n a genteel
style, was in a couple of days so pestered by visits of the nobility and
gentry, and so hampered by invitations to dinners and suppers, that
it became exceedingly difficult for me during some days to manage my
anxiously desired visit to Mrs. Barry.

It appears that the good soul provided an entertainment as soon as she
heard of my arrival, and invited all her humble acquaintances of Bray to
be present: but I was engaged subsequently to my Lord Ballyragget on the
day appointed, and was, of course, obliged to break the promise that I
had made to Mrs. Barry to attend her humble festival.

I endeavoured to sweeten the disappointment by sending my mother a
handsome satin sack and velvet robe, which I purchased for her at the
best mercers in Dublin (and indeed told her I had brought from Paris
expressly for her); but the messenger whom I despatched with the
presents brought back the parcels, with the piece of satin torn half
way up the middle: and I did not need his descriptions to be aware that
something had offended the good lady; who came out, he said, and
abused him at the door, and would have boxed his cars, but that she was
restrained by a gentleman in black; who I concluded, with justice, was
her clerical friend Mr. Jowls.

This reception of my presents made me rather dread than hope for an
interview with Mrs. Barry, and delayed my visit to her for some days
further. I wrote her a dutiful and soothing letter, to which there was
no answer returned; although I mentioned that on my way to the capital I
had been at Barryville, and revisited the old haunts of my youth.

I don't care to own that she is the only human being whom I am afraid
to face. I can recollect her fits of anger as a child, and the
reconciliations, which used to be still more violent and painful: and
so, instead of going myself, I sent my factotum, Ulick Brady, to her;
who rode back, saying that he had met with a reception he would not
again undergo for twenty guineas; that he had been dismissed the house,
with strict injunctions to inform me that my mother disowned me for
ever. This parental anathema, as it were, affected me much, for I was
always the most dutiful of sons; and I determined to go as soon as
possible, and brave what I knew must be an inevitable scene of reproach
and anger, for the sake, as I hoped, of as certain a reconciliation.

I had been giving one night an entertainment to some of the genteelest
company in Dublin, and