and decision. She was less excitable, but when excited her
feelings were more intense and enduring. She wanted much of the gaiety,
but with it the volatility of her younger sister. Her opinions
were adopted, and her friendships formed more reflectively, and
her affections seemed to move, as it were, more slowly, but more
determinedly. This firmness of character did not amount to anything
masculine, and did not at all impair the feminine grace of her manners.

Sir Robert Ardagh was for a long time apparently equally attentive to
the two sisters, and many were the conjectures and the surmises as to
which would be the lady of his choice. At length, however, these doubts
were determined; he proposed for and was accepted by the dark beauty,
Emily F----d.

The bridals were celebrated in a manner becoming the wealth and
connections of the parties; and Sir Robert and Lady Ardagh left Dublin
to pass the honeymoon at the family mansion, Castle Ardagh, which had
lately been fitted up in a style bordering upon magnificent. Whether
in compliance with the wishes of his lady, or owing to some whim of his
own, his habits were henceforward strikingly altered; and from having
moved among the gayest if not the most profligate of the votaries
of fashion, he suddenly settled down into a quiet, domestic, country
gentleman, and seldom, if ever, visited the capital, and then his
sojourns were as brief as the nature of his business would permit.

Lady Ardagh, however, did not suffer from this change further than in
being secluded from general society; for Sir Robert's wealth, and the
hospitality which he had established in the family mansion, commanded
that of such of his lady's friends and relatives as had leisure or
inclination to visit the castle; and as their style of living was very
handsome, and its internal resources of amusement considerable, few
invitations from Sir Robert or his lady were neglected.

Many years passed quietly away, during which Sir Robert's and Lady
Ardagh's hopes of issue were several times disappointed. In the lapse of
all this time there occurred but one event worth recording. Sir Robert
had brought with him from abroad a valet, who sometimes professed
himself to be French, at others Italian, and at others again German. He
spoke all these languages with equal fluency, and seemed to take a kind
of pleasure in puzzling the sagacity and balking the curiosity of such
of the visitors at the castle as at any time hap