the pertinacious advocate of his
claims, to whom, on his relinquishing her, Mr. Sullivan Smith remarked:
'Oh! sir, the law of it, where a lady's concerned! You're one for
evictions, I should guess, and the anti-human process. It's that letter
of the law that stands between you and me and mine and yours. But you've
got your congee, and my blessing on ye!'

'It was a positive engagement,' said the enemy.

Mr. Sullivan Smith derided him. 'And a pretty partner you've pickled for
yourself when she keeps her positive engagement!'

He besought Lady Dunstane to console him with a turn. She pleaded
weariness. He proposed to sit beside her and divert her. She smiled, but
warned him that she was English in every vein. He interjected: 'Irish men
and English women! though it's putting the cart before the horse--the
copper pennies where the gold guineas should be. So here's the gentleman
who takes the oyster, like the lawyer of the fable. English is he? But we
read, the last shall be first. And English women and Irish men make the
finest coupling in the universe.'

'Well, you must submit to see an Irish woman led out by an English man,'
said Lady Dunstane, at the same time informing the obedient Diana, then
bestowing her hand on Mr. Redworth to please her friend, that he was a
schoolfellow of her husband's.

'Favour can't help coming by rotation, except in very extraordinary
circumstances, and he was ahead of me with you, and takes my due, and
'twould be hard on me if I weren't thoroughly indemnified.' Mr. Sullivan
Smith bowed. 'You gave them just the start over the frozen minute for
conversation; they were total strangers, and he doesn't appear a bad sort
of fellow for a temporary mate, though he's not perfectly sure of his
legs. And that we'll excuse to any man leading out such a fresh young
beauty of a Bright Eyes--like the stars of a winter's night in the frosty
season over Columkill, or where you will, so that's in Ireland, to be
sure of the likeness to her.'

'Her mother was half English.'

'Of course she was. And what was my observation about the coupling? Dan
Merion would make her Irish all over. And she has a vein of Spanish blood
in her; for he had; and she's got the colour.--But you spoke of their
coupling--or I did. Oh, a man can hold his own with an English roly-poly
mate: he's not stifled! But a woman hasn't his power of resistance to
dead weight. She's volatile, she's frivolous, a rattler and
gabbler--haven't