your father's present want of money. I would be proud to marry your
sister standing as she is now down in the kitchen. But if I did
marry her I should have ample means to keep her as would become your
father's daughter." Then he took his leave and went back to Galway.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

LORD CASTLEWELL'S LOVE-MAKING.

It was explained in the last chapter that Frank Jones was not in a
happy condition because of the success of the lady whom he loved.
Rachel, as Christmas drew nigh, was more and more talked about in
London, and became more and more the darling of all musical people.
She had been twelve months now on the London boards, and had fully
justified the opinion expressed of her by Messrs. Moss and Le Gros.
There were those who declared that she sang as no woman of her age
had ever sung before. And there had got abroad about her certain
stories, which were true enough in the main, but which were all the
more curious because of their truth; and yet they were not true
altogether. It was known that she was a daughter of a Landleaguing
Member of Parliament, and that she had been engaged to marry the
son of a boycotted landlord. Mr. Jones' sorrows, and the death of
his poor son, and the murder of the sinner who was to have been the
witness at the trial of his brother, were all known and commented
on in the London press; and so also was the peculiar vigour of Mr.
O'Mahony's politics. Nothing, it was said, could be severed more
entirely than were Mr. Jones and Mr. O'Mahony. The enmity was so
deep that all ideas of marriage were out of the question. It was, no
doubt, true that the gentleman was penniless and the lady rolling in
wealth; but this was a matter so grievous that so poor a thing as
money could not be allowed to prevail. And then Mr. Moss was talked
about as a dragon of iniquity,--which, indeed, was true enough,--and
was represented as having caused contracts to be executed which would
bind poor Rachel to himself, both as to voice and beauty. But Lord
Castlewell had seen her, and had heard her; and Mr. Moss, with all
his abominations, was sent down to the bottom of the nethermost pit.
The fortune of "The Embankment" was made by the number of visitors
who were sent there to see and to hear this wicked fiend; but it all
redounded to the honour and glory of Rachel.

But Rachel was to be seen a _feted_ guest at all semi-musical
houses. Whispers about town were heard that that musical swell, Lord
Castlewel