he fitness of that display of
trinkets which he had brought with him as presents, and the sight of which
had become a sort of public necessity.

Not the least strange part of the whole procedure was that no one could
tell where or how or with whom it originated. It was like one of those
movements which are occasionally seen in political life, where, without the
direct intervention of any precise agent, a sort of diffused atmosphere of
public opinion suffices to produce results and effect changes that all are
ready to disavow but to accept.

The mere fact of the pleasure the prospect afforded to Miss Betty prevented
Kate from offering opposition to what she felt to be both bad in taste and
ridiculous.

'That old lady imagines, I believe, that I am to come down like a
_pretendu_ in a French vaudeville--dressed in a tail-coat, with a white
tie and white gloves, and perhaps receive her benediction. She mistakes
herself, she mistakes us. If there was a casket of uncouth old diamonds,
or some marvellous old point lace to grace the occasion, we might play our
parts with a certain decorous hypocrisy; but to be stared at through a
double eye-glass by a snuffy old woman in black mittens, is more than one
is called on to endure--eh, Lockwood?'

'I don't know. I think I'd go through it all gladly to have the occasion.'

'Have a little patience, old fellow, it will all come right. My worthy
relatives--for I suppose I can call them so now--are too shrewd people to
refuse the offer of such a fellow as you. They have that native pride that
demands a certain amount of etiquette and deference. They must not seem
to rise too eagerly to the fly; but only give them time--give them time,
Lockwood.'

'Ay, but the waiting in this uncertainty is terrible to me.'

'Let it be certainty, then, and for very little I'll ensure you! Bear
this in mind, my dear fellow, and you'll see how little need there is for
apprehension. You--and the men like you--snug fellows with comfortable
estates and no mortgages, unhampered by ties and uninfluenced by
connections, are a species of plant that is rare everywhere, but actually
never grew at all in Ireland, where every one spent double his income, and
seldom dared to move a step without a committee of relations. Old Kearney
has gone through that fat volume of the gentry and squirearchy of England
last night, and from Sir Simon de Lockwood, who was killed at Crecy, down
to a certain major in the Carbineers