The fact is, however, that neither the doctor nor his patient quite understood Mrs. Matchwell or her powers, nor had the least inkling of the marvellous designs that were ripening in her brain, and involving the fate of more than one of the good easy people of Chapelizod, against whom nobody dreamed a thunderbolt was forging.

So the doctor, being a discreet man, only shook her cordially by the hand, at his departure, patting her encouragingly at the same time, on her fat shoulder, and with a sly grin and a wink, and a wag of his head—­offering to ‘lay fifty,’ that between them ’they’d be too hard for the witch.’

CHAPTER XXXI.

BEING A SHORT HISTORY OF THE GREAT BATTLE OF BELMONT THAT LASTED FOR SO MANY DAYS, WHEREIN THE BELLIGERENTS SHOWED SO MUCH CONSTANCY AND VALOUR, AND SOMETIMES ONE SIDE AND SOMETIMES T’OTHER WAS VICTORIOUS.

So jolly old General Chattesworth was away to Scarborough, and matters went by no means pleasantly at Belmont; for there was strife between the ladies.  Dangerfield—­cunning fellow—­went first to Aunt Becky with his proposal; and Aunt Becky liked it—­determined it should prosper, and took up and conducted the case with all her intimidating energy and ferocity.  But Gertrude’s character had begun to show itself of late in new and marvellous lights, and she fought her aunt with cool, but invincible courage; and why should she marry, and above all, why marry that horrid, grim old gentleman, Mr. Dangerfield.  No, she had money enough of her own to walk through life in maiden meditation, fancy free, without being beholden to anybody for a sixpence.  Why, Aunt Rebecca herself had never married, and was she not all the happier of her freedom?  Aunt Rebecca tried before the general went away, to inflame and stir him up upon the subject.  But he had no capacity for coercion.  She almost regretted she had made him so very docile.  He would leave the matter altogether to his daughter.  So Aunt Rebecca, as usual, took, as we have said, the carriage of the proceedings.

Since the grand eclaircissement had taken place between Mervyn and Gertrude Chattesworth, they met with as slight and formal a recognition as was possible, consistently with courtesy.  Puddock had now little to trouble him upon a topic which had once cost him some uneasiness, and Mervyn acquiesced serenely in the existing state of things, and seemed disposed to be ‘sweet upon’ pretty Lilias Walsingham, if that young lady had allowed it; but her father had dropped hints about his history and belongings which surrounded him in her eyes with a sort of chill and dismal halo.  There was something funeste and mysterious even in his beauty; and her spirits faltered and sank in his presence.  Something of the same unpleasant influence, too, or was it fancy, she thought his approach seemed now to exercise upon Gertrude also, and that she, too, was unaccountably chilled and darkened by his handsome, but ill-omened presence.