em to eat," and
Lady Cashel again fell back upon her deficiencies in the kitchen
establishment.

Lady Selina saw that nothing more could be obtained from her mother,
no further intelligence as regarded the embryo party. The whole burden
was to lie on her shoulders, and very heavy she felt it. As far as
concerned herself, she had no particular wish for one kind of guest
more than another: it was not for herself that she wanted young men;
she knew that at any rate there were none within reach whom she could
condescend to notice save as her father's guests; there could be no
one there whose presence could be to her of any interest: the gouty
colonel, and the worthy bishop, would be as agreeable to her as any
other men that would now be likely to visit Grey Abbey. But Lady Selina
felt a real desire that others in the house might be happy while there.
She was no flirt herself, nor had she ever been; it was not in her
nature to be so. But though she herself might be contented to twaddle
with old men, she knew that other girls would not. Yet it was not that
she herself had no inward wish for that admiration which is desired
by nearly every woman, or that she thought a married state was an
unenviable one. No; she could have loved and loved truly, and could
have devoted herself most scrupulously to the duties of a wife; but she
had vainly and foolishly built up for herself a pedestal, and there she
had placed herself; nor would she come down to stand on common earth,
though Apollo had enticed her, unless he came with the coronet of a
peer upon his brow.

She left her mother's boudoir, went down into the drawing-room,
and there she wrote her notes of invitation, and her orders to the
tradesmen; and then she went to her father, and consulted him on the
difficult subject of young men. She suggested the Newbridge Barracks,
where the dragoons were; and the Curragh, where perhaps some stray
denizen of pleasure might be found, neither too bad for Grey Abbey, nor
too good to be acceptable to Lord Kilcullen; and at last it was decided
that a certain Captain Cokely, and Mat Tierney, should be asked. They
were both acquaintances of Adolphus; and though Mat was not a young
man, he was not very old, and was usually very gay.

So that matter was settled, and the invitations were sent off. The
countess overcame her difficulty by consenting that Murray the man cook
should be hired for a given time, with the distinct understanding that
he wa