old squares on the north side of the
city. When the tide of fashion set southwards, spreading terraces and
villas from Leeson Street to Killiney, it left behind some of the finest
houses in Dublin. Nowadays for a comparatively low rent it is possible
to live in a splendid house if you do not aspire to the glory of a smart
address. Miss O'Dwyer's house, for instance, boasted a spacious hall and
lofty sitting-rooms, with impressive ceilings and handsome fireplaces;
yet she paid for it little more than half the rent which a cramped villa
in Clyde Road would have cost her. Even so, it was somewhat of a mystery
to her friends how Miss O'Dwyer managed to live there. A solicitor who
had his offices on the ground-floor probably paid the rent of the whole
house; but the profits of verse-making are small, and a poetess, like
meaner women, requires food, clothes, and fire. Indeed, Miss O'Dwyer,
no longer 'M. O'D.,' whose verses adorned the _Croppy_, but 'Miranda,'
served an English paper as Irish correspondent. It was a pity that a
pen certainly capable of better things should have been employed
in describing the newest costume of the Lord Lieutenant's wife at
Punchestown, or the confection of pale-blue tulle which, draped round
Mrs. Chesney, adorned a Castle ball. Miss O'Dwyer herself was heartily
ashamed of the work, but it was, or appeared to her to be, necessary to
live, and even with the aid of occasional remittances from Patrick in
New York, she could scarcely have afforded her friends a cup of tea
without the guineas earned by torturing the English language in a
weekly chronicle of Irish society's clothes. Even with the help of such
earnings, poverty was for ever tapping her on the shoulder, and no one
except Mary herself and her one maid-servant knew how carefully fire
and light had to be economized in the splendid rooms where an extinct
aristocracy had held revels a century before.

Hyacinth and his friend advanced past the solicitor's doors, and up
the broad staircase as far as the drawing-room. For a time they got no
further than the threshold. The opening of the door was greeted with a
long-drawn and emphatic 'Hush!' from the company within. Maguire laid
his hand on Hyacinth's arm, and the two stood still looking into the
room. What was left of the feeble autumn twilight was almost excluded by
half-drawn curtains. No lamp was lit, and the fire cast only fitful rays
here and there through the room. It was with difficulty