On this particular evening the Lady-Lieutenant herself had commanded the performance, so all the adherents of the Castle were there in state--members of the peerage in brand-new uniforms; the cabinet, consisting of the chancellor, the chief secretary, the speaker, and the attorney--and such a show of female beauty as Dublin can always boast. Lady Camden held quite a court in the refection-room, supported by Lord Clare, whose arrogant countenance beamed with the consciousness of strength. My Lord Camden had shuffled away to the curtained viceregal box, pretending to be engrossed with the wretchedness of Lucy Lockit; the fact being that his conscience began to worry him, and that he withdrew from public gaze as much as ceremony would permit. My lord chancellor was not a man ever to lurk in corners, or to shun a few paltry hisses. He stood forward beside the Viceroy's wife, nodding to the crowds who bowed before him with a loathsome smirk, too coldly overbearing to reck what men thought of him, provided they bent the knee. He had reached at this time the acme of his power. His word was law. He browbeat his comrades in the cabinet till honest Arthur Wolfe quite winced. He had undertaken to mould into shape a corrupt upper class, and his first move had been to give a rein to their bad passions. His second was to cultivate an unusual urbanity; for it would be needful by-and-by to win the members of the Bar, and to lay in a good stock of promising raw material in the shape of young M.P.'s just rough from grass. He made a point, too, of being particularly civil to girls, for he said that if the confidence of the females in a house is won, the men may be counted on as gained. Satan found no footing in Paradise till he made sure of Eve. So my Lord Clare tripped hither and thither in his natty attire, complimenting one, grinning at another; suggesting an ice to a young lady; confounding a sheepish youth by offering his jewelled snuff-box; laughing a hyena-laugh at some feeble joke; making himself so pleasant that folks stared in wonder. Ladies of highest rank rustled up and curtseyed, then formed into a parterre of shot silks and waving plumes behind my Lady Camden. It was a magnificent spectacle of brilliancy and wealth.