The excitement when the grand day arrived was great in Dublin, while the provinces looked on with unconcern. The brew of my Lords Castlereagh and Clare had cost them sleepless nights. The Viceroy, as head-cook, made believe to supervise, but he held a perfumed kerchief to his august nose; there was no need for special exertion on his part, for his deputies were by this time familiar with the receipt. By the middle of the ensuing year at latest, every detail would be arranged; and then he would be able to depart, his mission accomplished, out of an atmosphere that poisoned him. But my Lords Clare and Castlereagh were only bunglers after all. They had not fathomed the baseness of the senate--the yawning depth of its abyss of greed. Certain members of both Houses turned round at the last minute. Some said that their consciences smote them; others admitted that their rapacity was not satisfied. After a sitting of twenty-one hours the measure was lost; and my Lords Clare and Castlereagh, baffled where success seemed certain, looked foolish. Every one was disgusted. Lord Cornwallis apologised for the muddle to the British Cabinet. Odd straitlaced people, he explained, rose all of a sudden to the surface, who, if they had appeared sooner, might have done much to stop the ball. It was like the legend of Sodom and Gomorrah. 'Peradventure three righteous men might be found,' and so on. The affair would have to be postponed for a few months in order that the three righteous men might be tampered with. Of course the three righteous men had their price. My Lord Powerscourt had emerged from his Wicklow mountains to protest from his place against the sinful measure, and a shamefaced knot rallied round him--a nucleus of lords who objected to the bartering of freedom against a cartload of cheap mirrors and bead-necklaces. But retribution fell upon that ill-advised Lord Powerscourt before the setting of the sun that day. A national rabble who sallied forth from the Liberties to wreak vengeance on those who dared to vote for union, by a trifling error attacked Powerscourt House in William Street, and broke its windows and smashed its sculptured ornaments. They did not desist till some one explained that it appertained to a peer who all along had steadfastly set his face against the orgies of his fellows; against bloodshed, murder, and torture; and against Lord Clare. But, arrah! what was broke could be mended, and it was good for trade. Three cheers for Lord Powerscourt! He must acknowledge the warmth of Pat's nature, and make the best of the mistake.