This succeeded beyond her most sanguine expectations.

'Lord Colambre! how I pity you, for being compelled to these permanent sittings after dinner!' said Lady Isabel to him one night, when he came late to the ladies from the dining-room.

'Lord Killpatrick insisted upon my staying to help him to push about that never-ending, still-beginning electioneering bottle,' said Lord Colambre.

'Oh! if that were all; if these gentlemen would only drink;--but their conversation! I don't wonder my mother dreads returning to Clonbrony Castle, if my father must have such company as this.

But, surely, it cannot be necessary.
'Oh, indispensable! Positively indispensable!' cried Lady Dashfort; 'no living in Ireland without it.