intention to wound.'

'My dear Jane,' Mrs. Adister interposed while the young lady sat between
mildly staring and blinking, 'you have, though still of a tender age, so
excellent a head that I could trust to your counsel blindfolded. It is
really deep concern for my brother. I am also strongly in sympathy with
my niece, the princess, that beautiful Adiante: and my conscience
declines to let me say that I am not.'

'We might perhaps presume to beg for Miss Mattock's assistance in the
composition of a second letter more to her taste,' Patrick said slyly.

The effect was prompt: she sprang from her seat.

'Dear Mrs. Adister! I leave it to you. I am certain you and Mr. O'Donnell
know best. It's too difficult and delicate for me. I am horribly blunt.
Forgive me if I seemed to pretend to casuistry. I am sure I had no such
meaning. I said what I thought. I always do. I never meant that it was
not a very clever letter; and if it does exactly what you require it
should be satisfactory. To-morrow evening John and I dine with you, and I
look forward to plenty of controversy and amusement. At present I have
only a head for work.'

'I wish I had that,' said Patrick devoutly.

She dropped her eyes on him, but without letting him perceive that he was
a step nearer to the point of pleasing her.

CHAPTER XIII

THE DINNER-PARTY

Miss Mattock ventured on a prediction in her mind:

She was sure the letter would go. And there was not much to signify if it
did. But the curious fatality that a person of such a native uprightness
as Mrs. Adister should have been drawn in among Irishmen, set her
thoughts upon the composer of the letter, and upon the contrast of his
ingenuous look with the powerful cast of his head. She fancied a certain
danger about him; of what kind she could not quite distinguish, for it
had no reference to woman's heart, and he was too young to be much of a
politician, and he was not in the priesthood. His transparency was of a
totally different order from Captain Con's, which proclaimed itself
genuine by the inability to conceal a shoal of subterfuges. The younger
cousin's features carried a something invisible behind them, and she was
just perceptive enough to spy it, and it excited her suspicions. Irishmen
both she and her brother had to learn to like, owing to their bad repute
for stability: they are, moreover, Papists: they are not given to ideas:
that one of the working for the future has not struck th