“My dear Mrs. Ellison, I am so delighted to see you once again at Grey Abbey; it’s such ages since you were here!”

“Indeed it is, Lady Cashel, a very long time; but the poor colonel suffers so much, it’s rarely he’s fit to be moved; and, indeed, I’m not much better myself.  I was not able to move my left shoulder from a week before Christmas-day till a few days since!”

“You don’t say so!  Rheumatism, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes—­all rheumatism:  no one knows what I suffer.”

“And what do you use for it?”

“Oh, there’s nothing any use.  I know the very nature of rheumatism now, I’ve had it so long—­and it minds nothing at all:  there’s no preventing it, and no curing it.  It’s like a bad husband, Lady Cashel; the best way is to put up with it.”

“And how is the dear colonel, Mrs. Ellison?”

“Why, he was just able to come here, and that was all; but he was dying to see Lord Cashel.  He thinks the ministers’ll be shaken about this business of O’Connell’s; and if so, that there’ll be a general election, and then what’ll they do about the county?”

“I’m sure Lord Cashel wanted to see the colonel on that very subject; so does Adolphus—­Lord Kilcullen, you know.  I never meddle with those things; but I really think Adolphus is thinking of going into Parliament.  You know he’s living here at present:  his father’s views and his own are so exactly the same on all those sort of things, that it’s quite delightful.  He’s taking a deal of interest about the county lately, is Adolphus, and about Grey Abbey too:  he’s just the same his father used to be, and that kind of thing is so pleasant, isn’t it, Mrs Ellison?”

Mrs Ellison said it was, and at the same moment groaned, for her shoulder gave her a twinge.

The subject of these eulogiums, in the meantime, did not make his appearance till immediately before dinner was announced, and certainly did not evince very strongly the delight which his mother had assured her friends he would feel at meeting them, for he paid but very little attention to any one but Mat Tierney and his cousin Fanny; he shook hands with all the old gentlemen, bowed to all the old ladies, and nodded at the young ones.  But if he really felt that strong desire, which his mother had imputed to him, of opening his heart to the bishop and the colonel respecting things temporal and spiritual, he certainly very successfully suppressed his anxiety.

He had, during the last two or three days, applied himself to the task of ingratiating himself with Fanny.  He well knew how to suit himself to different characters, and to make himself agreeable when he pleased; and Fanny, though she had never much admired her dissipated cousin, certainly found his conversation a relief after the usual oppressive tedium of Grey Abbey society.

He had not begun by making love to her, or expressing admiration, or by doing or saying anything which could at all lead her to suspect his purpose, or put her on her guard.  He had certainly been much more attentive to her, much more intimate with her, than he usually had been in his flying visits to Grey Abbey; but then he was now making his first appearance as a reformed rake; and besides, he was her first cousin, and she therefore felt no inclination to repel his advances.