udes of an Irish property. Norwood's dreadful death,
wrapped in all the mystery which involved it, shocked her deeply,
although, in reality, the event relieved her from a bondage she had long
felt to be insupportable; and lastly, the Romanism in which she had,
so to say, invested all her "loose capital" of zeal and enthusiasm,
had become a terrible disappointment. The gorgeous splendor of Italian
Popery found a miserable representative in Irish Catholicism. The meanly
built Irish chapel, with its humble congregation, was a sorry exchange
for the architectural grandeur and costly assemblage gathered within the
Duomo of Florence, or beneath the fretted roof of "St. John of Lateran."

In all the sublimity of pealing music, of full-toned choirs, of incense
floating up into realms of dim distance, there were but the nasal
sing-song of a parish priest, and the discordant twang of a dirty
acolyte! And what an interval separated their vulgar manners of the
village curate from the polished addresses of the Roman cardinal! How
unlike the blended pretension and cringing slavery of the one was to
the high-bred bearing and courtly urbanity of the other. A visit from
"Father John" was an actual infliction. To receive his Eminence was not
only an honor but a sincere pleasure. Who, like him, to discuss every
topic of the world and its fashionable inhabitants, touching every
incident with a suave mellowness of remark that, like the light through
a stained-glass window, warmed, while it softened, that which it fell
upon? Who could throw over the frailties of fashion such a graceful
cloak of meek forgiveness, that it seemed actually worth while to sin
to be pardoned with such affection? All the pomp and circumstance of
Romanism, as seen in its own capital, associated with rank, splendor,
high dignity, and names illustrious in story, form a strong contrast
to its vulgar pretensions in Ireland. It is so essentially allied to
ceremonial and display, that when these degenerate into poverty and
meanness, the effect produced is always bordering on the ludicrous.
Such, at least, became the feeling of Lady Hester as she witnessed those
travesties of grandeur, the originals of which had left her awe-stricken
and amazed.

Shorn of fortune, deprived of all the illusions which her newly adopted
creed had thrown around her, uncheered by that crowd of flatterers which
used to form her circle, is it any wonder if her spirits and her temper
gave way, an