reet where the Rooneys
lived, and was within a few paces of their house. Strangely enough, the
same scene I had so often smiled at before their house in Dublin was now
enacting here--the great difference being, that instead of the lounging
subs, of marching regiments, the swaggering cornets of dragoons, the
overdressed and underbred crowds of would-be fashionables who then
congregated before the windows or curvetted beneath the balcony, were
now the generals of every foreign service, field-marshals glittering
with orders, powdered diplomatists, cordoned political writers, savants
from every country in Europe, and idlers whose _bons mots_ and smart
sayings were the delight of every dinner-table in the capital; all happy
to have some neutral ground where the outposts of politics might be
surveyed without compromise or danger, and where, amid the excellences
of the table and the pleasures of society, intrigues could be fathomed
or invented under the auspices of that excellent attorney's wife, who
deemed herself meanwhile the great attraction of her courtly visitors
and titled guests.

As I drew near the house I scarcely ventured to look towards the
balcony, in which a number of well-dressed persons were now standing
chatting together. One voice I soon recognised, and its every accent cut
my very heart as I listened. It was Lord Dudley de Vere, talking in his
usual tone of loud assumption. I could hear the same vacant laugh
which had so often offended me; and I actually dreaded lest some chance
allusion to myself might reach me where I stood. There must be something
intensely powerful in the influence of the human voice, when its very
cadence alone can elevate to rapture or sting to madness. Who has not
felt the ecstasy of some one brief word from 'lips beloved,' after long
years of absence; and who has not experienced the tumultuous conflict
of angry passions that rise unbidden at the mere sound of speaking from
those we like not? My heart burned within me as I thought of her who
doubtless was then among that gay throng, and for whose amusement those
powers of his lordship's wit were in all likelihood called forth; and I
turned away in anger and in sorrow.

As the day wore on I could not face towards home. I felt I dare not meet
the searching questions my mother was certain to ask me; nor could I
endure the thought of mixing with a crowd of strangers, when my own
spirits were hourly sinking. I dined alone at a small _cafe