n himself was not at all acquainted with Lord
Ballindine: he attended none of the family, who extensively patronised
his rival, and he had never been inside Kelly's Court house. He felt,
therefore, considerable embarrassment at his mission; but he made up
his mind to go, and, manfully setting himself in his antique rickety
gig, started early enough, to catch Lord Ballindine, as he thought,
before he left the house after breakfast.

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