This was the first time Mdlle. O’Faley had ever been at Corny Castle. Hospitality, as well as gratitude, determined the King of the Black Islands to pay her honour due.

“Now Harry Ormond,” said he, “I have made one capital good resolution. Here is my sister-in-law, Mdlle. O’Faley, coming to reside with me here, and has conquered her antipathy to solitude, and the Black Islands, and all from natural love and affection for my daughter Dora; for which I have a respect for her, notwithstanding all her eternal jabbering about politesse, and all her manifold absurdities, and infinite female vanities, of which she has a double proportion, being half French. But so was my wife, that I loved to distraction — for a wise man may do a foolish thing. Well, on all those accounts, I shall never contradict or gainsay this Mademoiselle — in all things, I shall make it my principle to give her her swing and her fling. But now observe me, Harry, I have no eye to her money — let her leave that to Dora or the cats, whichever pleases her — I am not looking to, nor squinting at, her succession. I am a great hunter, but not legacy-hunter — that is a kind of hunting I despise — and I wish every hunter of that kind may be thrown out, or thrown off, and may never be in at the death!”

Corny’s tirade against legacy-hunters was highly approved of by Ormond, but as to the rest, he knew nothing about Miss O’Faley’s fortune. He was now to learn that a rich relation of hers, a merchant in Dublin, whom living she had despised, because he was “neither noble, nor comme il faut,” dying had lately left her a considerable sum of money: so that after having been many years in straitened circumstances, she was now quite at her ease. She had a carriage, and horses, and servants; she could indulge her taste for dress, and make a figure in a country place.

The Black Islands were, to be sure, of all places, the most unpromising for her purpose, and the first sight of Corny Castle was enough to throw her into despair.

As soon as breakfast was over, she begged her brother-in-law would show her the whole of the chateau from the top to the bottom.

With all the pleasure in life, he said, he would attend her from the attics to the cellar, and show her all the additions, improvements, and contrivances, he had made, and all he intended to make, if Heaven should lend him life to complete every thing, or any thing — there was nothing finished.

“Nor ever will be,” said Dora, looking from her father to her aunt with a sort of ironical smile.

“Why, what has he been doing all this life?” said mademoiselle.

“Making a shift,” said Dora: “I will show you dozens of them as we go over this house. He calls them substitutes —I call them make-shifts.”

Ormond followed as they went over the house; and though he was sometimes amused by the smart remarks which Dora made behind backs as they went on, yet he thought she laughed too scornfully at her father’s oddities, and he was often in pain for his good friend Corny.

His majesty was both proud and ashamed of his palace: proud of the various instances it exhibited of his taste, originality, and daring; ashamed of the deficiencies and want of comfort and finish.

His ready wit had excuses, reasons, or remedies, for all Mademoiselle’s objections. Every alteration she proposed, he promised to get executed, and he promised impossibilities with the best faith imaginable.

“As the Frenchman answered to the Queen of France,” said Corny, “if it is possible, it shall be done; and if it is impossible, it must be done.”

Mademoiselle, who had expected to find her brother-in-law, as she owned, a little more difficult to manage, a little savage, and a little restive, was quite delighted with his politeness; but presuming on his complaisance, she went too far. In the course of a week, she made so many innovations, that Corny, seeing the labour and ingenuity of his life in danger of being at once destroyed, made a sudden stand.

“This is Corny Castle, Mademoiselle,” said he, “and you are making it Castle Topsy–Turvy, which must not be. Stop this work; for I’ll have no more architectural innovations done here — but by my own orders. Paper and paint, and furnish and finish, you may, if you will — I give you a carte-blanche; but I won’t have another wall touched, or chimney pulled down: so far shalt thou go, but no farther, Mdlle. O’Faley.” Mademoiselle was forced to submit, and to confine her brilliant imagination to papering, painting, and glazing.

Even in the course of these operations, King Corny became so impatient, that she was forced to get them finished surreptitiously, while he was out of the way in the mornings.

She made out who resided at every place within possible reach of morning or dinner visit: every house on the opposite banks of the lake was soon known to her, and she was current in every house. The boat was constantly rowing backwards and forwards over the lake; cars waiting or driving on the banks: in short, this summer all was gaiety at the Black Islands. Miss O’Faley was said to be a great acquisition in the neighbourhood: she was so gay, so sociable, so communicative; and she certainly, above all, knew so much of the world; she was continually receiving letters, and news, and patterns, from Dublin, and the Black Rock, and Paris. Each of which places, and all standing nearly upon the same level, made a great figure in her conversation, and in the imagination of the half or quarter gentry, with whom she consorted in this remote place. Every thing is great or small by comparison, and she was a great person in this little world. It had been the report of the country, that her niece was promised to the eldest son of Mr. Connal of Glynn; but the aunt seemed so averse to the match, and expressed this so openly, that some people began to think it would be broken off; others, who knew Cornelius O’Shane’s steadiness to his word of honour, were convinced that Miss O’Faley would never shake King Corny, and that Dora would assuredly be Mrs. Connal. All agreed that it was a foolish promise — that he might do better for his daughter. Miss O’Shane, with her father’s fortune and her aunt’s, would be a great prize; besides, she was thought quite a beauty, and remarkable elegant.

Dora was just the thing to be the belle and coquette of the Black Islands; the alternate scorn and familiarity with which she treated her admirers, and the interest and curiosity she excited, by sometimes taking delightful pains to attract, and then capriciously repelling, succeeded, as Miss O’Faley ob............