one read: 'I hear they danced at the Castle three times
together last night . . . a friend of mine saw them sitting in Merrion
Square the whole of one afternoon. . . . They say that if he marries her,
that he'll be ruined. . . . The estates are terribly encumbered . . . his
family are in despair about it. . . . Violet is a very nice girl, but we
all know her mother sold bacon behind a counter in Galway. . . . He never
looks at Olive Barton now; this is a sad end to her beau, and after
feeding him up the whole season. . . . He dined there three times a week:
Mrs. Barton took the house on purpose to entertain him. . . . It is said
that she offered him twenty thousand pounds if he'd marry her
daughter. . . . The money that woman spends is immense, and no one knows
whence it comes.'

In these matrimonial excitements the amatories of the lady who brought
the A.D.C. home from the Castle passed unheeded. The critical gaze of
her friends was sorely distracted, and even the night porter forgot to
report the visits of her young gentlemen. May, too, profited largely by
the present ferment of curiosity; and, unobserved, she kept her trysts
with Fred Scully at the corners of this and that street, and in the
hotel they passed furtively down this passage and up that pair of
stairs; when disturbed they hid behind the doors.

Mrs. Gould lived in ignorance of all this chambering folly, spending her
time either writing letters or gossiping about Lord Kilcarney in the
drawing-room. And when she picked up a fragment of fresh news she lost
not a moment, but put on her bonnet and carried it over to Mount Street.
So assiduous was she in this self-imposed duty, that Mrs. Barton was
obliged at last to close her door against this obtrusive visitor.

But one day, after a moment of intense reflection, Mrs. Barton concluded
that she was losing the battle--that now, in the eleventh hour, it could
only be snatched out of defeat by a bold and determined effort. She sat
down and penned one of her admirable invitations to dinner. An hour
later a note feebly pleaded a 'previous engagement.' Undaunted, she sat
down again and wrote: 'Tomorrow will suit us equally well.' The Marquis
yielded; and Lord Dungory was ordered, when he found himself alone with
him in the dining-room, to lose no opportunity of insisting upon the
imminent ruin of all Irish landlords. He was especially enjoined to say
that, whatever chance of escape there was for the owners of unencu