intermarriages, while they were torn at the same time by religious or political dissensions. If your wife's brother holds precisely opposite views to your own, and is in danger of losing his head, still he is your near relative, and as such you will save him from the gallows if you may. It was not surprising then that Mr. Curran, when at length he arrived with the rest, should have courteously taken Lord Clare's jewelled fingers in his own with a hope that his health was good, though he loved him as dogs love cats. Was he not obliged to meet him several times a day in the four courts, or at Daly's? The city would have been too small to hold them if they had come to open strife. My lady dropped her jeremiad when the young people entered, for the Little House and its belongings formed a mystery which they might not fathom. If Shane chose to distress his mother by flirting with Norah Gillin, it behoved the rest to ignore his sin. Even independent Doreen, who would have liked to scrape acquaintance with a co-religionist, abstained from so doing lest she should offend her aunt. Once, when in a passion, she threatened to call at the Little House, but my lady appeared so pained that she repented the idle threat. My lady looked at Lord Clare as if to bid him start a subject, then shook her head at Curran for keeping the girls out so late. Lord Clare was in excellent spirits as he crossed one natty stocking over the other, and, fingertip to fingertip, began to purr over the virtues of the new Viceroy. 'Lord Camden,' he averred, 'was an angel. He was open to advice. Things would have to take place sooner or later which would make it essential that those who governed should be of one mind. The silly geese who dubbed themselves patriots had received a check by the discomfiture of young Tone, but the snake was scotched, not killed. They would doubtless find leaders, and again leaders, who would have to be crushed in turn, and Government had hit on a bright idea for the simplifying of the process of suppression. By virtue of an English law there was a foolish rule which forbade conviction for treason save on the testimony of two witnesses. How ponderous a piece of mechanism! The wheels of the Irish car of justice wanted greasing. Why not one witness? One dear, delightful, useful creature, who would come forward and say his say and finish off the matter in a trice. What did Mr. Curran think of it, that clever advocate?'