dreamily on the top of the mirror. " How that
Jennings's business all comes back to me now
—the little room, and Jennings taking mo by
the button—dear, dear! Proposed! O yes!
And to this hour I never knew," added Mr.
Tilney, with great deliberation, " why she would
not have him; Tillotson, he was very hot on it.
Just rally him a little to-day as the decanter
goes round."

She forced a laugh. It was surprising that
one so trained in the world as he was could not
see the true state of things. And yet this little
lady, absorbed as she was in her great trouble,
could notice the fond and longing stress he laid
upon the word " decanter." " You must take
something, Mr. Tilney," she said, with a sort of
coquetry, " after your walk."

He put up his liands in faint protest.

"There, I have rung!" she said.

Absently helping himself, Mr. Tilney came
back, of his own accord, to the subject. "Dear
me! the hours we spent in that town. He was
with us, Tillotson was, in and out every hour
of the day: like a dog, I may say. Did what
he liked. Came and went, and nobody asked
questions. Just put it to him after dinner—
ha, ha! There was the old cathedral there, a
noble pile, lifting its tall head and lying there.
He was uncommonly fond of going with us—
ha, ha! (Thank you! Now really no more
after this one.) Lifts its tall head. Dear me!
the peaceful innocent hours I have spent there.
I always felt good, and wiser, and better."

Mr. Tilney, almost fascinated by the retrospect,
was readily led on to give many particulars
of those innocent days, and was greatly
amused as he dwelt on what he called " this
early amour of our friend." He finally rose to
go in great good humour. " I have really spent
a most delightful afternoon. You must look
after that cough of yours. I assure you there
was a young slip of a girl, daughter of Lord
Rufus Hill, captain of one of the royal yachts,
literally snipped off like a geranium before you
could—- " and not finding a striking action
readily, he had to put in, "look about you.
I'll look in again some afternoon. We are
all coming to town presently. Hampton is
too much at the back of Godspeed. We want
to see our friends more. So good-bye—- good-
bye!"

He went his way greatly satisfied. Mrs.
Tillotson sat long with her eyes on the ground,
meditating. The cough did, indeed, come very
often, but she did not heed it much. So the
evening passed by, and the cold meeting between
the wife and the nusband returned from business
(so full of his negotiations that he did not notice
the strange look in her face and her compressed
lips), and the dinner. And then the lamps were
lit, and the night set in.

He was sitting, as was his custom, in his
study, fretting a little impatiently, and wishing
he had never undertaken the responsibility of
the negotiation. As he sat and pondered over
this matter, he heard the faint cough of the
little lady up-stairs recurring frequently and
almost at settled intervals. She was sitting as
she almost always sat during the Iong evenings,
alone. He had often begged that she would
have Miss Diamond with her as a companion,
but she had steadily declined. The little lady
seemed to hint at a bitter grievance.

THE CASTLE OF DUBLIN.

I. OF MODERN DAYS.

THE cheerful city which stands on the banks of
the Liffey has special features and attractions of
its own, and which almost take it out of that
uniform pattern which belongs to most cities in
the United Kingdom. It has architectural
pretensions of no mean order, all its public buildings
being in the same style, and almost of the
same era; being disposed, too, with an eye to
picturesque position and effect, under the direction
of a parliament which, though corrupt, had
the redeeming merit of being sumptuous in all
matters relating to the public. Of a fine
summer's day, these broad streets, with what looks
like a Grecian temple at a corner far away in the
haze, with the bridges, and the ships lying at the
quays, and the columns and statues, and the
general air of vivacity, the crowded pathways
and the light cars which spring along cheerfully
with the Celtic drivers standing up carelessly on
one side looking out for fares, and, like "jolly
young watermen," never in want of one, give a
curiously festive and almost foreign air to this
Irish city.

How then does a city, without trade, or
manufactures, or law, look as gay and busy
as if it were fattening on trade, and
manufactures, and wealthy citizens? We may set
all this down to the presence of a Court—a
Court which has been called " Brummagem," "a
sham," and a hundred such contemptuous names
(who does not remember Mr. Thackeray's
epigram about a Court Calendar being bad enough,
but a sham Court Calendar!), but which has still
an extraordinary and unsuspected influence on
the social prosperity of this city. A Court, after
all—" Brummagem " or otherwise—is a Court;
that is to say, if it can boast a fine income, a
handsome palace, has its guards, officers of state,
and everything in keeping.

At the proper time in " the season " the show
begins, the grand rooms are thrown open, the
Viceroy and the Vicereine are ready to see their
subjects, to feast them in their halls. Then Irish
paterfamilias, delighting in his beeves and his
fields, with a sigh gives way. Mamma and the three
daughters (they are like mothers and daughters
everywhere else) have joined to persuade and
intimidate. And paterfamilias, like his kind
elsewhere, is not strong enough to withstand such
pressure. He is reminded of what his duty is to
his "girls," under the just penally of being
stigmatised as a "brute." And thus, when the season
sets in, the country families come flocking up, and
take houses in " Fitz-William-street " and Fitz-
William-square," in " Pembroke-place," and
other " genteel" and genteely-named localities.