the Castle gates.
A squadron of dragoons had arrived, escorting a carriage. Even my glance
at the buildings of the Castle-square could scarcely recall me to the
truth of the locality; until an aide-de-camp knocked at my door, with a
request from the viceroy that I should see him as soon as possible.
Safely locking up my precious record, I followed him.

There was a ball on that night in the Castle, and our way to the private
apartments of his excellency leading through the state saloon, the whole
brilliant display struck upon my eyes at once. By what strange love of
contrast is it, that the human mind is never more open to the dazzling
effects of beauty, splendour, and gaiety than when it has been wrapt in
the profoundest sorrow? Are the confines of joy and anguish so close? Is
there but a hair's-breadth intervention of some invisible nerve, some
slender web of imagination, between mirth and melancholy? The Irish are
a handsome race, and none more enjoy, or are more fitted by nature or
temper, for all the ornamental displays of society; a Castle ball was
always a glittering exhilaration of lustre and beauty. But I had seen
all this before. To-night they mingled with the tenderness which the
perusal of Clotilde's letter had shed over all my feelings. As the dance
moved before my eye, as the music echoed round me, as I glanced on the
walls, filled with the memories of all the gallant and the great, whose
names lived in the native history of hundreds of years, I imagined the
woman with whom I had now connected all my hopes of happiness, moving in
the midst of that charmed circle, brilliant in all the distinctions of
her birth, admired for her accomplished loveliness, and yet giving me
the whole tribute of a noble heart, grateful for the devotion of all its
thoughts to her happiness. I involuntarily paused, and, leaning against
one of the gilded pillars of that stately hall, gave unrestrained way to
this waking dream.

My conference with the viceroy was soon concluded. The prisoner had
commanded a body of insurgents, who, after some partial successes, had
been broken and dispersed. The leader, in his desperate attempts to
rally them, had been severely wounded, and taken on the field. From the
papers found on his person, an important clue to the principal
personages and objects of the revolt was promised; and I proceeded to
the place of temporary detention to examine the prisoner. What an utter
breaking up of the vision whi