Lord Ballindine had spent the last week or ten days restlessly enough.  Armstrong, his clerical ambassador, had not yet started on his mission to Grey Abbey, and innumerable difficulties seemed to arise to prevent his doing so.  First of all, the black cloth was to be purchased, and a tailor, sufficiently adept for making up the new suit, was to be caught.  This was a work of some time; for though there is in the West of Ireland a very general complaint of the stagnation of trade, trade itself is never so stagnant as are the tradesmen, when work, is to be done; and it is useless for a poor wight to think of getting his coat or his boots, till such time as absolute want shall have driven the artisan to look for the price of his job—­unless some private and underhand influence be used, as was done in the case of Jerry Blake’s new leather breeches.

This cause of delay was, however, not mentioned to Lord Ballindine; but when it was well got over, and a neighbouring parson procured to preach on the next Sunday to Mrs O’Kelly and the three policemen who attended Ballindine Church, Mrs Armstrong broke her thumb with the rolling-pin while making a beef pudding for the family dinner, and her husband’s departure was again retarded.  And then, on the next Sunday, the neighbouring parson could not leave his own policemen, and the two spinsters, who usually formed his audience.

All this tormented Lord Ballindine. and he was really thinking of giving up the idea of sending Mr Armstrong altogether, when he received the following letter from his friend Dot Blake.

   Limmer’s Hotel.  April, 1847.

   Dear Frank,

One cries out, “what are you at?” the other, “what are you after?” Every one is saying what a fool you are!  Kilcullen is at Grey Abbey, with the evident intention of superseding you in possession of Miss W——­, and, what is much more to his taste, as it would be to mine, of her fortune.  Mr T. has written to me from Grey Abbey, where he has been staying:  he is a good-hearted fellow, and remembers how warmly you contradicted the report that your match was broken off.  For heaven’s sake, follow up your warmth of denial with some show of positive action, a little less cool than your present quiescence, or you cannot expect that any amount of love should be strong enough to prevent your affianced from resenting your conduct.  I am doubly anxious; quite as anxious that Kilcullen, whom I detest, should not get young Wyndham’s money, as I am that you should.  He is utterly, utterly smashed.  If he got double the amount of Fanny Wyndham’s cash, it could not keep him above water for more than a year or so; and then she must go down with him.  I am sure the old fool, his father, does not half know the amount of his son’s liabilities, or he could not be heartless enough to consent to sacrifice the poor girl as she will be sacrificed, if Kilcullen gets her.  I am not usually very anxious about other people’s