“Well, she is very heavy: what do you think, Lady Cashel, she—”
“Adolphus can’t bear people of that sort, but he’ll be delighted with the bishop: it’s so delightful, his having christened him. Adolphus means to live a good deal here now. Indeed, he and his father have so much in common that they can’t get on very well apart, and I really hope he and the bishop’ll see a good deal of each other;” and the countess left the bishop’s wife and sat herself down by old Mrs. Ellison.
“My dear Mrs. Ellison, I am so delighted to see you once again at Grey Abbey; it’s such ages since you were here!”
“Indeed it is, Lady Cashel, a very long time; but the poor colonel suffers so much, it’s rarely he’s fit to be moved; and, indeed, I’m not much better myself. I was not able to move my left shoulder from a week before Christmas-day till a few days since!”
“You don’t say so! Rheumatism, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes—all rheumatism: no one knows what I suffer.”
“And what do you use for it?”
“Oh, there’s nothing any use. I know the very nature of rheumatism now, I’ve had it so long—and it minds nothing at all: there’s no preventing it, and no curing it. It’s like a bad husband, Lady Cashel; the best way is to put up with it.”
“And how is the dear colonel, Mrs. Ellison?”
“Why, he was just able to come here, and that was all; but he was dying to see Lord Cashel. He thinks the ministers’ll be shaken about this business of O’Connell’s; and if so, that there’ll be a general election, and then what’ll they do about the county?”