Whatever Mrs. Barton's faults may have been, she did her duty, as she conceived it, by her daughter; and during the long dinner, through the leaves of the flowering-plants, she watched her Olive anxiously. A hundred and twenty people were present. Mothers and eligible daughters, judges, lords, police-officers, earls, poor-law inspectors, countesses, and Castle officials. Around the great white-painted, gold-listed walls the table, in the form of a horseshoe, was spread. In the soothing light of the shaded lamps the white glitter of the piled-up silver danced over the talking faces, and descended in silvery waves into the bosoms of the women. Salmon and purple-coloured liveries passed quickly; and in the fragrance of soup and the flavours of sherry, in the lascivious pleasing of the waltz tunes that Liddell's band poured from a top gallery, the goodly company of time-servers, panders, and others forgot their fears of the Land League and the doom that was now waxing to fulness. To the girls the dinner seemed interminable, but at the 'private dance' afterwards those who were known in official circles, or were fortunate enough to meet their friends, amused themselves. It took place in the Throne-Room. As the guests arrived they scanned each other narrowly. People who had known each other from childhood upwards, as they met on the landing, affected a look of surprise: 'Oh, so you are here? I wonder how you got your invitation? Well, I suppose you are better than I took you to be!' Acquaintances saluted each other more cordially than was their wont: he or she who had dined at the Castle took his or her place at once among the _élite;_ he or she who had come to dance was henceforth considered worthy of a bow in Grafton Street. For Dublin is a city without a conviction, without an opinion. Things are right and wrong according to the dictum of the nearest official. If it be not absolutely ill-bred to say you think this, or are inclined to take such or such a view, it is certainly more advisable to say that the Attorney-General thinks so, or that on one occasion you heard the State Steward, the Chamberlain, or any other equally distinguished underling, express this or that opinion. Castle tape is worn in time of mourning and in the time of feasting. Every gig-man in the Kildare Street wears it in his buttonhole, and the ladies of Merrion Square are found to be gartered with it.