Miss Mattock ventured on a prediction in her mind:

She was sure the letter would go. And there was not much to signify if
it did. But the curious fatality that a person of such a native
uprightness as Mrs. Adister should have been drawn in among Irishmen, set
her thoughts upon the composer of the letter, and upon the contrast of
his ingenuous look with the powerful cast of his head. She fancied a
certain danger about him; of what kind she could not quite distinguish,
for it had no reference to woman's heart, and he was too young to be much
of a politician, and he was not in the priesthood. His transparency was
of a totally different order from Captain Con's, which proclaimed itself
genuine by the inability to conceal a shoal of subterfuges. The younger
cousin's features carried a something invisible behind them, and she was
just perceptive enough to spy it, and it excited her suspicions.
Irishmen both she and her brother had to learn to like, owing to their
bad repute for stability: they are, moreover, Papists: they are not given
to ideas: that one of the working for the future has not struck them. In
fine, they are not solid, not law-supporting, not disposed to be (humbly
be it said) beneficent, like the good English. These were her views, and
as she held it a weakness to have to confess that Irishmen are socially
more fascinating than the good English, she was on her guard against
them.

Of course the letter had gone. She heard of it before the commencement
of the dinner, after Mrs. Adister had introduced Captain Philip O'Donnell
to her, and while she was exchanging a word or two with Colonel Adister,
who stood ready to conduct her to the table. If he addressed any remarks
to the lady under his charge, Miss Mattock did not hear him; and she
listened--who shall say why? His unlike likeness to his brother had