“Such is, at the moment I am writing, the actual condition of Ireland! Come home, then, at once,--but come alone. Come back resolved to see and act for yourself. There is a lingering spark of the old feudalism yet left in the people. Try and kindle it up once more into the old healthful glow of love to the landlord. Some would say it is too late for all this; but I will not think so. Magennis has given us an open defiance; we are to be put on our title. Now, you are well aware there is a complication here, and I shall want to consult you personally; besides, we must have a search through those registries that are locked up in the strong-room. Mary tells me you carried away the key of it. I tell you frankly, I wish we could hit upon some means of stopping Magennis. The suit is a small war, that demands grand preparation,--always a considerable evil! The fellow, I am told, is also concocting another attack,--an action against your niece and others for the forcible abduction of his wife. It would read fabulously enough, such a charge, but as old Casey said, 'There never yet was anything you could n't impute at law, if you only employed the word “conspiracy;”' and I believe it! The woman certainly has deserted him, and her whereabouts cannot be ascertained. The scandal of such a cause would of course be very great; but if you were here we might chance upon some mode of averting it,--at all events, your niece shouldn't be deserted at such a moment. What a noble girl it is, Martin, and how gloriously she comprehends her station! Give me a dozen like her, and I 'll bid defiance to all the machinations of all the agitators; and they know it! “If your estate has resisted longer than those of your neighbors the demoralizing influences that are now at work here, you owe it to Mary. If crime has not left its track of blood along your avenue or on your door-sill, it is she who has saved you. If the midnight hour has not been scared by the flame of your burning house or haggard, thank _her_ for it,--ay, Martin, _her_ courage, _her_ devotion, _her_ watchful charity, _her_ unceasing benevolence, the glorious guarantee her daily life gives, that _she_, at least, is with the people in all their sufferings and their trials! You or I had abandoned with impatience the cause that she had succored against every disappointment. Her woman's nature has endowed her with a higher and a nobler energy than ever a man possessed. She _will not_ be defeated.