the way with papa. If the dinner is
bad he abuses everything, and declares the ladies were all ugly."

"Oh, the dinner was excellent, I believe. I'm not a connoisseur, like
my uncle. People might give me the most wonderful dinner in the world,
and I would hardly be the wiser; or they might give me a wretched one,
and I should not feel particularly angry with them."

The next day was Tuesday, and, as the Duchess and her daughter happened
to be driving within a mile or so of the Abbey House, Lady Mabel
suggested that they should call upon Mrs. Winstanley.

"I am rather anxious to see the wild Irishman they have captured
lately--Lord Mallow. We met him at Lady Dumdrum's, if you remember,
mamma. I danced with him twice."

"My dear Mabel, do you think I can remember all your partners?"

"But Lord Mallow is rather celebrated. He makes very good speeches.
Papa read one of them to us the other day when there was a great debate
going on upon the Irish land question."

The Duchess remembered being read to one evening after dinner, but the
debates, as delivered by the Duke, had generally a somnolent effect
upon his wife. She had a faint idea of the beginning, and struggled
heroically to discover what the speakers were talking about; then came
a soft confusion of sound, like the falling of waters; and the middle
and end of the debate was dreamland. Lady Mabel was of a more energetic
temper, and was interested in everything that could enlarge her sphere
of knowledge, from a parliamentary debate to a Greek play.

The Duchess had never in her life refused compliance with any wish of
her daughter's, so the horses' heads were turned towards the Abbey
House, along a smooth hard road through a pine wood, then through a
lodge-gate into a forest of rhododendrons.

"This is really a nicer place than Ashbourne, mamma," remarked Lady
Mabel disapprovingly.

It appeared to her quite a mistake in the arrangement of the universe
that Violet Tempest should be heiress to a more picturesque estate than
that which she, the Duke of Dovedale's only daughter, was to inherit.

"My dear, Ashbourne is perfect. Everyone says so. The stables, the
offices, the way the house is lighted and heated, the ventilation."

"Yes, mamma; but those are details which nobody thinks about except an
architect or a house-agent. Ashbourne is so revoltingly modern. It
smells of stucco. It will take a century to tone it down. Now this fine
old place is like a dream o