preferred keeping their rooms, and confining to themselves the
gloom that oppressed them.

The small drawing-room that adjoined my mother's dressing-room was the
only exception to this almost prison discipline; and there she now sat
with Polly, MacNaghten, Rutledge, and one or two more, the privileged
visitors of that favored spot,--my mother at her embroidery-frame, that
pleasant, mock occupation which serves so admirably as an aid to talking
or to listening, which every Frenchwoman knows so well how to employ
as a conversational fly-wheel. They assuredly gave no evidence in their
tone of that depression which the gloomy weather had thrown over the
other guests. Laughter and merriment abounded; and a group more amusing
and amused it would have been difficult to imagine. Rutledge, perhaps,
turned his eyes towards the door occasionally, with the air of one in
expectation of something or somebody; but none noticed this anxiety,
nor, indeed, was he one to permit his thoughts to sway his outward
actions.

"The poor Duke," cried MacNaghten, "he can bear it no longer. See,
there he goes, in defiance of rain and wind, to take his walk in the
shrubbery!"

"And mon pauvre mari--go with him," said my mother, in a tone of
lamentation that made all the hearers burst out a-laughing. "Ah, I know
why you Irish are all so domestic," added she,--"c'est le climat!"

"Will you allow us nothing to the credit of our fidelity,--to our
attachments, madame?" said Rutledge, who, while he continued to talk,
never took his eyes off the two figures, who now walked side by side in
the shrubbery.

"It is a capricious kind of thing, after all, is your Irish fidelity,"
said Polly. "Your love is generally but another form of self-esteem;
you marry a woman because you can be proud of her beauty, her wit, her
manners, and her accomplishments, and you are faithful because you never
get tired in the indulgence of your own vanity."

"How kind of you is it, then, to let us never want for the occasion of
indulging it," said Rutledge, half slyly.

"I don't quite agree with you, Miss Polly," said Mac-Naghten, after a
pause, in which he seemed to be reflecting over her words; "I think
most men--Irishmen, I mean--marry to please themselves. They may make
mistakes, of course,--I don't pretend to say that they always choose
well; but it is right to bear in mind that they are not free agents, and
cannot have whom they please to wife."

"It is better with u