to sleep in it; often, indeed, she did sleep in it,
and gave unmusical evidence of her doing so.
She was not ill-natured; but so strongly prejudiced
on many points as to be equally disagreeable as though
she were so. With her, as with the world in general,
religion was the point on which those prejudices were
the strongest; and the peculiar bent they took was
horror and hatred of popery. As she lived in
a country in which the Roman Catholic was the religion
of all the poorer classes, and of very many persons
who were not poor, there was ample scope in which
her horror and hatred could work. She was charitable
to a fault, and would exercise that charity for the
good of Papists as willingly as for the good of Protestants;
but in doing so she always remembered the good cause.
She always clogged the flannel petticoat with some
Protestant teaching, or burdened the little coat and
trousers with the pains and penalties of idolatry.
When her brother had married the widow Talbot, her
anger with him and her hatred towards her sister-in-law
had been extreme. But time and conviction had
worked in her so thorough a change, that she now almost
worshipped the very spot in which Lady Fitzgerald habitually
sat. She had the faculty to know and recognize
goodness when she saw it, and she had known and recognized
it in her brother’s wife.
Him also, her brother himself, she warmly loved and
greatly reverenced. She deeply grieved over his
state of body and mind, and would have given all she
ever had, even her very self, to restore him to health
and happiness.
The three children of course she loved, and petted,
and scolded; and as children bothered them out of
all their peace and quietness. To the girls she
was still almost as great a torment as in their childish
days. Nevertheless, they still loved, and sometimes
obeyed her. Of Herbert she stood somewhat more
in awe. He was the future head of the family,
and already a Bachelor of Arts. In a very few
years he would probably assume the higher title of
a married man of arts, she thought; and perhaps the
less formidable one of a member of Parliament also.
Him, therefore, she treated with deference But, alas!
what if he should become a Puseyite!
THE KANTURK HOTEL, SOUTH MAIN STREET, CORK
All the world no doubt knows South Main Street in
the city of Cork. In the “ould” ancient
days, South and North Main Streets formed the chief
thoroughfare through the city, and hence of course
they derived their names. But now, since Patrick
Street, and Grand Parade, and the South Mall have
grown up, Main Street has but little honour.
It is crowded with second-rate tobacconists and third-rate
grocers; the houses are dirty, and the street is narrow;
fashionable ladies never visit it for their shopping,
nor would any respectable commercial gent stop at
an inn within its purlieus.
