“Why, yes, my lady; I heard a great deal about all that, when I was at Lady Clonbrony’s,” said Petito, one day, as she was attending at her lady’s toilette, and encouraged to begin chattering. “And I own I was originally under the universal error that my Lord Colambre was to be married to the great heiress, Miss Broadhurst; but I have been converted and reformed on that score, and am at present quite in another way of thinking.” Petito paused, in hopes that her lady would ask what was her present way of thinking? But Lady Dashfort, certain that she would tell her without being asked, did not take the trouble to speak, particularly as she did not choose to appear violently interested on the subject. “My present way of thinking,” resumed Petito, “is in consequence of my having, with my own eyes and ears, witnessed and overheard his lordship’s behaviour and words, the morning he was coming away from _Lunnun_ for Ireland; when he was morally certain nobody was up, nor overhearing nor overseeing him, there did I notice him, my lady, stopping in the antechamber, ejaculating over one of Miss Nugent’s gloves, which he had picked up. ‘Limerick!’ said he, quite loud enough to himself; for it was a Limerick glove, my lady--‘Limerick!--dear Ireland! she loves you as well as I do!’--or words to that effect; and then a sigh, and down stairs and off. So, thinks I, now the cat’s out of the bag. And I wouldn’t give much myself for Miss Broadhurst’s chance of that young lord, with all her Bank stock, scrip, and _omnum_. Now, I see how the land lies, and I’m sorry for it; for she’s no _fortin_; and she’s so proud, she never said a hint to me of the matter: but my Lord Colambre is a sweet gentleman; and--” “Petito! don’t run on so; you must not meddle with what you don’t understand: the Miss Killpatricks, to be sure, are sweet girls, particularly the youngest.” Her ladyship’s toilette was finished; and she left Petito to go down to my Lady Killpatrick’s woman, to tell, as a very great secret, the schemes that were in contemplation, among the higher powers, in favour of the youngest of the Miss Killpatricks. “So Ireland is at the bottom of his heart, is it?” repeated Lady Dashfort to herself: “it shall not be long so.” From this time forward, not a day, scarcely an hour passed, but her ladyship did or said something to depreciate the country, or its inhabitants, in our hero’s estimation. With treacherous ability, she knew and followed all the arts of misrepresentation; all those injurious arts which his friend, Sir James Brooke, had, with such honest indignation, reprobated. She knew how, not only to seize the ridiculous points, to make the most respectable people ridiculous, but she knew how to select the worst instances, the worst exceptions; and to produce them as examples, as precedents, from which to condemn whole classes, and establish general false conclusions respecting a nation.