pens of the Brennans silent; and looking over their shoulders, on which the mantles of spinsterhood were fast descending, one read:  ’I hear they danced at the Castle three times together last night . . . a friend of mine saw them sitting in Merrion Square the whole of one afternoon. . . .  They say that if he marries her, that he’ll be ruined. . . .  The estates are terribly encumbered . . . his family are in despair about it. . . .  Violet is a very nice girl, but we all know her mother sold bacon behind a counter in Galway. . . .  He never looks at Olive Barton now; this is a sad end to her beau, and after feeding him up the whole season. . . .  He dined there three times a week:  Mrs. Barton took the house on purpose to entertain him. . . .  It is said that she offered him twenty thousand pounds if he’d marry her daughter. . . .  The money that woman spends is immense, and no one knows whence it comes.’

In these matrimonial excitements the amatories of the lady who brought the A.D.C. home from the Castle passed unheeded.  The critical gaze of her friends was sorely distracted, and even the night porter forgot to report the visits of her young gentlemen.  May, too, profited largely by the present ferment of curiosity; and, unobserved, she kept her trysts with Fred Scully at the corners of this and that street, and in the hotel they passed furtively down this passage and up that pair of stairs; when disturbed they hid behind the doors.

Mrs. Gould lived in ignorance of all this chambering folly, spending her time either writing letters or gossiping about Lord Kilcarney in the drawing-room.  And when she picked up a fragment of fresh news she lost not a moment, but put on her bonnet and carried it over to Mount Street.  So assiduous was she in this self-imposed duty, that Mrs. Barton was obliged at last to close her door against this obtrusive visitor.

But one day, after a moment of intense reflection, Mrs. Barton concluded that she was losing the battle—­that now, in the eleventh hour, it could only be snatched out of defeat by a bold and determined effort.  She sat down and penned one of her admirable invitations to dinner.  An hour later a note feebly pleaded a ‘previous engagement.’  Undaunted, she sat down again and wrote:  ‘Tomorrow will suit us equally well.’  The Marquis yielded; and Lord Dungory was ordered, when he found himself alone with him in the dining-room, to lose no opportunity of insisting upon the imminent ruin of all Irish landlords.  He was especially enjoined to say that, whatever chance of escape there was for the owners of unencumbered properties, the doom of those who had mortgages to pay had been sounded.  Milord executed his task with consummate ability; and when the grand parti entered the drawing-room, his thoughts were racked with horrible forebodings.  The domain woods, the pride of centuries, he saw plundered and cut down; lawns, pleasure-grounds, and gardens distributed among peasants, and he, a miserable outcast, starving in a Belgian boarding-house.  Mrs. Barton’s eyes brightened at the distressed expression of his face.  Olive brought in the buttonhole and went to the piano; Milord engaged Alice’s attention; and the Marquis was led into the adjoining room.