Produced by Louise Hope, Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net [Typographical errors and some unusual forms are listed at the end of the e-text.] * * * * * IRENE IDDESLEIGH. * * * * * IRENE IDDESLEIGH. by MRS. AMANDA M'KITTRICK ROS. Belfast: PRINTED BY W. & G. BAIRD, Limited, 124 Royal Avenue; and at London and Dublin. 1897. * * * * * CONTENTS. Page. CHAPTER I. 9 CHAPTER II. 13 CHAPTER III. 20 CHAPTER IV. 25 CHAPTER V. 32 CHAPTER VI. 40 CHAPTER VII. 49 CHAPTER VIII. 60 CHAPTER IX. 73 CHAPTER X. 79 CHAPTER XI. 92 CHAPTER XII. 102 CHAPTER XIII. 116 CHAPTER XIV. 126 CHAPTER XV. 138 CHAPTER XVI. 150 CHAPTER XVII. 163 CHAPTER XVIII. 174 CHAPTER XIX. 186 CHAPTER I. Sympathise with me, indeed! Ah, no! Cast your sympathy on the chill waves of troubled waters; fling it on the oases of futurity; dash it against the rock of gossip; or, better still, allow it to remain within the false and faithless bosom of buried scorn. Such were a few remarks of Irene as she paced the beach of limited freedom, alone and unprotected. Sympathy can wound the breast of trodden patience,--it hath no rival to insure the feelings we possess, save that of sorrow. The gloomy mansion stands firmly within the ivy-covered, stoutly-built walls of Dunfern, vast in proportion and magnificent in display. It has been built over three hundred years, and its structure stands respectably distant from modern advancement, and in some degrees it could boast of architectural designs rarely, if ever, attempted since its construction. The entrance to this beautiful home of Sir Hugh Dunfern, the present owner, is planned on most antique principles; nothing save an enormous iron gate meets the gaze of the visitor, who at first is inclined to think that all public rumours relative to its magnificence are only the utterances of the boastful and idle; nor until within its winding paths of finest pebble, studded here and there with huge stones of unpolished granite, could the mind for a moment conceive or entertain the faintest idea of its quaint grandeur.