Charles, turning towards her with a look of such
malicious significance that she blushed deeply, and averted her head.

"Let us invite them all up here for Tuesday, May," said Sir William.
"It would be very unfair if they were to carry away only a disagreeable
memory of this visit. Let us try and efface the first unhappy
impression."

"All right," said Charles, "and I'll dash off a few lines to Mr. Layton,
I think his name is, to say that we expect he will favor us with his
company for a few days here. Am I not generosity itself, May?" said he,
in a low whisper, as he passed behind her chair.

A blush still deeper than the first, and a look of offended pride, were
her only answer.

"I must go in search of these good people's cards, for I forget some of
their names," said Charles; "though I believe I remember the important
ones."

This last sally was again directed towards May, but she, apparently, did
not hear it.

"Who knows but your patient upstairs may be well enough to meet her
friends, May?" said Sir William.

"Perhaps so. I can't tell," answered she, vaguely; for she had but heard
him imperfectly, and scarcely knew what she was replying.

CHAPTER VI. THE MEMBER FOR INCHABOGUE

Mr. O'Shea lay in his bed at the Bagni di Lucca. It was late in the
afternoon, and he had not yet risen, being one of those who deem, to
travesty the poet,--

That the best of all ways
To shorten our days
Is to add a few hours to the night, my dear.

In other words, he was ineffably bored and wearied, sick of the place,
the people, and himself, and only wearing over the time as one might do
the stated term of an imprisonment His agent--Mr. Mahony, the celebrated
Mr. Miles Mahony, who was agent for all the Irish gentlemen of Mr.
O'Shea's politics, and who has either estates very much encumbered,
or no estates at all--had written him that letter, which might be
stereotyped in every agent's office, and sent off indiscriminately by
post, at due intervals, to any of the clients, for there was the same
bead-roll of mishaps and calamities Ireland has been suffering under for
centuries. Take any traveller or guide-book experience of the land, and
it is a record of rain that never ceased. The Deluge was a passing April
shower compared to the national climate. Ask any proprietor, however,
more especially if a farmer, and he would tell you, "We're ruined,
entirely ruined, with the drought,"--perhaps he '