Even the dungeon-like vaults beneath, now lighted and ventilated
on the most approved modern plan, had been turned as if by magic
into kitchens, servants' offices, ice-rooms, and wine cellars,
worthy of the splendour of the grandest hotel in Italy, in the now
bygone period of seventeen years since.
Passing from the lapse of the summer months at Venice, to the lapse of
the summer months in Ireland, it is next to be recorded that Mrs. Rolland
obtained the situation of attendant on the invalid Mrs. Carbury;
and that the fair Miss Haldane, like a female Caesar, came, saw,
and conquered, on her first day's visit to the new Lord Montbarry's house.
The ladies were as loud in her praises as Arthur Barville himself.
Lord Montbarry declared that she was the only perfectly pretty woman
he had ever seen, who was really unconscious of her own attractions.
The old nurse said she looked as if she had just stepped out of a picture,
and wanted nothing but a gilt frame round her to make her complete.
Miss Haldane, on her side, returned from her first visit to the
Montbarrys charmed with her new acquaintances.
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