iasm that animated
her, only restraining her expectations, however, by the cautious remark,
"I wonder what Mr. Dunn will say. I am curious to know how he will
pronounce upon it all."

The day at last came when this fact was to be ascertained, and the post
brought the brief but interesting intelligence that Mr. Davenport Dunn
would reach the Hermitage for dinner.

Lord Glengariff would have felt excessively offended could any one have
supposed him anxious or uneasy on the score of Dunn's coming. That a
great personage like himself should be compelled occasionally in life
to descend to the agencies of such people was bad enough, but that he
should have any misgivings about his co-operation or assistance, was
really intolerable; and yet, we blush to confess, these were precisely
the thoughts which troubled his Lordship throughout the whole of that
long day.

"Not that Dunn has ever forgotten himself with _me_,--not that he has
ever shown himself unmindful of our respective stations,--so much I must
say," were the little scraps of consolation that he repeated over and
over to himself, while grave doubts really oppressed him that we had
fallen upon evil days, when men of that stamp usurped almost all the
influence that swayed society. No easy matter was it, either, to resolve
what precise manner to assume towards him. A cold and dignified bearing
might possibly repel all confidence, and an easy familiarity be just
as dangerous as surrendering the one great superiority his position
conferred. It was true his Lordship had never yet experienced any
difficulty on such a score,--of all men, he possessed a consummate sense
of his own dignity, and suffered none to infringe it; but "this fellow
Dunn had been spoiled." Great men--greater men than Lord Glengariff
himself--had asked him to dinner. He had passed the thresholds of
certain fine houses in Piccadilly, and well-powdered lackeys in Park
Lane had called "Mr. Dunn's carriage." Now, the Irishman that has soared
to the realm of whitebait with a minister, or even a Star and Garter
luncheon with a Secretary of State, becomes, to the eyes of his
home-bred countrymen, a very different person from the celebrity of mere
Castle attentions and Phoenix Park civilities. Dunn was this, and more.
He lounged into the Irish Office as into his own lodgings, and he
walked into the most private chambers of Downing Street as if by right.
Consulted or not, he had the reputation of holding the pa