ORMOND.

CHAPTER I.

"WHAT! no music, no dancing at Castle Hermitage to-night; and all the ladies sitting in a formal circle, petrifying into perfect statues?" cried sir Ulick O'Shane as he entered the drawing-room, between ten and eleven o'clock at night, accompanied by what he called his rear-guard, veterans of the old school of good fellows, who at those times in Ireland, times long since past, deemed it essential to health, happiness, and manly character, to swallow, and show themselves able to stand after swallowing, a certain number of bottles of claret per day or night. Now, then," continued sir Ulick, "of all the figures in nature or art, the formal circle is universally the most obnoxious to conversation, and, to me, the most formidable; all my faculties are spellbound-here I am like a bird in a circle of chalk, that dare not move so much as its head or its eyes, and can't, for the life of it, take to its legs."

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A titter ran round that part of the circle where the young ladies sat-sir Ulick was a favourite, and they rejoiced when he came among them; because,

as they observed, "he always said something pleasant, or set something pleasant a-going."

"Lady O'Shane, for mercy's sake let us have no more of these permanent circle sittings at Castle Hermitage, my dear!"

"Sir Ulick, I am sure I should be very glad if it were possible," replied lady O'Shane, "to have no more permanent sittings at Castle Hermitage; but when gentlemen are at their bottle, I really don't know what the ladies can do but sit in a circle."

"Can't they dance in a circle, or any way? or have not they an elegant resource in their music? There's many here who, to my knowledge, can caper as well as they modulate," said sir Ulick," to say nothing of cards for those that like them."

"Lady Annaly does not like cards," said lady O'Shane," and I could not ask any of these young ladies to waste their breath and their execution, singing and playing before the gentlemen came out."

"These young ladies would not, I'm sure, do us old fellows the honour of waiting for us; and the young beaux deserted to your tea-table a long hour ago-so why you have not been dancing is a mystery beyond my comprehension."

“Tea or coffee, sir Ulick O'Shane, for the third time of asking?" cried a sharp female voice from the remote tea-table.

"Wouldn't you swear to that being the voice of a presbyterian ?" whispered sir Ulick, over his shoulder, to the curate: then aloud he replied to the lady, "Miss Black, you are three times too obliging. Neither tea nor coffee I'll take from you to-night, I thank you kindly.”

"Fortunate for yourself, sir-for both are as cold as stones-and no wonder !" said miss Black.

"No wonder!" echoed lady O'Shane, looking at her watch, and sending forth an ostentatious sigh. "What o'clock is it by your ladyship?" asked miss Black. "I have a notion it's tremendously

late."

"No matter we are not pinned to hours in this house, miss Black," said sir Ulick, walking up to the tea-table, and giving her a look, which said as plainly as look could say, "You had better be quiet." Lady O'Shane followed her husband, and putting her arm within his, began to say something in a fondling tone; and in a most conciliatory manner she went on talking to him for some moments. He looked absent, and replied coldly.

"I'll take a cup of coffee from you now, miss Black," said he, drawing away his arm from his wife, who looked much mortified.

"We are too long, lady O'Shane," added he, "standing here like lovers, talking to no one but ourselves-awkward in company."

"Like lovers!" The sound pleased poor lady O'Shane's ear, and she smiled for the first time this night-lady O'Shane was perhaps the last woman in the room whom a stranger would have guessed to be sir Ulick's wife.

. He was a fine gallant off-hand looking Irishman, with something of dash in his tone and air, which at first view might lead a common observer to pronounce him to be vulgar; but at five minutes after sight, a good judge of men and manners would have discovered in him the power of assuming whatever manner he chose, from the audacity of the callous profligate to the deference of the accomplished courtier-the capability of adapting his conversation to his company and his views, whether his object were I to set the

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senseless table in a roar," or to insinuate himself into the delicate female heart. Of this latter power, his age had diminished but not destroyed the influence. The fame of former conquests still operated in his favour, though he had long since passed his splendid meridian of gallantry.

While sir Ulick is drinking his cup of cold coffee, we may look back a little into his family history. To go no further than his legitimate loves, he had successively won three wives, who had each, in her turn, been desperately enamoured: the first he loved, and married, imprudently, for love, at seventeen ; the second he admired, and married, prudently, for ambition, at thirty; the third he hated, but married, from necessity for money, at five-and-forty. The first wife, miss Annaly; after ten years' martyrdom of the heart, sank, childless—a victim, it was said, to love and jealousy. The second wife, lady Theodosia, struggled stoutly for power, backed by strong and high connexions; having, moreover, the advantage of being a mother, and mother of an only son and heir, the representative of a father in whom ambition had, by this time, become the ruling passion: the lady Theodosia stood her ground, wrangling and wrestling through a fourteen years' wedlock, till at last, to sir Ulick's great relief, not to say joy, her ladyship was carried off by a bad fever, or a worse apothecary. His present lady, formerly Mrs. Scraggs, a London widow of very large fortune, happened to see sir Ulick when he went to present some address, or settle some point between the English and Irish government: he was in deep mourning at the time, and the widow pitied him very much. But she was not the sort of woman he would ever have suspected could like him--she was a strict pattern lady, severe

on the times, and not unfrequently lecturing young men gratis. Now sir Ulick O'Shane was a sinner, how then could he please a saint? He did, however -but the saint did not please him-though she set to work for the good of his soul, and in her own person relaxed, to please his taste, even to the wearing of rouge and pearl-powder, and false hair, and false eyebrows, and all the falsifications which the setters up could furnish. But after she had purchased all of youth which age can purchase for money, it would not do. The widow Scraggs might, with her "lack lustre" eyes, have speculated for ever in vain upon sir Ulick, but that, fortunately for her passion, at one and the same time the Irish ministry were turned out and an Irish canal burst. Sir Ulick losing his place by the change of ministry, and one half of his fortune by the canal, in which it had been sunk; and having spent in unsubstantial schemes and splendid living more than the other half; now, in desperate misery, laid hold of the widow Scraggs. After a nine days' courtship she became a bride, and she and her plum in the stocks-but not her messuage, house, and lands, in Kent-became the property of sir Ulick O'Shane. "Love was then lord of all" with her, and she was now to accompany sir Ulick to Ireland. Late in life she was carried to a new country, and set down among a people whom she had all her previous days been taught to hold in contempt or aversion: she dreaded Irish disturbances much, and Irish dirt more; she was persuaded that nothing could be right, good, or genteel, that was not English. Her habits and tastes were immutably fixed. Her experience had been confined to a London life, and in proportion as her sphere of observation had been contracted, her disposition was intolerant.