Grey Abbey, when his personal
attendance was not required at the Curragh, it was better that no
correspondence by letter should at present be carried on between him
and Miss Wyndham; and that Miss Wyndham herself perfectly agreed in the
propriety of these suggestions.

Now Grey Abbey was only about eight miles distant from the Curragh,
and Lord Ballindine had at one time been in the habit of staying
at his friend's mansion, during the period of his attendance at the
race-course; but since Lord Cashel had shown an entire absence of
interest in the doings of Finn M'Coul, and Fanny had ceased to ask
after Granuell's cough, he had discontinued doing so, and had spent
much of his time at his friend Walter Blake's residence at the Curragh.
Now, Handicap Lodge offered much more dangerous quarters for him than
did Grey Abbey.

In the meantime, his friends in Connaught were delighted at the
prospect of his bringing home a bride. Fanny's twenty thousand were
magnified to fifty, and the capabilities even of fifty were greatly
exaggerated; besides, the connection was so good a one, so exactly
the thing for the O'Kellys! Lord Cashel was one of the first resident
noblemen in Ireland, a representative peer, a wealthy man, and
possessed of great influence; not unlikely to be a cabinet minister if
the Whigs came in, and able to shower down into Connaught a degree of
patronage, such as had never yet warmed that poor unfriended region.
And Fanny Wyndham was not only his lordship's ward, but his favourite
niece also! The match was, in every way, a good one, and greatly
pleasing to all the Kellys, whether with an O or without, for "shure
they were all the one family."

Old Simeon Lynch and his son Barry did not participate in the general
joy. They had calculated that their neighbour was on the high road to
ruin, and that he would soon have nothing but his coronet left. They
could not, therefore, bear the idea of his making so eligible a match.
They had, moreover, had domestic dissensions to disturb the peace of
Dunmore House. Simeon had insisted on Barry's taking a farm into his
own hands, and looking after it. Barry had declared his inability to
do so, and had nearly petrified the old man by expressing a wish to go
to Paris. Then, Barry's debts had showered in, and Simeon had pledged
himself not to pay them. Simeon had threatened to disinherit Barry; and
Barry had called his father a d----d obstinate old fool.

These quarrels had got