shall not be forced to dance, or asked to marry.  I’ll be your security.  You shall be at full liberty; and it is a house where you can do just what you will.  Indeed, I go to no others.  These Killpatricks are the best creatures in the world; they think nothing good or grand enough for me.  If I’d let them, they would lay down cloth of gold over their bogs for me to walk upon.—­Good-hearted beings!’ added Lady Dashfort, marking a cloud gathering on Lord Colambre’s countenance.  ’I laugh at them, because I love them.  I could not love anything I might not laugh at—­your lordship excepted.  So you’ll come—­that’s settled.’

And so it was settled.  Our hero went to Killpatrickstown.

‘Everything here sumptuous and unfinished, you see,’ said Lady Dashfort to Lord Colambre, the day after their arrival.  ’All begun as if the projectors thought they had the command of the mines of Peru, and ended as if the possessors had not sixpence; DES ARRANGEMENS PROVISATOIRES, temporary expedients; in plain English, make-shifts.  Luxuries, enough for an English prince of the blood; comforts, not enough for an English woman.  And you may be sure that great repairs and alterations have gone on to fit this house for our reception, and for our English eyes!—­Poor people!—­English visitors, in this point of view, are horribly expensive to the Irish.  Did you ever hear that, in the last century, or in the century before the last, to put my story far enough back, so that it shall not touch anybody living; when a certain English nobleman, Lord Blank A—­, sent to let his Irish friend, Lord Blank B—­, know that he and all his train were coming over to pay him a visit; the Irish nobleman, Blank B—­, knowing the deplorable condition of his castle, sat down fairly to calculate whether it would cost him most to put the building in good and sufficient repair, fit to receive these English visitors, or to burn it to the ground.  He found the balance to be in favour of burning, which was wisely accomplished next day.  Perhaps Killpatrick would have done well to follow this example.  Resolve me which is worst, to be burnt out of house and home, or to be eaten out of house and home.  In this house, above and below stairs, including first and second table, housekeeper’s room, lady’s maids’ room, butler’s room, and gentleman’s, one hundred and four people sit down to dinner every day, as Petito informs me, beside kitchen boys, and what they call Char-women who never sit down, but who do not eat or waste the less for that; and retainers and friends, friends to the fifth and sixth generation, who “must get their bit and their sup;” for, “sure, it’s only Biddy,” they say,’ continued Lady Dashfort, imitating their Irish brogue, ’find, “sure, ’tis nothing at all, out of all his honour, my lord, has.  How could he feel it! [Feel it:  become sensible of it, know it.] Long life to him!  He’s not that way:  not a couple in all Ireland, and that’s saying a great dale, looks less after their own, nor is more off-handeder, or open-hearteder, or greater open-house-keepers, nor [than] my Lord and my Lady Killpatrick.”  Now there’s encouragement for a lord and a lady to ruin themselves.’