And about here, I think it was, my eloquence and pathos were suddenly checked in their flow. Men, husbands especially, take such mean advantages! And reasoning, and calm, intellectual conversation have, somehow, so little charm for them! I tell you painful truths, my Susie, but they're for your good and guidance. I know that long-legged, yellow-haired laddie out in New Zealand is a demi-god. Of course he is--they all are--but it's best not to marry 'em--if one can help it! But the dinner. I was dreadfully puzzled what to wear--whether to get myself up as a severe matron, or appear in the costume suited to me--a frivolous woman, _jeune encore_, and with a mind not above millinery--when a little note from Mrs. Malise, felicitating herself and me that the day of our dinner was also their reception evening, turned the scale against the brown silk in favor of a quite celestial palest green-blue Irish poplin I got in Dublin this last visit. The tint suits my pale dark face admirably, and with rather a profusion of white lace, and pink coral ornaments that Ronayne's brother Gus, the major, just home from India, gave me at Christmas--exquisite swinging fuchsias, with golden stamens and leaves--the toilette was so effective that I was quite ready to hear Ronayne's, "Oh, what a gorgeous swell!" when I exhibited myself just before starting. And, "Ould Ireland for ever!" as his eye fell on the gown he helped me to choose. "And are these the laces my father gave you?" taking hold of one of my frills. "Do they look like antimacassars? Because if they don't, they never were fabricated in your tight little island, my Paddy. I'd do a deal for you. You couldn't help being born there, poor boy; _mais toute chose a son terme_, and even my devotion won't stretch to the wearing Irish lace." Our host and hostess received us in the confederate drawing-room, where were three or four other guests already, and the greater number of the associate household and the lacking members presented themselves before dinner was announced. Fourteen or fifteen people in all, and not, to the casual glance, differing strikingly from unassociate dwellers in "isolate homes and dreary lodgings."