to favour me with an
opportunity of proving it on him! So you'll not forget, my boy; and
prepare for a cold bath the first five minutes. Out with Earlsfont early
after that. All these things are trifles to an unmarried man. I have
to attend to 'm, I have to be politic and give her elbow-room for her
natural angles. 'Tis the secret of my happiness.'

Priming his kinsman thus up to the door of the diningroom, Captain Con
thrust him in.

Mistress Adister O'Donnell's head rounded as by slow attraction to the
clock. Her disciplined husband signified an equal mixture of contrition
and astonishment at the passing of time. He fell to work upon his plate
in obedience to the immediate policy dictated to him.

The unbending English lady contrasted with her husband so signally
that the oddly united couple appeared yoked in a common harness for
a perpetual display of the opposition of the races. She resembled her
brother, the lord of Earlsfont, in her remarkable height and her calm
air of authority and self-sustainment. From beneath a head-dress built
of white curls and costly lace, half enclosing her high narrow forehead,
a pale, thin, straight bridge of nose descended prominently over her
sunken cheeks to thin locked lips. Her aspect suggested the repose of
a winter landscape, enjoyable in pictures, or on skates, otherwise
nipping.... Mental directness, of no greater breadth than her principal
feature, was the character it expressed; and candour of spirit shone
through the transparency she was, if that mild taper could be said to
shine in proof of a vitality rarely notified to the outer world by the
opening of her mouth; chiefly then, though not malevolently to command:
as the portal of some snow-bound monastery opens to the outcast, bidding
it be known that the light across the wolds was not deceptive and a
glimmer of light subsists among the silent within. The life sufficed to
her. She was like a marble effigy seated upright, requiring but to be
laid at her length for transport to the cover of the tomb.

Now Captain Con was by nature ruddy as an Indian summer flushed in all
its leaves. The corners of his face had everywhere a frank ambush, or
child's hiding-place, for languages and laughter. He could worm with a
smile quite his own the humour out of men possessing any; and even under
rigorous law, and it could not be disputed that there was rigour in the
beneficent laws imposed upon him by his wife, his genius for humour and