worked for, till we know that some desperate
holes have actually been battered in the ship's
sides. Ha! ha!"

The little man laughed at his own wit, with a
strange hiding and peeping out again of his
twinkling eyes, and a great dragging and
knotting up of his wrinkled visage. And he
wrung his hands together tightly, and polished
them with each other till all the joints grew
bright and shone again. And Lady Humphrey
fixed her silent gaze, with a ferocious contempt,
on the contortions of his delight, and her hands
twitched the folded papers he had put into
them. Perhaps, if those papers had been bullets,
she might have taken a fancy to send them
spinning through the shaking head. But that
would have been a pity, for Mr. Campion was
a most useful little man.

"I do not relish jests on this subject," she
said, after a few moments' wrestling with
perverse inclinations. "What is there in these
sheets worth looking at?"

"I beg your ladyship's pardon, I am sure,"
said Mr. Campion, with a bow of mock courtesy
and a grimace. "We will begin with a curious
little record in the News Letter of Belfast. It
is short: it will not weary your ladyship with
words:

"'Mr. William Orr, of near Antrim (now in
Carrickfergus Jail), has had his entire harvest
cut down by near six hundred of his neighbours
in a few hours.'

"And here in the Northern Star is a
corresponding announcement:

"'About one thousand five hundred people
assembled, and in seven minutes dug a field of
potatoes belonging to Mr. Samuel Nelson of
Belfast, now in Kilmainham Jail.'"

"What do these morsels signify?" asked
Lady Humphrey. "What do they tell you?"

"Tell me!" cried Mr. Campion, in triumph.
"They tell me that the jails are gaping for men
who are beloved by the people. They tell me
that if we choose to be expeditious we may
have some thousands of fools cutting down Sir
Archie Munro's goodly harvest in some ten or
fifteen minutes, if we but choose to hold up our
finger. But they warn me also that these Irishmen
are furious in their passion for their chiefs,
that jails are slippery strongholds, with doors
through which people can come out as well as
go in, and that their keys have a trick of
changing hands in time of civil war. They also
hint to me," continued the little man, "that
by-and-by our dealings with our dear sister island
will be more prompt and less ceremonious
than they have been, that the formality of
jails will be dispensed with, that other harvests
will be reaped in those same fields where
the grain is now falling so quickly; that those
very ready reapers who are over-busy with
their sickles will be apt to be mown down
in their turn, laid low among their furrows,
by as speedy an application of his majesty's
bullets as such nimble-handed bumpkins could
desire."

"I see nothing in all this that I did not
know before," said Lady Humphrey, folding
up the paper and dismissing the subject. "I
have thought it all out long ago. I know
how the fools will behave and what they will
come to. We had better spend our time
in making arrangements for this fancy ball, I
conceive."

And some further consultation having been
held upon this subject, Mr. Campion at last
made his farewell grimace, and slid out of the
room as he had slid into it.

So Hester was informed that she was to be
taken to a fancy ball. It was to find her a
novelty, to show her a pretty picture, that
Lady Humphrey had planned such a treat. She
was as pleasantly excited about the matter as
even Lady Humphrey could desire her to be.
And "I think I can undertake them," she
answered, with animation, when called upon to
exert her ingenuity on the contriving and
making up of two costumes for the occasion.
Whereupon Lady Humphrey wrote off some
little notes to a very select few of her most
intimate and frivolous friends; and she got
some other little notes in return. And a party
was made up for the ball. Five individuals,
including Lady Humphrey and Mr. Campion,
were to make their appearance in the assembly
as—a hand of cards. Hester was to be Red
Riding-hood, and Lady Humphrey the queen
of Spades.

Some black velvet, some satin, some white
muslin, some red cloth, were all furnished to
Hester without delay; and the costumes were
in readiness when the evening arrived. Lady
Humphrey's sweeping train of black velvet,
ornamented with white satin spades, was
pronounced a marvel of elegance and conceit by
the party. Her fellow cards of the hand all
dined at the palace with Lady Humphrey.
There was also a Spanish cavaliero who made
his appearance at the dinner-table, and who
praised the English cooking very much, but
who proved to be Mr. Pierce on minute investigation.
Hester had also an honoured place at
the board, and with her gold hair all showered
over her shoulders under her little red hood,
made a picture such as seldom can be seen.
Mr. Campion surveyed her with attention, and
rubbed his knuckles up to the highest degree of
polish that it is possible for skin and bone to
assume.

"Our fair instrument?" whispered he to
Lady Humphrey, with his eyebrows going up
into his wig. "Then——

"Little Red Ridinghood!" sighed Mr. Campion,
sentimentally, sweeping Hester's face
with his eyes, and then fixing them on the
moulding of the ceiling. "How this carries
one back to the days of one's childhood! A
very charming impersonation indeed! But
there ought to be a wolf in attendance, ought
there not?" he added, suddenly addressing the
company. "The wolf who put on the
grandmother's nightcap, you remember, Lady
Humphrey."

But Mr. Campion's little witticisms were