She was in a grand house, and Mrs. Nelson insisted on my putting up there.
We stopped three days and then we took ship to Cork. We had to prove that
the money lying there belonged to me; that is to say, that I was the
person in whose name it had been put. I had all sort of botheration about
it, but luckily I knew the colonel of the regiment there, and he went to
the bank with me and testified. Then we came down here, and Mary hadn't
been here a day before she began to spend money. I said I would not allow
it; and she said I could not help it, the money was her own, and she could
spend it as she liked, which was true enough; and at present the place is
more topsy-turvy than ever.
I won't have anything to do with giving orders, but she has got a score of
masons and carpenters over from Athlone, and she is turning the old place
upside down. I sha'n't know it myself when she has done with it. There is
not a place fit to sit down in, and we are living for the time at the inn
at Kilnally, three miles away, and drive backwards and forwards to the
house. Except that we quarrel over that, we get on first-rate together.
She is never tired of talking about you, and when I hinted one day that it
was ridiculous your being made a colonel, she spurred up like a young
bantam, and more than hinted that if you had been appointed
commander-in-chief instead of Sir Arthur it would not have been beyond
your deserts.
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