"I hope I have your Lordship's forgiveness for my boldness," said Sewell, with humility.
"You have more, sir,--you have my gratitude for an affectionate solicitude. I will think over what you have said when I am alone."
"It will make me a very proud man if I find that my words have had weight with you. I am to tell Beattie, my Lord, that you are engaged, and cannot see him?" said he, moving towards the door.
"Yes. Say that I am occupied with my reply to this slander. Tell him if he likes to dine with me at six--"
"I beg pardon, my Lord--but my wife hoped you would dine with us to-day. We have a few young soldiers, and two or three pretty women coming to us--"
"Make my compliments to Mrs. Sewell, and say I am charmed to accept her invitation."
Sewell took his leave with every token of respectful gratitude. But no sooner had he reached the stairs than he burst into a fit of laughter. "Would any one have believed that the old fool would have swallowed the bait? I was so terrified at my own temerity, I 'd have given the world to be out of the scrape! I declare, if my mother could be got rid of, we 'd have him leading something of sixteen to the altar. Well, if this acute attack of youth does n't finish him, he must have the constitution of an elephant."
When the Government of the day had found that all their efforts to induce the Chief Baron to retire from the Bench were failures,--when they saw him firmly decided to accept nothing less than that price which they would not pay,--with a littleness which, it is but fair to own, took its origin from Mr. Cholmondely Balfour, they determined to pass upon him a slight which he could not but feel most painfully.
It happened in this wise. At the time I speak of Ireland was suffering from one of those spasmodic attacks of rebellion which every now and then occur through the chronic disaffection of the country, just as certain eruptions are thrown out over the body to relieve, as is supposed, some feverish tendencies of the system.
Now, although the native thinks no more of these passing troubles than would an old Indian of an attack of the "prickly heat," to the English mind they always suggest danger, tend to increase the military force of the kingdom, and bring on in Parliament one of those Irish debates--a political sham fight--where, though there is a good deal of smoke, bustle, and confusion, nobody is hurt, nor, if the truth be told, is any one the better when it is over.