wn with scorn upon all persons who have
not had the opportunity of quitting the mother-country and inhabiting
England for a while. Thus, whenever Madam Brady appeared abroad in a
new dress, her sister-in-law would say, 'Poor creature! how can it
be expected that she should know anything of the fashion?' And though
pleased to be called the handsome widow, as she was, Mrs. Barry was
still better pleased to be called the English widow.

Mrs. Brady, for her part, was not slow to reply: she used to say
that the defunct Barry was a bankrupt and a beggar; and as for the
fashionable society which he saw, he saw it from my Lord Bagwig's
side-table, whose flatterer and hanger-on he was known to be. Regarding
Mrs. Barry, the lady of Castle Brady would make insinuations still more
painful. However, why should we allude to these charges, or rake up
private scandal of a hundred years old? It was in the reign of George
II that the above-named personages lived and quarrelled; good or bad,
handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now; and do not the
Sunday papers and the courts of law supply us every week with more novel
and interesting slander?

At any rate, it must be allowed that Mrs. Barry, after her husband's
death and her retirement, lived in such a way as to defy slander. For
whereas Bell Brady had been the gayest girl in the whole county of
Wexford, with half the bachelors at her feet, and plenty of smiles and
encouragement for every one of them, Bell Barry adopted a dignified
reserve that almost amounted to pomposity, and was as starch as any
Quakeress. Many a man renewed his offers to the widow, who had been
smitten by the charms of the spinster; but Mrs. Barry refused all offers
of marriage, declaring that she lived now for her son only, and for the
memory of her departed saint.

'Saint forsooth!' said ill-natured Mrs. Brady.

'Harry Barry was as big a sinner as ever was known; and 'tis notorious
that he and Bell hated each other. If she won't marry now, depend on it,
the artful woman has a husband in her eye for all that, and only waits
until Lord Bagwig is a widower.'

And suppose she did, what then? Was not the widow of a Barry fit to
marry with any lord of England? and was it not always said that a woman
was to restore the fortunes of the Barry family? If my mother fancied
that SHE was to be that woman, I think it was a perfectly justifiable
notion on her part; for the Earl (my godfather) was always most
a