He was engaged to his cousin, Lady Maude Bickerstaffe, and they would be married some day.

Not that either was very impatient to exchange present comfort--and, on her side, affluence--for a marriage on small means, and no great prospects beyond that.

They were not much in love.

Walpole knew that the Lady Maude's fortune was small, but the man who married her must 'be taken care of,' and by either side, for there were as many Tories as Whigs in the family, and Lady Maude knew that half-a-dozen years ago, she would certainly not have accepted Walpole; but that with every year her chances of a better _parti_ were diminishing; and, worse than all this, each was well aware of the inducements by which the other was influenced.

Nor did the knowledge in any way detract from their self-complacence or satisfaction with the match.
Lady Maude was to accompany her uncle to Ireland, and do the honours of his court, for he was a bachelor, and pleaded hard with his party on that score to be let off accepting the viceroyalty.
Lady Maude, however, had not yet arrived, and even if she had, how should she ever hear of an adventure in the Bog of Allen! But was there to be an adventure?
and, if so, what sort of adventure?
Irishmen, Walpole had heard, had all the jealousy about their women that characterises savage races, and were ready to resent what, in civilised people, no one would dream of regarding as matter for umbrage.