courtier a blow from his king; but keeping her
temper, she made many excuses for him in her own mind, without losing
the firm will to teach him better manners in her own reverent way. The
Countess heard of it, and made a sharp complaint to Captain Sydenham.
The old dowager had a short temper, and a deep gratitude for Anne's
remarkable services in New York. Nor did she care to see her guests
slighted.

"Father Roslyn has treated her shabbily. She suggested a booth at his
bazaar, offered to fit it up herself and to bring the gentry to buy. She
was snubbed: 'neither your money nor your company.' You must set that
right, Sydenham," said she.

"He shall weep tears of brine for it," answered the Captain cheerfully.

"Tell him," said the Dowager, "the whole story, if your priest can
appreciate it, which I doubt. A Cavan peasant, who can teach the fine
ladies of Dublin how to dress and how to behave; whose people are half
the brains of New York; the prize-fighter turned senator, the Boss of
Tammany, the son with a gold mine. Above all, don't forget to tell how
she may name the next ambassador to England."

They laughed in sheer delight at her accomplishments and her triumphs.

"Gad, but she's the finest woman," the Captain declared. "At first I
thought it was acting, deuced fine acting. But it's only her nature
finding expression. What d'ye think she's planning now? An audience with
the Pope, begad, special, to present an American flag and a thousand
pounds. And she laid out Lady Cruikshank yesterday, stone cold. Said her
ladyship: 'Quite a compliment to Ireland, Mrs. Dillon, that you kept the
Cavan brogue so well.' Said Mrs. Dillon: 'It was all I ever got from
Ireland, and a brogue in New York is always a recommendation to mercy
from the court; then abroad it marks one off from the common English and
their common Irish imitators.' Did she know of Lady Cruikshank's effort
to file off the Dublin brogue?"

"Likely. She seems to know the right thing at the right minute."

Evidently Anne's footing among the nobility was fairly secure in spite
of difficulties. There were difficulties below stairs also, and Judy
Haskell had the task of solving them, which she did with a success quite
equal to Anne's. She made no delay in seizing the position of arbiter in
the servants' hall, not only of questions touching the Dillons, and
their present relations with the Irish nobility, but also on such vital
topics as the rising, the Fenians