“I 'll drop you there; perhaps you would convey a message from me, and say how grateful I should feel if she would give us her company at dinner,--say seven o'clock. I will just step up to say good-bye to my granddaughter, and be with you immediately.” Sewell had not time to bethink him of all the strange events which a few minutes had grouped around him, when the Chief Baron appeared, and they set out. As they drove along, their converse was most agreeable. Sewell's attentive manner was an admirable stimulant, and the old Judge was actually sorry to lose his companion, as the carriage stopped at Lady Lendrick's door. “What on earth brought you up, Dudley?” said she, as he entered the room where she sat at breakfast. “Let me have something to eat, and I 'll tell you,” said he, seating himself at table, and drawing towards him a dish of cutlets. “You may imagine what an appetite I have when I tell you whose guest I am.” “Whose?” “Your husband's.” “You! at the Priory! and how came that to pass?” “I told you already I must eat before I talk. When I got downstairs this morning, I found the old man just finishing his breakfast, and instead of asking me to join him, he entertained me with the siege of Derry, and some choice anecdotes of Lord Bristol and 'the Volunteers.' This coffee is cold.” “Ring, and they 'll bring you some.” “If I am to take him as a type of Irish hospitality as well as Irish agreeability, I must say I get rid of two delusions together.” “There 's the coffee. Will you have eggs?” “Yes, and a rasher along with them. You can afford to be liberal with the larder, mother, for I bring you an invitation to dine.” “At the Priory?” “Yes; he said seven o'clock.” “Who dines there?” “Himself and his granddaughter and I make the company, I believe.” “Then I shall not go. I never do go when there 's not a party.” “He's safer, I suppose, before people?” “Just so. I could not trust to his temper under the temptation of a family circle. But what Drought you to town?” “He sent for me by telegraph; just, too, when I had the whole county with me, and was booked to ride a match I had made with immense trouble. I got his message,--'Come up immediately.' There was not the slightest reason for haste, nor for the telegraph at all. The whole could have been done by letter, and replied to at leisure, besides--” “What was it, then?” “It is a place he has given me,--a Registrarship of something in his Court, that he has been fighting the Castle people about for eighteen years, and to which Heaven knows if he has the right of appointment this minute.” “What'sit worth?” “A thousand a year net. There were pickings,--at least, the last man made a good thing of them,--but there are to be no more. We are to inaugurate, as the newspapers say, a reign of integrity and incorruptibility.” “So much the better.”