field or two,
and then he sits himself, and he waits his turn. The people change their
sovereigns as rapidly as a London purse. Two pieces of artillery and
two or three hundred men and a trumpet alter the face of the land
there. Sometimes a trumpet blown by impudence does it alone. They're
enthusiastic for any new prince. He's their Weekly Journal or Monthly
Magazine. Let them make acquaintance with Adiante Adister, I'd not swear
she wouldn't lay fast hold of them.'

Philip signalled to his driver, and Captain Con sang out his dinner-hour
for a reminder to punctuality, thoughtful of the feelings of his wife.

CHAPTER XII. MISS MATTOCK

Mrs. Adister O'Donnell, in common with her family, had an extreme
dislike of the task of composing epistles, due to the circumstance that
she was unable, unaided, to conceive an idea disconnected with the main
theme of her communication, and regarded, as an art of conjuring, the
use of words independent of ideas. Her native superiority caused her
to despise the art, but the necessity for employing it at intervals
subjected her to fits of admiration of the conjurer, it being then
evident that a serviceable piece of work, beyond her capacity to do, was
lightly performed by another. The lady's practical intelligence admitted
the service, and at the same time her addiction to the practical
provoked disdain of so flimsy a genius, which was identified by her
with the genius of the Irish race. If Irishmen had not been notoriously
fighters, famous for their chivalry, she would have looked on them as
a kind of footmen hired to talk and write, whose volubility might be
encouraged and their affectionateness deserved by liberal wages. The
promptitude of Irish blood to deliver the war-cry either upon a glove
flung down or taken up, raised them to a first place in her esteem: and
she was a peaceful woman abhorring sanguinary contention; but it was in
her own blood to love such a disposition against her principles.

She led Patrick to her private room, where they both took seats and
he selected a pen. Mr. Patrick supposed that his business would be to
listen and put her words to paper; a mechanical occupation permitting
the indulgence of personal phantasies; and he was flying high on them
until the extraordinary delicacy of the mind seeking to deliver itself
forced him to prick up all his apprehensiveness. She wished to convey
that she was pleased with the news from Vienna, and desired her
gr