‘The lady, sir.’  The only lady he had seen in that house.

‘My dear Mr. Reynolds, I’m so obliged to you for letting me in,’ cried Mrs. Petito, adjusting her shawl in the passage, and speaking in a voice and manner well mimicked after her betters.  ’You are so very good and kind, and I am so much obliged to you.’

‘You are not obliged to me, and I am neither good nor kind,’ said old Reynolds.

‘You strange man,’ said Mrs. Petito, advancing graceful in shawl drapery; but she stopped short.  ’My Lord Colambre and Count O’Halloran, as I hope to be saved!’

‘I did not know Mrs. Petito was an acquaintance of yours, gentlemen,’ said Mr. Reynolds, smiling shrewdly.

Count O’Halloran was too polite to deny his acquaintance with a lady who challenged it by thus naming him; but he had not the slightest recollection of her, though it seems he had met her on the stairs when he visited Lady Dashfort at Killpatrickstown.  Lord Colambre was ’indeed undeniably an old AQUAINTANCE:’  and as soon as she had recovered from her first natural start and vulgar exclamation, she with very easy familiarity hoped ’My Lady Clonbrony, and my lord, and Miss Nugent, and all her friends in the family, were well;’ and said, ’she did not know whether she was to congratulate his lordship or not upon Miss Broadhurst, my Lady Berryl’s marriage, but she should soon have to hope for his lordship’s congratulations for another marriage in her present family—­lady Isabel to Colonel Heathcock, who has come in for a large portion, and they are buying the wedding clothes—­sights of clothes—­and the di’monds, this day; and Lady Dashfort and my Lady Isabel sent me especially, sir, to you, Mr. Reynolds, and to tell you, sir, before anybody else; and to hope the cheese come safe up again at last; and to ask whether the Iceland moss agrees with your chocolate, and is palatable; it’s the most diluent thing upon the universal earth, and the most Tonic and fashionable—­the DUTCHES of Torcaster takes it always for breakfast, and Lady St. James’ too is quite a convert, and I hear the Duke of V—­takes it too.’

‘And the devil may take it too, for anything that I care,’ said old Reynolds.

‘Oh, my dear, dear sir! you are so refractory a patient.’

’I am no patient at all, ma’am, and have no patience either; I am as well as you are, or my Lady Dashfort either, and hope, God willing, long to continue so.’

Mrs. Petito smiled aside at Lord Colambre, to mark her perception of the man’s strangeness.  Then, in a cajoling voice, addressing herself to the old gentleman—­