. He said you made an ass of yourself in the House of
Commons. I won't have it, and mean to tell him so; but I can't talk.
Won't you tell him from me that I shall expect him to beg my pardon,
and that I shall never hear anything of the kind again. It must come
to this. Your own R." This was handed to Mr. O'Mahony by Rachel that
very day before he went down to the House of Commons.

"But, my dear!" he said. Rachel only shook her head. "I can hardly
say all this about myself. I don't care twopence whether he thinks me
an ass or not."

"But I do," said Rachel on the tablet.

"He is an earl, and has wonderful privileges, as well as a great deal
of money."

"Marble halls and impudence," said Rachel on the tablet. Then Mr.
O'Mahony, feeling that he ought to leave her in peace, made her a
promise, and went his way. At Covent Garden that evening he met the
noble lord, having searched for him in vain at Westminster. He was
much more likely to find Lord Castlewell among the singers of the
day, than with the peers; but of these things Mr. O'Mahony hardly
understood all the particulars.

"Well, O'Mahony, how is your charming daughter?"

"My daughter is not inclined to be charming at all. I do hope she may
be getting better, but at present she is bothering her head about
you."

"It is natural that she should think of me a little sometimes," said
the flattered lord.

"She has written me a message which she says that I am to deliver.
Now mind, I don't care about it the least in the world." Here the
lord looked very grave. "She says that you called me an ass. Well,
I am to you, and you're an ass to me. I am sure you won't take it as
any insult, neither do I. She wants you to promise that you won't
call me an ass any more. Of course it would follow that I shouldn't
be able to call you one. We should both be hampered, and the truth
would suffer. But as she is ill, perhaps it would be better that you
should say that you didn't mean it."

But this was not at all Lord Castlewell's view of the matter.
Though he had been very glib with his tongue in calling O'Mahony an
ass, he did not at all like the compliment as paid back to him by
his father-in-law. And there was something which he did not quite
understand in the assertion that the truth would suffer. All the
world was certain that Mr. O'Mahony was an ass. He had been turned
out of the House of Commons only yesterday for saying that the
Speaker was quite wrong, and sticking to