“So there would, Fanny,” said Kilcullen, feeling that she had alluded to her brother’s death; “and I’m very, very sorry all these people are here to bore you at such a time, and doubly sorry that they should have been asked on my account. They mistake me greatly, here. They know that I’ve thought Grey Abbey dull, and have avoided it; and now that I’ve determined to get over the feeling, because I think it right to do so, they make it ten times more unbearable than ever, for my gratification! It’s like giving a child physic mixed in sugar; the sugar’s sure to be the nastiest part of the dose. Indeed I have no dislike to Grey Abbey at present; though I own I have no taste for the sugar in which my kind mother has tried to conceal its proper flavour.” “Well, make the best of it; they’ll all be gone in ten days.” “Ten days! Are they to stay ten days? Will you tell me, Fanny, what was the object in asking Mat Tierney to meet such a party?” “To help you to amuse the young ladies.” “Gracious heavens! Does Lady Cashel really expect Mat Tierney to play _la grace_ with the Miss O’Joscelyns?—Well, the time will come to an end, I suppose. But in truth I’m more sorry for you than for any one. It was very ill-judged, their getting such a crowd to bore you at such a time,” and Lord Kilcullen contrived to give his voice a tone of tender solicitude. “Kilcullen,” said the earl, across the table, “you don’t hear the bishop. His lordship is asking you to drink wine with him.” “I shall be most proud of the honour,” said the son, and bobbed his head at the bishop across the table. Fanny was on the point of saying something respecting her brother to Lord Kilcullen, which would have created a kind of confidence between them, but the bishop’s glass of wine broke it off, and from that time Lord Kilcullen was forced by his father into a general conversation with his guests. In the evening there was music and singing. The Miss O’Joscelyns, and Miss Fitzgeralds, and Mr Hill, performed: even Mat Tierney condescended to amuse the company by singing the “Coronation”, first begging the bishop to excuse the peculiar allusions to the “_clargy_”, contained in one of the verses; and then Fanny was asked to sing. She had again become silent, dull, and unhappy, was brooding over her miseries and disappointments, and she declined. Lord Kilcullen was behind her chair, and when they pressed her, he whispered to her, “Don’t sing for them, Fanny; it’s a shame that they should tease you at such a time; I wonder how my mother can have been so thoughtless.” Fanny persisted in declining to sing—and Lord Kilcullen again sat down beside her. “Don’t trouble yourself about them, Fanny,” said he, “they’re just fit to sing to each other; it’s very good work for them.” “I should think it very good work, as you call it, for myself, too, another time; only I’m hardly in singing humour at present, and, therefore, obliged to you for your assistance and protection.”