ill more so from
the effect of her deep mourning, she lay back in her chair, and, with
half-closed lids and folded arms, appeared as if courting sleep--or at
least unconsciousness.

She had lain thus for above half an hour, when a slight rustling
noise--a sound so slight as to be scarcely audible----caught her
attention, and, without raising her head, she asked in a faint tone,----

"Is there any one there?"

"Yes, my Lady. It is Lisa," replied her maid, coming stealthily forward,
till she stood close behind her chair. "Put some of that thing----peat,
turf, or whatever it is----on the fire, child. Has the post arrived?"

"No, my Lady; they say that the floods have detained the mails, and that
they will be fully twelve hours late."

"Of course they will," sighed she; "and if there should be anything for
_me_, they will be carried away."

"I hope not, my Lady."

"What's the use of your hoping about it, child? or, if you must hope,
let it be for something worth while. Hope that we may get away from this
miserable place,----that we may once more visit a land where there
are sunshine and flowers, and live where it repays one for the bore of
life."

"I 'm sure I do hope it with all my heart, my Lady."

"Of course you do, child. Even you must feel the barbarism of this
wretched country. Have those things arrived from Dublin yet?"

"Yes, my Lady; but you never could wear them. The bonnet is a great
unwieldy thing, nearly as big and quite as heavy as a Life-Guardsman's
helmet; and the mantle is precisely like a hearth-rug with sleeves to
it. They are specially commended to your Ladyship's notice, as being all
of Irish manufacture."

"What need to say so?" sighed Lady Hester. "Does not every lock on every
door, every scissors that will not cut, every tongs that will not hold,
every parasol that turns upside down, every carriage that jolts, and
every shoe that pinches you, proclaim its nationality?"

"Dr. Grounsell says, my Lady, that all the fault lies in the wealthier
classes, who prefer everything to native industry."

"Dr. Grounsell's a fool, Lisa. Nothing shall ever persuade me that
Valenciennes and Brussels are not preferable to that ornament for
fireplaces and fauteuils called Limerick lace, and Genoa velvet a
more becoming wear than the O'Connell frieze. But have done with this
discussion; you have already put me out of temper by the mention of that
odious man's name."

"I at least saved your Ladyship fro