In Lady Clonbrony's address there was a mixture of constraint, affectation, and indecision, unusual in a person of her birth, rank, and knowledge of the world.

A natural and unnatural manner seemed struggling in all her gestures, and in every syllable that she articulated--a naturally free, familiar, good-natured, precipitate, Irish manner, had been schooled, and schooled late in life, into a sober, cold, still, stiff deportment, which she mistook for English.

A strong, Hibernian accent, she had, with infinite difficulty, changed into an English tone.

Mistaking reverse of wrong for right, she caricatured the English pronunciation; and the extraordinary precision of her London phraseology betrayed her not to be a Londoner, as the man, who strove to pass for an Athenian, was detected by his Attic dialect.

Not aware of her real danger, Lady Clonbrony was, on the opposite side, in continual apprehension, every time she opened her lips, lest some treacherous A or E, some strong R, some puzzling aspirate, or non-aspirate, some unguarded note, interrogative or expostulatory, should betray her to be an Irishwoman.