It is, as regards views of life and the world, a somewhat narrowing process to live amongst sympathizers; and it may be assumed as an axiom, that no people so much minister to a man's littleness as those who pity him.

Now, when Lady Lendrick separated from Sir William, she carried away with her a large following of sympathizers. The Chief Baron was well known; his haughty overbearing temper at the bar, his assuming attitude in public life, his turn for sarcasm and epigram, had all contributed to raise up for him a crowd of enemies; and these, if not individually well disposed to Lady Lendrick, could at least look compassionately on one whose conjugal fate had been so unfortunate. All her shortcomings were lost sight of in presence of his enormities, for the Chief Baron's temper was an Aaron's rod of irascibility, which devoured every other; and when the verdict was once passed, that “no woman could live with him,” very few women offered a word in his defence.

It is just possible that if it had not been for this weight in the opposite scale, Lady Lendrick herself would not have stood so high. Sir William's faults, however, were accounted to her for righteousness, and she traded on a very pretty capital in consequence. Surrounded by a large circle of female friends, she lived in a round of those charitable dissipations by which some people amuse themselves; and just as dull children learn their English history through a game, and acquire their geography through a puzzle, these grown-up children take in their Christianity by means of deaf and dumb bazaars, balls for blind institutions, and private theatricals for an orphan asylum. This devotion, made easy to the lightest disposition, is not, perhaps, a bad theory,—at least, it does not come amiss to an age which likes to attack its gravest ills in a playful spirit, to treat consumption with cough lozenges, and even moderate the excesses of insanity by soft music. There is another good feature, too, in the practice: it furnishes occupation and employment to a large floating class which,' for the interest and comfort of society, it is far better should be engaged in some pursuit, than left free to the indulgence of censorious tastes and critical habits. Lady Lendrick lived a sort of monarch amongst these. She was the patroness of this, the secretary of that, and the corresponding member of some other society. Never was an active intelligence more actively occupied; but she liked it all, for she liked power, and, strange as it may seem, there is in a small way an exercise of power even in these petty administrations. Loud, bustling, overbearing, and meddlesome, she went everywhere, and did everything. The only sustaining hope of those she interfered with was that she was too capricious to persist in any system of annoyance, and was prone to forget to-day the eternal truths she had propounded for reverence yesterday.

I am not sure that she conciliated—I am not sure that she would have cared for—much personal attachment; but she had what certainly she did like, a large following of very devoted supporters. All her little social triumphs—and occasionally she had such—were blazoned abroad by those people who loved to dwell on the courtly attentions bestowed upon their favorite, what distinguished person had taken her “down” to dinner, and the neat compliment that the Viceroy paid her on the taste of her “tabinet.”

It need scarcely be remarked that the backwater of all this admiration for Lady Lendrick was a swamping tide of ill-favor for her husband. It would have been hard to deny him ability and talent. But what had he made of his ability and talent? The best lawyer of the bar was not even Chief-Justice of the Queen's Bench. The greatest speaker and scholar of his day was unknown, except in the reminiscences of a few men almost as old as himself. Was the fault in himself, or was the disqualifying element of his nature the fact of being an Irishman? For a number of years the former theory satisfied all the phenomena of the case, and the restless, impatient disposition—irritable, uncertain, and almost irresponsible—seemed reason enough to deter the various English officials who came over from either seeking the counsels or following the suggestions of the bold Baron of the Exchequer. A change, however, had come, in pail; induced by certain disparaging articles of the English press as to the comparative ability of the two countries; and now it became the fashion to say that had Sir William been born on the sunnier side of St. George's Channel, and had his triumphs been displayed at Westminster instead of the Four Courts, there would have been no limit to the praise of his ability as a lawyer, nor any delay in according him the highest honors the Crown could bestow.

Men shook their heads, recalled the memorable “curse” recorded by Swift, and said, “Of course there is no favor for an Irishman.” It is not the place nor the time to discuss this matter here. I would only say that a good deal of the misconception which prevails upon it is owing to the fact that the qualities which win all the suffrages of one country are held cheaply enough in the other. Plodding unadorned ability, even of a high order, meets little favor in Ireland, while on the other side of the Channel Irish quickness is accounted as levity, and the rapid appreciation of a question without the detail of long labor and thought, is set down as the lucky hit of a lively but very idle intelligence. I will not let myself wander away further in this digression, but come back to my story. Connected with this theory of Irish depreciation, was the position that but for the land of his birth Sir William would have been elevated to the peerage.

Of course it was a subject to admit of various modes of telling, according to the tastes, the opportunities, and the prejudices of the tellers. The popular version of the story, however, was this: that Sir William declined to press a claim that could not have been resisted, on account of the peculiarly retiring, unambitious character of him who should be his immediate successor. His very profession—adopted and persisted in, in despite of his father's wish—was a palpable renunciation of all desire for hereditary honor. As the old Judge said, “The Libro d, Oro of nobility is not the Pharmacopoeia;” and the thought of a doctor in the peerage might have cost “Garter” a fit of apoplexy.

Sir William knew this well,—no man better; but the very difficulties gave all the zest and all the flavor to the pursuit. He lived, too, in the hope that some Government official might have bethought him of this objection, that he might spring on him, tiger-like, and tear him in fragments.

“Let them but tell me this,” muttered he, “and I will rip up the whole woof, thread by thread, and trace them! The noble duke whose ancestor was a Dutch pedler, the illustrious marquess whose great-grandfather was a smuggler, will have to look to it. Before this cause be called on I would say to them, better to retain me for the Crown! Ay, sirs, such is my advice to you.”

While these thoughts agitated Sir William's mind, the matter of them was giving grave and deep preoccupation to the Viceroy. The Cabinet had repeatedly pressed upon him the necessity of obtaining the Chief Baron's retirement from the bench,—a measure the more imperative that while they wanted to provide for an old adherent, they were equally anxious to replace him in the House by an abler and readier debater; for so is it, when dulness stops the way, dulness must be promoted,—just as the most tumble-down old hackney-coach must pass on before my Lord's carriage can draw up.

“Pemberton must go up,” said the Viceroy. “He made a horrid mess of that explanation t' other night in the House. His law was laughed at, and his logic was worse; he really must go on the bench. Can't you hit upon something, Balfour? Can you devise nothing respecting the Chief Baron?”

“He 'll take nothing but what you won't give him; I hear he insists on the peerage.”

“I'd give it, I declare,—I 'd give it to-morrow. As I told the Premier t' other day, Providence always takes care that these law lords have rarely successors. They are life peerages and no more; besides, what does it matter a man more or less in 'the Lords'? The peer without hereditary rank and fortune is like the officer who has been raised from the ranks,—he does not dine at mess oftener than he can help it.”

Balfour applauded the illustration, and resolved to use it as his own.

“I say again,” continued his Excellency, “I'd give it, but they won't agree with me; they are afraid of the English bar,—they dread what the benchers of Lincoln's Inn would say.”

“They'd only say it for a week or two,” mumbled Balfour.

“So I remarked: you'll have discontent, but it will be passing. Some newspaper letters will appear, but Themis and Aristides will soon tire, and if they should not, the world who reads them will tire; and probably the only man who will remember the event three months after will be the silversmith who is cresting the covered dishes of the new creation. You think you can't go and see him, Balfour?”

“Impossible, my Lord, after what occurred between us the last time.”

“I don't take it in that way. I suspect he 'll not bear any malice. Lawyers are not thin-skinned people; they give and take such hard knocks that they lose that nice sense of injury other folks are endowed with. I think you might go.”

“I 'd rather not, my Lord,” said he, shaking his head.

“Try his wife, then.”

“They don't live together. I don't know if they're on speaking terms.”

“So much the better,—she'll know every chink of his armor, and perhaps tell us where he is vulnerable. Wait a moment. There has been some talk of a picnic on Dalkey Island. It was to be a mere household affair. What if you were to invite her?—making of course the explanation that it was a family party, that no cards had been sent out; in fact, that it was to be so close a thing the world was never to hear of it.”

“I think the bait would be irresistible, particularly when she found out that all her own set and dear friends had been passed over.”

“Charge her to secrecy,—of course she'll not keep her word.”

“May I say we 'll come for her? The great mystery will be so perfectly in keeping with one of the household carriages and your Excellency's liveries.”

“Won't that be too strong, Balfour?” said the Viceroy, laughing.

“Nothing is too strong, my Lord, in this country. They take their blunders neat as they do their sherry, and I'm sure that this part of the arrangement will, in the gossip it will give rise to, be about the best of the whole exploit.”

“Take your own way, then; only make no such mistake as you made with the husband. No documents, Balfour,—no documents, I beg;” and with this warning laughingly given, but by no means so pleasantly taken, his Excellency went off and left him.