliding up to the further end, was received by a burst of pleasure, which marked her a most desirable acquisition to the group, now closely circled round her. In the mere act of thus passing up the room, there was nothing - the manner was every thing. It was that playful, stealing motion, at once childish and dramatic; it was the finger pressed upon the lip to solicit silence, from the only person in the circle whose eye observed her: it was that light, noiseless step, "a tatons," which became an accomplice in her attempt at surprising the unwary; it was, in a word, that mixture of feminine grace and infantine playfulness, which, charming in a child, would have made the fortune of an actress.

Of the face of this welcome intruder O'Donnel could not judge, for he had but a transient view of her profile, as she emerged from behind a screen at the back of Lady Llanberis's chair. The figure, however, was rather picturesque than fine, and seemed to borrow its chief charm from the attitude and motion into which it was thrown. A traveling Polish dress announced the stranger to be a fresh arrival. A sable cap, held a little forward to the right hand, left a head still more sable exposed to view.

"Allons, Colonel," said Lady Llanberis, impatient for his move, while meditating her own. "Your hereditary talent is deserting you fast. I perceive we are playing this game, as if it were for the tenure you mentioned."

"May I beg to ask your Ladyship," said O'Donnel, making a careless move, "who is that Lady who has just entered?"

"Lady! what lady? - there! check again - that? that is the Duchess - miserable, miserable! Is that your best play? Let me see - the Duchess of - What are you dreaming about? - the Duchess of Belmont."

"The lady you have so ardently expected. The veni, vidi, vici lady?" asked O'Donnel in a tone of astonishment.

"Yes, the same; there...so much for your Bishop," continued Lady Llanberis, wholly occupied by her game, and indifferent to all the ladies in the world.

O'Donnel, a little amused, and a good deal surprized, now gave himself up to his game, took piece after piece, beat his fair antagonist from right to left, recovered his ground, and in spite of the increasing irritability and peevish exclamations of Lady Llanberis, had nearly brought the game to an issue, when Miss Carlisle, running up to the table, said:

"Oh! Lady L. you are loosing every thing; the Duchess never was in such force; - she had been overturned, got into a public-house for shelter, and has made such a story out of it!"

Repeated laughter at the head of the room attested the veracity of this account; and Lady Llanberis, reduced to the last extremity, with only a piece and two pawns remaining, and now as much annoyed as before she had been elated; out of temper, and out of patience, arose from her seat:

"There," said she, "take the game, Colonel; it is not worth holding out," and away she flew with a newly awakened enthusiasm, while O'Donnel cried after her, laughing, "La dame prend la dame;" and convinced that Mr. Dexter and le bon Pere Adam were very sensible men, pushed away the board, threw himself upon a sofa near it, and contemplated the party at the further end of the room.

The Duchess was carelessly seated on the arm of a sofa; Lady Llanberis reclined on a tabouret at her feet; every body else stood in a circle; and though he could not hear what her Grace was saying, he perceived she spoke with great animation of gesture, and was listened to with great attention and applause.

Satisfied with this view, O'Donnel's thoughts turned on himself, and the contrast of his own actual state with the brighter destiny of these children of fortune and prosperity. Exiled by necessity, almost proscribed by restriction, without a home, without a friend, without even means of subsistence, beyond the hoped-for reward of services, yet to be performed in a cause unanimated by patriotism, in which no feeling was interested, no ambition roused. He knew that he had no place in the society upon which he now looked, but that which whim had accorded, or charity bestowed. He knew the place to which his birth, his talents, and character, entitled him: but did others acknowledge the claim which he could so proudly have supported, had he been put to the test? Oh no! - the poor, the disfranchized Irishman, the disbanded officer, in vain sought to support his flagging spirits with dreams of what had been. True, he was descended from the powerful and the great; allied to warriors and chiefs; the blood of princes ran in his veins; the spirit of the soldier and the gentleman guided his actions. It mattered not. What was, was felt. Poor, unknown, without rank, without consideration; without even those arts by which the sordid rise, without acquiescence or toleration for that weakness and vanity, which reward the hypocrisy of which itself is the dupe, he felt more than ever the desolation of his fate; and he regretted more than ever that he had been led into a society, from which he could expect neither similitude, sympathy, nor coincidence; and whose brilliancy served only to cast a browner shadow over the darkness of his own contrasted misfortunes.

He now wished he had intrusted his secret to Lady Singleton, and remained in the humble obscurity so suited to his circumstances. The wish, however, was vain; and he was still turning in his thoughts how he should lead Lady Llanberis to the subject which had placed him in this disagreeable situation, when accidentally turning his eyes towards her, he perceived her's fixed on him, as if he were at that moment the subject of her conversation with the Duchess. They had both withdrawn from the circle which had now broken up: some were at cards, others gone to the music-room, and some to the billiard-table. O'Donnel was upon the point of retreating to avoid this scrutiny; for the Duchess also seemed to direct her glance upon him; and her he wished particularly to avoid. All that had been said, for or against her, had alike disposed him neither to admire nor approve. To her partizans she seemed rather to be an object of caprice than of esteem; to her opponents, and they were members of her own family, she was rather a subject of contempt than dislike. These inferences, indeed, he felt were hastily drawn, from the very little he had heard of her; but whether just or false, he had no inclination to be known to a woman, whose rank and fashion promised only those light and tinsel qualities, with which his own morbid feelings and sickly view of things would so ill accord.

In the very act, however, of rising to depart from their gaze, the two ladies advanced towards him, arm in arm; but, contrary to his expectation, and much to his satisfaction, they passed him by, and left the room together. He had now a full and close view of the Duchess's face. He was satisfied that that face was not unknown to him; and notwithstanding the seeming impossibility, he was almost persuaded, almost certain, that the Duchess Dowager of Belmont, and the sullen, blunt Governess of Lady Singleton, were one and the same person. He resumed his seat in the most profound astonishment, still bordering on incredulity. He endeavoured to revive in his mind the faint impressions, made by a person, in whom he had seen nothing to admire, and who had excited no further interest than was natural to feel for one, who had expressed an anxiety for his safety, and perhaps eventually had preserved his life. But if the Duchess of Belmont and Miss O'Halloran were indeed the same, which still he doubted, he was ready to ascribe to the acquisition of rank, power, and fortune, more than he had ever before attributed to their influence. If it were Miss O'Halloran, how could Lady Singleton have remained silent on the wonderful metamorphosis of her daughters' governess: even the bustle of the wedding, and her eagerness in Lady Llanberis's service, did not satisfactorily account for the omission. Miss O'Halloran too a wit! Her slightest observation, "irrigè en bon-mot." - It was almost impossible.

While he was still lost in thought upon this miraculous, but still doubted transformation, Lady Llanberis returned to the room, and seated herself by him.

"By the bye," she said, "Colonel O'Donnel, I quite forgot that you must naturally have seen the Duchess of Belmont, when she was with Lady Singleton in Ireland."

O'Donnel, now confirmed in his suspicions, replied laughing: "And I dare say, Madam, her Grace has forgotten the circumstance also."

"No, no, indeed she has not, I assure you; and she meant to have presented herself to you; but her stock of spirits were quite run out, between her break-down on the road, and her little exertions since her arrival; for she has really been quite charming. I must get her to repeat to you her adventure at the Cabaret. Now, however, she is quite abattue. But so it is; we are all the slaves of nerves and spirits."

"And situation," added O'Donnel, amused at the idea of Miss O'Halloran's nervousness, whose image he had now before him, as he had seen her standing in her little red riding-hood on the shores of Glenarm.

"And of situation!" returned Lady Llanberis. "The Duchess will not come down again to-night, and I am going to sup with her in my dressing-room. There is certainly nobody like her. I have all my life preferred that sort of persons, who come from nobody knows where; they are so much more amusing than people of fashion, who are nothing else but people of fashion. The persons, of all others, I should have preferred knowing, were the first Catharine of Russia, the Polly Peachum Duchess of Bolton, and the tub-woman, who became grandmother to Queen Anne. Now the Duchess of Belmont, besides being one of this class, which is an immense thing in itself, is really a most extraordinary person, and has all sorts of talents: like yourself, she has the gift de raconter in great perfection; makes a good story out of nothing at all; and mimics in a manner which is nothing short of miraculous. Then you know her voice alone would faire fortune: that sort of a brogue which some of you Irish have, so soft and so caressante; the "ah! do," and the "ah! don't;" besides her laugh which first won the old Duke's heart, as she sat at the foot of her father's easel a mere child. But you know her story, I suppose."

"Not one word of it," said O'Donnel, now much amused, and not a little interested at her Ladyship's enumeration of the charms of her favourite friend. "But I am sure," he added, "I could not hear it more to the Duchess's advantage, than from one, so favourably disposed towards the subject as your Ladyship."

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER VIII.

"O! I assure you, Colonel, it is quite a little romance, and I wanted Mrs. St. Leger to make something of it, but she does not thing the Duchess has the least of the heroine about her; for in fact she is not sentimental. However, I don't think the Duchess of Bolton's story any thing like so extraordinary; for, after all, there is nothing so very surprizing in a duke's marrying an actress. Actresses are so very amusing, and have so many green-room anecdotes. - Well, then, for our heroine: Her father was an Irish artist, who went to study in Italy, O'Halloran; a man who lived very celebrated and died very poor. I am told he had all sorts of talents, wrote as well as he painted, and was extremely eccentric in all his modes of thinking; in a word, just a person to catch the late Duke of Belmont, who resided at Florence when O'Halloran came to settle there. Every body knows the Duke's character - gené by the forms and decencies of English society; loving every country better than his own; a virtuoso, a rouê, a very profligate and very agreeable creature. Well, he lived in Florence, en Prince, and was constantly surrounded by needy geniuses. At the head of these was O'Halloran. The Duke could not exist without him: and he made him his companion, without being either his patron or friend. O'Halloran's evenings were all passed in dissipation at his palace, and the Duke's mornings in virtú, at the painter's easel. The Duke came there at first for the sake of the father, and at last for the sake of the daughter, though old enough to be her grandpapa; for he was quite a second Marshall Richelieu; there never was such another superanuated debauché. Well, this daughter - she had all the talents, and almost all the eccentricity of her father; living entirely among clever men, and left to educate herself, as it pleased Heaven. She was at once the most naïve and clever little creature in the world. When the Duke first discovered her at the foot of her father's easel, she was a mere child, but amazingly droll and out of the way, and quite a thing to captivate the worn-out taste of a man, who was blasé sur tout; so he began to try the effect of his sexagenary charms on the heart of the naïve Lolotte (for that was her father's nom de caresse for her), and Lolotte, as she since told me, was charmed with the old beau's wit, humour, and pleasantry; for all that he had. - But to come to the catastrophe: after trifling at O'Halloran's easel for two or three years, where the daughter used to assist in fililng up parts of the father's pictures, the enamoured Duke found an opportunity of making his little proposal, and of offering her a carte-blanche, and a separate establishment, that should rival his old Duchess's, who was playing away the remnant of her life over a card-table in Bath. Lolotte neither took his offer en heroine, nor in good part; for neither won nor irritated, it only made her laugh, ready to die; and she gave the old Duke some good advice, which, if he had taken, she would not now have been Duchess of Belmont. But he did not take it. More in love than ever, from the obstacles he encountered, he persevered, he persecuted, he prayed, he threatened; and Lolotte was reduced to the necessity of confessing all to her father, from whom she had hitherto concealed it, from motives of solicitude and tenderness; for she had a sort of adoration of this eccentric father, which was quite extraordinary.

"Well, this Irish Apelles, a mere redhot O'Trigger in points of honour, and all that sort of feeling, turned the old enamorato out of his work-room, made a most frightful esclandre of the whole affair, and drew so ridiculous a caricature of the Duke, as a Silenus pursuing a nymph, that the Duke left Florence and returned to England; and in a year or two after, O'Halloran died in great distress, leaving his daughter quite unprovided for. Her talents, however, could not fail to insure her subsistence, and she entered into the family of Sir Harry Hewson (then Envoy at Florence), as a governess to his daughter. I am afraid she rather quizzed poor Lady Hewson, who happens to be irresistibly ridiculous; for they sent her off the moment she had done with their daughter; though quite destitute, in England; and she then fell to the share of Lady Singleton, with whom I dare say she was uncomfortable enough; for though Lady Singleton is an excellent and well-meaning woman, and happens at this moment to be the most in my confidence, of any one whatever, yet her little weakness (and who is without their little weakness), is to be the PERSONAGE in every thing; the beginning and end of all: so poor Lolotte's naïveté, and acuteness, and talents, went for nothing; and she was thrown twenty fathoms deep into the shade. Mr. Glentworth, who was a most worthy man - "

"He was, indeed," interrupted O'Donnel, emphatically, "a most superior man."

"Well, Colonel, this excellent Mr. Glentworth did much to soften the situation of the little gouvernante; and when he died, she would remain no longer in the family. Hating the line of life altogether, she began once more to cultivate her talents for painting, and set up as a portrait painter. Meantime the old Duke had lost his old Duchess, and for want of something else to do, placed himself at the head of the English cognoscenti, to whom he was the law and the prophet: for having given up originals, he now devoted his time exclusively to pictures, and was seen poking his head into every exhibition in London. In one of these he discovered a pendant to an unfinished picture of O'Halloran's, which he had in his collection, and which he greatly prized. He learned from the ciceroni of the place, that the picture had been partly done by O'Halloran, and finished by his daughter, who was then painting in London. This was quite a sensation for the old Duke. He purchased the picture, and sent to the fair artist to know if she would finish the companion to it, which he had in his gallery, offering a liberal sum for the price of her labour. Lolotte was too poor to refuse the offer, too prudent to feel any other sentiment than pity for the old disappointed Damon, and too devoted to her father's fame and memory, to suffer his work to fall into the hands of persons, who knew nothing of his peculiar style, or prima intenzione; she consented to finish the picture, and before it was finished, she was, Duchess of Belmont.

"Well, the event made a great noise for a week or ten days; and then the Duchess of Belmont went on, toute comme une autre. The Duke, however, had been a valetudinarian for some years, and she was little more than his nurse during the few months which he lived after their marriage; and either to vex his nephews, whom he hated, as men sometimes will hate their heirs, or to reward her attention to him, he left her every thing he possessed unintailed. She got through her widowhood with great decency; that is, she kept out of the bustle of last spring, and only saw a select society at home: but she is amazingly the fashion, and will be followed next season beyond every thing. She only threw off her weeds yesterday; and, according to a promise, made me long since, she has given me the prémices of her gay colours and intentions to-day. Besides, however, being extremely glad to have the pleasure of her company, I was anxious she should meet the Savill party, who have all rather set their faces against her; the Duke, because Lord Charles has a prejudice against her; and Lady Mary, because her noble blood rises against the plebeian alliance (for she is doubly connected with the Savills, in her own person and by marriage); but the true secret of her Ladyship's aversion is, that the Duchess has more wit than herself, though perhaps less reading; and still more, that the General is the least in the world in love with the Duchess; which, to do his liberal feelings justice, he is with whatever comes out last in the season. Now this is a kind of folly that I make a point to set my face against; for, as the Duchess says, 'When a woman completely finds a man out, to go on jealous by lustrums, from five, to ten, to fifteen, to twenty years, O then she should meet no quarter, for she deserves none.' However, I think I am pretty certain I shall bring Lord Charles over to the Duchess's side, though he is now the most inveterate; and then all the rest will follow of course, for he is the leader."

"And pray, Madam," said Colonel O'Donnel, extremely amused with this brief chronicle of her Grace's history, "how does the Duchess wear her new honours? Do they already cling gracefully to her, "without the aid of use?"

"O! very fair indeed," said Lady Llanberis; "a little odd now and then, and upon some occasions shews up a want of tact; perhaps on the whole is not quite posê enough for a woman of fashion; but all that will come in time, and the worst of it is - that it will come, and then she will be as dull and quiet as is she was born a Duchess, and not the least amusing."

"And how did Lady Singleton take this extraordinary event?" asked O'Donnel.

"Why she was bored to death by it; first, because she did not intriguer the thing herself; next, because the Duchess takes precedence of her; and above all, because she never discovered, during their acquaintance, that Miss O'Halloran was any thing but a Becky. Indeed, she persists still in throwing out some hints that the Duchess is the least in the world bête; and that people will find it out, sooner or later. Meantime she affects to patronize her; treats her with great condescension, gives her a hint what to do, or say in great societies, and tells people they must assist her in bringing forward her parvenu Duchess, her good Lolotte, who conducted herself with the most perfect propriety, when she was governess to her daughters, though fit for any thing but a governess, poor thing."

"Well, I confess," said O'Donnel, "I was almost as deficient in penetration with respect to her Grace's merits as Lady Singleton, during the short time I was accidentally thrown into her society."

"Very true," said Lady Llanberis: "she was with Lady Singleton in Ireland, when they had that delightful adventure in the mountains, and discovered your romantic retreat. You cannot imagine how struck she was when she saw you here. I am sure it brought her former uncomfortable situation to her mind."

"I am sorry," he returned, "I should form a link in a chain of such melancholy association."

"It is quite over," said the Countess, "and we have been laughing this hour back at Lady Mary. But pray tell me, what you thought of the future Duchess when she was Lady S-'s governess? Did you not think her pretty?"

"Scarcely," returned O'Donnel. "I thought her a Goody-two-Shoes looking person; for her figure, which was not a Sylph's, though the old Duke's might have been a Silenus, owed very little to her dress; and her face was so concealed by her deep bonnet, that I did not get a very perfect view of it. However, she was a true Isis, worthy the mysterious motto of 'I am what I am,' and reserving the elevation of her mystic veil for no hand but her own."

Here the entrance of the supper trays reminded Lady Llanberis of her assignation in the dressing-room, and she arose to go, when, with a sudden recollection, she turned back, and said to O'Donnel:

"Colonel O'Donnel, I have a great deal to say to you, that relates only to yourself: will you walk with me in the grounds to-morrow, after breakfast, and I will endeavour to keep myself disengaged?"

O'Donnel, on the very tiptoe of expectation by this speech, bowed his acceptance of the flattering proposal.

"But," continued the Countess, "tell me how long you can asuure me the pleasure of your company - remember, the longer the better. I have a particular reason for wishing that you will allow me to reckon on you for three weeks, or a month at least. Come," she continued, observing his hesitation, and with a smile full of irresistible persuasion, "you must, you shall, promise me. I have some views in your favour which cannot be realized before that time. Consider, three weeks 0 what are three weeks? three minutes."

"Passed here," returned O'Donnel, bowing: "but out of Alcina's Palace three weeks will go into the common account of time, and when duty calls for the reckoning - "

"Why the send her to me," she repliedm laughingly, "and I will settle with her; so remember, for three weeks at least, the gates of Alcina's Palace are shut on you."

And she glided gaily away, leaving O'Donnel charmed with her kind and cordial manner, and more than ever convinced that this powerful, thoughtless, and heart-whole woman, was indeed his concealed benefactress.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER IX.

THE next morning Colonel O'Donnel descended to breakfast, hoping to find his noble hostess, and to get an opportunity of reminding her of the promised walk; but a few only of the party were assembled, and the Countess was not among the number. Adjoining the breakfast-room was a kind of bar, where breakfast was prepared and served according to orders; and among the trays sent to different dressing-rooms, he perceived that one was carried by the Countess's page, and the other was sent to the Duchess of Belmont. Giving up all hope, therefore, of seeing Lady Llanberis for some time, O'Donnel breakfasted; and after a little conversation with General Savill, a good-humoured gentlemanly man, whose manners retained a tinge of the vieille-cour, he went to the book room, and had employed himself more than an hour in looking over some political pamphlets, when he caught the sounds of Lady Llanberis's shrill clear voice in the adjoining billiard-room.

To the billiard-room he immediately went, and found the whole party assembled. Lady Llanberis either did not notice his entrance, or was too much engrossed to mark that she did, for she was deeply, exclusively, engaged in taking a lesson in billiards from General Savill. All energy, all eagerness, her life seemed staked on the game, which Lord Charles, her opponent, was playing with the utmost languor and listlessness, smiling at her ardour, and amused by her anxiety; while every ball she pocketted was not only applauded loudly by herself, but followed by the echo of brava! from nearly all the rest of the company. The simple Sir Gilbert, who was playing cup and ball, betted desperately on her side against Mr. Carlisle; while, apart from the group assembled round the billiard-table, his listless length stretched on a Grecian scroll, and a book half open in his hand, lay the Duke of Belmont, talking, or rather listening to his Dowager aunt, who sat a little in advance before him, on a low tabouret drawing viewless figures on the carpet with the end of a billiard mace.

By the gradual brightening of his countenance, the Duke seemed to yield himself up to the pleasantry of her conversation; for she was talking with much animation, and he was listening with a smiling attention. There was in the look, position, and gesture of this metamorphosised person, such an alteration of gaiety and thoughtfulness, of deep reverie and spirited vivacity, that O'Donnel in vain sought for the former "Goody-two-Shoes," in the Sybil, the Pythoness, that now fascinated his gaze. He could understand that her figure, which was round and picquante, but not of the sylphid slightness on which drapery could be disposed with advantage, had lost by being clumsily muffled; and that her well-turned head had gained, by the absence of the dowdy bonnet, which had also shaded her fine eyes; yet still he found it difficult, even with the most scrupulous examination, to trace the unattractive Miss O'Halloran in the attractive Duchess of Belmont.

Her eyes and her smile were singularly fine. Her eyes when thrown down (their large dilated orbs starting beyond the full heavy lid, and gleaming through their long dark lashes) had a melancholy wildness in their expression, too often the character of overwrought genius, or high-wound sensibility; when suddenly thrown upwards, there was a flashing brightness in their expression, which marked a great rapidity and quickness of thought and of feeling; when fixed on vacancy, they had all the stupor of Miss O'Halloran's heavy look. Her smile, playfully brilliant, was at times too acute to be contemplated without exciting a fear of the spirit, from whence it drew its arch intelligence. But her countenance, when at rest, exhibited no expression to give assurance of such a mind as beamed in her eye, or animated her smile.

The science of physiognomy, as it bore merely upon structure, O'Donnel considered as the dream of imagination; but though he did not think a nose could indicate passion, or a mouth express genius, by their form alone, he yet had confidence in those external indices of the moral character, which may be sought in the play and change of countenance.

He was therefore struck by the variety and transition of expression, which flitted across the face, he now contemplated; and though he could still trace there Miss O'Halloran's features, yet he was puzzled to guess, what magic had lent them the soul by which they were now animated. Was it love? was it vanity? was it the influence of rank, fortune, and fashion, and conscious power, and high consideration? or was it all acting, all "false seeming?" But in this case, which was the actress; the governess, or the Duchess; or was there some third character, superior to both, which assumed and discarded either, according to the circumstances and exigency of the moment? From Lady Llanberis's description of her, he drew no opinion, for it all came to this - that she amused her - but so did Mr. Dexter.

While he was thus endeavouring to get at the character, here "wrapt up in countenance," the Duchess suddenly turned round her head, and met (at least he thought she met) his eyes; but she averted her head so quickly, that it left the matter doubtful, whether she really did, or did not see him. In a few minutes afterwards she looked at him and bowed slightly. O'Donnel, however, thought this bow, together with her conversation the last night with Lady Llanberis, authorized, or rather called on him to advance and pay his respects; and yet with the timidity of pride, always apprehensive of self-commitment, he was slowly and even reluctantly approaching her, when he observed her conversing so earnestly with the Duke, that he conceived his addressing her now would be nothing short of intrusion; and he stood near the tabouret on which she sat, mortified that he had advanced so far, and meditating a retreat, when he was suddenly transfixed to the spot by the unexpected appearance of Mc. Rory's head thrust through the folding doors of the room; who, with a brogue more than usually broad, cried out: -

"Is the master here?"

This extraordinary head, voice, and inquiry, attracted an instantaneous and universal attention, and was followed by a general burst of laughter.

"I ax pardon," humbly cried Mc. Rory, as he advanced beyond the door, and took off his hat; "but I'd just be glad to spake a word to the master, if he's in the place."

"Who is your master, Pat?" asked Mr. Carlisle, holding his sides.

"The Colonel is, your Honour; Colonel O'Donnel," returned Mc. Rory, with his eyes following a billiard ball that was rolling now unheeded into one of the pockets.

O'Donnel, mortified, irritated, and annoyed, beyond all endurance, and unprepared by previous feelings to stand the brunt of the scene, which he guessed, would naturally ensue, was shrinking back on the first impulse of his feelings towards the shelter of a large screen, behind which a door stood half open, when he was arrested by a hand, a voice, and the words, "courage, or you are lost." It was the same hand, the same voice, which had arrested his steps at Carrick-a-rede. All this had passed with the rapidity of lightning; and Mc. Rory having now caught sight of his master, coolly shut the door by which he had entered, and advancing with his hat and shilelagh in one hand, and dragging the other along the rim of the billiard-table, he addressed O'Donnel with: -

"I just made bould to step in, Colonel, to be after mintioning to your Honour, that - "

"I will speak to you in the anti-room," said O'Donnel, with a smiling composure, which did honour to the Duchess's inspiration; and motioned to Mc. Rory to leave the apartment; who turned back, crying:

"O, very well, Sir; that will do every bit as well."

"No, no, pray, Colonel, speak to him here," said Lady Llanberis, throwing down her billiard cue in the middle of the game, which had so deeply engrossed her a moment before. "I dare say this is a most entertaining person: if you have nothing particular to say to him, Colonel O'Donnel, pray let him speak to you here."

Mc. Rory turned round, and made her a low bow, which, whether humorous or not, had all the effects of being so, on the risible muscles of his spectators.

O'Donnel threw round a quick glance to observe if among the men one smile was transferred from the servant to the master, with a feeling at the moment, which would have rendered it a desirable event, to have had some excuse to fight them all round. To him, however, no smile, no eye was directed. Mc. Rory was the lion of the moment, and occupied a place, which heroes, orators, actors, jugglers, ministers, and dancing-dogs, had all in succession occupied before. The interest which his appearance and his brogue had excited, was considerably increased by his bow, and when Lady Llanberis repeated, "He is, I dare say, a particularly amusing person, and I beg he may not be sent away," he replied, with another bow, more profound than the former.

"I am entirely obliged to you, Madam, for your civility; troth, I am; and I humbly ax pardon of the quality for making so bould as to come in among them; but I just stepped in to tell the master, I must quit the place; for I would'nt stay in it, great as it is, if they made me Provost of Belfast, in regard of the uncommon affronts put upon me, Madam."

"Indeed!" said Lady Llanberis, "then pray inform me who has offended you, for I am the person to apply to, you may depend on it."

"Oh! no, Madam, if you plase, I will not; for if I turned informer, I'd be the first of my family, kin, kind, or relation, that ever turned that same, any how; but axing your Ladyship's pardon, humbly, might I inquire if you are the mistress, Madam?"

"Oh, yes," said Lady Llanberis, joining the now subdued but still general laugh; "I am the only mistress here."

"Why them troth, a beautiful fine lady you are, God bless you, and long may you reign, I pray God. And a poor set of craturs you have under you, and how, as ever broke the bread of life; and many a great house I was in, though never none as great as this, barring Dublin College, and the Castleyard; and devil the likes of such servants as these I ever seed, in regard of being no wise agreeable, but remarkably the contrary; and so with your Honour's lave, Sir, I'd rather quit the place intirely, and keep with Bran, the baste, 'till your Honour comes back to us - God bless you."

"No, no," said Lady Llanberis, earnestly, "you must not go, by any means. I invite you to stay here, and I insist on knowing in what manner you have been offended."

"No offence in life, my Lady," returned Mc. Rory, bowing low, "only that I have got the worst usage, from the moment I crassed the threshold to this blessed hour, as I may say: for sure, Madam, I had'nt stepped out of the Po' Chay, and just put my foot in the entry, when I sees them all sneering and jogging each other; and when the master was shewed into the parlour, did'nt they gather round me, as if I was one of the seven wonders? and kept axing me what outlandish gentleman I was; and where I kept when I was at home: but myself did'nt care to be answering them, in respect of not knowing the ways of the place; only I saw the craturs had no manners at all at all: and so I took up the portmantle to the master's room, and laid his things out for a change, and then I thought I'd just step down to the kitchen and take an air of the fire; and so away I goes down this lobby and up that lobby, and crasses this entry, and passes that, until I comes to the kitchen, sure enough; and an elegant fine kitchen it is, any way; and the greatest of plinty there is in it, surely: I don't know, my Lady, did you ever see the College kitchen? well, troth, I would'nt know this same from it, if I was blindfold - but I had'nt gone the length of myself, Madam, in it, when a garlagh* of a lad comes up to me, in a clane white apron, and says he to me: 'This here place is no place for you, my good feller, and so you must not say here no longer.'"

[* "Garlagh." Base-born; a term of contempt.]

A general laugh at Mc. Rory's attempted imitation of the English accent, and Cockney dialect, now interrupted the narration; and O'Donnel still fearing to share the ridicule of the moment, half angry, and yet almost amused, was again tempted to put an end to the absurd scene, when the eye of the Duchess fixed him, and her uplifted finger, raised in token of command, operated like a spell on his faculties. He smiled, and remained motionless.

Meantime Mc. Rory, elated by the attention he commanded, and the applause he received, joined heartily in the laugh he supposed he had raised against the cook's apprentice; and to Mr. Carlisle's assurance that nothing could be better than his imitation, he replied:

"Why then, troth, Sir, if we had'nt better English nor that, at the other side of the Shannon, our schoolmasters ought to be indited."

"But go on," cried Lady Llanberis, impatiently, "Pray, Mr. Carlisle, don't interrupt him. He is quite as good as Irish Johnstone - Well, Sir?"

"Well, my Lady - 'Stay here no longer,' says he: them were his words: but I thought him entirely benathe me; and I kept on, never minding, only looking at a bit of a coley,* that was running round, and round, in a wheel, by the hob, as if the devil was after th'animal: Gad pardon me for saying so! when a leprighaun** of a cratur, in a white night-cap, who was standing in a kind of a sort of a pulpit, jabbering for all the world like a monkey on the top of a shew-box, keeps crying to me, 'Vat you vant here? de kitchen be no place for de sarvant.' 'Is it the kitchen no place for sarvants?' says I, looking up at him: 'O, be aisy, Mounseer,' says I: 'Is it to the parlour you'd have us go?' 'Get you gone; go, go,' says he, for all the world as if I was a dog. 'Well, see here, Mounseer,' says I, clinching my crubeen*** at him - but somehow the heart sunk within me. Not but I could have crush'd the poor cratur between my finger and thumb; but of a sudden I got such an all-overness upon me, you would'nt give a halfpenny for me, my Lady; for I thought of my own poor old country, where the kitchen door was never shut in the stranger's face yet, and where the best potatoe in the pot, and the best seat at the hob, was never denied him: and so, Madam, I turn'd quietly away, not choosing, just for pride sake, to let them see that the eyes of me were as full as the heart - and troth, and that was full enough. - I quit the place sad and sorrowful. Ochone!"

[*Coley. - The general name for a little black dog.]

[***Fist.]

"Poor man!" cried Lady Llanberis, with a voice and countenance of unaffected sympathy, "Poor man! - Well, and where did you go to?"

"Well, my Lady, so I went groping about in the passage, for it was beginning to get dark; and finding an elegant fine fire in a room off my right, I turns in, and seeing it was quite impty, in regard of nobody being in it, I sates myself at the fire; and the head being heavy, and the heart full, I fell asleep, and would'nt have waken'd till th' end of time, only for the hunger, and the smell of the mate; for when I opened my eyes, my Lady, it was just all as one as if the fairies had done it, Madam, for an uncommon fine supper there was, surely, spread before me, and remarkable handsome to be sure I thought it of them. But, Madam, before I had helped myself to a cut of mutton and a potatoe, out there comes from behind a sort of skreen, the very MORAL of that same near the master there, as elegant a party of quality as any here to the fore; and devil of such laughing and giggling ever I heard; only one of the gentlemen snatches the knife out of my hand, and bids me QUIT... 'For,' says he, 'though this is a wastly good joke, my good feller, yet you must go; for the leedies and gentlemen of the Steward's room don't admit livery sarvants to their table. Here,' says he, calling to a gassoon who stood grinning at the buffet, 'Thomas, shew this here person to the hall.' - 'For what should he shew me to the hall, Sir?' says I. 'Was'nt I and my master ax'd here, to put over the Christmas?' - 'There is no use in argufying,' said the gentleman: 'you cawnt stay here, my good man; and if you are not willing to go out of this here door, I shall take the liberty of sending you out of that there vinder.' 'You will,' says I. 'I will, 'pon my word,' says he. 'Well, well,' says I, 'it's a folly to talk any more; but it's my real and undoubted opinion, that there is not a bone in your ugly carcase, but ought to be broken fairly; and I, Phaidrig Mc. Rory, am just the boy to do it; and, in regard of sending me out of the window, dear, only let me see the gentleman among ye'z that says he'd be the man to attempt that same, and I'll engage I'll lay my mark on him, which he would carry to his grave, if he lived these thousand years.' Upon that, Madam, the leedies and the faymales sets up a thousand murthers; and 'take away the frightful Irishman,' says they: O, how frightful we are!" added Mc. Rory, with an arch smile of self-complacency, and throwing his eyes from his own figure to his master's; while a general laugh followed the observation and the look. Lady Llanberis alone did not join the merriment of the moment, but exclaimed with earnestness:

"I really see nothing to laugh at: this poor man has been extremely ill-used, and I shall not let the business lie here. Go on, Mc. Rory. - Mc. Rory is your name, you say?"

"O, it is, my Lady, in lieu of a better, Madam; so, without more to do, my Lady, seeing I did'nt lave a word in their mouth - that's in the gentlemen's, I takes up my caubeen,* and I quits the place intirely, not careing to have any thing more to say to the likes of them; and the gassoon, who was standing still at the buffet, kept running after me, and he ups and he tells me that the leedies and gentlemen bates the quality fairly, in respect of being mighty high and conceited; and he told me the sarvants' hall was the place for me, and that the bell had rung for the footmens' supper, and the rest of the under sarvants; and he shews me into the place very civilly. And so I went in, and I made them a mannerly bow, as I thought, and says I, 'much good may do ye'z,' for they were ating; upon which they sets up a laugh, but I drew a chair, and was going to trouble the fat gentlewoman at the head of the table for the laste taste in life of any thing was going, when a young man, all powered and scented, with every stripe of gold on his cape the breadth of my hand, steps up to me, and says he: 'In what capacity do you sarve?' 'In every capacity in life,' says I. 'You do,' says he. 'Is it himself you'd have look after them,' says I; and I made him that same answer for a raison I had. 'Why then,' said he, 'you must go to the out-offices, for the outdoor sarvants doesn't ate in the hall, for we wote the smell of the stable a bore.' 'Ye'z may wote it what ye'z plase,' says I, 'Agrah! but the devil bore me, if I move a foot out of this till I finishes my bit; and the first man among ye'z that lays a finger on me, (barring it's a faymale) by the crass I'll not lave a whole bone in his skin;' with that, my Lady, they all set up a laugh you might hear from this to Houth, for they were hearty sowls as I found after, and I ate my supper in pace, and never tould nothing to nobody of what had happened - that is to his Honor the Colonel, thinking there was no use in complaining, as he was a stranger himself, long life to him! But this morning, my Lady, the master of the hotel, as they call him, comes to me, and tells me all as one as that I must not take my mails in the servants' hall, in respect of the head footman having tould him I was only an out-door sarvant, so seeing the uncommon affronts that was put upon me, I thought I would just get lave of his Honor to quit the place intirely; though it's little I guessed it would come to that this morning; for no later nor last night you would think they never could make enough of me in the sarvants' hall; for when the heart of me begun to warm after supper, I sung them a real good ould Irish planxty, and I danced the step that cost my mother the dollar, for the young FAYMALES, who were far more agreeable in my mind than the leedies in the steward's room; - they took to me greatly, the craturs!"

[*Caubeen - an old hat.]

By an instantaneous transition of feeling, Lady Llanberis's countenance changed from an expression of pity to a look of the most vivacious eagerness.

"Then, Mc. Rory," she said, "you must sing the Irish planxty for us this moment, and dance the step that cost your mother the dollar: but first you must have some refreshment. Sir Gilbert, do go into the anti-room and order some Madeira and water here, and now let us make a little room. Mr. Carlisle, you understand these things; pray make a clearance. General, do put aside that skreen. My dear Duke, gather up your eternal legs; so now we are all attention. O! here is the wine and water; - and now, Mc. Rory, you shall drink to my health, and then we'll have the song first and the dance after, for I long to see an Irish jig. It is not for me," she said the maitre d'hotel, who approached with a salver with wine and water: "it is for that person," pointed to Mc. Rory.

The maitre d'hotel, without the least symptom either of surprize or mortification, from the service imposed on him, poured out some Madeira, and was about to add the water, when Mc. Rory checked his hand, crying,

"O! no, Sir, many thanks to you, I'd rather the wine: I'm no wise particular."

And bowing humbly to Lady Llanberis, he said:

"Here's long life to your Ladyship, and long may you reign, and may the sun that rises on you every morning find you happier than the day before, though you live for a thousand years, and than you may, I pray God, amen."

Then bowing to the rest of the company, he drank off his wine.

"Thank you, thank you, Mc. Rory," cried Lady Llanberis: "and now come, we must have the song. I dare say it is out and out a better thing than one hears on the stage - come Mc. Rory, begin."

Mc. Rory did not immediately obey, in spite of her Ladyship's impatience, or that testified by the rest of the company. He stood in the centre of the circle, moulding his hat and twirling his stick in every possible way, still in the midst of his triumph and exaltation of spirits, directing his looks to his master, with an expression of shyness and apprehension.

"Certainly," said O'Donnel, nodding his head to him, and knowing opposition was now vain: "Certainly, Mc. Rory, obey any commands her Ladyship may please to honour you with."

"Thank you, Colonel," said Lady Llanberis, advancing and offering him her hand. "I must say I am very fortunate to have made the pleasure of your acquaintance, and your Irish servant is by much the most amusing person I ever met with in his way; and now we are all attention, Mc. Rory."

"I'll just humor the tune a little, my Lady," said Mc. Rory, imitating the movements of a piper on his stick, and running over a sort of wild prelude with his voice, abruptly pausing to ask,

"I don't know, my Lady, if ever you heard a bit of a planxty, called Plae Raca na Ruare; or O'Rorke's Noble Feast?"*

[*See note end of the volume.]

"Never, never," said Lady Llanberis, impatiently.

"Well, it goes mighty well, Madam. I'll just give it to you in Irish first, my Lady."

"In Irish by all means," returned Lady Llanberis, eagerly.

Mc. Rory then began one of the most spirited compositions, which the genius of his countryman, Carolan, had produced; and to the tones of a deep clear voice he added such extraordinary rapidity of articulation, and such an inimitable humor of countenance and manner, as to excite not only a general applause, but almost as general a sympathy, as if the language in which he sung had been understood by his auditors; and, amidst their bravos and bravissimos, he concluded his song with a scrape and a bow.

"And now, my Lady," he said, "would you like to have that same in English."

"Not now, not now, thank you, Mc. Rory," cried Lady Llanberis, yawning. "come, this has all been very good, indeed, and will do very well for the present; so we will not detain you any longer, thank you, thank you."

Mc. Rory, evidently amazed by this unexpected dismissal, with a look of mortification proportioned to his previous exhilaration, hastily snatched up his hat, and was hurry out of the room with a hasty bow, when the Duchess, springing forward, took Lady Llanberis's hand, and with a countenance, whose archness and irony gave great effect to the mock vehemence and affected gravity of her manner, she exclaimed,

"O, Lady Llanberis, is it thus you protect merit in distress? Is it thus you dismiss from your presence the liberal contributor to your morning amusements - the admirable Creighton of the day? Is it like your usual liberality and justice to send him from your presence with all his talents unrewarded, and all his wrongs unredressed?"

"Certainly not, Duchess," returned Lady Llanberis, evidently worked on by her Grace's appeal: "Certainly not; but what can be done? - However, ring the bell, General. Mr. Mussen, pray call back Mc. Rory, and send for the maitre d'hotel; and I will at least try what is to be done. Come in, Mc. Rory."

And a moment after, the maitre d'hotel appeared.

"O, Saunders, I wish to mention to you, that I think you and the rest of the people in the steward's room have behaved most particularly ill to a very respectable and very amusing man."

Saunders bowed low, but made no answer.

"And I really do not chuse to have any person whatever made uncomfortable in my house, and least of all such a person as Colonel O'Donnel's servant, whom you have all, I find, used most scandalously."

"Beg pardon, my Lady," bowed Mr. Saunders, submissively: "but it would be against the rules, and against your Ladyship's own orders, to admit a livery servant into the steward's room upon any pretence whatever, my Lady."

"Yes, my orders! but I am not talking of my orders, Mr. Saunders; and I must say, that I have no idea of such airs as the upper servants sometimes give themselves; they are quite too ridiculous, particularly in the instance of the person in question, who happens to be much more amusing than all my establishment together, and much more clever in every sense. He has a pretty opinion of you all, I can tell you, and has shewn you all up completely; besides, Mr. Saunders, I chuse to be obeyed, and not argued with."

Mr. Saunders bowed again more obsequiously than before.

"And I desire that Colonel O'Donnel's servant may be most particularly attended to, and made as comfortable as possible; and since the Ladies in the steward' room find him such a frightful Irishman, and are too fine to admit the Colonel's servant to their particular society, he shall dine with my page, and I desire a cover may be laid in Florio's room for him to-day."

"Certainly, my Lady."

"And - but stay; send the butler to me in the anti-room: I will give orders myself, and then there can be no mistake."

And she hurried away, followed by the maitre d'hotel, bowing and scraping, and by Mc. Rory crying at every step: -

"I'm intirely obliged to you, my Lady; don't trouble yourself, Madam."

A few general observations on Mc. Rory, a few questions relative to his character, asked of O'Donnel, and an attempted imitation of his brogue and manner by Mr. Carlisle, exhausted the subject, and the party broke up, dispersing different ways after the different pursuits, by which they might contrive to fill up the time till dinner. The Duchess was the first to leave the room, which she did humming a waltz, and taking no further notice of O'Donnel, who remained in the billiard-room the last of the party.

This conduct rather astonished than displeased him. He thought it extraordinary that a woman, who had assumed a command over him, which should belong only to the privilege of intimacy, or the empire of affection, should leave him without assigning any further mark of notice or recognition; yet he felt that he would not much regret if this digressive sort of acquaintance were to drop here, since it was associated in his mind less with pleasure than with mortification: for in the only two instances in which, at the distance of two years, they had held any intercourse, she had assumed an air of protection over him so imposing, that it almost convinced himself he stood in need of it.

The time-piece over the billiard-room fire-place now struck two. There was still time for the promised walk with Lady Llanberis, in which he trusted an opportunity would be affording him of returning her munificent gift, by her leading, herself, to the subject. He was crossing the book-room to seek her page, when her perceived the Duchess standing before a book-case, holding a heavy volume, which dropt on the ground, as she started from the sudden clapping of the door, which had slipped out of O'Donnel's hand. He apologized for the abruptness of his entrance, and picked up the book, pausing for a moment in the hope of finding something to say; not, however, particularly desiring it, but believing that it would be expected; yet when he raised his eyes there was such an extraordinary expression of demureness in her countenance, that instead of encouraging, it confounded him. They both silently stood holding the ponderous volume between them for near a minute, when the Duchess letting go her hold, he placed it on a reading-desk which stood near, and asked if he could be of any further use to her.

"Perhaps," she said, "you can save me the trouble of looking through this voluminous German dictionary for half a dozen words that have puzzled me in reading Schiller's Mary Queen of Scots."

And she presented him a slip of paper, on which the German words were written.

O'Donnel wrote down the translation opposite to them with his pencil, observing as he wrote,

"It is so long since I have had an opportunity of speaking German, that I almost forget the language."

"Have you not been abroad," she asked, "since I had last the pleasure of seeing you on the shores of Lough Swilly?"

"No, Madam, I have since then been leading a life, as it were, by stealth; and had not an unexpected necessity led me to England, I believe I should have grown to the rocks on which your Grace left me, and

"Forgot myself to stone,"

or turned parasite to the only tree that shaded my hut, and been confounded in the end with other vegetating things identified with its trunk."

"Then I hope," said the Duchess, "you have left none of your parasitical properties behind you, for you will find them of much more use here, than in the wilds of Lough Swilly."

"I hope, Madam," said O'Donnel, quickly, and inferring more from her smile than her words, "that your Grace speaks more for the sake of the figure, than in belief of the fact."

"O! as to belief," she returned carelessly, "I believe nothing and deny nothing; to doubt is my creed, and not to wonder my motto."

"This is the true doctrine of scepticism, indeed," said O'Donnel.

"And the only doctrine that can be applied to all the paradoxes, incongruities, chances, changes, and follies of life," she replied gaily.

"And did you never profess any other, Madam?" he asked with earnestness, endeavouring to read through her eyes the secret of her character.

"I at least did not profess any other when I first saw you on the rocks of Glenarm."

"Indeed!"

"It is quite true; I believe I was the only one of the party, on which I HUNG - I must not say to which I belonged, who were not amazed to find a man of the world playing the part of a hermit, nor am I now surprised to see the hermit playing the part of the man of the world, nor the Philosopher of the Mountains quitting his beloved 'Savagery of Nature,' to launch on the summer seas of pleasure, and obsequiously follow in the wake of a first-rate woman of fashion."

O'Donnel, at once amazed and amused, yet scarcely knowing how to receive the irony couched under this vein of raillery, endeavoured to take her on her own tone, and replied: -

"You are quite mistaken, Madam; I do not belong to the service to which your Grace alludes; I am again indeed put out to sea - but I am but a solitary skiff, blown for a moment into the halcyon track, where I now float, by the elements of which I am the sport."

"A solitary skiff!" repeated the Duchess, with her sybil smile and shake of the head. "A privateer, you mean, Colonel, furnished with letters of marque, sails crowded, colours flying, and in full chase of a prize. But," she added pointedly, "learn from an experienced mariner, that there blow no trade winds here; and though the 'dew dropping south' breathe to-day the shrill north-east may come and send you adrift to-morrow."

With these warning words, emphatically pronounced, she was leaving the room, when suddenly turning back, she added: -

"O! by the bye, ought I to apologize to you, or you offer acknowledgments to me, for my interference in the billiard-room? But the fact is, I acted, as Lady Singleton would say, 'en femme qui connoit son monde.' Had you betrayed your annoyance at Mc. Rory's abrupt appearance, you would have given the Mr. Carlisles a subject for mimicry, and the rest of the party no favourable impression of your tact; as it was, WE have the laugh on OUR side, for you know, 'I too am an Athenian.' Mc. Rory had, as I guessed he would, 'un grand succês,' and you had the amusing spectacle of seeing bon-ton frivolity exhibited in all its idleness and vacuity, without being in the least involved in the absurdities of your servant, who, after all, was far from being the most ridiculous personage in the scene."

O'Donnel thought his acknowledgements were now so directly called for, that he was about to make them, but the Duchess, throwing up the sash of a window, near which she stood, told the Miss Carlisles, who were walking with all the beaux under it, that she would join them in a minute, as soon as she could wrap herself up; and flew out of the room to execute the intention; to seek a party, which, the moment before, had been the object of her derision; leaving O'Donnel overwhelmed in astonishment at all she had said, all she had looked, and all she had hinted at.

"What an extraordinary creature!" he mentally observed; "how kindly she has acted by me, and yet how lightly she seems to think of me; still tendering me her protection, suspecting my weakness, and exhibiting her own strength! To what can her mysterious words allude; or meaning nothing, does she speak in point, and talk in metaphor, merely to shew off her wit, and sink the memory of Miss O'Halloran's dullness, in the vivacity of her Grace of Belmont? Brilliant she is; acute she may be; and cold and vain she must be: for with discernment to detect, and talent to deride folly, she yet evidently courts its suffrages, administers to its vanities, and has eagerly fled to join a group, who was the moment before the object of her sarcasm and ridicule. But enough of her: in a few days this parvenûe Duchess will be to me what the blunt governess was before, a thing to hang upon the memory, rather than live in the recollection."

O'Donnel then pursued his original intention, and sent a servant to Lady Llanberis to know if he should have the honour of attending her in her walk; but the man brought back an answer from her page that his Lady had driven out in her garden-chair, attended by the Duke and Lord Charles, and would not be home till dressing-time. O'Donnel, therefore, gave up all chance of eclairissement for that day; nor was the evening more propitious to his views, for the Countess's whole attention was devoted to the Mr. Carlisles, who struck up a sort of Ombres Chinoises, in which they were themselves to be the sole actors behind the illuminated sheet. The Miss Carlisles accompanied the spectacle on the harp and piano-forte, and Mr. Mussen was to recite Collins's Ode on the Passions between the acts. Lady Llanberis was amazingly delighted, until she began to be amazingly weary; and before Mr. Mussen had finished, and love

"Shook thousand odours from his dewy wing,"

she cried out with a stifled yawn,

"Come, that's very well - that will do; and now let us have in supper; and then, Mr. Frederick Carlisle, you shall sing the "Poor old Woman of Eighty," and send us all laughing to bed; for," with another stifled yawn,

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER X.

THE following day, being Sunday, and a very fine day, was devoted to the health of the souls and bodies of the guests of Longlands. Lady Llanberis, who rather piqued herself upon being religious, from time to time, was now in one of her pious crisises, from an accidental glance into the Methodist's Magazine, which her maid was tearing up for papilotes, while she dressed; her Ladyship therefore insisted on every one accompanying her to church, except Colonel O'Donnel, to whom she sent word that there was a chapel within a few miles of Longlands. When church was over, the party drove to Lord B.'s seat, to look at an aviary, which the Countess intended as the model of one at Longlands; and they only got back in time to dress for dinner.

O'Donnel spent the day alone, reading, writing, and wandering about the grounds. In the course of his ramble he came to an unfinished building in a dark fir grove, about a mile and a half distant from the house, and so encompassed by trees and underwood, that it was almost impossible to get at it. He at last, however, made his way to a gate, which seemed the entrance; but above its arch was written in large letters,

No admission here.

O'Donnel drew back from the prohibited and mysterious edifice, and inquired of a man whom he met in his way back, what that building was.

The man replied, that though he was one of the workmen employed, he did not know what was intended by it; that it was a secret between her Ladyship and the master builder; that the Countess was not pleased when any body made inquiries about it; and that he believed not one of the quality in the great house knew a word about it; but for his part, he suspected it was intended for a chapel or a meeting-house; for they were putting up benches and pews, though as yet he saw no sign of a pulpit.

O'Donnel supposed his conjecture was right, and resolved not to mention his accidental discovery to the fair foundress of this secluded temple. Not a little amused with this new trait in the variegated character of his whimsical and prodigal hostess, he returned to the house, just as the empty carriages of the church party were driving from the hall door.

A few of the neighbouring gentry enlarged the dinner party; the spirits of Lady Llanberis always increased with the number of her guests; and they were now in their fullest flow, when towards the end of the first course they received a sudden check by perceiving that the Duchess was not at table. Every term of wonder and astonishment was exhausted on the subject of this event by her Ladyship; and servant after servant was dispatched with messages of inquiry to her Grace, before the first envoy could possibly return with an answer.

"When she desired to return after church," continued Lady Llanberis, "I thought it was because she hates going to see sights. I have seen her once or twice sit upon the steps of a shew-house, and quiz all those who went any further; but this looks as if she was ill, or - "

Here, the return of all the messengers in a body cut short the Countess's doubts and conjectures, which at all times she preferred to certainties and convictions. A groom of the chambers informed her Ladyship that the Duchess was very well, but that she had ordered a chicken to her dressing-room, and was so much engaged with a book, that she begged to be excused dining below.

Although it was a mere chance whether Lady Llanberis had, or had not, remarked the absence of her whimsical guest; yet having observed it, and at a moment when she wanted one of the Duchess's "droll stories," to bear out the exuberant flow of her own high spirits, she now found the cause assigned for absence inadequate to the disappointment it created; and all disappointments being of equal importance in the eyes of Lady Llanberis, as all crimes were of equal enormity in the opinion of the stoics, she now gave way to the influence of a sudden ill-humour, which dimmed the lustre of her smile, and hung like a stormy cloud on her contracted brow.

"Engaged in a book! - humph!" she repeated two or three times; while Lord Charles smiled triumphantly, and Lady Mary, with a supercilious smile, repeated,

"L'amiable capricieuse!"

"Well, that is just what she is," said Lady Llanberis, her countenance suddenly brightening into animation, and roused by Lady Mary's ironical attack on her absent friend: for with one whom she pleased to hold up, she did not choose another should find fault; glad, too, to have an opportunity of venting her acrimonious feelings, she continued:

"L'amiable capricieuse is a very fit name for her; and I must say I prefer her little whims to the eternal sameness of some people's good sense and dull uniformity, a thousand times over. - Go, Willis, go to her Grace, with my love, and that I am sory we have not the pleasure of her company, but that she is quite right to do the thing she likes best: and, Willis, request the Duchess to let me know what book she is reading."

The man obeyed, and her Ladyship continued: - "I dare say it is something very new or very amusing, or she would not be so empressée about it. I would rather take a book of her recommendation than any one's else whatever; she hits upon such very odd things."

Mr. Mussen observed, with the air of a man who had taken too much pains with the phrase and matter of his speech to doubt its success: -

"The Duchess is indeed very unique in all her views of things. She may be likened to one of those meteoric bodies, bright but eccentric, whose course it is so difficult to follow, and whose aphelion it is scarcely possible to guess at."

"Is not Mr. Mussen very eloquent?" asked Lady Mary, in a whisper, of Lady Llanberis.

"I don't think so at all," returned the Countess, abruptly.

"You did think so once," returned Lady Mary, in a tone of pique.

"Yes, once, Lady Mary, perhaps; but one cannot really go on thinking the same thing for ever."

Here Willis returned, and laid a slip of paper before his lady, who read aloud - "Le Pere Pascal."

Every body present, who knew any thing of the author or the reader, smiled: Mr. Mussen ironically, because Lady Mary smiled ironically; and Mr. Wharton sneered maliciously as double to Lord Charles.

"Le Pere Pascal is not exactly the book I should expect to find in her Grace's hands," said Lady Mary.

"O, you mistake her, quite then," returned Lady Llanberis, "for though I understand her father, like the late poor Duke, was a very free-thinking, unhappy man, yet she is extremely proper on such subjects, and her devoting Sunday to Pascal is not at all unlike her. By the bye, I must get her to order me down some copies of Pascal: one should always have such books in the way; but since good Dr. Sandford, my son's late tutor, and now an Irish bishop, left us, we have been sadly off in these particulars. - Apropros, Mr. Mussen, I hope you did not order that stupid work upon "organs," you were mentioning: if you did, pray recall your orders. There is no use in throwing away money upon such stuff, when one has not a Pascal in the house. Indeed, while I think of it, I'll send to the Duchess to make a memorandum of it. Willis, bring me a bit of note-paper."

While she wrote her request with a pencil, Mr. Mussen kept assuring her that her change of opinion was unfortunately too late, for that three copies of "Gall" were on the road. Meantime her Ladyship, wholely intent on her note, heard him not, and wrote during nearly the whole of the second course; she then twisted up the paper in curious folds, and dispatched it. Mr. Mussen, admiring the ingenuity with which the paper was twisted, entered on a discussion on note and letter folding; observing, that he was engaged in a poem called the "Billet," which brought down the history of note and letter-writing from the days of Cicero to those of Miss Elizabeth Carter; in which he gave not only specimens of the various styles of celebrated epistolary writers, but fac-similies of all the modes of folding letters; with an historical treatise on stationary, the introduction of note-paper, device borders, French mottos, &c. &c. &c.

The Countess was delighted with this plan; begged he would put her down in his subscription list for twenty copies; and no less charmed with a concetto he hit off for the head of notes of mere compliments of inquiry, she requested he would order ten or a dozen reams. "Observe, Mr. Mussen," she repeated, "I do not say quires, but reams; - quantities of reams."

During the whole of these discussions, O'Donnel had preserved an unbroken silence; involuntarily meditating on the character of the whimsical Duchess, who had either from genuine inconsequence, or affected eccentricity, made herself the subject of malignant animadversion and ridiculous conjectures. The sullen, subdued, unobtrusive Miss O'Halloran would oppose herself in his mind to this "scorner of opinion;" but whether the vain ambition of singularity lay at the bottom of all this; or whether, understanding the characters among which she was involved, she was merely "fooling them up to their bent," he was unable to decide.

When the gentlemen adjourned to the drawing-room, they found the ladies all thickly grouped round one of the fire-places, and, not as usual, broken into little sets, or parted into tête-à-têtes. The tie which connected them was an argument which had been carried on for some time between Lady Mary Savill and the Duchess of Belmont. Lady Llanberis stood leaning on Lady Mary's arm, with a countenance expressing the most vehement interest in the subject of discussion; animating the cold sententious delivery of her orator, by her own rapid exclamations of "Certainly - unquestionably - you are quite right - that is not to be refuted," &c. while the Duchess stood leaning against the chimney-piece, like one "wondering with a stupid face of praise," and making a droll contrast by the niaise look of Miss O'Halloran, which she had assumed, to the impetuosity of Lady Llanberis's countenance, and the frigid superciliousness of Lady Mary's looks. The argument, however, was nearly brought to an issue, when O'Donnel and some of the gentlemen approached the group. The Duchess seemed to have sustained a defeat, and Lady Mary was triumphantly winding up her argument with -

"And now, having backed my opinion of Pascal by Dr. Johnson's, I presume your Grace will give up your's: except," added her Ladyship, with an ironical laugh, "you appeal from Dr. Johnson."

"I appeal!" exclaimed her Grace, coming forward with an air of evidently mock earnestness, "FROM Dr. Johnson!"

"And FROM Dr. Johnson to WHOM?" asked Lady Llanberis, with great vehemence. "I like the idea of appealing from Dr. Johnson to any one. I like indeed the idea of people setting themselves up in opposition to the greatest writer of the age, or of any age, of any country."

"The greatest moralist of any age, undoubtedly," added Lady Mary, "and therefore the properest umpire upon the present question."

"Unquestionably," nodded Mr. Mussen.

"And a man," said Lady Mary, "who, in piety and ardour of devotion, was not even second to Pascal himself."

"Exactly," said Lady Llanberis, vehemently.

"And who," continued Mr. Mussen, "had he entered the church, would have merited a mitre; and had he been called to the bar, might have obtained the seals."

"Beyond a doubt," echoed Lady Llanberis.

"He lamented himself that he was not in parliament," continued Mr. Mussen: "for he was aware that he would have made a great legislator: - he was, all in all, a great, a truly great man."

"As far from a great man as I am at this moment," said the Duchess, laying her finger on Mr. Mussen's sleeve, to identify her proximity.

"Duchess, what can you mean by this?" asked Lady Llanberis, almost in a passion: "How can so young a woman set up her own opinion against the opinion of the world, at least of the wisest part of it?"

"On the contrary,: said the Duchess, coolly, and endeavouring to light a pastille on the chimney-piece, "I am agreeing WITH the wisest people in the world - your Ladyship and Lady Mary Saville; - who disagree with poor dear Dr. Johnson in every single point you have alluded to - in politics, morals, manners and religion; particularly Lady Mary."

At this observation, the two provoked ladies laughed violently, joined by Mr. Mussen, who cried: -

"O, very good, 'pon honour!"

While Lady Mary said: -

"Oh, we beg of your Grace to explain to us this dicordance, which your sagacity has discovered; for until your superior penetration found to the countrary, I conceived myself to have been a mere devotée to Dr. Johnson."

"No," said the Duchess, with gravity, "you are a mere heretic, Lady Mary; and think, and believe, and act in direct opposition to the Johnsonian creed in every single article of faith."

"To begin with one, if you please," said Lady Mary, throwing round a sarcastic look at the circle, who seemed much amused by a discussion carried on in a manner so very unequal.

"Come," added Lady Llanberis, "to begin with one, as Lady Mary says: morals, for instnace."

"There the difference is the most striking," returned the Duchess. - "What made a part of the Doctor's moral system, would have been deemed by Lady Mary, very justly, downright libertinism. For what can her Ladyship think of a man, who asserts that 'it is not natural for man and woman to live together in the married state,'* and that 'a husband's infidelity is nothing?' You will, I believe, find it at page seventy-one, in the third volume of his Life, Lady Mary; and who, moreover, often observed to his own she-elephant - 'my dear, women should not trouble themselves about infidelity in their husbands!' Now I appeal FROM Doctor Johnson; and to you, Lady Mary: if the General made such an observation to your Ladyship, would you either call, or think him the great moralist?"

[*Life of Johnson, vol. 3, page 71.]

Every body smiled, and Lady Mary tossed her haughty head and flirted her fan. "Then," continued the Duchess, "then, Lady Mary, what must a woman of your feeling, who wrote the pathetic little poem of "My Infant," in answer to the other pathetic little poem of "My Mother," think of the cold selfishness of a man, who declares he never could have liked a child of his own, and never wished to have one? Then, for his manners, which come in under the head of minor morals, what an inelegant, what an anti-sentimental brute - giving 'the reply churlish,' here - 'the countercheck quarrelsome' there - and 'the lie direct' everywhere - eating with the disgusting voracity of a famished wolf, and moving with the awkward gate of an half-taught bear!"

"That is all too true, I am afraid," said Lady Llanberis, loosening Lady Mary's arm, and leaning on the Duchess's.

"Then, my dear Lady Llanberis, may I not appeal from Doctor Johnson to you on the subject of religion, you, who have given an opinion so just to the true piety of Pascal? Conceive a man so childishly credulous, as to believe he heard his mother crying, at a hundred miles distance, so - 'Sam, Sam, Sam!'"

Lady Llanberis could contain herself no longer: "Go on," she cried, bursting into a fit of laughter, in which indeed she was generally joined; for the Duchess's imitation of an old woman's voice was inimitable.

"And for no motive on earth," continued the Duchess, gravely, "but to scare poor Sam out of his life. Then, conceive him drawing away one of he HOOFS from the threshold of the door, because it was unlucky to come with the left foot foremost; turning his teacup in a particular way, to read his fortune; summing up the evidence of an old woman's witchcraft; and making a serious inquiry into the merits and veracity of the Cock-lane ghost!"

"Brava! brava!" exclaimed Lady Llanberis, setting the example of another general laugh, which, with great good will, was generally followed; for the comic humour of the Duchess's countenance, gesture, and manner, were perfectly dramatic.

"And now, Lady Mary," added Lady Llanberis, "what have you to say to all this?"

"Oh," said Lady Mary coldly, "I beg to decline the subject altogether; for the defence of Doctor Johnson by one lady, would be quite as ridiculous as the attack by another. I must, however, just beg to say, that though her Grace's statement be amusing, to those who are not nice upon that point, yet it is partial and unfair; and that many things she has quoted against him were not his serious opinion. I believe it is well known, that Doctor Johnson often 'talked for victory,' as he has indeed himself confessed.

"O, the rogue!" exclaimed the Duchess, archly, "'there is another simple sin in him.' And so he has been playing with us all this while; and we have erected his sallies into maxims, proverbs, and aphorisms! Well, now, who would have thought that an ingenuous mind would have supported so many false positions, in so serious and so solemn a manner, that one would never suspect they were not his real sentiments? And so, after all, he perhaps did not believe in ghosts, nor hear the voice of his good old mother at a hundred miles distance; and all these buggy-boos were conjured up to frighten the Second-sighted imagination of poor devoted Bozzy."

"As I do not understand Irish persiflage," said Lady Mary, haughtily, "I shall leave your Grace to amuse with those who may."

"But you confess before you go," observed the Duchess, playfully getting before her, "that Doctor Johnson and your Ladyship differ in all serious points, for that is all I want to establish."

Lady Mary stalked away, Mr. Mussen stalked after her, and Lady Llanberis cried, with a yawn, "Come, this has all been very good indeed; and now let us have some music. Where are the Carlisles? They have promised me Handel's 'Hail-stone Chorus.' I always like to begin music on a Sunday evening with Handel. Come, Mr. Carlisle, sound the tocsin for the music-room." Mr. Carlisle, snatching up a tambourin, beat a muster, and was followed by the party; three persons only remaining behind - the Duchess, and on either side of her, the Duke and Colonel O'Donnel.

"Do you know, Duchess," said the Duke, "that you have been amazingly entertaining to-night - you have indeed."

"Then your Grace was amused by my Irish persiflage?" asked Duchess, laughing.

"Very much indeed: it was extremely fair. I like your brogue of all things. You don't really mean to get rid of it, and speak like every body else, I hope. You must not indeed lose the pretty brogue."

"No," said the Duhcess, "since your Grace approves it, I will cherish it, and for your sake - 'spare the glorious fault.'"

The Duke bowed slightly, and looked pleased; and Lord Charles, coming up to him, took his arm, affecting to have something particular to tell him, and led him away.

"Aye," said the Duchess, shaking her head after them, "carry him off, as you may now, vi et armis, I will hve him yet on my side.

"You must know," she said, turning to O'Donnel, "that, in spite of a family prejudice, existing against me in the Savill family, the Duke has all the inclination in the world to take me, as a sort of occasional elixir, or a kind of chasse-caffé; and that Lord Charles does not chuse I should administer to his noble, good-natured, indolent brother, in any way; who, if he were only a little lightened of the embarrassment of rank, riches, and bon-ton, would be a most excellent person."

"If the Duke takes your Grace for a chasse ennui," said O'Donnel, "he certainly understands the properties of his specific; at least, your conversation had that effect on my spirits to-night. It has 'ascended me into the brain,' and driven thence 'all the foolish, dull, and crudy vapours which did environ it' when I left the dining-room."

"No, no," said the Duchess; "my nostrum does not apply to you; and I dare say you deem it mere quackery; but it takes here amazingly. The fact is, bon-ton does stand indebted to me now and then for a sensation. My attack upon Doctor Johnson was merely a pinch of cephalic, thrown at random, to keep all alive."

"No more?" asked O'Donnel.

She paused for a moment, and then added: "Why, yes, a little more, I am afraid. I was not sorry to have an opportunity of entering the lists against Lady Mary Savill, upon any point. She is one of those women, who, affecting feeling, have all the littleness of mind which belongs to the most vulgar illiberality. Since I have come into her faily, she has treated me with a contumelious severity, partly from the prejudice of family pride, but chiefly because I do not flatter her pretension to talents, nor join the herd of depending dunces, who feign to take her opinion for their law. Besides, in a general sense, I hate bigotry and dislike dogma, whatever form they take; and the bigotry of blue-stocking doctrines, or the dogma of bon-ton literature, are of all things the most tiresome, because both go by prevention, and have all the moroseness, without the enthusiasm, of zeal unfounded in examination of belief. Now the bas bleus of Lady Mary Savill are not 'celestial blue;' they are indigo. She is at the head of a set of witless literati, who have for their coporate maxim,

"Nul n'aura de l'esprit hors nous et nos amis,"

who, the moment you open your lips, knock you down with Doctor Johnson; and before you are able to rise from the overthrow, beat you again over the head with Mrs. Elizabeth Carter: I therefore avoid the blow, as they do in Ireland, by giving it first. The truth is, your smatters in literature, whether bon-ton or mauvais ton, dearly love a good stout overbearing dogmatist, who pins them down with an opinion, as they do others with an authority. This is the Pope for their church, and this is the Pope from whose infallibility I appealed, when you joined our little conclave. I dare say you were surprised at my temerity."

"A little surprised by your courage," returned O'Donnel, "and a good deal amused by the ingenuity of your attack. There were, however, some serious truths in the positions you so sportingly advanced. All is, as the old provencal maxim has it, heur et malheur, even in literature; and Johnson owes much of his celebrity to the critical hour in which his writings appeared. The inventor of a new style, at a moment favourable to any strong peculiarity of composition, he gave the air of novelty to opinions long established; and added authority and weight to others, which ought long ago to have been exploded. Although he has made no positive addition to the stock of human science, discovered no fact, invented no hypothesis, nor demonstrated any verity, he has acquired an influence over society, greater perhaps than either Locke or Newton at present enjoy; and by entangling the public mind in the network of his sophistry, he has more than assisted in checking its progress during the last half century, and has given to the age in which he lived its peculiar character. With conceptions as circumscribed as his learning was extensive, he brought the whole weight of his erudition to support the grossest superstition, and the most abject notions of temporal government. Entertaining no very profound respect for truth, he was content to bully, where he felt he could not convince.

He seemed those common wares to trade in,
Reas'ning, convincing, and persuading,
But made each sentence current pass,
With puppy, coxcomb, scoundrel, ass.

CHURCHILL.

"While thus he silenced the timid, the groanings of his religious terrors were mistaken by the good for piety; and his old Stuart doctrines of divine right (cast by a pension, at the feet of his legitimate sovereign) passed current with the loyal for affection to the king, and devotion to the state. But perhaps I speak under the influence of prejudice: for I cannot readily approve the writer, and still less the man, who had profaned the sacred names of Russel and of Sydney, with epithets of vulgar virulence and coarse opprobrium. Nor, perhaps," he added, smiling, "will your Grace forgive me, for thus hanging the clog of my dull comment upon the soul and spirit of your text."

"If you mean to apologize for talking sense to me," she returned, "spare yourself the trouble: it is at least gracious for its novelty."

A silence of a minute ensued. The Duchess seemed to have fallen into a reverie; her eyes were fixed on the ground, with their look of melancholy wildness; and the gaiety of her countenance fled. She appeared to have retired within herself; and some thought of latent regret seemed to revive amidst the associations of her playful mind, and hang its cloud upon the lustre of her susceptible spirits.

O'Donnel fixed his eyes on her face, wondering at its rapid change of expression. "What an extraordinary mind!" he mentally observed - "what an extraordinary countenance! Does any heart accompany all this? or is all acuteness and vivacity, vanity and exhibition?"

Almost as he asked himself the question, her eyes abruptly met his; she as suddenly averted them, and accompanied with her voice the symphony of an air which was playing in the adjoining room. "Had we not," she said, "better join the musicians?" and immediately she moved forward. O'Donnel followed, and saw her the next moment the centre of a group, composed of the foolish and the vain, the dissipated and the dull. Miss Carlisle had just finished a fine bravura of Winter's, well executed and well accompanied, when Lady Llanberis approached the Duchess, and kneeling on a cushion before her, said, "I come with a petition. I know you do not sing out of your own house, but you must not, cannot refuse me."

"We vote this petition frivolous and vexatious," returned the Duchess in parliamentary language: but after much solicitation and much refusing, she suffered herself to be prevailed on, and was led to the instrument by General Savill. O'Donnel followed the group, who encircled her, mentally enquiring if this was the same person, to whose acute observations he had listened before, with so much pleasure.

The subject next in debate was, what she should sing - an Irish melody, or a Savoyard ballad. She ended the long-agitated question herself. "Come," said she, "I will sing you a little French romance, which you will all like, I answer for it."

"Oh, I adore French romances," exclaimed Lady Llanberis.

"It is composed," said the Duchess, gravely, "on three notes; on three notes only."

"How wonderful!" was echoed from every side: "three notes! only think of that!"

"And it is played upon two instruments," continued her Grace, drawing the harp close to the piano-forte.

"Charming! charming!" was the general exclamation. "Two instruments! - how odd!"

"To add to the interest, it is composed, words and music, by Jean Jacques Rousseau!"*

[*Perhaps Rousseau's little romance, beginning "Que le jour me dure," which is composed on three notes.]

"Good heavens! Duchess, will you ever begin?" exclaimed Lady Llanberis with vehement impatience.

The Duchess threw her right hand over the strings of the harp, with the left touched the keys of the piano-forte, and thus accompanied with a common chord, an air as simple as its three notes could make it. It was scarcely possible to judge of her voice, she sung in so suppressed a tone; and it was impossible not to accuse her of affectation, from the peculiar look she threw into her eyes and countenance. A rapturous applause followed the indifferent execution of this indifferent composition; "Brava, bravissima," resounded on every side, and an "encore," was called.

"No, no," said the Duchess, "I never repeat myself in any possible way; but I will sing you an Irish howl, if you will."

"By all means," cried Lady Llanberis: - "an Irish howl! how odd!"

The Duchess now drew the harp towards her, and swept with a light and brilliant finger a characteristic prelude over its chords. She chose a very fine, and very ancient Irish melody, but having gone through the first part in a manner totally different from her former style of singing, she rose from the instrument, and, either through weariness or caprice, refused to finish it. As the whim of this proceeding was at least worth the rest of the song, it only rendered her more popular than ever with Lady Llanberis, who went on exclaiming, "What a delightful creature! there is nobody so amusing. It is all envy and prejudice, endeavouring to cry her down; and she is quite right about Doctor Johnson - the tiresome man with his hoof and his teacup."

The Miss Carlisles and their brothers now began an old canon at the request of their mother, who went about canvassing applause for her musical offspring, crying herself, while she affected to beat time, "a charming strain!"

O'Donnel had left the apartment before the Duchess had risen from her harp. He was alone, walking up and down the drawing-room, when she entered it in search of her ridicule.

"Alone, Colonel!" she said: "has our music banished you?"

"Your's, Madam, has had that effect," he returned smiling.

"Indeed!"

"Yes, indeed."

"You resemble then a very illustrious countryman of our's,* who, though an enthusiast in Italian music, would not suffer an Irish air to be sung in his hearing; for I perceive you did not leave the room till I had begun my Irish howl. You do not like Irish music I presume."

[*The late venerable and respected chymist and philosopher, Mr. Kirwan.]

"I do not like the influence which Irish music holds over me," he replied, "in spite of my reason, and against my will."

"You would then resist any influence," she said archly, "which militated against your reason?"

"At least I would try. I do not say I should succeed: indeed, from the experiment of your Grace's song, I feel I should sometimes fail."

"This is very gallant," she replied, seating herself upon a couch, against the back of which O'Donnel leaned.

"It is very true, however; and to qualify a little what your Grace calls my gallantry, I will confess that your French song pleased me as little, as your Irish air pleased me too much. You surely forgot the advice of your author, so peculiarly applicable to his own simple compositions: - Il ne faut, pour chanter la romance, qu'une voix juste et netter, qui prononce bien, et qui chante simplement."

"That may do for your and Rousseau, Colonel O'Donnel, but I sung for my audience; and your simple style would stand but a poor chance against my little mignauderie. What did you think of my face when I sung? I always make a pretty face upon those occasions. You cannot think how it tells. Nobody sees that I call up the same look for all sorts of sentiments, from Nina pazza, to the Blue Bells of Scotland. I make the face, and they all cry 'how interesting she looks when she sings!' The truth is, the world loves a little acting; and, as Queen Elizabeth said of the ritual, she was making for her prayer-loving subjects, 'they shall get enough of it.'"

O'Donnel laughed, and returned, "Since your Grace encourages my frankness by your own, I do confess I perceived you were endeavouring to look delightfully with all your might; and where you made no such effort, I thought you succeeded better. There have been periods in Irish story, when the policy of a foreign ruler should have prohibited the singing of such a song with such a countenance."

At that moment Lady Llanberis entered the room. "Oh, Duchess!" she exclaimed; but perceiving O'Donnel leaning over the back of her Grace's seat, she suddenly stopped; and then added, with pointed coldness: "I beg pardon; I did not know your Grace was so particularly engaged;" and immediately flounced out of the room.

"How extraordinary!" said the Duchess, rising in some confusion. "What can she mean? Pray follow her, Colonel."

"To what purpose?" asked O'Donnel, surprised at Lady Llanberis's manner, but still more at the emotion of the Duchess, whom he believed beyond the possibility of being moved by any thing.

"Then I will follow her," she said, and flew into the music-room, while O'Donnel, taking a book, retired to his own.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

NOTES ON VOLUME II.

Corna, Page 12. - The ancient Irish Armies had horns, a kind of domestic trumpet, in every battalion, with notes peculiar to the different battalions, for the most precise knowledge of the duty required of each. But the Irish Corna was not devoted alone to martial purposes; meadh was frequently quaffed out of them, as the Danish hunters do their beverage at his day, and the English did their's in the time of Chaucer. - See Walker's Irish Bards.

James sat bythe fire-side, with double beard,
And drinketh of his bugle-horn the wine.

Franklin's Tale, Vol. 2, p. 809.

Page 14, 28. - Hugue O'Donnel un des plus puissans Princes d'Irelande, apres O'Niel, quoique il fut encor jeun par rapport a son age, ayant a peince vingt ans, il etoit encor mure par rapport a sa prudence, et ses autres virtues, etant arrivé dans le Tirconnel, son Pere avancé deja en age, lui ceda tout son droit, et il fut, reconnû d'un voix unanime et couronné Prince de Tirconnel par O'Phrile qui etoit le ministre ordinaire de cette ceremonie. - Histoire d'Irelande, par L'Abbe Mc. Groghan.

Page 46. - The Irish, under all their grievances, appealed, from time to time, to the English sovereigns, against those sent to rule them, "whose conduct," as the Lord Deputy Mountjoy expressed it, "was sufficient to drive the best and quietest states into confusion,"* and whose oppressions were merely excercised for the purpose of multiplying forfeitures. The sovereign, though he could not always afford them redress, never denied them sympathy and compassion. Henry the Third personally interested himself in their favour; and Elizabeth, when she read an account of their sufferings, in one of their own pathetic remonstrances, burst into tears, and said to Lord Burleigh: "It may be said of me, as of Tiberius by Bato, It is you who are to blame, who have committed your flock, not to shepherds, but to wolves."

Page. 55 - The words of the celebrated Charles O'Connor of Ballinagar, and applied to himself. Although he afterwards became so distinguished as the author of many beautiful tracts, and as a man of science, he was of necessity, from the nature of the times, educated by stealth, and, like O'Donnel, by a man who had once lived in courts, been distinguished by princes, and who in his old age found no refuge from misfortune but in the solitudes of rocks, morasses, and mountains. Such was O'Roark, Bishop of Killala, and uncle and preceptor to O'Connor. After having lived in the Imperial Court as Secretary to a Prince, love of country brought him back to Ireland, when the Penal Statutes were in full force. Though protected by letters from the English Sovereign to the leading nobility in Ireland, nothing could save him from persecution: he wandered for years among the wilds and bogs of the Joyce Country: he at last found refuge in the solitudes of Ballynagar, and being a man of great learning and science, devoted himself to the education of his nephew. Carolan, the famous Irish bard, was sometimes present at their studies, and the following anecdote is no bad picture of the times it relates to.

Page 64, 66, 67. - I felt that these brave men were right.

Page 110. - The Bishop of Derry being at dinner one day, and Irish harper came in, and sung an old ode to the harp, the substance of which was, that in such a place, pointing to the very spot near Ballyshannon, a man of gigantic figure lay buried, and that over his breast and back were plates of pure gold, and on his fingers rings of the same: the place was so minutely described, that two of the company were tempted to examine into it, and did accordingly find two pieces of pure gold. - See the Bishop of London's edition of Cambden, p. 1411.

Page 111. - This curious and most ancient family relic is a silver box lined with brass: the top is gilt, and set with large pieces of crystal, and other stones of various shapes. It is divided into three compartments; the centre represents Saint Columb sitting in his Cathedra; that on his right, a Bishop, and that on his left, is a representation of the Crucifixion, attended by the two martyrs. The border on the top and bottom consists of lions and griffins, and the sides are oak leaves. On the left is a silver censor, suspended from a chain of the same metal, and it has been evidently used as a portable altar, or pix. At the foot of the saint's figure is a setting, with a piece of glass covering; some small bits of red cloth, supposed to be a relic of the saint's garment. It is by no means of contemptible workmanship: within is contained a wooden box, and in it is a manuscript on vellum, which is supposed, and with reason, to have been the property of Saint Columb-kill, who was of this family, and the patron saint and apostle of the Highlands of Scotland, and founder of the monastery now bearing his name, Hy Colum-Cille, and which was the usual place of sepulture for the Kings of Scotland.

Page 114. - This incident may appear to o'erstep the modesty of probability, but it actually occurred some years back in the family of the late Wogan Brown, Esq. of Castle Brown, Kildare.

Page 246. - Lepreghaun. It would be extremely difficult to class this supernatural agent, who holds a distinguished place in the Irish "Faeric." His appearance, however, is supposed to be that of a shrivelled little old man, whose presence marks a spot where hidden treasures lie concealed, which were buried there in "the troubles." He is, therefore, generally seen in lone and dismal places, out of the common haunts of man; and though the night-wanderer may endeavour to mark the place where he beheld the guardian of the treasures perched, yet when he returns in the morning with proper implements to turn up the earth, the thistle, stone, or branch, he had placed as a mark, is so multiplied, that it is no longer a distinction, and the disappointments occasioned by the malignity of the little Lepreghaun render him a very unpopular fairy. His name is never applied but as a term of contempt.

Plaeraca na Ruarca, or O'Rourke's noble feast, was composed by Carolan, the first of the Irish bards, and translated most humourously, or rather versified in English, by Dean Swift. The story on which it is founded makes a part of a tradition sometime back current in the County of Leitrim, where the ruins of the Castle of the O'Ruarcs, most romantically situated, still moulder, on a precipitous rock, which frowns over a rapid river, near Mannor-Hamilton. The substance of the tradition is as follows: O'Rourke, the chief of Brefny, a brave and powerful person, was invited by Queen Elizabeth to London, though under the displeasure of the Lord President Bingham. The Queen made him warm professions of honours and service, intending by this invitation to lead him into a kind of exile, in order to secure his obedience. O'Rourke confided, and obeyed her summons; but, before his departure, he assembled his vassals and friends in the great hall of his castle, and entertained them with all the splendor of the times. (Such was the parting feast which gave rise to the song of the bard in after-days.) On the arrival of the Irish chief in Whitehall, the Queen was ready to receive him. The elegant symmetry of his person, and his noble aspect, struck Her Majesty, and he was soon ranked amongst her choicest favourites. One night a person tapped at his door, and was admitted - it was a woman. The visit continued to be repeated, and the visitant to retire before day-light. The Chief's curiosity became urgent: he pressed the mysterious lady to reveal herself, but she refused: a straggling moonbeam, however, discovered to him a ring that glittered on her finger: he examined it unobserved by the wearer. The next day he saw it upon the Queen's finger at Court, and had the imprudence to hint his suspicion to Her Majesty. His fatal curiosity (adds the tradition) was punished with secret death - he was assassinated that night. - See Walker's Irish Bards.

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