y? To hear the lazy, drowsy tone of the
talk, broken by many a half-suppressed yawn? To know and to feel that
they regard themselves as your prisoners, and you as their jailer?--that
your very butler is in their eyes but an upper turnkey? Have you
witnessed the utter failure of all efforts to amuse them?--have you
overheard the criticism that pronounced your piano out of tune, your
billiard-table out of level, your claret out of condition? Have you
caught mysterious whisperings of conspiracies to get away? and heard the
word "post-horses" uttered with an accent of joyful enthusiasm? Have you
watched the growing antipathies of those that, in your secret plannings,
you had destined to become sworn friends? Have you grieved over the
disappointment which your peculiar favorites have been doomed to
experience? Have you silently contemplated all the wrong combinations
and unhappy conjunctures that have grown up, when you expected but
unanimity and good feeling? Have you known all these things? and have
you passed through the terrible ordeal of endeavoring to amuse the
dissatisfied, to reconcile the incompatible, and to occupy the indolent?
Without some such melancholy experience, you can scarcely imagine all
that my poor father had to suffer.

Never was there such discontent as that household exhibited. The
Viceregal party saw few of the non-adherents, and perceived that they
made no converts amongst the enemy. The Liberals were annoyed at the
restraint imposed on them by the presence of the Government people;
the ladies were outraged at the distinguished notice conferred by their
hostess on one who was not their equal in social position, and whom they
saw for the first time admitted into the "set." In fact, instead of
a large party met together to please and be pleased, the society was
broken up into small coteries and knots, all busily criticising and
condemning their neighbors, and only interrupting their censures by
grievous complaints of the ill-fortune that had induced them to come
there.

It was now the third morning of the Duke's visit, and the weather
showed no symptoms of improvement. The dark sky was relieved towards the
horizon by that line of treacherous light which to all accustomed to an
Irish climate is the signal for continued rain. The most intrepid votary
of outdoor amusements had given up the cause in despair, and, as though
dreading to augment the common burden of dulness by meeting most of the
guests,