Would it be best to speak out at once and brave a certain storm, or to let things be, hoping to be delivered by some unexpected means? While she was debating this knotty question, her thoughts became gradually confused, and she sank into troubled slumber. CHAPTER VII. TRINITY. Mr. Curran took the bait tendered to him by the chancellor. He made inquiries, sorted the fragments of his puzzle after his own fashion, and, filled with suspicions, became anxious to unveil without delay the fresh dangers which menaced his friends. And dangers so easy to unveil! The fowler cared not, it seemed, to mask his engines of destruction. Mr. Curran, from his place in the senate, publicly warned ministers of the iniquity of their proceedings, but nobody troubled to listen. The friends of government gaped, vowing that the orator was a maniac, that he had the secret society on the brain, and ought to be carted to the madhouse; the few who were on the other side laughed, declaring that Mr. Curran was misinformed. What could he do then but sigh and hold his peace? At least he would speak to the Emmetts and adjure them to be cautious, for the sake of all concerned. When Tone's society for the promotion of universal concord was driven by artful goading to become a secret one, the conspirators met to discuss their grievances in a cellar in Backlane, near the corn-market; but when the time came for extinguishing Tone and others, Sirr, the captain of Lord Clare's sbirri, swept them thence, and they were forced to find another trysting-place. Pending final decision on this point, it was arranged as a miracle of cleverness that the younger Emmett should suddenly become hospitable. Trinity was always celebrated for its rollicking wine-parties. What more natural than that young Robert should do as others did; that he, hitherto so studious, should be led astray a little by the contagious force of bad example? A good cellaret of claret was provided at the common expense; songs were sung with open windows, at all hours of the day and night, of a convivial and bacchanalian character. There was no end to the shifts to which the patriots resorted, under the belief that they were hoodwinking Major Sirr. There arose a mania for ball-playing. Clerks, shopkeepers, attorneys, would meet of an afternoon at a hall taken for the purpose, and emerge thence in an hour or two singularly cool and fresh for men who had been practising athletics. There was also a rage for fencing--a plausible excuse enough for meeting in numbers, considering that the fire-eaters of the south had just revised the laws of the duello. The youthful aristocracy, in accordance with one of the new rules, had already formed themselves into a club, called the Knights of Tara, whose members met three times a week in the theatre at Capel Street to display their prowess with the rapier before an audience of Dublin belles. What then should there be