O'DONNEL.

VOLUME I

VOLUME II

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

CHAPTER I.

THE next morning O'Donnel took the opportunity of finding Lady Llanberis at a window in the breakfast room, where all the party were assembled, to remind her of the appointment, which had been broken, or to induce her to renew a promise she seemed to have forgotten. She received his advances with coldness, and made some evasive reply. O'Donnel was for a moment thrown back. He feared he had offended, and yet was unconscious of his fault; he ventured, however, to express a hope that the honour, she had proposed conferring upon him, was not withdrawn, but delayed. Lady Llanberis replied, with an air of humour, that "nothing under a Laplander would walk to-day; the ground is frozen over, and you cannot expect me to skait a walk, Colonel, I suppose."

"I expect nothing," returned O'Donnel, a little surprized; yet endeavouring to avoid the appearance of chagrin, he gaily added: "but skaiting a walk is neither so impracticable nor so disagreeable a thing, as your Ladyship may suppose; at least, I once skaited a journey in Holland, and found it a pleasant and expeditious mode of travelling."

"Skaited a journey!" echoed her Ladyship, her face brightening into smiles of pleasurable amazement; "how very odd! how very delightful! you must tell me all about it, Colonel O'Donnel. - General, pray come here. Only think! Colonel O'Donnel has skaited a journey!"

"I have skaited some leagues myself in Holland," said the General. "I was once famous at that work, and belonged for some years to the skaiting club of Edinburgh. But I don't think we English make good skaiters, Colonel."

"We used to think abroad," said O'Donnel, "that you performed feats of great agility on the ice, but that your skaits were not well constructed."

"Colonel O'Donnel," said Lady Llanberis, with great eagerness, "will you do me the favour of giving a plan for skaits to my smith: we'll have a number of them made directly. There will be no end to this frost, you may depend upon that. I dare say the Duchess skaits like an angel, and I know you might light fires upon the great pond in front of the house. General, pray ring the bell: stay, Colonel, will you walk with me to my smith's forge? We will go this moment: there is nothing on earth like a skaiting party. What attitudes Mr. Carlisle will make! I'll just get on my pelisse and show shoes, and you shall meet me in the hall."

O'Donnel, laughing to himself, yet glad to have the opportunity of the walk, followed her out of the room. As he passed the Duchess, who was in conversation with the Duke, he perceived her eyes fixed on Lady Llanberis and himself; and when he stopped to make the salutations of the morning, (for she had recently entered the room) she said significantly: "You had better proceed."

While he waited for her Ladyship in the hall, her page brought him a message that she begged he would go to the forge by himself, and bespeak the skaits, for she found it too cold to go out. O'Donnel, again disappointed, prepared to obey this request, when throwing up his eyes to the gallery, which ran round the hall, he perceived Lady Llanberis and Lord Charles passing along it together. The sudden change in her intention was now accounted for. He had, from various circumstances, not to be mistaken, concluded that Lord Charles was the acknowledged lover of Lady Llanberis; and Miss Carlisle, who was as liberal of her communications as of her attentions, had, indeed, hinted to him, that as soon as the widower's mourning was laid aside, he was to become the husband of his late wife's dearest friend. Yet nothing could be more coldly indifferent than the manner of the lover; nothing more careless and general than the conduct of the mistress. Lord Charles, to all outward seeming, was a phlegmatist by constitution, and an egotist by system. The exclusive selfishness, which stood in the place of every better feeling, and betrayed its influence through all the openings of his unamiable character, evidently lent its frigid colouring, even to his preference for a woman to whom he had long given the éclat of his attentions.

He stood, indeed, at the head of that class of apathetic men of gallantry, qui se laissent aimer; and who are, perhaps, peculiar to the age and circle in which he lived; who, if they sometimes commit the feelings of the objects they select, never risk their own; who lounge away their mornings in boudoirs, their evenings in assembly rooms; correspond voluminously on notepaper, enter into all the little gossip and frivolous anecdote of the day; and plot, manœuvre, and intrigue, according to the interests and the views of that heartless vanity, in which

"They live, and breathe, and have their being."

Less anxious to be loved than to be adulated - to awaken a sentiment than to expose a triumph, they demand obvious attentions, rather than hidden devotion; nor seek in the equivocal tie, which springs so much oftener from general suitableness than

particular sympathy, the exclusiveness of friendship, nor the tenderness of passion.

This heartless connection (the lady's fair character alone excepted) frequently recalled to O'Donnel's mind those no less cold, but more profligate, liaisons which marked the exhausted gallantry of French society, in its last stage of moral degradation; where virtue was violated from no stronger motive than the gratification of vanity, or the removal of ennui; and vice sought neither its charms nor its excuse, in the tyranny of the senses, or the illusions of love.

The day passed over O'Donnel's head unoccupied and unenjoyed. He had rambled abroad without interest, and had returned without object. The comfortless grandeur of a great house struck him in all its coldness; where the fire-side nitch, the central point of domestic sociality, is always wanting; where there is so frequently solitude without privacy, and loneliness without retirement; and where the feelings, like the guests, are dissipated and abroad, for want of some attractive influence to fix and concentrate them at home. The large, empty, and splendid rooms looked gloomy and comfortless, unoccupied by the gay groups of the evening, which were now all dispersed. O'Donnel, a stranger to all, and assimilated to none, had not been invited to join in any pursuit, or to attach himself to any party. Cheerless and low-spirited, he involuntarily looked forward towards the evening, when lights and noise would reflect upon his imagination, and when perhaps the brilliant pleasantry and gay acuteness of the Duchess might chase the demon of spleen; and if they awakened not interest, at least bring distraction.

In this hope he was deceived. The Duchess played all night at piquet with the General. Mr. Frederick Carlisle, who wished to advertise himself as her lover in the most extravagant sense of the word, with no other view than the hope of participating in her noteriety, hung over the back of her chair, murmuring his homage in such scrapes of Italian verse, as memory supplied him with from his sister's musicbooks. Meantime, Lady Mary sat near the table, dispensing criticism and sentiment to Mr. Mussen, for ready approbation; and looks of keen reproach at the General, for his equal want of dignity and of taste. Mr. Wharton dozed on one Ottoman, because Lord Charles dozed on another. And Lady Llanberis played vingt-une with the Duke. The rest of the party were divided between a round game, and the billiard-room, with the exception of Miss Carlisle, who had singled out O'Donnel, and with an earnestness quite irresistible, had insisted on his becoming her pupil at a Trou-Madame board, a game of which he had unluckily declared his ignorance, in order to avoid playing. Miss Carlisle's eyes had already told him, among other "fair speechless messages," that he was the handsomest man in the world; and that the opinion might not be "wholly drawn into the flattering table of an eye," she confessed that she had modelled his head in wax, and that it precisely resembled an Antinous, she had done some time before, from the bust in D--- House. Naïvetè was Miss Carlisle's profession; and she was as naïve as young ladies generally are, who have passed the last fifteen years of their lives in the bustle and intrigue of what is termed the world.

The Duchess retired early, before Miss Carlisle and O'Donnel had finished their game; and though she paused for a moment near the table, to speak to Mr. Frederick Carlisle (who had followed her with the good-night speech from Romeo and Juliet) and returned Miss Carlisle's bon-soir, yet she passed on without noticing her opponent. It did not escape O'Donnel that he was not included in her salutations, and he was yet more struck with the consciousness that he had observed it. He began to think she was inclined to play the fine lady to its utmost extravagance, and that she had even taken the April-day conduct of the constitutionally capricious Countess for her model.

"So much the worse for her," he mentally observed. "Her original sins are delightful, if they are not respectable; but when she becomes the copyist of another's follies, she ceases either to pique or interest." He was surprized to find that, with respect to himself, she had already done both.

O'Donnel had but just finished his game, when Lady Llanberis sent for him to join her supper-table. He entered more than usual into general conversation, from the circumstance of her having introduced Ireland as a topic; and she had led him so deeply into its antiquities, that enamoured with the subject, she begged for memoranda for Grose and Vallancey's treatises, that she might consult them at her leisure.

Although he had been much animated by the discussion, yet, when at a late hour he rose from the table, he felt piqued, he knew not with whom; disappointed, he knew not by what; and he retired to his room discontented with himself, and with every one about him. His former fasitidiousness respecting society returned upon him; and wearied by the folly and emptiness, which on the preceding night had amused, if it had not interested, he blamed others for that, which was only, perhaps, pitiable in himself.

Languid and frivolous, as O'Donnel still found the circle in which he was so strangely included, without giving it more of his approbation, he had yet insensibly granted it more of his indulgence. Although he knew not where his repugnance ceased, or his toleration began; he was still aware that his impatience for an eclaircissement with Lady Llanberis, which would probably terminate his visit, did not increase with the delays it had experienced; and he felt that he became every day less uneasy under the difficulties which impeded his return.

Another and another day elapsed. New visitors brought new engagements. Lady Llanberis was wholly engrossed with the strangers, as long as they were strangers, and O'Donnel found no opportunity of addressing even a word to her. The parvenue peeress seemed an object of great curiosity to the new arrivals, who were persons of high rank and fashion. She was continually drawn out by her fair hostess, herself "nothing loth;" and remained the leading feature of attraction and interest, during the short stay of the noble guests. Lady Llanberis was delighted with her own character of cicerone to her favourite of the hour; called on her for the droll story she had told on such a night; insisted on her remembering such an impromptu, or repeating such a bonmot; would fain have made her dance a buffa pass de deux by herself; and maintain over again her Johnsonian dialogue with Lady Mary, without the aid of an interlocutor. The Duchess exhibited freely, and only stopped short of the ridiculous; but when Lady Llanberis happened to go too deep within the lines of bad taste, her lion always turned restive; and upon one occasion she said to O'Donnel, almost loud enough to be heard by all: -

"Allons, Mademoiselle, parlez philosophie, pour Monsieur, et puis nous aurons la Theologie:" thus drawing a parity between herself with Lady Llanberis, and the Duchess de Fertè with the first celebrated Madame de Staal; and convincing O'Donnel that governed, though not deceived by her own vanity, she secretly ridiculed the folly, of which she was at once both the agent and the object.

Her character, indeed, as he endeavoured to catch its features through the inequalities of her manner and conduct, gave endless play to conjecture, and room for observation: there was something so pleasantly incongruous in her mingled cynicism and gaiety, her knowledge of human weakness, and liberal contribution to its absurdities, that he was amused even where he was not particularly interested; and fascinated even when he did not quite approve. But, either by system or inadvertency, she had latterly found her way to his consideration, through the medium of his self-love, and excited interest, where, perhaps, she only sought to win applause. For the appeals which her better sense made, at times, to his good opinion, betrayed an anxiety to obtain it, through the real or feigned indifference of her general manner. The energy of mind she evinced in some of their particular conversations, when he was "sole auditor," contrasted with her general frivolity to others, rendered her more attractive, in proportion as this distinction was more flattering; while by increasing the originality of her character, and adding to the inconsistencies of her conduct, it gave, perhaps, to both a charm, which more uniform excellence could not have possessed.

But the credit she thus far obtained had its balance on the contra page of his opinion. The disguise in which she had wrapt her character, while in the family of Lady Singleton, betrayed a command of feeling little consonant to the prompt sensibility of her age and sex, and excited wonder that

"One so young could give out such
A seeming - "

And her marriage with the Duke of Belmont led him to suspect that she was deficient in that femenine delicacy, without which woman was to him a thing unsexed. Like all men, whose strong passions and peculiar modes of life have led them to seek the rounds of pleasure in their least excusable form, O'Donnel had raised a rigid standard on the ground of his ill-bought experience; and was severe and fastidious on the subject of female conduct, in proportion to the opportunities afforded him of viewing it in its coarsest aspect.

The want of delicacy in woman was always, in his estimation, proportioned to her want of sensibility - the quality most necessary to the self-love of man, and therefore the most reluctantly dipensed with. But of the Duchess of Belmont's natural coldness, he had the most thorough conviction; and he believed that her spirit, like Beatrice's, was invulnerable against all assaults of affection: her careless gaiety, her general indifference, her vanity, and even her idle encouragement of the vain and frivolous Frederick Carlisle, were all proofs to him of her inherent heartlessness; for though it was evident that the ambition to which she had imolated, taste, feeling, and natural antipathy, would never permit her to "abase her eyes" on one, who would render the sacrifices she had already made to it abortive; yet she evidently encouraged his attentions, merely that he might serve as a mark for her pleasantries, and contribute to the gratification of her vanity.

On the same day on which the flying visitors took their leave, O'Donnel received a message from Lady Llanberis to attend her in her dressing-room. His hour he believed was at length arrived. Whatever were the views which had induced this whimsical but generous woman to invite him from Ireland, they would now be revealed, even if they were not accomplished; and the opportunity would be of course afforded him of returning her money. He was, however, disappointed to find her Ladyship not as he expected, alone, but looking over some books at a table, at which also stood the Duchess and the two elder Miss Carlisles.

"Come in, Colonel," she cried, as soon as he appeared: "we want you here most amazingly, to explain all these engravings, and some Irish poems: for here are the books you mentioned; and my bookseller has sent me besides every thing he could collect on the subject of your interesting country."

O'Donnel took his place at the table; the ladies drew round him; and in this enviable and distinguished situation he was discovered by Lord Charles Savill, who had advanced some steps into the room before he perceived O'Donnel on the other side of the table.

"You are just come in time, Lord Charles, to be amazingly amused," said Lady Llanberis: but before she finished what she meant to add, Lord Charles had left the room. Lady Llanberis, too much engrossed with Faugh-guards, tumuli and round towers, scarcely perceived his exit, and made no comment on its abruptness. Before, however, she had got quite though Grose's plates, she began to yawn, and had more than once gone as far as - "Come, this is very good," when the dressing-bell released her; and the little society of the dressing-room broke up. As they passed along the gallery leading to their several apartments, the Duchess observed in a low voice to O'Donnel:

"If Lord Charles Savill is ever elected President of the Antiquarian Society, I do not think he will readily consent to your admission into it; for it strikes me he was not particularly pleased at our learned little body resolving itself into a committee, in the Countess's dressing-room, and making you its chairman."

"What reason has your Grace to suppose so?" asked O'Donnel. But she only smiled, and entered her dressing-room, without making any reply. O'Donnel had asked this question of the Duchess idly; for he too had been struck by the sudden retreat of Lord Charles Savill, and still more by the expression of his countenance; for when he had raised his head at his entrance, their eyes had met full, and O'Donnel had read there more than he would be justified in noticing; yet something, which he longed Lord Charles would transfer from his eyes to his lips, and by thus (giving it a less questionable form) enable him to meet it as it merited.

From O'Donnel's first arrival at Longlands, Lord Charles had treated him with a marked coldness, which at least indicated repugnance; and whether he conversed with Lady Llanberis or the Duchess, or received the civilities of the Miss Carlisles, or of the passing female visitants, to whom Lady Llanberis presented him, the supercilious looks of Lord Charles still pursued him; hastily withdrawn, indeed, when the eyes of O'Donnel met his, but always accompanied by a smile that indicated irony, if not absolute derision. It was, however, a delicate point to call a man to an account for looks and smiles; O'Donnel therefore waited with more patience and temper than naturally belonged to his impetuous character, for some less equivocal proof of his Lordship's tendency to insult.

In the evening, as the gentlemen stood round the fire, taking liquer after coffee, Lady Llanberis resumed the subject of the Irish antiquities, and again assured Lord Charles that he had had a great loss in not remaining in her dressing-room.

"Credat Judaeus!" replied Lrod Charles, smiling sarcastically.

"What do you mean by that, Lord Charles?" asked Lady Llanberis, eagerly.

"Nothing," said Lord Charles, drily, "but that I am not OVER credulous with respect to any thing that is Irish."

"Has your Lordship any definite meaning attached to your words?" asked O'Donnel, in a tone equally significant.

"I believe, Sir," said Lord Charles, haughtily, "I am not bound particularly to account to you for the meaning of any words I may utter."

"No further," answered O'Donnel, "than as one gentleman is bound to another, to do away any unpleasant impression, which words, casually spoken, may, from a wrong inference, have made on his mind."

What Lord Charles meant to have replied, if he meant to have replied at all, was lost by the sudden diversion of his attention from O'Donnel to his own personal safety, and the injury sustained by one of his very handsome legs; for the Duchess, with a startling scream, let fall a cup of hot tea, and, not only spoiled for ever her own spotless white satin dress, but scalded Lord Charles's instep sufficiently to oblige him instantly to leave the room, and get his stocking drawn off, before the skin adhered to it. He retired to the door, followed by the Duchess and Lady Llanberis; the latter lamenting that he could not skate for a week; the former deploring and apologizing for the accident, holding out her own dripping gown, and exclaiming against Mr. Frederick Carlisle as the real author of the accident, whose elbow, she said, had come in contact with her's, because he would stand in an attitude - so. Here her close imitation, not only of Mr. Carlisle's attitude, but even of his canvassing look for admiration, glanced furtively from under the eyes, threw Lady Llanberis into a violent fit of laughter, and had the effect of restoring the merriment of the whole party, which Lady Llanberis's observation to Lord Charles had for a moment interrupted. Her Grace and her nephew returned almost at the same moment to the room; Lord Charles limping with his leg tied up; while the Duchess, with her spoiled satin exchanged for a plain white muslin dress, and veil thrown round her, entered with a wild and frantic look, and sung the mad song in "Nina pazza" with great effect, to the surprize and amusement of the whole company: then suddenly changing her countenance and air, she succeeded still better in a buffa, in the style and jargon of a Sicilian peasant. Lady Llanberis was in raptures; and so often assured Lord Charles that all this was done to conciliate him, and make amends for the accident, that he at last seemed not only to credit the fact, but to be gratified by the intention. This was indeed the first symptom of conciliation which his plebeian, but unbending aunt, had ever paid him; and as inordinate vanity is as easily soothed as it is readily wounded, he was not incredulous to the assertions, which fed and flattered the dominant passion of his nature.

Mr. Frederick Carlisle was then called for his amende honorable; and though mortified and piqued, even into low spirits, by the Duchess's accurate imitation of his affected peculiarities, yet he could not resist the opportunity of exhibiting. With very little pressing, therefore, he suffered himself to be prevailed on, and performed a number of harlequinade tricks and attitudes, which he concluded by vaulting over a sofa table, coming down on the other side in the position of a cobler at his work, and singing Jobson's ballad, "He that has the best wife, &c." The room rang with applauses, and the evening concluded with the greatest good-humour and gaiety. Lady Llanberis, from the variety of the exhibitions, had not one pause allowed her for a yawn, and in the fervour of her delight, she could not refrain from saying, "Well, Duchess, if you had not scalded poor Lord Charles's leg, I must say that your spilling the tea was a most lucky accident. You have broken my Dresden cup all to pieces, but I would give twenty Dresden cups for one such evening as this."

O'Donnel alone had felt neither pleasure nor gratification from this eventful evening; and before the Duchess had begun her buffa song, he had left the drawing-room, and retired to his own apartment, with feelings of the most unqualified discomfort. He almost regretted his hastiness to Lord Charles, and his having given way to the powerful feeling of the moment. Yet to go on longer under the same roof with a man, who evidently considered him with suspicion, if not with a more invidious sentiment; to feel the influence of looks and eyes, and yet to be scarcely justified in noticing their unequivocal expressions; was a state scarcely endurable to one, whose pride was but too prompt to take offence, and whose spirit was not always regulated by prudencec, or tempered by reflection. He therefore resolved on taking an early opportunity of leaving Longlands, and (waving any further cermony with respect to Lady Llanberis's secret,) he determined on mentioning his suspicion of her liberality on the following day, and, if possible, on bringing her to the point so long desired by him, and so long protracted by her.

In these resolutions Lord Charles was not alone the person who took a part. The Duchess of Belmont's conduct had thoroughly (it was a strong term, but he repeated it to himself) disgusted him. Her evident attempts to adulate Lord Charles, the moment after she had witnessed what had passed between them, and had heard his pointed expression of contempt for her country, of which some portion must necessarily fall upon herself; the extravagance of her exhibitions, far beyond what he had before seen her attempt; and even her ridiculous mimicry of Mr. Carlisle, the last person on whom she ought to have exerted her dangerous talent, overthrew every sentiment of prepossession which he had conceived in her favour. He felt that he never could again seek her society, nor be seduced by her pleasantry and conversational powers. Yet that enjoyment lost, what was there to detain him longer at this splendid villa, or to render it preferable to his own solitary and obscure lodging in London? There, at least, his time was his own; and there he was neither constrained to be amused, expected to be gay, nor condemned to be happy, in spite of every reason to be otherwise. It was also self-evident that he was not in any respect calcuated for the meridian of the society to which he was attached. With modes of thinking as strong, as his feelings were acute, and his spirits susceptible, he was continually risking beyond some landmark of prevailing opinion; startling a cherished prejudice, or treading upon a darling prepossession. Neither did he possess exhibiting talents of any description, so necessary in contributing to the levy, which the indolent and the rich are perpetually raising upon the spirits and exertions of all who are admitted to their community. Prompt, as qualified, to bear his part in an enlightened and liberal conversation, upon whatever point it turned, he shrunk from being at all times en spectacle, either as actor or auditor. He could not feign a leap nor force an attitude; he could neither grind knives with his teeth, nor play the short-armed orator;and, added to all these deficiencies, he hated "hot cockles;" disliked "blind man's buff;" and played with so little success at "four corners," that he was sure to be left fool in the middle whenever he attempted it.

On the following morning, as O'Donnel was crossing through the hall from the breakfast-room to the saloon, in search of Lady Llanberis, to execute the resolves of the preceding night, he perceived her Ladyship and the Duchess leaning over the balustrade of the gallery above, in earnest conversation.

"Stay, stay, Colonel O'Donnel," cried the Countess; "you are the person in the world I want to speak to;" and she hurried down with her hands full of letters. "Come into the saloon," she said; "I have something particular to say to you."

O'Donnel followed her.

"Now, Colonel O'Donnel," she said laughingly, "will you answer me a simple question?"

"Certainly, Madam," he replied in some emotion; "if I can."

"Has Lady Singleton, or has she not, turned traitress?"

"What does your Ladyship mean?"

"Has she, or has she not, betrayed to you a little secret, I entrusted to her keeping, and in which you are involved?"

"Never, Madam, never, at least directly or intentionally, upon my honour; but I have, partly by accident, partly by inference, been led to suspect that there was a secret, that - "

He paused for a moment, felt for the two thousand pound bills, and hesitated whether he would not at once cut the matter short, and without further observation, return the money into her hands.

"Come," said the Countess, "I see you know all; and, indeed, I meant long since to have talked to you about it, but I have been so hurried and engaged, by all the tiresome people that have been here, that it quite went out of my head, till a letter from your friend, Lady Singleton, this morning, had rendered me more anxious than ever to complete the business, for many reasons which I will mention to you: but first tell me, are you satisfied with - "

"Satisfied!" interrupted O'Donnel in some agitation, and drawing the letter, and its enclosures, from his pocket. "Satisfied, is a cold word: but while I offer your Ladyship my sincere, my grateful acknowledgments, I trust you will suffer me to decline, not your good-will, but the medium through which it flows - in a word - Madam - "

"Nay," interrupted Lady Llanberis, eagerly, "I did not mean to dictate: I acted only in conformity to the character given of you by Lady Singleton: her description of you altogether - In a word, it struck me that nature herself had intended you for 'un role distingue;' and I thought it was but just that our hero should - "

"Nay, indeed, Lady Llanberis," said O'Donnel, confused, yet smiling at her new enthusiasm in his favour: "I cannot hear you further; your Ladyship and Lady Singleton have both been most kind, most flattering, and - "

"Not the least of it," said Lady Llanberis; "and the fact is, I shall consider your refusal as mere false modesty, false delicacy; you can start no reasonable objection. In short," she added, with some symptoms of humour, "I am not much in the habit of being refused when I stoop to solicit, and before you decide, I think you had better consider a little, for your rejection will do me a very serious injury, and render abortive all that I have been working at for these two months."

O'Donnel, equally distressed and astonished, exclaimed: - "

"Good God! how can my refusal or acceptance be of any moment to your Ladyship, further than as your generous feelings in my favour..."

"Why," interrupted Lady Llanberis, "it breaks up all my scheme, and disappoints all my triumphs, over a perosn who is most justly and deservedly odious to me."

"You amaze me," said O'Donnel.

"It is nevertheless true," added Lady Llanberis; "and therefore t was necessary the whole should be kept secret, till all was ready beyond the chance of disappointment; nor had I any confidant in the whole plan but Lady Singleton and Lord Charles. The person to whom I alluded," she continued, "is a Lady Loton, a creature of yesterday; whom, before she became a personage, I happened to treat a little de haute en bas, and since she has become the wife of that Cresus, that old nabob, Sir Samuel Loton, who got his money in India, Heaven knows how - she has endeavoured to pay me back - not, however, in kind - there I defy her insignificance; but by ruining herself to annoy me. You know how people are led in London by dinners, and suppers, and lions, and champagne, and all that sort of thing; and this Pagoda Lady has so timed her good things to come in opposition to mine, that she actually, last season, emptied my rooms twice in one month, and carried off some of my best men from my opera suppers. Well, this is not all: last autumn, her foolish old husband, at her instigation, bought Lord S---'s beautiful villa when he went to Germany. Now this villa is only five miles distance from Longlands; and when the report got about that I meant to fill my house at Christmas, and ask some amusing people here, she instantly gave out that she meant to have private theatricals, some of Moliere's 'petits pieces;' for she has an emigré, a kind of ami de famille, such as it is the fashion to have now, who is the first comic actor in the world, the Chevalier St. Ange; and they were to commence with an English tragedy and les Precieuses Ridicules for a farce. She had, however, a theatre to build, and I was determined to meet her in her own way. My theatre is nearly finished, and her's is not roofed; and before she can bring out her Tamerlane and French farce, I shall have represented my Zaire and my English farce; for I cast all the parts myself, and have gotten them written out. We have now a fortnight before us: we may be all ready for the first rehearsal by this day se'nnight, and on that day week we may perform, to Lady Loton's surprize and confusion, and the astonishment of all the world, for I shall ask all the world. Still, however, I was not certain of my Zaire till this post; though Lady Singleton has been intriguing the business for me this month back; for my Zaire is no other than the once famous Comtesse de Pompeignan, whose Theatre de Societé was the first thing of its kind in Paris, and who, though rather too old for your tendre Zaire, is still a delicious actress. Now the Chevalier St. Ange is the cher ami of Madame de Pompeignan, as well as the ami de la maison with Lady Loton; and though these ladies are the greatest friends in the world, yet there are constant little fracas between them, of which the poor dear Chevalier (himself no chicken) is the subject. Lady Singleton has been in the neighbourhood with them all, and has played her part so well, that, on a late quareel between the two rival queens, she has actually carried off Zaire with her to town, engaged her in our schemes, and set her at eternal war with her Chevalier and her false friend, who is young and pretty enough to excuse the Chevalier's desertion, that is certain. We are to have both ladies here in a few days, and Madame de Pompeignan is already aware that she is to have the handsomest Orosmane is the world; for, in fact, as Lady Singleton said to me, when we first wrote to you, that part seemed written on purpose, as if Voltaire had you in his eye at the time. - Stay, here are all your parts, and here is my little bill of fare: you will perceive that I have enlisted some emigrés too, as well as Lady Loton. I am to send the carriage for them to Lady Singleton, who is to get me a whole batch. I have cast the play so: -

Orosmane - - - - Colonel O'Donnel.
Luisignan - - - - Chevalier de Tours.
Nerestan - - - - M. de Mercœur.
Chevaliers Francois - - - - Messrs. Carlisles, &c.
Fatime - - - - Lady Singleton.
Zaire - - - - Mad. de Pompeignan.

DEVIL TO PAY.

Sir John Levernle - - - - Sir Gilbert S.

for he has a sweet little voice, and you know it's a poor part.

Jobson - - - - Mr. F. Carlisle

He will be delightful.

Butler - - - - Mr. Carlisle.
Footman - - - - The Duke of Belmont.

ans so on.

"Well, here is your part, written out by Florio; and if you have nothing better to do, suppose you walk to the fir grove and look at my theatre, and try your voice. I have given a thousand orders about the sounding board. Do you remember -

JE VEUX AVEC EXCÊS vous aimer et vous plaire?"

"You little thought then you were giving me a specimen of your dramatic powers; so you see your refusal of the premier role comes too late."

Her Ladyship having now presented the written part to her hero, was gliding away: but O'Donnel, who, from the length of her speech, had time to recover gradually from his astonishment, followed her, and entreated another moment of her attention.

"Well," she returned, "it must be only a moment, for I am now going to the Carlisles to set them to work at the Devil to Pay."

"May I then," said O'Donnel, "beg to know if your Ladyship ever did me the honour to write to me upon any other subject to Ireland, than that of a mere invitation to your villa?"

"No," said Lady Llanberis, "never. Why do you ask? I even cautioned Lady Singleton not to mention a word in her letter of the plays, but merely to request the pleasure of yoru company at Longlands, for, independent of Orosmane, I had an amazing curiosity to see you. I assure you, I consider you as a genuine Irish Chief; and what Lady Singleton told me about your being kidnapped in your youth and confined in the Castle of Dublin, rendered you most amazingly interesting."

O'Donnel, little as he was disposed to be amused, could not help smiling at this identifying of himself with "O'Donnel the Red;" but as the eager lady was again hurrying away, he again followed her, and putting the letter, he had received, into her hand with the bills, begged to know if that was her seal.

"No," said Lady Llanberis, reading the motto: "but it is an amazing pretty device. I will have a seal cut after it directly: it is really extremely ingenious. Will you give me leave?" and tearing off the seal, she glided away, repeating the Italian motto to herself.

O'Donnel stood motionless where she had left him, holding his French part in his hand, more bewildered, more to seek than ever. It was impossible to mistake Lady Llanberis's manner, and it was as impossible not to feel that he had hitherto wholly mistaken her character. It was evident that he was simply the object of a caprice, the instrument of a scheme; and that he had no further interested her feelings in his favour, than in as much as he had excited her curiosity, or amused her imagination; and it was clear, that, though pleased, as she was misled, by the account of the kidnapped chief, she had neither sympathy nor interest for the unfortunate gentleman.

The approach of some one towards the door, opposite to that near which he stood, hurried him away; and he had already reached his own room, before he discovered that he had not picked up his letter and bills, which Lady Llanberis had carelessly let fall, with her wonted giddiness, when she tore off the seal; and that he now only held in his hand the written part of Orosmane.

In some trepidation, he hurried back to the saloon, and was equally mortified and surprized, to see the Duchess of Belmont standing, where he had stood a few minutes before, and holding the envelope of his letter in one hand, and one of the bills between her finger and thumb of the other.

"Oh! oh!" she said, "you are the careless person then, Colonel O'Donnel, who flings his thousand pound notes about, as if they were blank paper. There, take it - I read you fears in your countenance, and have read nothing else, I assure you." And she presented him the letter and the bill. "Don't be frightened," she added sportively; "I have only this moment picked it up; 'tis all safe. But pray be more cuatious in future. Cold, pausing caution, to be sure, is not the virtue of an hero, and least of all of such a hero as le Grand Orosmane."

O'Donnel started and coloured. - The Duchess was just where she had been in his estimation the night before; he was not, therefore, must disposed to be amused by her pleasantry, and still less was he disposed to become the but or object of her ridicule. He was about at once to deny all knowledge of the part assigned him by Lady Llanberis, till a few minutes back, when the Duchess interrupted him, saying: -

"The Countess had just told me all, Colonel, and I quite agree with her, that you are the very figure for the 'superbe Orosmane:' yes, there is 'ce bras puissant,' 'cet aimable front, que la gloire environne.'"

O'Donnel was turning away, but the Duchess detained him.

"Nay, you must not go for a minute or two," she said. "I am so full of this French play, I can think and talk of nothing else. You have no idea how much I admire private theatricals; but your Zaire - what a Zaire they have given you! poor Madame de Pompeignan! Thirty years ago she was the heroine of her own theatre, and the worst of it is the play, you know, opens so -

"Jeune m'attendais pas, JEUNE et BELLE Zaire."

"Now, vanity apart, I think I should have played it better. Stay, I'll just give you a specimen;" and placing herself opposite to him after a moment's pause, and with an instantaneous and extraordinary change of manner and countenance, she addressed herself to O'Donnel, in the tender expression of the devoted Zaire.

"Helas j'aurals voulu qu'a vos vertus unie
Et meprisant pour vous, les trones de l'Asie,
Seule, et dans un desert avec mon Epoux
J'eusse pû sous pieds les fouler avec vous."

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed O'Donnel, while his imagination was thrown into disorder by the exquisite, the almost passionate feeling of the Duchess's voice and manner: "Good Heavens! what an actress you are!"

"Well," she said, recovering her usual tone, "I told you so - but my merits are here wholly overlooked; and instead of the christian heroine of the French tragedy, I am destined to play the cobler's wife in the English farce;" and she began to hum, with great taste and playfulness -

"Of late I was a cobler's wife."

"Then you Grace," said O'Donnel, pleased and detained against his better reason - "your Grace really means to perform?"

"To be sure," she replied, "and don't you?"

"Me!" said O'Donnel - "You cannot seriously suppose it."

"Indeed I do suppose and believe it most seriously and truly," said the Duchess. "How can I doubt it, when you have come six hundred miles on Lady Singleton's invitation, for the express purpose? for this, as I learnt from our noble hostess this morning, was the 'wind of which you were the sport,' and which blew you into those 'Halcyon seas,' you talked of some days back.

O'Donnel now, more to exculpate himself from so ludicrous an imputation, and to escape being the subject of one of her humourous Grace's good stories, than from any desire to make a confidant, where he almost feared an enemy, candidly confessed the motive which led him to seek the Countess's acquaintance, and to accept her invitation to Longlands, alleging the fact of his visit to England being merely the result of his own situation and affairs; and his never having received the invitations she alluded to, which he had reason to believe did not reach Ireland till he had left it.

"And this then," said the Duchess, emphatically, "is your knowledge of human nature. After having lived 'where bells have tolled to church,' in great cities and in great courts, you have yet to learn, that those who go furthest for their own gratification, are those who move least to promote the good of others; that extravagance of conduct holds no inseparable connection with liberality of sentiment; and that, what is vulgarly called a good heart, is as inferior to a right mind, as instinct is to reason, and impulse to principle. But to quit this ton d'exorde. - Since Lady Llanberis is not the invisible deity, who showers her ill-bestowed benefits on you, have you no suspicion who is?"

"None in the world," returned O'Donnel. "Why should any one suppose I wanted the money? or why should any one suspect that I would accept so large a sum, coming in so questionable a way! - a sum which might be reclaimed when I was least able to return it; and by one, perhaps, from whom I should shrink to be obliged."

"Nay," said the Duchess, "I dare say you suspect the whole transaction to be the act of some foolish, inconsiderate woman, who, without rhime or reason, would do that and more, pour l'amour de vos beaux yeux."

O'Donnel raised his eyes to the Duchess's, and was hurt beyond the power of concealing his mortification at the look of irony which beamed in them.

"I am not," he said in a quick tone, "quite the consummate coxcomb your Grace seems to suppose, and - "

"Ah! there he is," interrupted the Duchess, with a dramatic air. "Ce superbe Orosmane! Well, I beg pardon; but the fact is, I have a sort of a feeling of old acquaintanceship with you, which leads me to take these little liberties. It is now I think more than two years since we first met; and though your notice was neither very marked, nor very flattering; yet while you were cultivating an intimacy with Lady Florence's eyes, Goody-two-Shoes was making an acquaintance with you; for those who ran might read. The style, though high-flown, was clear enough."

"Lady Florence's eyes, and Goody-two-Shoes!" repeated O'Donnel, half pleased, half vexed, at Lady Llanberis's treachery, and at once amused, softened, and flattered, in spite of himself.

"Aye, Lady Florence's eyes," returned the Duchess. "That woman knows you all. She piques your self-love at the first set out; and she judges by experience, that all the rest will follow of course. Now, that is the very spirit of the laws of coquetry, and all the rest is mere verbiage. But the truth is, Lady Florence's attentions did touch you, Colonel, and home too - you know they did. You were caught, not by admiring, but by being admired."

"The attentions of any woman would touch me home," replied O'Donnel, warmly; "and I will not answer for the extravagance of which the attentions of some women might drive me. But Lady Florence would be as little likely to produce that effect, as any other cold and self-possessed woman, who through all her fascination clearly shews that she lives only for the gratification of her own vanity."

"Indeed!" said the Duchess, drily. "You like then to find a woman, as the Parisian liked to find his goose, aussi tendre que Zaire."

O'Donnel could not help laughing at the ridicule of the image.

"Well," said the Duchess, rising from the chair, on which she had seated herself during the conversation, "all I can say is, since you have honoured me with your confidence, that I think you had better advertise these troublesome notes, as things lost or mislaid, stolen or strayed; or lay them by for the present, till called for by the right owner. For since, as the French song says, 'on ne donne rien pour rien,' when nothing comes of it, and it is seen that you have not had the tender intuition to discover who really is the benefactress, the money will perhaps be reclaimed, and given to some more grateful and quick-sighted object. - Meantime, however, observe, that Madam de Pompeignan will be here to meet her Orosmane, so you had better set about your part."

"So very little idea," he replied, "have I of playing any part here, that I mean to return to town to-morrow."

The Duchess turned back, with some surprise marked in her countenance.

"Indeed!" she said with earnestness. "Return so soon to London! Why Lady Llanberis has just told me that you have promised to remain here for three weeks, certain; and as much longer as you could. She counts on you, and... in short, you must not go; for you cannot tell her that you will not stay, because she did not send you two thousand pounds: though, if that is your price, and you will not remain a shilling under, why, I can answer for her, that sooner or than lose her Orosmane - "

"I perceive," interrupted O'Donnel, with some humor, "there is but one aspect of things for your Grace, and that is the ridiculous."

"To be serious then," said the Duchess - "which is the only ridiculous thing after all; if you are only driven away by the fear of being dragooned into the part of a hero, you may trust me, that your compliance will never be put to the test. For persons of Lady Llanberis's class there are no meditated pleasures; with them, 'nothing pleaseth but rare accident.' The amusement long planned is seldom attained; the scheme long contrived is rarely realized; the sicklied imagination droops over its own reiterated dreams; the mind, satiated by the facility with which its devices are accomplished, loses its spring, and forgoes its object; and when the strong excitements of doubt and hope, and solicitude and impatience, cease to play upon the exhausted spirits; when the intrigue and the manœuvre, the obstacle and the difficulty, are all at an end - the charm is over, and weariness or disgust takes its place; and thus, in a word, by the time the theatre is finished, the parts filled, and all bids fair for speedy representation, why then, I will venture to affirm, that the whole thing falls to the ground. If, therefore, you should behold the theatre turned into a chapel of ease, or the petits loges into dovecotes, and you should express your astonishment at the transformation, her Ladyship would coolly answer you, with Scagnarelle - 'O! nous avons changé tout cela!' So far, therefore, you need have no apprehensions. But still, if you are weary of this place; if business calls; or pleasure awaits you in London; in that case - "

"No, Madam," returned O'Donnel, insensibly pleased by the serious and friendly tone she has assumed - "neither pleasure nor business recall me to London, which is in fact to me a desert.

"I am at present in a state of suspenseful expectation about letters from the continent, which may, or may not, arrive in a week or ten days; and I cannot take any decided step in the business, which brought me to England, till I receive them - yet, still, why should I remain - to what purpose - for what object?" and he sighed profoundly.

"Nay," she said, in a tone of some hesitation, "if, indeed, you have no inducement to remain - "

"Perhaps," he returned, smiling, "after all, I want rather an excuse than an inducement."

"If that is all," she replied gaily, I will give you an excuse. Suppose I desire you to stay."

"I fear," said O'Donnel, half inclined, yet half afraid, to credit the expresion of her countenance; "I fear my imagination will not go so far."

"Come then," said the Duchess, "we will leave supposition aside, and call obedience into action. I command you to remain," she added, imperiously.

"Indeed!" returned O'Donnel with animation: "then you shall be obeyed. But remember, that to command obedience, is to imply protection; and that in our's, as in all bonds of allegiance, the sovereign and the subject stand respectively committed."

"Well, well," said the Duchess, moving towards the door, "I will protect you, if that be all: but," she added, turning suddenly round, "I must do it in future at a cheaper rate, than I did last night; for really I cannot afford a white satin gown in your defence, every time you mount your griffin as the champion of your country, and cry, 'Hola there - O'Donnel for Ireland, against St. George of England!'"

"What does your Grace mean?" asked O'Donnel anxiously.

"Why, I mean that poor Mr. Carlisle was as innocent as a cherub of the fall of my tea-cup, though I so cruelly 'shook the fabric of his folly;' and that at the expence of my dear nephew's instep, and my own pretty new gown, I stopt short the 'keen encounter of your wits,' and perhaps prevented some other 'keen encounter;' for all the rest of my fooleries during the remainder of the evening went to the self-same time and tune: and thus, perhaps, I imperceptibly diverted the feelings, which more serious and more obvious efforts would neither have soothed nor controlled. But observe, that, as you respect the vow of allegiance, now pledged, I charge you not to throw yourself at Lord Charles's head, because he refuses to believe that Fin-ma-cool was nine feet high; or because, when he intends to smile, by an unhappy mistake of nature's, he seems only to sneer. Dear Lord Charles is the least in the world of an... but as he is my nephew,... I'll tell you more another time."

She was now gliding away, when O'Donnel following her a few steps, with a thousand reproaches knocking at his heart, took the end of her scarf, as if to detain her.

"Well," she said, "have you any thing to say?"

"Much," he returned in emotion; and he involuntarily kissed the drapery he still held. Yet, as he remained silent, the Duchess gently drew away her scarf, and went off singing,

"Of late I was a cobler's wife - "

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CHAPTER II.

NOTWITHSTANDING Lady Llanberis had imposed silence on O'Donnel, with respect to the French plays, he found that after dinner, when the servants had withdrawn, that every member of the society had shared a confidence, which he had believed almost confined to himself. Most of the party had walked to the fir grove, and had been permitted to look at the theatre; and Mr. Carlisle had ventured to efface the monosyllable no from the inscription over the gate. Nothing else but the plays were talked of during the early part of the evening, till Lady Llanberis herself changed the subject, of which she was grown weary, by crying, "Come, this is all very well; but really one cannot go on ringing the changes upon the same tune eternally. One would soon grow weary even of private theatricals, if one is to hear nothing else from morning to night."

The Duchess threw and intelligent look at O'Donnel, who, with this encouragement, approached her, notwithstanding she was still in conversation with the Duke. At the same moment, however, Lady Llanberis called to the latter, "Come, Duke, I must tear you from La belle tante: we have not had any brag since last you were at Longlands, and I have promised Lord Charles to make up a table."

The Duke rose out of one arm chair, and threw himself into another, and the brag table was made up.

"That is an excellent person," said the Duchess to O'Donnel, as he took the vacated seat by her: "but he nevertheless reminds me continually of the sleepy man, in Queen Ann's reign, who slept for show; and who in the syllabus of his somniferous performances detailed, that the first hour he yawned, the second grew drowsy, the third dosed, and so on. But of such beings, in their various modifications, is supreme bon-ton by profession, composed. This, however, by no means includes, in its rigorously drawn circle, all the rank of the country."

"From the specimens I have seen abroad of your nobility," said O'Donnel, "I have conceived that the English aristocracy was not only the most dignified, but the most enlightened of Europe; partaking fully with the people in the blessings which flow from a well understood liberty. But it is still but too true, that the society which your Grace calls bon-ton by profession, is distinguished by a languor, which, in the Parisian circles of my day, would have passed for mere dullness; and would have proved infinitely tiresome and monotonous to a nation, whose constitutional vivacity gave a natural and unforced life and spirit to their social intercourse. For, after all, much of that, which is attributed to the influence of the morale, ought more properly to be ascribed to constitution; and I cannot but think, that those causes, which idealists deem subaltern and inferior, have, in fact, a primary influence upon the springs of intellect (about which so much is said, and so little understood), and accelerate or retard their play, by means but too mechanical."

"Possibly," said the Duchess; "but whatever be the cause, nothing can be more contrasted than the effects. Conversation here is a dull game of chess; carried on by slow moves, and deliberated checks; while the Parisian makes it a game of shuttlecock, by the lively bounding and rebounding of opinion; the argument thrown lightly to and fro, caught and returned with equal ease and dexterity, and dropt at last accidentally, before either of the players are weary of the contest."

"This is, indeed, the true theory of society," said O'Donnel. "I wish your Grace would become the founder of a sect, by preaching it, which might put the quietism of bon-ton to sleep, and

"Quench the zeal of all professors else."

Here the entrance of two young gentlemen, whom O'Donnel had not before seen at Longlands, gave another turn to the conversation. The strangers advanced into the room, arm in arm, with looks of the most solemn gravity. They were received by Lady Llanberis with a cordial welcome, while they bestowed a silent shake of the hand to some of the men, and a cold nod of the head to a few of the women.

"Pray observe," said the Duchess, "those two young men, who, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, move together, with measured steps, and looks of mutual intelligence. It is rather a late hour for their arrival; but you will find their tardy movements are, some way or other, connectd with the fate of the nation."

Lady Llanberis now reproached them for not coming to dinner; and one of them replied, "The house sat so late."

"There - I knew it," said the Duchess. "But what do you think they said in the house? - nothing. They have never opened their lips in it, since they made their maiden speeches. All maiden speeches are splendid things, and make a great noise in - the particular circle of the speaker; but these gentlemen are among those termed, rising young men; and their maiden speeches placed them at once above the common roll of legislators. Great hopes are entertained of them, and doubtless you will soon see them high ministerial characters, each of them at the head of some important department of the government."

"But with all due deference to their precocity," said O'Donnel, laughing, "I should imagine, since political sagacity does not, like 'reading and writing, come by nature,' that their youth would for a little time stand in the way of their preferment."

"Quite the reverse," said the Duchess: "the old maxim, of young warriors and old statesmen, is long since gone by. It is no longer necessary to reach power by the laborious gradations of public service; nor is a knowledge of the constitution the preliminary for obtaining distinction in the senate. We take, therefore, our Cecils from the forms, and our Harleys from the universities. As far, however, as this experiment has yet gone, 'there's never any of these demure boys come to any proof,' as Falstaff says."

"But do all your DEMURE BOYS," asked O'Donnel, "wear this solemn air and thoughtful brow, in which men read strange things?"

"Yes," said the Duchess, "all; and they speak too in diplomatic mystery, with 'nods and becks,' but not with 'wreathed smiles:' oh! no.

"Seldom they smile, or smile in such a sort,
As if they mocked their spirits, that could be
Moved to smile at any thing."

"This, however," said O'Donnel, "was not, I believe, the youth of the Burkes, the Foxes, and the Sheridans, nor even of the Sulleys,* or the Colberts."

[*The Duke de Sully was not a very young diplomatist when he danced in a ballet, at a court christening. I believe the juvenile politician of our present days never outsteps the gravity of a waltz.]

"No, no," said the Duchess: "the star which arose so brightly on the horizon of their lives, kindling while it guided, and sometimes perhaps dazzling while it illumined, sheds no influence on these, our 'wise men of the east;' and if therefore they should in the end prove falliable, they cannot plead that

"The light which led astray was light from heaven."

"Talking of lights which lead astray," said O'Donnel, "I have not been able to ascertain by what means your Grace has preserved your lustre in a sphere so likely to dull it; or how, with so much natural brilliancy, you have yet attained to such supreme bon-ton."

"You mistake; I am not bon-ton, We Pamelas, who make a step over half-a-dozen ranks of society, to repose ourselves on a red bench, and set the world staring, to know how we have got there, are never supreme bon-ton. No, we are at best but the fashion: we are for a time shewn about, and followed and gazed at; and we exhibit and are exhibited; and, after all, are but the fashion. This is a poor distinction; for any one may be the fashion. But what fashion is, how procured, or how retained, 'tis impossible to say:

"'Tis something, nothing; 'twas your's, 'tis mine,
And has been slaves to thousands."

Bon-ton, on the contrary, is less an accidental endowment, and more a prescriptive right. To be legitimately bon-ton, one should be high-born, apathetic, and reserved; constitutionally cold, and habitually silent; talked of by many, known to a few, devoted to none, and ennuyê by all. In a word, you must be, what Lord Charles Savill is, and what the Dalai Lama is supposed to be - a thing absorbed in itself, and perpetually engaged in the contemplation of its own divinity."

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