My lady was kept waiting for fully half an hour, while the mistress of the Little House was arranging her war-paint, during which time she had leisure to glance round the adornments of the chamber--bright, big, showy, glowing and rubicund, blatant with varnished newness--so different from the cobwebbed dignity of the black oak and tapestry at the Abbey. The ceiling was painted in the Italian style, with clouds on cerulean ether like bits of cotton-wool. The floor was thickly carpeted, the windows heavily curtained--for the judges, when they came to carouse with their gay hostess, liked what was snug and cosy. Over the chimney-piece were two portraits, side by side, at which my lady frowned--the late Lord Glandore and Norah. The woman was evidently shameless, to place my lord's portrait so _en evidence_. This long delay was, no doubt, a premeditated insult. The original of the second portrait, conscious that it was rude of her mamma to be so long in dressing, skimmed down the stairs and banged open the door to make a good-humoured apology, but closed it quickly and retreated--the aspect of the old lady was so forbidding as she stood upright in the centre of the floor, with thin nose pinched and bent brows scowling. If the squireens of Letterkenny had been frightened by the gorgon's stony face when she strove to be gracious, how much more awful did she appear now, when grilling on the coals of humiliation. By-and-by, with a prodigious rattle, Madam Gillin swam in and curtseyed. If there was to be a passage of arms, she was determined not to be taken at a disadvantage. Fortune had denied her the grand air which goes with blue blood and coronets, but she was resolved to make up for the want of it by a display of external magnificence. Though warm and moist with the exertion of plunging into grandeur at so short a notice, she looked mighty fine in her best red satin, made very tight and short, with a Roman emperor in cameo grinning on the high waistband, and another nodding from her hair. The ruddy tint of her mature charms vied with the ruby of the satin and the redness of the turban, and came by no means badly out of the conflict. When arrayed in the garments of ceremony, Madam Gillin, despite the stoutness of her figure, could be extremely dignified. With a second curtsey and a sweep round of the left foot, she bade the visitor welcome to her poor home, and pointed a mittened forefinger at a chair. 'It's honoured that I am entirely, by your leedyship's condescension,' she said, wagging the turban affably. 'Might I offer some sherry-wine, or would your leedyship prefer clart? or a dhrop of prime poteen? The judges, bless you, prefer clart. Sure, Jug'll bring a cake in a jiffy, for drink's bad on an empty stomach.'