under such circumstances. What other remark was possible to him?
"Sir Thomas thinks that he had better not trouble you with business
to-night," said Lady Fitzgerald. To this also Mr. Prendergast agreed
willingly. "We shall both of us be fresher to-morrow, after
breakfast," he remarked, as if any time made any difference to
him,--as though he were not always fresh, and ready for any work
that might turn up.

That evening was not passed very pleasantly by the family at Castle
Richmond. To all of them Mr. Prendergast was absolutely a stranger,
and was hardly the man to ingratiate himself with strangers at the
first interview. And then, too, they were all somewhat afraid of
him. He had come down thither on some business which was to them
altogether mysterious, and, as far as they knew, he, and he alone,
was to be intrusted with the mystery. He of course said nothing to
them on the subject, but he looked in their eyes as though he were
conscious of being replete with secret importance; and on this very
account they were afraid of him. And then poor Lady Fitzgerald,
though she bore up against the weight of her misery better than did
her husband, was herself very wretched. She could not bring herself
to believe that all this would end in nothing; that Mr. Prendergast
would put everything right, and that after his departure they would
go on as happily as ever. This was the doctrine of the younger part
of the family, who would not think that anything was radically
wrong. But Lady Fitzgerald had always at her heart the memory of her
early marriage troubles, and she feared greatly, though she feared
she knew not what.

Herbert Fitzgerald and Aunt Letty did endeavour to keep up some
conversation with Mr. Prendergast; and the Irish famine was, of