MABEL'S PROGRESS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "AUNT MARGARET'S TROUBLE."

BOOK III.

CHAPTER IX.

Soft you now;

The fair Ophelia.

AMONGST the notabilities of the gentry in the
neighbourhood of Kilclare was a certain Lady
Popham, a wealthy and eccentric widow, who
owned a fine estate, one of the park gates of
which opened into the high road that led from
Ballyhacket to Kilclare. Lady Popham had
resided many years abroad, chiefly in Italy, with
her husband, a languid, invalid, fine gentleman,
who found, or fancied, that a southern climate
was necessary to his existence. Her ladyship
had consequently been an absentee for a very
long period. On Sir Bernard Popham's death,
however, his widow returned rich and childless
to Ireland, and announced her intention of
residing permanently on her Kilclare estate. At
first her advent occasioned a great deal of talk
and excitement amongst her country neighbours.
Lady Popham's peculiarities were the theme of
conversation at most dinner-tables around
Kilclare for some weeks. Some were shocked,
some angry, some amused by her oddities; but,
by degrees, as the genuine goodness and warm-
heartedness of her character became known, and
as people became accustomed to her eccentricities,
all that was odd, outré, or unusual, was set
down simply to "foreign manners," and excused
accordingly. And at the date of my story there
was no more popular or respected individual in
the county than old Lady Popham of
Cloncoolin.

Lady Popham was known far and wide as a
liberal, if not very intelligent encourager of art
and artists, and was a staunch patroness of the
drama. She had already been twice to the
theatre at Kilclare during the present season,
and had on each occasion graciously signified to
Mr. Moffatt her high satisfaction with the
performances, all which was profitable and pleasant
to the manager, and would have been quite perfect but for one unfortunate circumstance, which
dashed his cup of content with bitterness. It
had been observed that when Miss Moffatt was
singing that popular and touching ballad of the
modern domestic school, entitled "Johnny left
me in the lane," Lady Popham, after listening
for a second or so, unfurled a very large green
fan, behind whose ample shade she retired
completely during the song, nor issued forth into
the gaslight again until "Johnny" had finally
left off leaving Miss Moffatt in the lane, when
her ladyship emerged from obscurity with a
cheerful countenance. This was certainly not
pleasant; and poor Mr. Moffatt had to bear the
brunt of his daughter's ill humour and mortification.
However, Lady Popham was too valuable
a friend and supporter of the theatre for
the manager to be able to afford to show any
resentment at this slight to Miss Annette's vocal
abilities; and he consoled the latter by
saying that "nobody minded what old Lady
Popham said or did," and that she was generally
supposed to be "a little touched in the upper
story."

Touched or not, however, it was very well
known that the sight of the Cloncoolin liveries
at the box-office in the morning was sufficient
to fill the house at night; and Mr. Wilfred J.
Percival had sent a sort of circular to her
ladyship setting forth that his benefit was fixed to
take place on the following Friday evening, and
begging Lady Popham to honour him by her
presence and support on the occasion. This
she had promised to do, and moreover to bring
with her a party of friends that were staying
at Cloncoolin; and great was the excitement
amongst the company as the evening approached,
and rose-coloured were the visions of cash and
credit to be won, in the minds of manager
Moffatt and the bénéficiare.

At Biddy Bonny's, too, the whole household
was much interested in the forthcoming
performance of Hamlet, and especially in the
new Ophelia. Teddy Molloy, as he sat in the
workshop tapping away at the sole of a
"brogue," held forth to his apprentices on the
merits of the various Hamlets he had seen when
he himself was a 'prentice in Dublin, and
expressed his opinion that Miss Bell would be
"the purtiest and illigantest Ophaylia" that had
ever appeared on the boards of the Kilclare
theatre. And the two apprentices related how
they'd heard that Lady Popham and "heaps of
the quality" were to grace the boxes with their
presence. Even old Joe Bonny seemed to
catch a faint reflex of the prevailing glow of