The Absentee
Maria Edgeworth

THE ABSENTEE
by MARIA EDGEWORTH




57575757575757
*


NOTES ON 'THE ABSENTEE'

In August 1811, we are told, she wrote a little play about
landlords and tenants for the children of her sister, Mrs.
Beddoes.  Mr. Edgeworth tried to get the play produced on the
London boards.  Writing to her aunt, Mrs. Ruxton, Maria says,
'Sheridan has answered as I foresaw he must, that in the present
state of this country the Lord Chamberlain would not license THE
ABSENTEE; besides there would be a difficulty in finding actors
for so many Irish characters.'  The little drama was then turned
into a story, by Mr. Edgeworth's advice.  Patronage was laid
aside for the moment, and THE ABSENTEE appeared in its place in
the second part of TALES OF FASHIONABLE LIFE.  We all know Lord
Macaulay's verdict upon this favourite story of his, the last
scene of which he specially admired and compared to the ODYSSEY.
[Lord Macaulay was not the only notable admirer of THE ABSENTEE.
The present writer remembers hearing Professor Ruskin on one
occasion break out in praise and admiration of the book.  'You
can learn more by reading it of Irish politics,' he said, 'than
from a thousand columns out of blue-books.']  Mrs. Edgeworth
tells us that much of it was written while Maria was suffering a
misery of toothache.

Miss Edgeworth's own letters all about this time are much more
concerned with sociabilities than with literature. We read of a
pleasant dance at Mrs. Burke's; of philosophers at sport in
Connemara; of cribbage, and company, and country houses, and Lord
Longford's merry anecdotes during her visit to him.  Miss
Edgeworth, who scarcely mentions her own works, seems much
interested at this time in a book called MARY AND HER CAT, which
she is reading with some of the children.

Little scraps of news (I cannot resist quoting one or two of
them) come in oddly mixed with these personal records of work and
family talk.  'There is news of the Empress (Marie Louise), who
is liked not at all by the Parisians; she is too haughty, and
sits back in her carriage when she goes through the streets.  'Of
Josephine, who is living very happily, amusing herself with her
gardens and her shrubberies.'  This ci-devant Empress and Kennedy
and Co., the seedsmen, are in partnership, says Miss Edgeworth.
And then among the lists of all the grand people Maria meets in
London in 1813 (Madame de Stael is mentioned as expected), she
gives an interesting account of an actual visitor, Peggy Langan,
who was grand-daughter to Thady in CASTLE RACKRENT.  Peggy went
to England with Mrs. Beddoes, and was for thirty years in the
service of Mrs. Haldimand we are told, and was own sister to
Simple Susan.

The story of THE ABSENTEE is a very simple one, and concerns
Irish landlords living in England, who ignore their natural
duties and station in life, and whose chief ambition is to take
their place in the English fashionable world.  The grand English
ladies are talking of Lady Clonbrony.

'"If you knew all she endures to look, speak, move, breathe like
an Englishwoman, you would pity her,' said Lady Langdale.

'"Yes, and you CAWNT conceive the PEENS she TEEKES to talk of the
TEEBLES and CHEERS, and to thank Q, and, with so much TEESTE, to
speak pure English," said Mrs. Dareville.

'"Pure cockney, you mean," said Lady Langdale.'

Lord Colambre, the son of the lady in question, here walks across
the room, not wishing to listen to any more strictures upon his
mother.  He is the very most charming of walking gentlemen, and
when stung by conscience he goes off to Ireland, disguised in a
big cloak, to visit his father's tenantry and to judge for
himself of the state of affairs, all our sympathies go with him.
On his way he stops at Tusculum, scarcely less well known than
its classical namesake.  He is entertained by Mrs. Raffarty, that
esthetical lady who is determined to have a little 'taste' of
everything at Tusculum.  She leads the way into a little
conservatory, and a little pinery, and a little grapery, and a
little aviary, and a little pheasantry, and a little dairy for
show, and a little cottage for ditto, with a grotto full of
shells, and a little hermitage full of earwigs, and a little ruin
full of looking-glass, to enlarge and multiply the effect of the
Gothic. . . . But you could only put your head in, because it was
just fresh painted, and though there had been a fire ordered in
the ruin all night, it had only smoked.

'As they proceeded and walked through the grounds, from which
Mrs. Raffarty, though she had done her best, could not take that
which nature had given, she pointed out to my lord "a happy
moving termination," consisting of a Chinese bridge, with a
fisherman leaning over the rails.  On a sudden, the fisherman was
seen to tumble over the bridge into the water.  The gentlemen ran
to extricate the poor fellow, while they heard Mrs. Raffarty
bawling to his lordship to beg he would never mind, and not
trouble himself.

'When they arrived at the bridge, they saw the man hanging from
part of the bridge, and apparently struggling in the water; but
when they attempted to pull him up, they found it was only a
stuffed figure which had been pulled into the stream by a real
fish, which had seized hold of the bait.'

The dinner-party is too long to quote, but it is written in Miss
Edgeworth's most racy and delightful vein of fun.

One more little fact should not be omitted in any mention of THE
ABSENTEE.  One of the heroines is Miss Broadhurst, the heiress.
The Edgeworth family were much interested, soon after the book
appeared, to hear that a real living Miss Broadhurst, an heiress,
had appeared upon the scenes, and was, moreover, engaged to be
married to Sneyd Edgeworth, one of the eldest sons of the family.
In the story, says Mrs. Edgeworth, Miss Broadhurst selects from
her lovers one who 'unites worth and wit,' and then she goes on
to quote an old epigram of Mr. Edgeworth's on himself, which
concluded with,'There's an Edge to his wit and there's worth in
his heart.'

Mr. Edgeworth, who was as usual busy building church spires for
himself and other people, abandoned his engineering for a time to
criticise his daughter's story, and he advised that the
conclusion of THE ABSENTEE should be a letter from Larry the
postilion.  'He wrote one, she wrote another,' says Mrs.
Edgeworth.  'He much preferred hers, which is the admirable
finale of THE ABSENTEE.'  And just about this time Lord Ross is
applied to, to frank the Edgeworth manuscripts.

'I cannot by any form of words express how delighted I am that
you are none of you angry with me,' writes modest Maria to her
cousin, Miss Ruxton, 'and that my uncle and aunt are pleased with
what they have read of THE ABSENTEE.  I long to hear whether
their favour continues to the end, and extends to the
catastrophe, that dangerous rock upon which poor authors are
wrecked.'


*


THE ABSENTEE


*


CHAPTER I

'Are you to be at Lady Clonbrony's gala next week?'  said Lady
Langdale to Mrs. Dareville, whilst they were waiting for their
carriages in the crush-room of the opera house.

'Oh yes!  everybody's to be there, I hear,' replied Mrs.
Dareville.  'Your ladyship, of course?'

'Why, I don't know--if I possibly can.  Lady Clonbrony makes it
such a point with me, that I believe I must look in upon her for
a few minutes.  They are going to a prodigious expense on this
occasion.  Soho tells me the reception rooms are all to be new
furnished, and in the most magnificent style.'

'At what a famous rate those Clonbronies are dashing on,' said
Colonel Heathcock.  'Up to anything,'

'Who are they?--these Clonbronies, that one hears of so much of
late' said her Grace of Torcaster.  'Irish absentees I know.  But
how do they support all this enormous expense?'

'The son WILL have a prodigiously fine estate when some Mr. Quin
dies,' said Mrs. Dareville.

'Yes, everybody who comes from Ireland WILL have a fine estate
when somebody dies,' said her grace.  'But what have they at
present?'

'Twenty thousand a year, they say,' replied Mrs. Dareville.

'Ten thousand, I believe,' cried Lady Langdale.  'Make it a rule,
you know, to believe only half the world says.'

'Ten thousand, have they?--possibly,' said her grace.  'I know
nothing about them--have no acquaintance among the Irish.
Torcaster knows something of Lady Clonbrony; she has fastened
herself, by some means, upon him:  but I charge him not to COMMIT
me.  Positively, I could not for anybody-- and much less for that
sort of person--extend the circle of my acquaintance.'

'Now that is so cruel of your grace,' said Mrs. Dareville,
laughing, 'when poor Lady Clonbrony works so hard, and pays so
high, to get into certain circles.'

'If you knew all she endures, to look, speak, move, breathe like
an Englishwoman, you would pity her,' said Lady Langdale.

'Yes, and you CAWNT conceive the PEENS she TEEKES to talk of the
TEEBLES and CHEERS, and to thank Q, and, with so much TEESTE, to
speak pure English,' said Mrs. Dareville.

'Pure cockney, you mean,' said Lady Langdale.

'But why does Lady Clonbrony want to pass for English?'  said the
duchess.

'Oh!  because she is not quite Irish.  BRED AND BORN--only bred,
not born,' said Mrs. Dareville.  'And she could not be five
minutes in your grace's company before she would tell you, that
she was HENGLISH, born in HOXFORDSHIRE.'

'She must be a vastly amusing personage.  I should like to meet
her, if one could see and hear her incog.,' said the duchess.
'And Lord Clonbrony, what is he?'

'Nothing, nobody,' said Mrs. Dareville; 'one never even hears of
him.'

'A tribe of daughters, too, I suppose?'

'No, no,' said Lady Langdale, 'daughters would be past all
endurance.'

'There's a cousin, though, a Grace Nugent,' said Mrs. Dareville,
'that Lady Clonbrony has with her.'

'Best part of her, too,' said Colonel Heathcock; 'd-d fine girl!
--never saw her look better than at the opera to-night!'

'Fine COMPLEXION!  as Lady Clonbrony says, when she means a high
colour,' said Lady Langdale.

'Grace Nugent is not a lady's beauty,' said Mrs. Dareville.  'Has
she any fortune, colonel?'

''Pon honour, don't know,' said the colonel.

'There's a son, somewhere, is not there?'  said Lady Langdale.

'Don't know, 'pon honour,' replied the colonel.

'Yes--at Cambridge--not of age yet,' said Mrs. Dareville.  'Bless
me!  here is Lady Clonbrony come back.  I thought she was gone
half an hour ago!'

'Mamma,' whispered one of Lady Langdale's daughters, leaning
between her mother and Mrs. Dareville, 'who is that gentleman
that passed us just now?'

'Which way?'

'Towards the door.  There now, mamma, you can see him.  He is
speaking to Lady Clonbrony--to Miss Nugent.  Now Lady Clonbrony
is introducing him to Miss Broadhurst.'

'I see him now,' said Lady Langdale, examining him through her
glass; 'a very gentlemanlike-looking young man, indeed.'

'Not an Irishman, I am sure, by his manner,' said her grace.

'Heathcock!'  said Lady Langdale, 'who is Miss Broadhurst talking
to?'

'Eh!  now really--'pon honour--don't know,' replied Heathcock.

'And yet he certainly looks like somebody one certainly should
know,' pursued Lady Langdale, 'though I don't recollect seeing
him anywhere before.'

'Really now!'  was all the satisfaction she could gain from the
insensible, immovable colonel.  However, her ladyship, after
sending a whisper along the line, gained the desired information,
that the young gentleman was Lord Colambre, son, only son, of
Lord and Lady Clonbrony--that he was just come from Cambridge
--that he was not yet of age--that he would be of age within a
year--that he would then, after the death of somebody, come into
possession of a fine estate, by the mother's side 'and therefore,
Cat'rine, my dear,' said she, turning round to the daughter, who
had first pointed him out, 'you understand, we should never talk
about other people's affairs.'

'No, mamma, never.  I hope to goodness, mamma, Lord Colambre did
not hear what you and Mrs. Dareville were saying!'

'How could he, child?  He was quite at the other end of the
world.'

'I beg your pardon, ma'am, he was at my elbow, close behind us;
but I never thought about him till I heard somebody say, "My
lord--"'

'Good heavens!  I hope he didn't hear.'

'But, for my part, I said nothing,' cried Lady Langdale.

'And for my part, I said nothing but what everybody knows!'
cried Mrs. Dareville.

'And for my part, I am guilty only of hearing,' said the duchess.
'Do, pray, Colonel Heathcock, have the goodness to see what my
people are about, and what chance we have of getting away to-
night.'

'The Duchess of Torcaster's carriage stops the way!'--a joyful
sound to Colonel Heathcock and to her grace, and not less
agreeable, at this instant, to Lady Langdale, who, the moment she
was disembarrassed of the duchess, pressed through the crowd to
Lady Clonbrony, and, addressing her with smiles and complacency,
was 'charmed to have a little moment to speak to her--could NOT
sooner get through the crowd--would certainly do herself the
honour to be at her ladyship's gala on Wednesday.'  While Lady
Langdale spoke, she never seemed to see or think of anybody but
Lady Clonbrony, though, all the time, she was intent upon every
motion of Lord Colambre, and, whilst she was obliged to listen
with a face of sympathy to a long complaint of Lady Clonbrony's,
about Mr. Soho's want of taste in ottomans, she was vexed to
perceive that his lordship showed no desire to be introduced to
her, or to her daughters; but, on the contrary, was standing
talking to Miss Nugent.  His mother, at the end of her speech,
looked round for Colambre called him twice before he heard
--introduced him to Lady Langdale, and to Lady Cat'rine, and Lady
Anne--, and to Mrs. Dareville; to all of whom he bowed with an
air of proud coldness, which gave them reason to regret that
their remarks upon his mother and his family had not been made
SOTTO VOCE.

'Lady Langdale's carriage stops the way!'  Lord Colambre made no
offer of his services, notwithstanding a look from his mother.
Incapable of the meanness of voluntarily listening to a
conversation not intended for him to hear, he had, however, been
compelled, by the pressure of the crowd, to remain a few minutes
stationary, where he could not avoid hearing the remarks of the
fashionable friends.  Disdaining dissimulation, he made no
attempt to conceal his displeasure.  Perhaps his vexation was
increased by his consciousness that there was some mixture of
truth in their sarcasms.  He was sensible that his mother, in
some points--her manners, for instance--was obvious to ridicule
and satire.  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.  Mrs.
Dareville had, in her mimickry, perhaps a little exaggerated as
to the TEEBLES and CHEERS, but still the general likeness of the
representation of Lady Clonbrony was strong enough to strike and
vex her son.  He had now, for the first time, an opportunity of
judging of the estimation in which his mother and his family were
held by certain leaders of the ton, of whom, in her letters, she
had spoken so much, and into whose society, or rather into whose
parties, she had been admitted.  He saw that the renegade
cowardice, with which she denied, abjured, and reviled her own
country, gained nothing but ridicule and contempt.  He loved his
mother; and, whilst he endeavoured to conceal her faults and
foibles as much as possible from his own heart, he could not
endure those who dragged them to light and ridicule.  The next
morning the first thing that occurred to Lord Colambre's
remembrance when he awoke was the sound of the contemptuous
emphasis which had been laid on the words IRISH ABSENTEES!  This
led to recollections of his native country, to comparisons of
past and present scenes, to future plans of life.  Young and
careless as he seemed, Lord Colambre was capable of serious
reflection.  Of naturally quick and strong capacity, ardent
affections, impetuous temper, the early years of his childhood
passed at his father's castle in Ireland, where, from the lowest
servant to the well-dressed dependant of the family, everybody
had conspired to wait upon, to fondle, to flatter, to worship,
this darling of their lord.  Yet he was not spoiled--not rendered
selfish.  For, in the midst of this flattery and servility, some
strokes of genuine generous affection had gone home to his little
heart; and, though unqualified submission had increased the
natural impetuosity of his temper, and though visions of his
future grandeur had touched his infant thought, yet, fortunately,
before he acquired any fixed habits of insolence or tyranny, he
was carried far away from all that were bound or willing to
submit to his commands, far away from all signs of hereditary
grandeur--plunged into one of our great public schools--into a
new world.  Forced to struggle, mind and body, with his equals,
his rivals, the little lord became a spirited schoolboy, and, in
time, a man.  Fortunately for him, science and literature
happened to be the fashion among a set of clever young men with
whom he was at Cambridge.  His ambition for intellectual
superiority was raised, his views were enlarged, his tastes and
his manners formed.  The sobriety of English good sense mixed
most advantageously with Irish vivacity; English prudence
governed, but did not extinguish his Irish enthusiasm.  But, in
fact, English and Irish had not been invidiously contrasted in
his mind:  he had been so long resident in England, and so
intimately connected with Englishmen, that he was not obvious to
any of the commonplace ridicule thrown upon Hibernians; and he
had lived with men who were too well informed and liberal to
misjudge or depreciate a sister country.  He had found, from
experience, that, however reserved the English may be in manner,
they are warm at heart; that, however averse they may be from
forming new acquaintance, their esteem and confidence once
gained, they make the most solid friends.  He had formed
friendships in England; he was fully sensible of the superior
comforts, refinement, and information, of English society; but
his own country was endeared to him by early association, and a
sense of duty and patriotism attached him to Ireland.  And shall
I too be an absentee?  was a question which resulted from these
reflections--a question which he was not yet prepared to answer
decidedly.  In the meantime, the first business of the morning
was to execute a commission for a Cambridge friend.  Mr. Berryl
had bought from Mr. Mordicai, a famous London coachmaker, a
curricle, WARRANTED SOUND, for which he had paid a sound price,
upon express condition that Mr. Mordicai, BARRING ACCIDENTS,
should be answerable for all repairs of the curricle for six
months.  In three, both the carriage and body were found to be
good for nothing--the curricle had been returned to Mr. Mordicai
--nothing had since been heard of it, or from him--and Lord
Colambre had undertaken to pay him and it a visit, and to make
all proper inquiries.  Accordingly, he went to the coachmaker's,
and, obtaining no satisfaction from the underlings, desired to
see the head of the house.  He was answered, that Mr. Mordicai
was not at home.  His lordship had never seen Mr. Mordicai; but,
just then, he saw, walking across the yard, a man, who looked
something like a Bond Street coxcomb, but not the least like a
gentleman, who called, in the tone of a master, for 'Mr.
Mordicai's barouche!'  It appeared; and he was stepping into it
when Lord Colambre took the liberty of stopping him; and,
pointing to the wreck of Mr. Berryl's curricle, now standing in
the yard, began a statement of his friend's grievances, and an
appeal to common justice and conscience, which he, unknowing the
nature of the man with whom he had to deal, imagined must be
irresistible.  Mr. Mordicai stood without moving a muscle of his
dark wooden face.  Indeed, in his face there appeared to be no
muscles, or none which could move; so that, though he had what
are generally called handsome features, there was, all together,
something unnatural and shocking in his countenance.  When, at
last, his eyes turned, and his lips opened, this seemed to be
done by machinery, and not by the will of a living creature, or
from the impulse of a rational soul.  Lord Colambre was so much
struck with this strange physiognomy, that he actually forgot
much he had to say of springs and wheels.  But it was no matter.
Whatever he had said, it would have come to the same thing; and
Mordicai would have answered as he now did--

'Sir, it was my partner made that bargain, not myself; and I
don't hold myself bound by it, for he is the sleeping-partner
only, and not empowered to act in the way of business.  Had Mr.
Berryl bargained with me, I should have told him that he should
have looked to these things before his carriage went out of our
yard.'

The indignation of Lord Colambre kindled at these words--but in
vain.  To all that indignation could by word or look urge against
Mordicai, he replied--

'Maybe so, sir; the law is open to your friend--the law is open
to all men who can pay for it.'

Lord Colambre turned in despair from the callous coach-maker, and
listened to one of his more compassionate-looking workmen, who
was reviewing the disabled curricle; and, whilst he was waiting
to know the sum of his friend's misfortune, a fat, jolly,
Falstaff looking personage came into the yard, accosted Mordicai
with a degree of familiarity, which, from a gentleman, appeared
to Lord Colambre to be almost impossible.

'How are you, Mordicai, my good fellow?'  cried he, speaking with
a strong Irish accent.

'Who is this?'  whispered Lord Colambre to the foreman, who was
examining the curricle.

'Sir Terence O'Fay, sir.  There must be entire new wheels.'

'Now tell me, my tight fellow,' continued Sir Terence, holding
Mordicai fast, 'when, in the name of all the saints, good or bad,
in the calendar, do you reckon to let us sport the SUICIDE?'

Mordicai forcibly drew his mouth into what he meant for a smile,
and answered, 'As soon as possible, Sir Terence.'

Sir Terence, in a tone of jocose, wheedling expostulation,
entreated him to have the carriage finished OUT OF HAND.  'Ah,
now!  Mordy, my precious!  let us have it by the birthday, and
come and dine with us o' Monday, at the Hibernian Hotel--there's
a rare one--will you?'

Mordicai accepted the invitation, and promised faithfully that
the SUICIDE should be finished by the birthday.  Sir Terence
shook hands upon this promise, and, after telling a good story,
which made one of the workmen in the yard--an Irishman--grin with
delight, walked off.  Mordicai, first waiting till the knight was
out of hearing, called aloud--

'You grinning rascal!  mind, at your peril, and don't let that
there carriage be touched, d'ye see, till further orders.'

One of Mr. Mordicai's clerks, with a huge long-feathered pen
behind his ear, observed that Mr. Mordicai was right in that
caution, for that, to the best of his comprehension, Sir Terence
O'Fay and his principal, too, were over head and ears in debt.

Mordicai coolly answered that he was well aware of that; but that
the estate could afford to dip further; that, for his part, he
was under no apprehension; he knew how to look sharp, and to bite
before he was bit.  That he knew Sir Terence and his principal
were leagued together to give the creditors THE GO BY, but that,
clever as they both were at that work, he trusted he was their
match.

'Will you be so good, sir, to finish making out this estimate for
me?'  interrupted Lord Colambre.

'Immediately, sir.  Sixty-nine pound four, and the perch.  Let us
see--Mr. Mordicai, ask him, ask Paddy, about Sir Terence,' said
the foreman, pointing back over his shoulder to the Irish
workman, who was at this moment pretending to be wondrous hard at
work.  However, when Mr. Mordicai defied him to tell him anything
he did not know, Paddy, parting with an untasted bit of tobacco,
began, and recounted some of Sir Terence O'Fay's exploits in
evading duns, replevying cattle, fighting sheriffs, bribing SUBS,
managing cants, tricking CUSTODEES, in language so strange, and
with a countenance and gestures so full of enjoyment of the jest,
that, whilst Mordicai stood for a moment aghast with
astonishment, Lord Colambre could not help laughing, partly at,
and partly with, his countryman.  All the yard were in a roar of
laughter, though they did not understand half of what they heard;
but their risible muscles were acted upon mechanically, or
maliciously, merely by the sound of the Irish brogue.

Mordicai, waiting till the laugh was over, dryly observed that
'the law is executed in another guess sort of way in England from
what it is in Ireland'; therefore, for his part, he desired
nothing better than to set his wits fairly against such SHARKS.
That there was a pleasure in doing up a debtor which none but a
creditor could know.

'In a moment, sir; if you'll have a moment's patience, sir, if
you please,' said the slow foreman to Lord Colambre; 'I must go
down the pounds once more, and then I'll let you have it.'

'I'll tell you what, Smithfield,' continued Mr. Mordicai, coming
close beside his foreman, and speaking very low, but with a voice
trembling with anger, for he was piqued by his foreman's doubts
of his capacity to cope with Sir Terence O'Fay; 'I'll tell you
what, Smithfield, I'll be cursed, if I don't get every inch of
them into my power.  You know how?'

'You are the best judge, sir,' replied the foreman; 'but I would
not undertake Sir Terence; and the question is, whether the
estate will answer the LOT of the debts, and whether you know
them all for certain?'

'I do, sir, I tell you.  There's Green there's Blancham-- there's
Gray--there's Soho--naming several more--and, to my knowledge,
Lord Clonbrony--'

'Stop, sir," cried Lord Colambre in a voice which made Mordicai,
and everybody present, start--'I am his son--'

'The devil!'  said Mordicai.

'God bless every bone in his body, then!  he's an Irishman,'
cried Paddy; 'and there was the RASON my heart warmed to him from
the first minute he come into the yard, though I did not know it
till now.'

'What, sir!  are you my Lord Colambre?'  said Mr. Mordicai,
recovering, but not clearly recovering, his intellects.  'I beg
pardon, but I did not know you WAS Lord Colambre.  I thought you
told me you was the friend of Mr. Berryl.'

'I do not see the incompatibility of the assertion, sir,' replied
Lord Colambre, taking from the bewildered foreman's unresisting
hand the account, which he had been so long FURNISHING.

'Give me leave, my lord,' said Mordicai.  'I beg your pardon, my
lord, perhaps we can compromise that business for your friend Mr.
Berryl; since he is your lordship's friend, perhaps we can
contrive to COMPROMISE and SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE.'

TO COMPROMISE and SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE, Mordicai thought were
favourite phrases, and approved Hibernian modes of doing
business, which would conciliate this young Irish nobleman, and
dissipate the proud tempest which had gathered and now swelled in
his breast.

'No, sir, no!'  cried Lord Colambre, holding firm the paper.  'I
want no favour from you.  I will accept of none for my friend or
for myself,'

'Favour!  No, my lord, I should not presume to offer--But I
should wish, if you'll allow me, to do your friend justice.'

Lord Colambre recollecting that he had no right, in his pride, to
ding away his friend's money, let Mr. Mordicai look at the
account; and, his impetuous temper in a few moments recovered by
good sense, he considered that, as his person was utterly unknown
to Mr. Mordicai, no offence could have been intended to him, and
that, perhaps, in what had been said of his father's debts and
distress, there might be more truth than he was aware of.
Prudently, therefore, controlling his feelings, and commanding
himself, he suffered Mr. Mordicai to show him into a parlour, to
SETTLE his friend's business.  In a few minutes the account was
reduced to a reasonable form, and, in consideration of the
partner's having made the bargain, by which Mr. Mordicai felt
himself influenced in honour, though not bound in law, he
undertook to have the curricle made better than new again, for
Mr. Berryl, for twenty guineas.  Then came awkward apologies to
Lord Colambre, which he ill endured.  'Between ourselves, my
lord,' continued Mordicai--

But the familiarity of the phrase, 'Between ourselves'--this
implication of equality--Lord Colambre could not admit; he moved
hastily towards the door and departed.



CHAPTER II

Full of what he had heard, and impatient to obtain further
information respecting the state of his father's affairs, Lord
Colambre hastened home; but his father was out, and his mother
was engaged with Mr. Soho, directing, or rather being directed,
how her apartments should be fitted up for her gala.  As Lord
Colambre entered the room, he saw his mother, Miss Nugent, and
Mr. Soho, standing at a large table, which was covered with rolls
of paper, patterns, and drawings of furniture: Mr. Soho was
speaking in a conceited dictatorial tone, asserting that there
was no 'colour in nature for that room equal to THE BELLY-O'-THE
FAWN;' which BELLY-O'-THE FAWN he so pronounced that Lady
Clonbrony understood it to be LA BELLE UNIFORME, and, under this
mistake, repeated and assented to the assertion till it was set
to rights, with condescending superiority, by the upholsterer.
This first architectural upholsterer of the age, as he styled
himself, and was universally admitted to be by all the world of
fashion, then, with full powers given to him, spoke EN MAITRE.
The whole face of things must be changed--there must be new
hangings, new draperies, new cornices, new candelabras, new
everything!

  The upholsterer's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
  Glances from ceiling to floor, from floor to ceiling;
  And, as imagination bodies forth
  The form of things unknown, th' upholsterer's pencil
  Turns to shape and gives to airy nothing
  A local habitation and a NAME.

Of the value of a NAME no one could be more sensible than Mr.
Soho.

'Your la'ship sees--this is merely a scratch of my pencil--your
la'ship's sensible--just to give you an idea of the shape, the
form of the thing.  You fill up your angles here with ECOINIERES
--round your walls with the TURKISH TENT DRAPERY--a fancy of my
own--in apricot cloth, or crimson velvet, suppose, or EN FLUTE,
in crimson satin draperies, fanned and riched with gold fringes,
EN SUITE--intermediate spaces, Apollo's heads with gold rays--and
here, ma'am, you place four CHANCELIERES, with chimeras at the
corners, covered with blue silk and silver fringe, elegantly
fanciful--with my STATIRA CANOPY here--light blue silk draperies
--aerial tint, with silver balls--and for seats here, the
SERAGLIO OTTOMANS, superfine scarlet--your paws--griffin--golden
--and golden tripods, here, with antique cranes--and oriental
alabaster tables here and there--quite appropriate, your la'ship
feels.

'And--let me reflect.  For the next apartment, it strikes me--as
your la'ship don't value expense--THE ALHAMBRA HANGINGS--my own
thought entirely.  Now, before I unroll them, Lady Clonbrony, I
must beg you'll not mention I've shown them.  I give you my
sacred honour, not a soul has set eye upon the Alhambra hangings,
except Mrs. Dareville, who stole a peep; I refused, absolutely
refused, the Duchess of Torcaster--but I can't refuse your
la'ship.  So see, ma'am--(unrolling them)--scagliola porphyry
columns supporting the grand dome--entablature, silvered and
decorated with imitative bronze ornaments; under the entablature,
A VALANCE IN PELMETS, of puffed scarlet silk, would have an
unparalleled grand effect, seen through the arches--with the
TREBISOND TRELLICE PAPER, would make a TOUT ENSEMBLE, novel
beyond example.  On that Trebisond trellice paper, I confess,
ladies, I do pique myself.

'Then, for the little room, I recommend turning it temporarily
into a Chinese pagoda, with this CHINESE PAGODA PAPER, with the
PORCELAIN border, and josses, and jars, and beakers to match; and
I can venture to promise one vase of pre-eminent size and beauty.
Oh, indubitably!  if your la'ship prefers it, you can have the
EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHIC PAPER, with the IBIS BORDER to match!  The
only objection is, one sees it everywhere--quite antediluvian
--gone to the hotels even; but, to be sure, if your la'ship has a
fancy--At all events, I humbly recommend, what her Grace of
Torcaster longs to patronise, my MOON CURTAINS, with candlelight
draperies.  A demisaison elegance this--I hit off yesterday--and
--true, your la'ship's quite correct--out of the common,
completely.  And, of course, you'd have the SPHYNX CANDELABRAS,
and the Phoenix argands.  Oh!  nothing else lights now, ma'am!
Expense! Expense of the whole!  Impossible to calculate here on
the spot!--but nothing at all worth your ladyship's
consideration!'

At another moment, Lord Colambre might have been amused with all
this rhodomontade, and with the airs and voluble conceit of the
orator; but, after what he had heard at Mr. Mordicai's, this
whole scene struck him more with melancholy than with mirth.  He
was alarmed by the prospect of new and unbounded expense;
provoked, almost past enduring, by the jargon and impertinence of
this upholsterer; mortified and vexed to the heart to see his
mother the dupe, the sport of such a coxcomb.

'Prince of puppies!--insufferable!--My own mother!' Lord Colambre
repeated to himself, as he walked hastily up and down the room.

'Colambre, won't you let us have your judgment--your TEESTE' said
his mother.

'Excuse me, ma'am.  I have no taste, no judgment, in these
things.'

He sometimes paused, and looked at Mr. Soho with a strong
inclination to--  But knowing that he should say too much, if he
said anything, he was silent never dared to approach the council
table--but continued walking up and down the room, till he heard
a voice, which at once arrested his attention, and soothed his
ire.  He approached the table instantly, and listened, whilst
Grace Nugent said everything he wished to have said, and with all
the propriety and delicacy with which he thought he could not
have spoken.  He leaned on the table, and fixed his eyes upon
her--years ago, he had seen his cousin--last night, he had
thought her handsome, pleasing, graceful--but now, he saw a new
person, or he saw her in a new light.  He marked the superior
intelligence, the animation, the eloquence of her countenance,
its variety, whilst alternately, with arch raillery or grave
humour, she played off Mr. Soho, and made him magnify the
ridicule, till it was apparent even to Lady Clonbrony.  He
observed the anxiety, lest his mother should expose her own
foibles--he was touched by the respectful, earnest kindness--the
soft tones of persuasion, with which she addressed his mother
--the care not to presume upon her own influence--the good sense,
the taste she showed, yet not displaying her superiority--the
address, temper, and patience, with which she at last
accomplished her purpose, and prevented Lady Clonbrony from doing
anything preposterously absurd, or exorbitantly extravagant.

Lord Colambre was actually sorry when the business was ended
--when Mr. Soho departed--for Grace Nugent was then silent; and
it was necessary to remove his eyes from that countenance, on
which he had gazed unobserved.  Beautiful and graceful, yet so
unconscious was she of her charms, that the eye of admiration
could rest upon her without her perceiving it--she seemed so
intent upon others as totally to forget herself The whole train
of Lord Colambre's thoughts was so completely deranged that,
although he was sensible there was something of importance he had
to say to his mother, yet, when Mr. Soho's departure left him
opportunity to speak, he stood silent, unable to recollect
anything but--Grace Nugent.

When Grace Nugent left the room, after some minutes' silence, and
some effort, Lord Colambre said to his mother, 'Pray, madam, do
you know anything of Sir Terence O'Fay?'

'I!'  Said Lady Clonbrony, drawing up her head proudly; 'I know
he is a person I cannot endure.  He is no friend of mine, I can
assure you--nor any such sort of person.'

'I thought it was impossible!'  cried Colambre, with exultation.

'I only wish your father, Colambre, could say as much,' added
Lady Clonbrony.

Lord Colambre's countenance fell again; and again he was silent
for some time.

'Does my father dine at home, ma'am?'

'I suppose not; he seldom dines at home.'

'Perhaps, ma'am, my father may have some cause to be uneasy
about--'

'About?'  said Lady Clonbrony, in a tone, and with a look of
curiosity which convinced her son that she knew nothing of his
debts or distresses, if he had any.  'About what?' repeated her
ladyship.

Here was no receding, and Lord Colambre never had recourse to
artifice.

'About his affairs, I was going to say, madam.  But, since you
know nothing of any difficulties or embarrassments, I am
persuaded that none exist.'

Nay, I CAWNT tell you that, Colambre.  There are difficulties for
ready money, I confess, when I ask for it, which surprise me
often.  I know nothing of affairs--ladies of a certain rank
seldom do, you know.  But, considering your father's estate, and
the fortune I brought him,' added her ladyship, proudly, 'I CAWNT
conceive it at all.  Grace Nugent, indeed, often talks to me of
embarrassments and economy; but that, poor thing, is very natural
for her, because her fortune is not particularly large, and she
has left it all, or almost all, in her uncle and guardian's
hands.  I know she's often distressed for odd money to lend me,
and that makes her anxious.'

'Is not Miss Nugent very much admired, ma'am, in London?'

'Of course--in the company she is in, you know, she has every
advantage.  And she has a natural family air of fashion--not but
what she would have got on much better, if, when she first
appeared in Lon'on, she had taken my advice, and wrote herself on
her cards Miss de Nogent, which would have taken off the
prejudice against the IRICISM of Nugent, you know; and there is a
Count de Nogent.'

'I did not know there was any such prejudice, ma'am.  There may
be among a certain set; but, I should think, not among well-
informed, well-bred people.'

'I BIG your PAWDON, Colambre; surely I, that was born in England,
an Henglish-woman BAWN!  must be well INFAWMED on this PINT,
anyway.'

Lord Colambre was respectfully silent.

'Mother,' resumed he, 'I wonder that Miss Nugent is not married!'

'That is her own fau't, entirely; she has refused very good
offers--establishments that, I own, I think, as Lady Langdale
says, I was to blame to allow her to let pass; but young LEDIES
till they are twenty, always think they can do better.  Mr.
Martingale, of Martingale, proposed for her, but she objected to
him on account of he's being on the turf; and Mr. St. Albans'
L7ooo a year--because--I REELLY forget what--I believe only
because she did not like him--and something about principles.
Now there is Colonel Heathcock, one of the most fashionable young
men you see, always with the Duchess of Torcaster and that set--
Heathcock takes a vast deal of notice of her, for him; and yet,
I'm persuaded, she would not have him to-morrow, if he came to
the PINT, and for no reason, REELLY now, that she can give me, but
because she says he's a coxcomb.  Grace has a tincture of Irish
pride.  But, for my part, I rejoice that she is so difficult, for
I don't know what I should do without her.'

'Miss Nugent is indeed--very much attached to you, mother, I am
convinced,' said Lord Colambre, beginning his sentence with great
enthusiasm, and ending it with great sobriety.

'Indeed then, she's a sweet girl, and I am very partial to her,
there's the truth,' cried Lady Clonbrony, in an undisguised Irish
accent, and with her natural warm manner.  But a moment
afterwards her features and whole form resumed their constrained
stillness and stiffness, and, in her English accent, she
continued--

'Before you put my IDEES out of my head, Colambre, I had
something to say to you--Oh!  I know what it was--we were talking
of embarrassments--and I wished to do your father the justice to
mention to you that he has been UNCOMMON LIBERAL to me about this
gala, and has REELLY given me carte-blanche; and I've a notion--
indeed I know--that it is you, Colambre, I am to thank for this.'

'Me!--ma'am!'

'Yes!  Did not your father give you any hint?'

'No, ma'am; I have seen my father but for half an hour since I
came to town, and in that time he said nothing to me--of his
affairs.'

'But what I allude to is more your affair.'

'He did not speak to me of any affairs, ma'am--he spoke only of
my horses.'

'Then I suppose my lord leaves it to me to open the matter to
you.  I have the pleasure to tell you, that we have in view for
you--and I think I may say with more than the approbation of all
her family--an alliance--'

'Oh!  my dear mother!  you cannot be serious,' cried Lord
Colambre; 'you know I am not of years of discretion yet--I shall
not think of marrying these ten years, at least.'

'Why not?  Nay, my dear Colambre, don't go, I beg--I am serious,
I assure you--and, to convince you of it, I shall tell you
candidly, at once, all your father told me:  that now you've done
with Cambridge, and are come to Lon'on, he agrees with me in
wishing that you should make the figure you ought to make,
Colambre, as sole heir-apparent to the Clonbrony estate, and all
that sort of thing.  But, on the other hand, living in Lon'on,
and making you the handsome allowance you ought to have, are,
both together, more than your father can afford, without
inconvenience, he tells me.'

'I assure you, mother, I shall be content--'

'No, no; you must not be content, child, and you must hear me.
You must live in a becoming style, and make a proper appearance.
I could not present you to my friends here, nor be happy, if you
did not, Colambre.  Now the way is clear before you:  you have
birth and title, here is fortune ready made; you will have a
noble estate of your own when old Quin dies, and you will not be
any encumbrance or inconvenience to your father or anybody.
Marrying an heiress accomplishes all this at once; and the young
lady is everything we could wish, besides--you will meet again at
the gala.  Indeed, between ourselves, she is the grand object of
the gala; all her friends will come EN MASSE, and one should wish
that they should see things in proper style.  You have seen the
young lady in question, Colambre--Miss Broadhurst.  Don't you
recollect the young lady I introduced you to last night after the
opera?'

'The little, plain girl, covered with diamonds, who was standing
beside Miss Nugent?'

'In di'monds, yes.  But you won't think her plain when you see
more of her--that wears off; I thought her plain, at first--I
hope--'

'I hope,' said Lord Colambre, 'that you will not take it unkindly
of me, my dear mother, if I tell you, at once, that I have no
thoughts of marrying at present--and that I never will marry for
money.  Marrying an heiress is not even a new way of paying old
debts--at all events, it is one to which no distress could
persuade me to have recourse; and as I must, if I outlive old Mr.
Quin, have an independent fortune, THERE IS NO occasion to
purchase one by marriage.'

'There is no distress, that I know of, in the case,' cried Lady
Clonbrony.  'Where is your imagination running, Colambre?  But
merely for your establishment, your independence.'

'Establishment, I want none--independence I do desire, and will
preserve.  Assure my father, my DEAR MOTHER, that I will not be
an expense to him.  I will live within the allowance he made me
at Cambridge--I will give up half of it--I will do anything for
his convenience--but marry for money, that I cannot do.'

'Then, Colambre, you are very disobliging,' said Lady Clonbrony,
with an expression of disappointment and displeasure; 'for your
father says, if you don't marry Miss Broadhurst, we can't live in
Lon'on another winter.'

This said--which, had she been at the moment mistress of herself,
she would not have let out--Lady Clonbrony abruptly quitted the
room.  Her son stood motionless, saying to himself--

'Is this my mother?--How altered!'

The next morning he seized an opportunity of speaking to his
father, whom he caught, with difficulty, just when he was going
out, as usual, for the day.  Lord Colambre, with all the respect
due to his father, and with that affectionate manner by which he
always knew how to soften the strength of his expressions, made
nearly the same declarations of his resolution, by which his
mother had been so much surprised and offended.  Lord Clonbrony
seemed more embarrassed, but not so much displeased.  When Lord
Colambre adverted, as delicately as he could, to the selfishness
of desiring from him the sacrifice of liberty for life, to say
nothing of his affections, merely to enable his family to make a
splendid figure in London, Lord Clonbrony exclaimed, 'That's all
nonsense!--cursed nonsense!  That's the way we are obliged to
state the thing to your mother, my dear boy, because I might talk
her deaf before she would understand or listen to anything else.
But, for my own share, I don't care a rush if London was sunk in
the salt sea.  Little Dublin for my money, as Sir Terence O'Fay
says.'

'Who is Sir Terence O'Fay, may I ask, sir?'

'Why, don't you know Terry?  Ay, you've been so long at
Cambridge, I forgot.  And did you never see Terry?'

'I have seen him, sir--I met him yesterday at Mr. Mordicai's, the
coachmaker's.'

'Mordicai's!'  exclaimed Lord Clonbrony, with a sudden blush,
which he endeavoured to hide by taking snuff.  'He is a damned
rascal, that Mordicai!  I hope you didn't believe a word he said
--nobody does that knows him.'

'I am glad, sir, that you seem to know him so well, and to be
upon your guard against him,' replied Lord Colambre; 'for, from
what I heard of his conversation, when he was not aware who I
was, I am convinced he would do you any injury in his power.'

'He shall never have me in his power, I promise him.  We shall
take care of that.  But what did he say?'

Lord Colambre repeated the substance of what Mordicai had said,
and Lord Clonbrony reiterated--'Damned rascal!--damned rascal!
I'll get out of his hands; I'll have no more to do with him.'
But, as he spoke, he exhibited evident symptoms of uneasiness,
moving continually, and shifting from leg to leg like a foundered
horse.

He could not bring himself positively to deny that he had debts
and difficulties; but he would by no means open the state of his
affairs to his son--'No father is called upon to do that,' said
he to himself; 'none but a fool would do it.'

Lord Colambre, perceiving his father's embarrassment, withdrew
his eyes, respectfully refrained from all further inquiries, and
simply repeated the assurance he had made to his mother, that he
would put his family to no additional expense; and that, if it
was necessary, he would willingly give up half his allowance.

'Not at all--not at all, my dear boy,' said his father; 'I would
rather cramp myself than that you should be cramped, a thousand
times over.  But it is all my Lady Clonbrony's nonsense.  If
people would but, as they ought, stay in their own country, live
on their own estates, and kill their own mutton, money need never
be wanting.'

For killing their own mutton, Lord Colambre did not see the
indispensable necessity; but he rejoiced to hear his father
assert that people should reside in their own country.

'Ay,' cried Lord Clonbrony, to strengthen his assertion, as he
always thought it necessary to do, by quoting some other person's
opinion.  'So Sir Terence O'Fay always says, and that's the
reason your mother can't endure poor Terry.  You don't know
Terry?  No, you have only seen him; but, indeed, to see him is to
know him; for he is the most off-hand, good fellow in Europe.'

'I don't pretend to know him yet,' said Lord Colambre. 'I am not
so presumptuous as to form my opinion at first sight.'

'Oh, curse your modesty!'  interrupted Lord Clonbrony; 'you mean,
you don't pretend to like him yet; but Terry will make you like
him.  I defy you not.  I'll introduce you to him--him to you, I
mean--most warn-hearted, generous dog upon earth--convivial--
jovial--with wit and humour enough, in his own way, to split you
--split me if he has not.  You need not cast down your eyes,
Colambre.  What's your objection?'

'I have made none, sir; but, if you urge me, I can only say that,
if he has all these good qualities, it is to be regretted that he
does not look and speak a little more like a gentleman.'

'A gentleman!  he is as much a gentleman as any of your formal
prigs--not the exact Cambridge cut, maybe.  Curse your English
education!  'Twas none of my advice.  I suppose you mean to take
after your mother in the notion that nothing can be good, or
genteel, but what's English.'

'Far from it, sir; I assure you, I am as warm a friend to Ireland
as your heart could wish.  You will have no reason, in that
respect at least, nor, I hope, in any other, to curse my English
education; and, if my gratitude and affection can avail, you
shall never regret the kindness and liberality with which you
have, I fear, distressed yourself to afford me the means of
becoming all that a British nobleman ought to be.'

'Gad!  you distress me now!'  said Lord Clonbrony, 'and I didn't
expect it, or I wouldn't make a fool of myself this way,' added
he, ashamed of his emotion, and whiffling it off.  'You have an
Irish heart, that I see, which no education can spoil.  But you
must like Terry.  I'll give you time, as he said to me, when
first he taught me to like usquebaugh.  Good morning to you!'

Whilst Lady Clonbrony, in consequence of her residence in London,
had become more of a fine lady, Lord Clonbrony, since he left
Ireland, had become less of a gentleman.  Lady Clonbrony, born an
Englishwoman, disclaiming and disencumbering herself of all the
Irish in town, had, by giving splendid entertainments, at an
enormous expense, made her way into a certain set of fashionable
company.  But Lord Clonbrony, who was somebody in Ireland, who
was a great person in Dublin, found himself nobody in England, a
mere cipher in London, Looked down upon by the fine people with
whom his lady associated, and heartily weary of them, he
retreated from them altogether, and sought entertainment and
self-complacency in society beneath him--indeed, both in rank and
education, but in which he had the satisfaction of feeling
himself the first person in company.  Of these associates, the
first in talents, and in jovial profligacy, was Sir Terence
O'Fay--a man of low extraction, who had been knighted by an Irish
lord-lieutenant in some convivial frolic.  No one could tell a
good story, or sing a good song better than Sir Terence; he
exaggerated his native brogue, and his natural propensity to
blunder, caring little whether the company laughed at him or with
him, provided they laughed.  'Live and laugh--laugh and live,'
was his motto; and certainly he lived on laughing, as well as
many better men can contrive to live on a thousand a year.

Lord Clonbrony brought Sir Terence home with him next day to
introduce him to Lord Colambre; and it happened that on this
occasion Terence appeared to peculiar disadvantage, because, like
many other people, 'Il gatoit l'esprit qu'il avoit en voulant
avoir celui qu'il n'avoit pas.'

Having been apprised that Lord Colambre was a fine scholar, fresh
from Cambridge, and being conscious of his own deficiencies of
literature, instead of trusting to his natural talents, he
summoned to his aid, with no small effort, all the scraps of
learning he had acquired in early days, and even brought before
the company all the gods and goddesses with whom he had formed an
acquaintance at school.  Though embarrassed by this unusual
encumbrance of learning, he endeavoured to make all subservient
to his immediate design, of paying his court to Lady Clonbrony,
by forwarding the object she had most anxiously in view--the
match between her son and Miss Broadhurst.

'And so, Miss Nugent,' said he, not daring, with all his
assurance, to address himself directly to Lady Clonbrony--'and
so, Miss Nugent, you are going to have great doings, I'm told,
and a wonderful grand gala.  There's nothing in the wide world
equal to being in a good, handsome crowd.  No later now than the
last ball at the Castle that was before I left Dublin, Miss
Nugent--the apartments, owing to the popularity of my lady-
lieutenant, was so throng--so throng--that I remember very well,
in the doorway, a lady--and a very genteel woman she was too,
though a stranger to me--saying to me, "Sir, your finger's in my
ear."  "I know it, madam," says I, "but I can't take it out till
the crowd give me elbow room."

'But it's gala I'm thinking of now.  I hear you are to have the
golden Venus, my Lady Clonbrony, won't you?'

'Sir!'

This freezing monosyllable notwithstanding, Sir Terence pursued
his course fluently.  'The golden Venus!--Sure, Miss Nugent, you,
that are so quick, can't but know I would apostrophise Miss
Broadhurst that is, but that won't be long so, I hope.  My Lord
Colambre, have you seen much yet of that young lady?'

'No, sir.'

'Then I hope you won't be long so.  I hear great talk now of the
Venus of Medicis, and the Venus of this and that, with the
Florence Venus, and the sable Venus, and that other Venus, that's
washing of her hair, and a hundred other Venuses, some good, some
bad.  But, be that as it will, my lord, trust a fool--ye may,
when he tells you truth--the golden Venus is the only one on
earth that can stand, or that will stand, through all ages and
temperatures; for gold rules the court, gold rules the camp, and
men below, and heaven above.'

'Heaven above!  Take care, Terry!  Do you know what you're
saying?'  interrupted Lord Clonbrony.

'Do I?  Don't I?'  replied Terry.  'Deny, if you please, my lord,
that it was for a golden pippin that the three goddesses FIT--and
that the HIPPOMENES was about golden apples--and did not Hercules
rob a garden for golden apples?--and did not the pious Eneas
himself take a golden branch with him, to make himself welcome to
his father in hell?' said Sir Terence, winking at Lord Colambre.

'Why, Terry, you know more about books than I should have
suspected,' said Lord Clonbrony.

'Nor you would not have suspected me to have such a great
acquaintance among the goddesses neither, would you, my lord?
But, apropos, before we quit, of what material, think ye, was
that same Venus's famous girdle, now, that made roses and lilies
so quickly appear?  Why, what was it, but a girdle of sterling
gold, I'll engage?--for gold is the only true thing for a young
man to look after in a wife.'

Sir Terence paused, but no applause ensued.

'Let them talk of Cupids and darts, and the mother of the Loves
and Graces.  Minerva may sing odes and DYTHAMBRICS, or whatsoever
her wisdomship pleases.  Let her sing, or let her say she'll
never get a husband in this world or the other, without she had a
good thumping FORTIN, and then she'd go off like wildfire.'

'No, no, Terry, there you're out; Minerva has too bad a character
for learning to be a favourite with gentlemen,' said Lord
Clonbrony.

'Tut--Don't tell me!--I'd get her off before you could say Jack
Robinson, and thank you too, if she had fifty thousand down, or a
thousand a year in land.  Would you have a man so d-d nice as to
balk when house and land is a-going--a-going--a-going!--because
of the encumbrance of a little learning?  I never heard that Miss
Broadhurst was anything of a learned lady.'

'Miss Broadhurst!'  said Grace Nugent; 'how did you get round to
Miss Broadhurst?'

'Oh!  by the way of Tipperary,' said Lord Colambre.

'I beg your pardon, my lord, it was apropos to a good fortune,
which, I hope, will not be out of your way, even if you went by
Tipperary.  She has, besides L100,000 in the funds, a clear
landed property of L10,000 per annum.  WELL! SOME PEOPLE TALK OF
MORALITY, AND SOME OF RELIGION, BUT GIVE ME A LITTLE SNUG
PROPERTY.  But, my lord, I've a little business to transact this
morning, and must not be idling and indulging myself here.'  So,
bowing to the ladies, he departed.

'Really, I am glad that man is gone,' said Lady Clonbrony.  'What
a relief to one's ears!  I am sure I wonder, my lord, how you can
bear to carry that strange creature always about with you--so
vulgar as he is.'

'He diverts me,' said Lord Clonbrony, 'while many of your
correct-mannered fine ladies or gentlemen put me to sleep.  What
signifies what accent people speak in that have nothing to say
--hey, Colambre?'

Lord Colambre, from respect to his father, did not express his
opinion, but his aversion to Sir Terence O'Fay was stronger even
than his mother's; though Lady Clonbrony's detestation of him was
much increased by perceiving that his coarse hints about Miss
Broadhurst had operated against her favourite scheme.

The next morning, at breakfast, Lord Clonbrony talked of bringing
Sir Terence with him that night to her gala.  She absolutely grew
pale with horror.

'Good heavens!  Lady Langdale, Mrs. Dareville, Lady Pococke, Lady
Chatterton, Lady D--, Lady G--, his Grace of V--; what would they
think of him?  And Miss Broadhurst to see him going about with my
Lord Clonbrony!'--It could not be.  No; her ladyship made the
most solemn and desperate protestation, that she would sooner
give up her gala altogether--tie up the knocker--say she was sick
--rather be sick, or be dead, than be obliged to have such a
creature as Sir Terence O'Fay at her gala.

'Have it your own way, my dear, as you have everything else!'
cried Lord Clonbrony, taking up his hat, and preparing to decamp;
'but, take notice, if you won't receive him you need not expect
me.  So a good morning to you, my Lady Clonbrony.  You may find a
worse friend in need, yet, than that same Sir Terence O'Fay.'

'I trust I shall never be in need, my lord,' replied her
ladyship.  'It would be strange, indeed, if I were, with the
fortune I brought.'

'Oh!  that fortune of hers!'  cried Lord Clonbrony, stopping both
his ears as he ran out of the room; 'shall I never hear the end
of that fortune, when I've seen the end of it long ago?'

During this matrimonial dialogue, Grace Nugent and Lord Colambre
never once looked at each other.  Grace was very diligently
trying the changes that could be made in the positions of a
china-mouse, a cat, a dog, a cup, and a Brahmin, on the
mantelpiece; Lord Colambre as diligently reading the newspaper.

'Now, my dear Colambre,' said Lady Clonbrony, 'put down the
paper, and listen to me.  Let me entreat you not to neglect Miss
Broadhurst to-night, as I know that the family come here chiefly
on your account.'

'My dear mother, I never can neglect any deserving young lady,
and particularly one of your guests; but I shall be careful not
to do more than not to neglect, for I never will pretend what I
do not feel.'

'But, my dear Colambre, Miss Broadhurst is everything you could
wish, except being a beauty.'

'Perhaps, madam,' said Lord Colambre, fixing his eyes on Grace
Nugent, 'you think that I can see no farther than a handsome
face?'

The unconscious Grace Nugent now made a warm eulogium of Miss
Broadhurst's sense, and wit, and independence of character.

'I did not know that Miss Broadhurst was a friend of yours, Miss
Nugent?'

'She is, I assure you, a friend of mine; and, as a proof, I will
not praise her at this moment.  I will go farther still--I will
promise that I never will praise her to you till you begin to
praise her to me.'

Lord Colambre smiled, and now listened, as if he wished that
Grace should go on speaking, even of Miss Broadhurst.

'That's my sweet Grace!'  cried Lady Clonbrony.  'Oh! she knows
how to manage these men--not one of them can resist her!'

Lord Colambre, for his part, did not deny the truth of this
assertion.

'Grace,' added Lady Clonbrony, 'make him promise to do as we
would have him.'

'No; promises are dangerous things to ask or to give,' said
Grace.  'Men and naughty children never make promises, especially
promises to be good, without longing to break them the next
minute.'

'Well, at least, child, persuade him, I charge you, to make my
gala go off well.  That's the first thing we ought to think of
now.  Ring the bell!  And all heads and hands I put in
requisition for the gala.'



CHAPTER III

The opening of her gala, the display of her splendid reception-
rooms, the Turkish tent, the Alhambra, the pagoda, formed a proud
moment to Lady Clonbrony.  Much did she enjoy, and much too
naturally, notwithstanding all her efforts to be stiff and
stately, much too naturally did she show her enjoyment of the
surprise excited in some and affected by others on their first
entrance.

One young, very young lady expressed her astonishment so audibly
as to attract the notice of all the bystanders.  Lady Clonbrony,
delighted, seized both her hands, shook them, and laughed
heartily; then, as the young lady with her party passed on, her
ladyship recovered herself, drew up her head, and said to the
company near her--

'Poor thing!  I hope I covered her little NAIVETE properly? How
NEW she must be!'

Then, with well-practised dignity, and half-subdued self-
complacency of aspect, her ladyship went gliding about--most
importantly busy, introducing my lady THIS to the sphynx
candelabra, and my lady THAT to the Trebisond trellice; placing
some delightfully for the perspective of the Alhambra;
establishing others quite to her satisfaction on seraglio
ottomans; and honouring others with a seat under the statira,
canopy.  Receiving and answering compliments from successive
crowds of select friends, imagining herself the mirror of
fashion, and the admiration of the whole world, Lady Clonbrony
was, for her hour, as happy certainly as ever woman was in
similar circumstances.

Her son looked at her, and wished that this happiness could last.
Naturally inclined to sympathy, Lord Colambre reproached himself
for not feeling as gay at this instant as the occasion required.
But the festive scene, the blazing lights, the 'universal
hubbub,' failed to raise his spirits.  As a dead weight upon them
hung the remembrance of Mordicai's denunciations; and, through
the midst of this Eastern magnificence, this unbounded profusion,
he thought he saw future domestic misery and ruin to those he
loved best in the world.

The only object present on which his eye rested with pleasure was
Grace Nugent.  Beautiful--in elegant and dignified simplicity--
thoughtless of herself--yet with a look of thought, and with an
air of melancholy, which accorded exactly with his own feelings,
and which he believed to arise from the same reflections that had
passed in his own mind.

'Miss Broadhurst, Colambre!  all the Broadhursts!'  said his
mother, wakening him, as she passed by, to receive them as they
entered.  Miss Broadhurst appeared, plainly dressed--plainly,
even to singularity--without any diamonds or ornament.

'Brought Philippa to you, my dear Lady Clonbrony, this figure,
rather than not bring her at all,' said puffing Mrs. Broadhurst;
'and had all the difficulty in the world to get her out at all,
and now I've promised she shall stay but half an hour.  Sore
throat--terrible cold she took in the morning.  I'll swear for
her, she'd not have come for any one but you.'

The young lady did not seem inclined to swear, or even to say
this for herself; she stood wonderfully unconcerned and passive,
with an expression of humour lurking in her eyes, and about the
corners of her mouth; whilst Lady Clonbrony was 'shocked,' and
'gratified,' and 'concerned' and 'flattered' and whilst everybody
was hoping, and fearing, and busying themselves about her--'Miss
Broadhurst, you'd better sit here!'--'Oh, for Heaven's sake!
Miss Broadhurst, not there!' 'Miss Broadhurst, if you'll take my
opinion;' and 'Miss Broadhurst, if I may advise--'

'Grace Nugent!'  cried Lady Clonbrony--'Miss Broadhurst always
listens to you.  Do, my dear, persuade Miss Broadhurst to take
care of herself, and let us take her to the inner little pagoda,
where she can be so warm and so retired--the very thing for an
invalid.  Colambre!  pioneer the way for us, for the crowd's
immense.'

Lady Anne and Lady Catharine H--, Lady Langdale's daughters, were
at this time leaning on Miss Nugent's arm, and moved along with
this party to the inner pagoda.  There was to be cards in one
room, music in another, dancing in a third, and, in this little
room, there were prints and chess-boards, etc.

'Here you will be quite to yourselves,' said Lady Clonbrony; 'let
me establish you comfortably in this, which I call my sanctuary--
my SNUGGERY--Colambre, that little table!--Miss Broadhurst, you
play chess?  Colambre, you'll play with Miss Broadhurst--'

'I thank your ladyship,' said Miss Broadhurst, 'but I know
nothing of chess, but the moves.  Lady Catharine, you will play,
and I will look on.'

Miss Broadhurst drew her seat to the fire; Lady Catharine sat
down to play with Lord Colambre; Lady Clonbrony withdrew, again
recommending Miss Broadhurst to Grace Nugent's care.  After some
commonplace conversation, Lady Anne H---, looking at the company
in the adjoining apartment, asked her sister how old Miss
Somebody was, who passed by. This led to reflections upon the
comparative age and youthful appearance of several of their
acquaintance, and upon the care with which mothers concealed the
age of their daughters.  Glances passed between Lady Catharine
and Lady Anne.

'For my part,' said Miss Broadhurst, 'my mother would 'labour
that point of secrecy in vain for me; for I am willing to tell my
age, even if my face did not tell it for me, to all whom it may
concern.  I am past three-and-twenty--shall be four-and-twenty
the 5th of next July.'

'Three-and-twenty!  Bless me!  I thought you were not twenty!'
cried Lady Anne.

'Four-and-twenty next July!--impossible!'  cried Lady Catharine.

'Very possible,' said Miss Broadhurst, quite unconcerned.

'Now, Lord Colambre, would you believe it?  Can you believe it?'
asked Lady Catharine.

'Yes, he can,' said Miss Broadhurst.  'Don't you see that he
believes it as firmly as you and I do?  Why should you force his
lordship to pay a compliment contrary to his better judgment, or
to extort a smile from him under false pretences? I am sure he
sees that you, ladies, and I trust he perceives that I, do not
think the worse of him for this.'

Lord Colambre smiled now without any false pretence; and,
relieved at once from all apprehension of her joining in his
mother's views, or of her expecting particular attention from
him, he became at ease with Miss Broadhurst, shelved a desire to
converse with her, and listened eagerly to what she said.  He
recollected that Grace Nugent had told him that this young lady
had no common character; and, neglecting his move at chess, he
looked up at Grace as much as to say, 'DRAW HER OUT, pray.'

But Grace was too good a friend to comply with that request; she
left Miss Broadhurst to unfold her own character.

'It is your move, my lord,' said Lady Catharine.

'I beg your ladyship's pardon--'

'Are not these rooms beautiful, Miss Broadhurst?'  said Lady
Catharine, determined, if possible, to turn the conversation into
a commonplace, safe channel; for she had just felt, what most of
Miss Broadhurst's acquaintance had in their turn felt, that she
had an odd way of startling people, by setting their own secret
little motives suddenly before them, 'Are not these rooms
beautiful?'

'Beautiful!--Certainly.'

The beauty of the rooms would have answered Lady Catharine's
purpose for some time, had not Lady Anne imprudently brought the
conversation back again to Miss Broadhurst.

'Do you know, Miss Broadhurst,' said she, 'that if I had fifty
sore throats, I could not have refrained from my diamonds on this
GALA night; and such diamonds as you have!  Now, really, I could
not believe you to be the same person we saw blazing at the opera
the other night!'

'Really!  could not you, Lady Anne?  That is the very thing that
entertains me.  I only wish that I could lay aside my fortune
sometimes, as well as my diamonds, and see how few people would
know me then.  Might not I, Grace, by the golden rule, which,
next to practice, is the best rule in the world, calculate and
answer that question?'

'I am persuaded,' said Lord Colambre, 'that Miss Broadhurst has
friends on whom the experiment would make no difference.'

'I am convinced of it,' said Miss Broadhurst; 'and that is what
makes me tolerably happy, though I have the misfortune to be an
heiress.'

'That is the oddest speech,' said Lady Anne.  'Now I should so
like to be a great heiress, and to have, like you, such thousands
and thousands at command.'

'And what can the thousands upon thousands do for me?  Hearts,
you know, Lady Anne, are to be won only by radiant eyes.  Bought
hearts your ladyship certainly would not recommend.  They're such
poor things--no wear at all.  Turn them which way you will, you
can make nothing of them.'

'You've tried then, have you?'  said Lady Catharine.

'To my cost.  Very nearly taken in by them half a dozen times;
for they are brought to me by dozens; and they are so made up for
sale, and the people do so swear to you that it's real, real
love, and it looks so like it; and, if you stoop to examine it,
you hear it pressed upon you by such elegant oaths--By all that's
lovely!--By all my hopes of happiness!--By your own charming
self!  Why, what can one do but look like a fool, and believe;
for these men, at the time, all look so like gentlemen, that one
cannot bring oneself flatly to tell them that they are cheats and
swindlers, that they are perjuring their precious souls.
Besides, to call a lover a perjured creature is to encourage him.
He would have a right to complain if you went back after that.'

'Oh dear!  what a move was there!'  cried Lady Catharine.  'Miss
Broadhurst is so entertaining to-night, notwithstanding her sore
throat, that one can positively attend to nothing else.  And she
talks of love and lovers too with such CONNAISSANCE DE FAIT--
counts her lovers by dozens, tied up in true-lovers' knots!'

'Lovers!--no, no!  Did I say lovers?--suitors I should have said.
There's nothing less like a lover, a true lover, than a suitor,
as all the world knows, ever since the days of Penelope.
Dozens!--never had a lover in my life!  And fear, with much
reason, I never shall have one to my mind.'

'My lord, you've given up the game,' cried Lady Catharine; 'but
you make no battle.'

'It would be so vain to combat against your ladyship,' said Lord
Colambre, rising, and bowing politely to Lady Catharine, but
turning the next instant to converse with Miss Broadhurst.

But when I talked of liking to be an heiress,' said Lady Anne, 'I
was not thinking of lovers.'

'Certainly.  One is not always thinking of lovers, you know,'
added Lady Catharine.

'Not always,' replied Miss Broadhurst.  'Well, lovers out of the
question on all sides, what would your ladyship buy with the
thousands upon thousands?'

'Oh, everything, if I were you,' said Lady Anne.

'Rank, to begin with,' said Lady Catharine.

'Still my old objection--bought rank is but a shabby thing.'

'But there is so little difference made between bought and
hereditary rank in these days,' said Lady Catharine.

'I see a great deal still,' said Miss Broadhurst; 'so much, that
I would never buy a title.'

'A title without birth, to be sure,' said Lady Anne, 'would not
be so well worth buying; and as birth certainly is not to be
bought--'

'And even birth, were it to be bought, I would not buy,' said
Miss Broadhurst, 'unless I could be sure to have with it all the
politeness, all the noble sentiments, all the magnanimity--in
short, all that should grace and dignify high birth.'

'Admirable!'  said Lord Colambre.  Grace Nugent smiled.

'Lord Colambre, will you have the goodness to put my mother in
mind I must go away?'

'I am bound to obey, but I am very sorry for it,' said his
lordship.

'Are we to have any dancing to-night, I wonder?'  said Lady
Catharine.  'Miss Nugent, I am afraid we have made Miss
Broadhurst talk so much, in spite of her hoarseness, that Lady
Clonbrony will be quite angry with us.  And here she comes!'

My Lady Clonbrony came to hope, to beg, that Miss Broadhurst
would not think of running away; but Miss Broadhurst could not be
prevailed upon to stay.  Lady Clonbrony was delighted to see that
her son assisted Grace Nugent most carefully in SHAWLING Miss
Broadhurst; his lordship conducted her to her carriage, and his
mother drew many happy auguries from the gallantry of his manner,
and from the young lady's having stayed three-quarters, instead
of half an hour--a circumstance which Lady Catharine did not fail
to remark.

The dancing, which, under various pretences, Lady Clonbrony had
delayed till Lord Colambre was at liberty, began immediately
after Miss Broadhurst's departure; and the chalked mosaic
pavement of the Alhambra was, in a few minutes, effaced by the
dancers' feet.  How transient are all human joys, especially
those of vanity!  Even on this long meditated, this long desired,
this gala night, Lady Clonbrony found her triumph incomplete--
inadequate to her expectations.  For the first hour all had been
compliment, success, and smiles; presently came the BUTS, and the
hesitated objections, and the 'damning with faint praise.'  All
THAT could be borne.  Everybody has his taste--and one person's
taste is as good as another's; and while she had Mr. Soho to
cite, Lady Clonbrony thought she might be well satisfied.  But
she could not be satisfied with Colonel Heathcock, who, dressed
in black, had stretched his 'fashionable length of limb' under
the statira canopy upon the snow-white swan-down couch.  When,
after having monopolised attention, and been the subject of much
bad wit, about black swans and rare birds, and swans being geese
and geese being swans, the colonel condescended to rise, and, as
Mrs. Dareville said, to vacate his couch, that couch was no
longer white--the black impression of the colonel remained on the
sullied snow.

'Eh, now!  really didn't recollect I was in black,' was all the
apology he made.  Lady Clonbrony was particularly vexed that the
appearance of the statira, canopy should be spoiled before the
effect had been seen by Lady Pococke, and Lady Chatterton, and
Lady G--, Lady P--, and the Duke of V--,and a party of
superlative fashionables, who had promised TO LOOK IN UPON HER,
but who, late as it was, had not yet arrived.  They came in at
last.  But Lady Clonbrony had no reason to regret for their sake
the statira couch.  It would have been lost upon them, as was
everything else which she had prepared with so much pains and
cost to excite their admiration, They came resolute not to
admire.  Skilled in the art of making others unhappy, they just
looked round with an air of apathy.  'Ah!  you've had Soho!--Soho
has done wonders for you here!  Vastly well!--Vastly well!--
Soho's very clever in his way!'

Others of great importance came in, full of some slight accident
that had happened to themselves, or their horses, or their
carriages; and, with privileged selfishness, engrossed the
attention of all within their sphere of conversation.  Well, Lady
Clonbrony got over all this, and got over the history of a letter
about a chimney that was on fire, a week ago, at the Duke of V's
old house, in Brecknockshire.  In gratitude for the smiling
patience with which she listened to him, his Grace of V-- fixed
his glass to look at the Alhambra, and had just pronounced it to
be 'Well!--very well!'  when the Dowager Lady Chatterton made a
terrible discovery--a discovery that filled Lady Clonbrony with
astonishment and indignation--Mr. Soho had played her false!
What was her mortification when the dowager assured her that
these identical Alhambra hangings had not only been shown by Mr.
Soho to the Duchess of Torcaster, but that her grace had had the
refusal of them, and had actually rejected them, in consequence
of Sir Horace Grant the great traveller's objecting to some of
the proportions of the pillars.  Soho had engaged to make a new
set, vastly improved, by Sir Horace's suggestions, for her Grace
of Torcaster.

Now Lady Chatterton was the greatest talker extant; and she went
shout the rooms telling everybody of her acquaintance--and she
was acquainted with everybody--how shamefully Soho had imposed
upon poor Lady Clonbrony, protesting she could not forgive the
man.  'For,' said she,'though the Duchess of Torcaster has been
his constant customer for ages, and his patroness, and all that,
yet this does not excuse him and Lady Clonbrony's being a
stranger, and from Ireland, makes the thing worse.'  From
Ireland!--that was the unkindest cut of all but there was no
remedy.

In vain poor Lady Clonbrony followed the dowager about the rooms,
to correct this mistake, and to represent, in justice to Mr.
Soho, though he had used her so ill, that he knew she was an
Englishwoman, The dowager was deaf, and no whisper could reach
her ear.  And when Lady Clonbrony was obliged to bawl an
explanation in her car, the dowager only repeated--

'In justice to Mr. Soho!--No, no; he has not done you justice, my
dear Lady Clonbrony!  and I'll expose him to everybody.
Englishwoman--no, no, no!--Soho could not take you for an
Englishwoman!'

All who secretly envied or ridiculed Lady Clonbrony enjoyed this
scene.  The Alhambra hangings, which had been, In one short hour
before, the admiration of the world, were now regarded by every
eye with contempt, as CAST hangings, and every tongue was busy
declaiming against Mr. Soho; everybody declared that, from the
first, the want of proportion had 'struck them, but that they
would not mention it till others found it out.'

People usually revenge themselves for having admired too much, by
afterwards despising and depreciating without mercy--in all great
assemblies the perception of ridicule is quickly caught, and
quickly too revealed.  Lady Clonbrony, even in her own house, on
her gala night, became an object of ridicule--decently masked,
indeed, under the appearance of condolence with her ladyship, and
of indignation against 'that abominable Mr. Soho!'

Lady Langdale, who was now, for reasons of her own, upon her good
behaviour, did penance, as she said, for her former imprudence,
by abstaining even from whispered sarcasms.  She looked on with
penitential gravity, said nothing herself, and endeavoured to
keep Mrs. Dareville in order; but that was no easy task.  Mrs.
Dareville had no daughters, had nothing to gain from the
acquaintance of my Lady Clonbrony; and, conscious that her
ladyship would bear a vast deal from her presence, rather than
forego the honour of her sanction, Mrs. Dareville, without any
motives of interest, or good-nature of sufficient power to
restrain her talent and habit of ridicule, free from hope or
fear, gave full scope to all the malice of mockery, and all the
insolence of fashion.  Her slings and arrows, numerous as they
were and outrageous, were directed against such petty objects,
and the mischief was so quick, in its aim and its operation,
that, felt but not seen, it is scarcely possible to register the
hits, or to describe the nature of the wounds.

Some hits sufficiently palpable, however, were recorded for the
advantage of posterity.  When Lady Clonbrony led her to look at
the Chinese pagoda, the lady paused, with her foot on the
threshold, as if afraid to enter this porcelain Elysium, as she
called it--Fool's Paradise, she would have said; and, by her
hesitation, and by the half-pronounced word, suggested the idea
--'None but belles without petticoats can enter here,' said she,
drawing her clothes tight round her; 'fortunately, I have but
two, and Lady Langdale has but one.'  Prevailed upon to venture
in, she walked on with prodigious care and trepidation, affecting
to be alarmed at the crowd of strange forms and monsters by which
she was surrounded.

'Not a creature here that I ever saw before in nature! Well, now
I may boast I've been in a real Chinese pagoda!'

'Why yes, everything is appropriate here, I flatter myself,' said
Lady Clonbrony.

'And how good of you, my dear Lady Clonbrony, in defiance of
bulls and blunders, to allow us a comfortable English fireplace
and plenty of Newcastle coal, in China!--And a white marble--no!
white velvet hearthrug, painted with beautiful flowers--oh, the
delicate, the USEFUL thing!'

Vexed by the emphasis on the word USEFUL, Lady Clonbrony
endeavoured to turn off the attention of the company.  'Lady
Langdale, your ladyship's a judge of china--this vase is an
unique, I am told.'

'I am told,' interrupted Mrs. Dareville, 'this is the very vase
in which B--, the nabob's father, who was, you know, a China
captain, smuggled his dear little Chinese wife and all her
fortune out of Canton--positively, actually put the lid on,
packed her up, and sent her off on shipboard!--True!  true! upon
my veracity!  I'll tell you my authority!'

With this story Mrs. Dareville drew all attention from the jar,
to Lady Clonbrony's infinite mortification.

Lady Langdale at length turned to look at a vast range of china
jars.

'Ali Baba and the forty thieves!'  exclaimed Mrs. Dareville; 'I
hope you have boiling oil ready!'

Lady Clonbrony was obliged to laugh, and to vow that Mrs.
Dareville was uncommon pleasant to-night.  'But now,' said her
ladyship, 'let me take you on to the Turkish tent.'

Having with great difficulty got the malicious wit out of the
pagoda and into the Turkish tent, Lady Clonbrony began to breathe
more freely; for here she thought she was upon safe ground:
'Everything, I flatter myself' said she, 'is correct and
appropriate, and quite picturesque.'  The company, dispersed in
happy groups, or reposing on seraglio ottomans, drinking lemonade
and sherbet beautiful Fatimas admiring, or being admired--
'Everything here quite correct, appropriate, and picturesque,'
repeated Mrs. Dareville.

This lady's powers as a mimic were extraordinary, and she found
them irresistible.  Hitherto she had imitated Lady Clonbrony's
air and accent only behind her back; but, bolder grown, she now
ventured, in spite of Lady Langdale's warning pinches, to mimic
her kind hostess before her face, and to her face.  Now, whenever
Lady Clonbrony saw anything that struck her fancy in the dress of
her fashionable friends, she had a way of hanging her head aside,
and saying, with a peculiar sentimental drawl--

'How pretty!--how elegant!  Now that quite suits my TEESTE!  This
phrase, precisely in the same accent, and with the head set to
the same angle of affectation, Mrs. Dareville had the assurance
to address to her ladyship, apropos to something which she
pretended to admire in Lady Clonbrony's COSTUME--a costume which,
excessively fashionable in each of its parts, was, all together,
so extraordinarily unbecoming as to be fit for a print-shop.  The
perception of this, added to the effect of Mrs. Dareville's
mimicry, was almost too much for Lady Langdale; she could not
possibly have stood it, but for the appearance of Miss Nugent at
this instant behind Lady Clonbrony.  Grace gave one glance of
indignation which seemed suddenly to strike Mrs. Dareville.
Silence for a moment ensued, and afterwards the tone of the
conversation was changed.

'Salisbury!--explain this to me,' said a lady, drawing Mr.
Salisbury aside.  'If you are in the secret, do explain this to
me; for unless I had seen it, I could not have believed it.  Nay,
though I have seen it, I do not believe it.  How was that daring
spirit laid?  By what spell?'

'By the spell which superior minds always cast on inferior
spirits.'

'Very fine,' said the lady, laughing, 'but as old as the days of
Leonora de Galigai, quoted a million times.  Now tell me
something new and to the purpose, and better suited to modern
days.'

'Well, then, since you will not allow me to talk of superior
minds in the present days, let me ask you if you have never
observed that a wit, once conquered in company by a wit of a
higher order, is thenceforward in complete subjection to the
conqueror, whenever and wherever they meet.'

'You would not persuade me that yonder gentle-looking could ever
be a match for the veteran Mrs. Dareville? She may have the wit,
but has she the courage?'

'Yes; no one has more courage, more civil courage, where her own
dignity, or the interests of her friends are concerned.  I will
tell you an instance or two to-morrow.'

'To-morrow!--To-night!--tell it me now.'

'Not a safe place.'

'The safest in the world, in such a crowd as this.  Follow my
example.  Take a glass of orgeat--sip from time to time, thus--
speak low, looking innocent all the while straight forward, or
now and then up at the lamps--keep on in an even tone--use no
names--and you may tell anything.'

'Well, then, when Miss Nugent first came to London, Lady
Langdale--'

'Two names already--did not I warn ye?'

'But how can I make myself intelligible?'

'Initials--can't you use--or genealogy?  What stops you?

'It is only Lord Colambre, a very safe person, I have a notion,
when the eulogium is of Grace Nugent.'

Lord Colambre, who had now performed his arduous duties as a
dancer, and had disembarrassed himself of all his partners, came
into the Turkish tent just at this moment to refresh himself, and
just in time to hear Mr. Salisbury's anecdotes.

'Now go on.'

'Lady Langdale, you know, sets an inordinate value upon her
curtsies in public, and she used to treat Miss Nugent, as her
ladyship treats many other people, sometimes noticing, and
sometimes pretending not to know her, according to the company
she happened to be with.  One day they met in some fine company
--Lady Langdale looked as if she was afraid of committing herself
by a curtsy.  Miss Nugent waited for a good opportunity; and,
when all the world was silent, leant forward, and called to Lady
Langdale, as if she had something to communicate of the greatest
consequence, skreening her whisper with her hand, as in an aside
on the stage,--'Lady Langdale, you may curtsy to me now--nobody
is looking.'

'The retort courteous!'  said Lord Colambre--'the only retort for
a woman.'

'And her ladyship deserved it so well.  But Mrs. Dareville, what
happened about her?'

'Mrs. Dareville, you remember, some years ago, went to Ireland
with some lady-lieutenant to whom she was related.  There she was
most hospitably received by Lord and Lady Clonbrony--went to
their country house--was as intimate with Lady Clonbrony and with
Miss Nugent as possible--stayed at Clonbrony Castle for a month;
and yet, when Lady Clonbrony came to London, never took the least
notice of her.  At last, meeting at the house of a common friend,
Mrs. Dareville could not avoid recognising her ladyship; but,
even then, did it in the least civil manner and most cursory
style possible.  'Ho! Lady Clonbrony!--didn't know you were in
England!--When did you come?--How long shall you stay in town!--
Hope, before you leave England, your Ladyship and Miss Nugent
will give us a day?'  A DAY!--Lady Clonbrony was so astonished by
this impudence of ingratitude, that she hesitated how to TAKE IT;
but Miss Nugent, quite coolly, and with a smile, answered, 'A
DAY!--certainly--to you, who gave us a month!'

'Admirable!  Now comprehend perfectly why Mrs. Dareville declines
insulting Miss Nugent's friends in her presence.'

Lord Colambre said nothing, but thought much.  'How I wish my
mother,' thought he, 'had some of Grace Nugent's proper pride!
She would not then waste her fortune, spirits, health, and life,
in courting such people as these.'

He had not seen--he could not have borne to have beheld--the
manner in which his mother had been treated by some of her
guests; but he observed that she now looked harassed and vexed;
and he was provoked and mortified by hearing her begging and
beseeching some of these saucy leaders of the ton to oblige her,
to do her the favour, to do her the honour, to stay to supper.
It was just ready--actually announced.  'No, they would not--they
could not; they were obliged to run away--engaged to the Duchess
of Torcaster.'

'Lord Colambre, what is the matter?'  said Miss Nugent, going up
to him, as he stood aloof and indignant:  'Don't look so like a
chafed lion; others may perhaps read your countenance as well as
I do.'

'None can read my mind so well,' replied he.  'Oh, my dear
Grace!'

'Supper!--supper!'  cried she; 'your duty to your neighbour, your
hand to your partner.'

Lady Catharine, as they went downstairs to supper, observed that
Miss Nugent had not been dancing, that she had kept quite in the
background all night-quite in the shade.

'Those,' said Lord Colambre, 'who are contented in the 'shade are
the best able to bear the light; and I am not surprised that one
so interesting in the background should not desire to be the
foremost figure in a piece.'

The supper room, fitted up at great expense, with scenery to
imitate Vauxhall, opened into a superb greenhouse, lighted with
coloured lamps, a band of music at a distance--every delicacy,
every luxury that could gratify the senses, appeared in
profusion.  The company ate and drank--enjoyed themselves--went
away--and laughed at their hostess.  Some, indeed, who thought
they had been neglected, were in too bad humour to laugh, but
abused her in sober earnest; for Lady Clonbrony had offended
half, nay, three-quarters of her guests, by what they termed her
exclusive attention to those very leaders of the ton, from whom
she had suffered so much, and who had made it obvious to all that
they thought they did her too much honour in appearing at her
gala.  So ended the gala for which she had lavished such sums;
for which she had laboured so indefatigably; and from which she
had expected such triumph.

'Colambre, bid the musicians stop; they are playing to empty
benches,' said Lady Clonbrony.  'Grace, my dear, will you see
that these lamps are safely put out?  I am so tired, so WORN OUT,
I must go to bed; and I am sure I have caught cold too!  What a
NERVOUS BUSINESS it is to manage these things!  I wonder how one
gets through it, or WHY one does it!'



CHAPTER IV

Lady Clonbrony was taken ill the day after her gala; she had
caught cold by standing, when much overheated, in a violent
draught of wind, paying her parting compliments to the Duke of
V--, who thought her a bore, and wished her in heaven all the
time for keeping his horses standing.  Her ladyship's illness was
severe and long; she was confined to her room for some weeks by a
rheumatic fever, and an inflammation in her eyes.  Every day,
when Lord Colambre went to see his mother, he found Miss Nugent
in her apartment, and every hour he found fresh reason to admire
this charming girl.  The affectionate tenderness, the
indefatigable patience, the strong attachment she showed for her
aunt, actually raised Lady Clonbrony in her son's opinion.  He
was persuaded she must surely have some good or great qualities,
or she could not have excited such strong affection.  A few
foibles out of the question, such as her love of fine people, her
affectation of being English, and other affectations too tedious
to mention, Lady Clonbrony was really a good woman, had good
principles, moral and religious, and, selfishness not immediately
interfering, she was good-natured; and though her soul and
attention were so completely absorbed in the duties of
acquaintanceship that she did not know it, she really had
affections--they were concentrated upon a few near relations.
She was extremely fond and extremely proud of her son.  Next to
her son, she was fonder of her niece than of any other creature.
She had received Grace Nugent into her family when she was left
an orphan, and deserted by some of her other relations.  She had
bred her up, and had treated her with constant kindness.  This
kindness and these obligations had raised the warmest gratitude
in Miss Nugent's heart; and it was the strong principle of
gratitude which rendered her capable of endurance and exertions
seemingly far above her strength.  This young lady was not of a
robust appearance, though she now underwent extraordinary
fatigue.  Her aunt could scarcely bear that she should leave her
for a moment:  she could not close her eyes unless Grace sat up
with her many hours every night.  Night after night she bore this
fatigue; and yet, with little sleep or rest, she preserved her
health, at least supported her spirits; and every morning, when
Lord Colambre came into his mother's room, he saw Miss Nugent
look as blooming as if she had enjoyed the most refreshing sleep.
The bloom was, as he observed, not permanent; it came and went,
with every emotion of her feeling heart; and he soon learned to
fancy her almost as handsome when she was pale as when she had a
colour.  He had thought her beautiful when he beheld her in all
the radiance of light, and with all the advantages of dress at
the gala, but he found her infinitely more lovely and interesting
now, when he saw her in a sick-room--a half-darkened chamber
--where often he could but just discern her form, or distinguish
her, except by her graceful motion as she passed, or when, but
for a moment, a window-curtain drawn aside let the sun shine upon
her face, or on the unadorned ringlets of her hair.

Much must be allowed for an inflammation in the eyes, and
something for a rheumatic fever; yet it may seem strange that
Lady Clonbrony should be so blind and deaf as neither to see nor
hear all this time; that, having lived so long in the world, it
should never occur to her that it was rather imprudent to have a
young lady, not eighteen, nursing her--and such a young lady!--
when her son, not one-and-twenty--and such a son!--came to visit
her daily.  But, so it was.  Lady Clonbrony knew nothing of love
--she had read of it, indeed, in novels, which sometimes for
fashion's sake she had looked at, and over which she had been
obliged to doze; but this was only love in books--love in real
life she had never met with--in the life she led, how should she?
She had heard of its making young people, and old people even, do
foolish things; but those were foolish people; and if they were
worse than foolish, why it was shocking, and nobody visited them.
But Lady Clonbrony had not, for her own part, the slightest,
notion how people could be brought to this pass, nor how anybody
out of Bedlam could prefer to a good house, a decent equipage,
and a proper establishment, what is called love in a cottage.  As
to Colambre, she had too good an opinion of his understanding--to
say nothing of his duty to his family, his pride, his rank, and
his being her son--to let such an idea cross her imagination.  As
to her niece; in the first place, she was her niece, and first
cousins should never marry, because they form no new connexions
to strengthen the family interest, or raise its consequence.
This doctrine her ladyship had repeated for years so often and so
dogmatically, that she conceived it to be incontrovertible, and
of as full force as any law of the land, or as any moral or
religious obligation.  She would as soon have suspected her niece
of an intention of stealing her diamond necklace as of purloining
Colambre's heart, or marrying this heir of the house of
Clonbrony.

Miss Nugent was so well apprised, and so thoroughly convinced of
all this, that she never for one moment allowed herself to think
of Lord Colambre as a lover.  Duty, honour, and gratitude--
gratitude, the strong feeling and principle of her mind--forbade
it; she had so prepared and habituated herself to consider him as
a person with whom she could not possibly be united that, with
perfect ease and simplicity, she behaved towards him exactly as
if he was her brother--not in the equivocating sentimental
romance style in which ladies talk of treating men as their
brothers, whom they are all the time secretly thinking of and
endeavouring to please as lovers--not using this phrase as a
convenient pretence, a safe mode of securing herself from
suspicion or scandal, and of enjoying the advantages of
confidence and the intimacy of friendship, till the propitious
moment, when it should be time to declare or avow THE SECRET OF
THE HEART.  No; this young lady was quite above all double-
dealing; she had no mental reservation--no metaphysical
subtleties--but, with plain, unsophisticated morality, in good
faith and simple truth, acted as she professed, thought what she
said, and was that which she seemed to be.

As soon as Lady Clonbrony was able to see anybody, her niece sent
to Mrs. Broadhurst, who was very intimate with the family; she
used to come frequently, almost every evening, to sit with the
invalid.  Miss Broadhurst accompanied her mother, for she did not
like to go out with any other chaperon--it was disagreeable to
spend her time alone at home, and most agreeable to spend it with
her friend Miss Nugent.  In this she had no design, no coquetry;
Miss Broadhurst had too lofty and independent a spirit to stoop
to coquetry:  she thought that, in their interview at the gala,
she understood Lord Colambre, and that he understood her--that he
was not inclined to court her for her fortune--that she would not
be content with any suitor who was not a lover.  She was two or
three years older than Lord Colambre, perfectly aware of her want
of beauty, yet with a just sense of her own merit, and of what
was becoming and due to the dignity of her sex.  This, she
trusted, was visible in her manners, and established in Lord
Colambre's mind; so that she ran no risk of being misunderstood
by him; and as to what the rest of the world thought, she was so
well used to hear weekly and daily reports of her going to be
married to fifty different people, that she cared little for what
was said on this subject.  Indeed, conscious of rectitude, and
with an utter contempt for mean and commonplace gossiping, she
was, for a woman, and a young woman, rather too disdainful of the
opinion of the world.  Mrs. Broadhurst, though her daughter had
fully explained herself respecting Lord Colambre, before she
began this course of visiting, yet rejoiced that, even on this
footing, there should be constant intercourse between them.  It
was Mrs. Broadhurst's warmest wish that her daughter should
obtain rank, and connect herself with an ancient family:  she was
sensible that the young lady's being older than the gentleman
might be an obstacle; and very sorry she was to find that her
daughter had so imprudently, so unnecessarily, declared her age;
but still this little obstacle might be overcome; much greater
difficulties in the marriage of inferior heiresses were every day
got over, and thought nothing of.  Then, as to the young lady's
own sentiments, her mother knew them better than she did herself;
she understood her daughter's pride, that she dreaded to be made
an object of bargain and sale; but Mrs. Broadhurst, who, with all
her coarseness of mind, had rather a better notion of love
matters than Lady Clonbrony, perceived, through her daughter's
horror of being offered to Lord Colambre, through her anxiety
that nothing approaching to an advance on the part of her family
should be made, that if Lord Colambre should himself advance, he
would stand a better chance of being accepted than any other of
the numerous persons who had yet aspired to the favour of this
heiress.  The very circumstance of his having paid no court to
her at first, operated in his favour; for it proved that he was
not mercenary, and that, whatever attention he might afterwards
show, she must be sure would be sincere and disinterested.

'And now, let them but see one another in this easy, intimate
kind of way, and you will find, my dear Lady Clonbrony, things
will go on of their own accord, all the better for our--minding
our cards--and never minding anything else.  I remember, when I
was young--but let that pass--let the young people see one
another, and manage their own affairs their own way--let them be
together--that's all I say.  Ask half the men you are acquainted
with why they married, and their answer, if they speak truth,
will be:  "Because I met Miss such-a-one at such a place, and we
were continually together."  Propinquity!  propinquity!--as my
father used to say-- and he was married five times, and twice to
heiresses.'

In consequence of this plan of leaving things to themselves,
every evening Lady Clonbrony made out her own little card-table
with Mrs. Broadhurst, and a Mr. and Miss Pratt, a brother and
sister, who were the most obliging, convenient neighbours
imaginable.  From time to time, as Lady Clonbrony gathered up her
cards, she would direct an inquiring glance to the group of young
people at the other table; whilst the more prudent Mrs.
Broadhurst sat plump with her back to them, pursing up her lips,
and contracting her brows in token of deep calculation, looking
down impenetrable at her cards, never even noticing Lady
Clonbrony's glances, but inquiring from her partner, 'How many
they were by honours?'

The young party generally consisted of Miss Broadhurst, Lord
Colambre, Miss Nugent, and her admirer, Mr. Salisbury.  Mr.
Salisbury was a middle-aged gentleman, very agreeable, and well
informed; he had travelled; had seen a great deal of the world;
had lived in the best company; had acquired what is called good
TACT; was full of anecdote, not mere gossiping anecdotes that
lead to nothing, but anecdotes characteristic of national
manners, of human nature in general, or of those illustrious
individuals who excite public curiosity and interest.  Miss
Nugent had seen him always in large companies, where he was
admired for his SCAVOIR-VIVRE, and for his entertaining
anecdotes, but where he had no opportunity of producing any of
the higher powers of his understanding, or showing character.
She found that Mr. Salisbury appeared to her quite a different
person when conversing with Lord Colambre.  Lord Colambre, with
that ardent thirst for knowledge which it is always agreeable to
gratify, had an air of openness and generosity, a frankness, a
warmth of manner, which, with good breeding, but with something
beyond it and superior to its established forms, irresistibly won
the confidence and attracted the affection of those with whom he
conversed.  His manners were peculiarly agreeable to a person
like Mr. Salisbury, tired of the sameness and egotism of men of
the world.

Miss Nugent had seldom till now had the advantage of hearing much
conversation on literary subjects.  In the life she had been
compelled to lead she had acquired accomplishments, had exercised
her understanding upon everything that passed before her, and
from circumstances had formed her judgment and her taste by
observations on real life; but the ample page of knowledge had
never been unrolled to her eyes.  She had never had opportunities
of acquiring literature herself, but she admired it in others,
particularly in her friend Miss Broadhurst.  Miss Broadhurst had
received all the advantages of education which money could
procure, and had profited by them in a manner uncommon among
those for whom they are purchased in such abundance; she not only
had had many masters, and read many books, but had thought of
what she read, and had supplied, by the strength and energy of
her own mind, what cannot be acquired by the assistance of
masters.  Miss Nugent, perhaps overvaluing the information that
she did not possess, and free from all idea of envy, looked up to
her friend as to a superior being, with a sort of enthusiastic
admiration; and now, with 'charmed attention,' listened, by
turns, to her, to Mr. Salisbury, and to Lord Colambre, whilst
they conversed on literary subjects--listened, with a countenance
so full of intelligence, of animation so expressive of every good
and kind affection, that the gentlemen did not always know what
they were saying.

'Pray go on,' said she, once, to Mr. Salisbury; 'you stop,
perhaps, from politeness to me--from compassion to my ignorance;
but, though I am ignorant, you do not tire me, I assure you.  Did
you ever condescend to read the Arabian tales?  Like him whose
eyes were touched by the magical application from the dervise, I
am enabled at once to see the riches of a new world--Oh!  how
unlike, how superior to that in which I have lived!--the GREAT
world, as it is called.'

Lord Colambre brought down a beautiful edition of the Arabian
tales, looked for the story to which Miss Nugent had alluded, and
showed it to Miss Broadhurst, who was also searching for it in
another volume.

Lady Clonbrony, from her card-table, saw the young people thus
engaged.

'I profess not to understand these things so well as you say you
do, my dear Mrs. Broadhurst,' whispered she; 'but look there now;
they are at their books!  What do you expect can come of that
sort of thing?  So ill-bred, and downright rude of Colambre, I
must give him a hint.'

'No, no, for mercy's sake!  my dear Lady Clonbrony, no hints, no
hints, no remarks!  What would you have!--she reading, and my
lord at the back of her chair, leaning over--and allowed, mind,
to lean over to read the same thing.  Can't be better!  Never saw
any man yet allowed to come so near her!  Now, Lady Clonbrony,
not a word, not a look, I beseech.'

'Well, well!--but if they had a little music.'

'My daughter's tired of music.  How much do I owe your ladyship
now?--three rubbers, I think.  Now, though you would not believe
it of a young girl,' continued Mrs. Broadhurst, 'I can assure
your ladyship, my daughter would often rather go to a book than a
ball.'

'Well, now, that's very extraordinary, in the style in which she
has been brought up; yet books and all that are so fashionable
now, that it's very natural,' said Lady Clonbrony.

About this time, Mr. Berryl, Lord Colambre's Cambridge friend,
for whom his lordship had fought the battle of the curricle with
Mordicai, came to town.  Lord Colambre introduced him to his
mother, by whom he was graciously received; for Mr. Berryl was a
young gentleman of good figure, good address, good family, heir
to a good fortune, and in every respect a fit match for Miss
Nugent.  Lady Clonbrony thought that it would be wise to secure
him for her niece before he should make his appearance in the
London world, where mothers and daughters would soon make him
feel his own consequence.  Mr. Berryl, as Lord Colambre's
intimate friend, was admitted to the private evening parties at
Lady Clonbrony's, and he contributed to render them still more
agreeable.  His information, his habits of thinking, and his
views, were all totally different from Mr. Salisbury's; and their
collision continually struck out that sparkling novelty which
pleases peculiarly in conversation.  Mr. Berryl's education,
disposition, and tastes, fitted him exactly for the station which
he was destined to fill in society--that of a COUNTRY GENTLEMAN;
not meaning by that expression a mere eating, drinking, hunting,
shooting, ignorant country squire of the old race, which is now
nearly extinct; but a cultivated, enlightened, independent
English country gentleman--the happiest, perhaps, of human
beings.  On the comparative felicity of the town and country
life; on the dignity, utility, elegance, and interesting nature
of their different occupations, and general scheme of passing
their time, Mr. Berryl and Mr. Salisbury had one evening a
playful, entertaining, and, perhaps, instructive conversation;
each party, at the end, remaining, as frequently happens, of
their own opinion.  It was observed that Miss Broadhurst ably and
warmly defended Mr. Berryl's side of the question; and in their
views, plans, and estimates of life, there appeared a remarkable,
and as Lord Colambre thought, a happy coincidence.  When she was
at last called upon to give her decisive judgment between a town
and a country life, she declared that 'if she were condemned to
the extremes of either, she should prefer a country life, as much
as she should prefer Robinson Crusoe's diary to the journal of
the idle man in the SPECTATOR.'

'Lord bless me!  Mrs. Broadhurst, do you hear what your daughter
is saying?'  cried Lady Clonbrony, who, from the card-table, lent
an attentive ear to all that was going forward.  'Is it possible
that Miss Broadhurst, with her fortune, and pretensions, and
sense, can really be serious in saying she would be content to
live in the country?'

'What's that you say, child, about living in the country?'  said
Mrs. Broadhurst.

Miss Broadhurst repeated what she had said.

'Girls always think so who have lived in town,' said Mrs.
Broadhurst.  'They are always dreaming of sheep and sheephooks;
but the first winter the country cures them; a shepherdess, in
winter, is a sad and sorry sort of personage, except at a
masquerade.'

'Colambre,' said Lady Clonbrony, 'I am sure Miss Broadhurst's
sentiments about town life, and all that, must delight you; for
do you know, ma'am, he is always trying to persuade me to give up
living in town?  Colambre and Miss Broadhurst perfectly agree.'

'Mind your cards, my dear Lady Clonbrony,' interrupted Mrs.
Broadhurst, 'in pity to your partner.  Mr. Pratt has certainly
the patience of Job--your ladyship has revoked twice this hand.'

Lady Clonbrony begged a thousand pardons, fixed her eyes and
endeavoured to fix her mind on the cards; but there was something
said at the other end of the room, about an estate in
Cambridgeshire, which soon distracted her attention again.  Mr.
Pratt certainly had the patience of Job.  She revoked, and lost
the game, though they had four by honours.

As soon as she rose from the card-table, and could speak to Mrs.
Broadhurst apart, she communicated her apprehensions.

'Seriously, my dear madam,' said she, 'I believe I have done very
wrong to admit Mr. Berryl just now, though it was on Grace's
account I did it.  But, ma'am, I did not know Miss Broadhurst had
an estate in Cambridgeshire; their two estates just close to one
another, I heard them say.  Lord bless me, ma'am!  there's the
danger of propinquity indeed!'

'No danger, no danger,' persisted Mrs. Broadhurst.  'I know my
girl better than you do, begging your ladyship's pardon.  No one
thinks less of estates than she does.'

'Well, I only know I heard her talking of them, and earnestly
too.'

'Yes, very likely; but don't you know that girls never think of
what they are talking about, or rather never talk of what they
are thinking about?  And they have always ten times more to say
to the man they don't care for, than to him they do.'

'Very extraordinary!'  said Lady Clonbrony.  'I only hope you are
right.'

'I am sure of it,' said Mrs. Broadhurst.  'Only let things go on,
and mind your cards, I beseech you, to-morrow night better than
you did to-night; and you will see that things will turn out just
as I prophesied.  Lord Colambre will come to a point-blank
proposal before the end of the week, and will be accepted, or my
name's not Broadhurst.  Why, in plain English, I am clear my girl
likes him; and when that's the case, you know, can you doubt how
the thing will end?'

Mrs. Broadhurst was perfectly right in every point of her
reasoning but one.  From long habit of seeing and considering
that such an heiress as her daughter might marry whom she
pleased--from constantly seeing that she was the person to decide
and to reject--Mrs. Broadhurst had literally taken it for granted
that everything was to depend upon her daughter's inclinations:
she was not mistaken, in the present case, in opining that the
young lady would not be averse to Lord Colambre, if he came to
what she called a point-blank proposal.  It really never occurred
to Mrs. Broadhurst that any man, whom her daughter was the least
inclined to favour, could think of anybody else.  Quick-sighted
in these affairs as the matron thought herself, she saw but one
side of the question:  blind and dull of comprehension as she
thought Lady Clonbrony on this subject, she was herself so
completely blinded by her own prejudices, as to be incapable of
discerning the plain thing that was before her eyes; VIDELICET,
that Lord Colambre preferred Grace Nugent.  Lord Colambre made no
proposal before the end of the week, but this Mrs. Broadhurst
attributed to an unexpected occurrence, which prevented things
from going on in the train in which they had been proceeding so
smoothly.  Sir John Berryl, Mr. Berryl's father, was suddenly
seized with a dangerous illness.  The news was brought to Mr.
Berryl one evening whilst he was at Lady Clonbrony's.  The
circumstances of domestic distress, which afterwards occurred in
the family of his friend, entirely occupied Lord Colambre's time
and attention.  All thoughts of love were suspended, and his
whole mind was given up to the active services of friendship.
The sudden illness of Sir John Berryl spread an alarm among his
creditors which brought to light at once the disorder of his
affairs, of which his son had no knowledge or suspicion.  Lady
Berryl had been a very expensive woman, especially in equipages;
and Mordicai, the coachmaker, appeared at this time the foremost
and the most inexorable of their creditors.  Conscious that the
charges in his account were exorbitant, and that they would not
be allowed if examined by a court of justice; that it was a debt
which only ignorance and extravagance could have in the first
instance incurred, swelled afterwards to an amazing amount by
interest, and interest upon interest; Mordicai was impatient to
obtain payment whilst Sir John yet lived, or at least to obtain
legal security for the whole sum from the heir.  Mr. Berryl
offered his bond for the amount of the reasonable charges in his
account; but this Mordicai absolutely refused, declaring that now
he had the power in his own hands, he would use it to obtain the
utmost penny of his debt; that he would not let the thing slip
through his fingers; that a debtor never yet escaped him, and
never should; that a man's lying upon his deathbed was no excuse
to a creditor; that he was not a whiffler, to stand upon ceremony
about disturbing a gentleman in his last moments; that he was not
to be cheated out of his due by such niceties; that he was
prepared to go all lengths the law would allow; for that, as to
what people said of him, he did not care a doit--'Cover your face
with your hands, if you like it, Mr. Berryl; you may be ashamed
for me, but I feel no shame for myself--I am not so weak.'
Mordicai's countenance said more than his words; livid with
malice, and with atrocious determination in his eyes, he stood.
'Yes, sir,' said he, 'you may look at me as you please--it is
possible I am in earnest.  Consult what you'll do now, behind my
back or before my face, it comes to the same thing; for nothing
will do but my money or your bond, Mr. Berryl.  The arrest is
made on the person of your father, luckily made while the breath
is still in the body.  Yes--start forward to strike me, if you
dare--your father, Sir John Berryl, sick or well, is my
prisoner.'

Lady Berryl and Mr. Berryl's sisters, in an agony of grief,
rushed into the room.

'It's all useless,' cried Mordicai, turning his back upon the
ladies; 'these tricks upon creditors won't do with me; I'm used
to these scenes; I'm not made of such stuff as you think.  Leave
a gentleman in peace in his last moments.  No!  he ought not, nor
shan't die in peace, if he don't pay his debts; and if you are
all so mighty sorry, ladies, there's the gentleman you may kneel
to; if tenderness is the order of the day, it's for the son to
show it, not me.  Ay, now, Mr. Berryl,' cried he, as Mr. Berryl
took up the bond to sign it, 'you're beginning to know I'm not a
fool to be trifled with.  Stop your hand, if you choose it, sir
--it's all the same to me; the person, or the money, I'll carry
with me out of this house.'

Mr. Beryl signed the bond, and threw it to him.

'There, monster!--quit the house!'

'Monster is not actionable--I wish you had called me rascal,'
said Mordicai, grinning a horrible smile; and taking up the bond
deliberately, returned it to Mr. Berryl.  'This paper is worth
nothing to me, sir--it is not witnessed.'

Mr. Berryl hastily left the room, and returned with Lord
Colambre.  Mordicai changed countenance and grew pale, for a
moment, at sight of Lord Colambre.

'Well, my lord, since it so happens, I am not sorry that you
should be witness to this paper,' said, he; 'and indeed not sorry
that you should witness the whole proceeding; for I trust I shall
be able to explain to you my conduct.'

'I do not come here, sir,' interrupted Lord Colambre, 'to listen
to any explanations of your conduct, which I perfectly
understand;--I come to witness a bond for my friend Mr. Berryl,
if you think proper to extort from him such a bond.'

'I extort nothing, my lord.  Mr. Berryl, it is quite a voluntary
act, take notice, on your part; sign or not, witness or not, as
you please, gentlemen,' said Mordicai, sticking his hands in his
pockets, and recovering his look of black and fixed
determination.

'Witness it, witness it, my dear lord,' said Mr. Berryl, looking
at his mother and weeping sisters; 'witness it, quick!'

'Mr. Berryl must just run over his name again in your presence,
my lord, with a dry pen,' said Mordicai, putting the pen into Mr.
Berryl's hand.

'No, sir,' said Lord Colambre, 'my friend shall never sign it.'

'As you please, my lord--the bond or the body, before I quit this
house,' said Mordicai.

'Neither, sir, shall you have; and you quit this house directly.'

'How!  how!--my lord, how's this?'

'Sir, the arrest you have made is as illegal as it is inhuman.'

'Illegal, my lord!'  said Mordicai, startled.

'Illegal, sir.  I came into this house at the moment when your
bailiff asked and was refused admittance.  Afterwards, in the
confusion of the family above stairs, he forced open the house
door with an iron bar--I saw him--I am ready to give evidence of
the fact.  Now proceed at your peril.'

Mordicai, without reply snatched up his hat, and walked towards
the door; but Lord Colambre held the door open--the door was
immediately at the head of the stairs--and Mordicai, seeing his
indignant look and proud form, hesitated to pass; for he had
always heard that Irishmen are 'quick in the executive part of
justice.'

'Pass on, sir,' repeated Lord Colambre, with an air of ineffable
contempt; 'I am a gentleman--you have nothing to fear.'

Mordicai ran downstairs; Lord Colambre, before he went back into
the room, waited to see Mordicai and his bailiff out of the
house.  When Mordicai was fairly at the bottom of the stairs, he
turned, and, white with rage, looked up at Lord Colambre.

'Charity begins at home, my lord,' said he.  'Look at home--you
shall pay for this,' added he, standing half-shielded by the
house door, for Lord Colambre moved forward as he spoke the last
words; 'and I give you this warning, because I know it will be of
no use to you--Your most obedient, my lord.'

The house door closed after Mordicai.

'Thank Heaven!'  thought Lord Colambre, 'that I did not horsewhip
that mean wretch!  This warning shall be of use to me.  But it is
not time to think of that yet.'

Lord Colambre turned from his own affairs to those of his friend,
to offer all the assistance and consolation in his power.  Sir
John Berryl died that night.  His daughters, who had lived in the
highest style in London, were left totally unprovided for. His
widow had mortgaged her jointure.  Mr. Berryl had an estate now
left to him, but without any income.  He could not be so
dishonest as to refuse to pay his father's just debts; he could
not let his mother and sisters starve.  The scene of distress to
which Lord Colambre was witness in this family made a still
greater impression upon him than had been made by the warning or
the threats of Mordicai.  The similarity between the
circumstances of his friend's family and of his own struck him
forcibly.

All this evil had arisen from Lady Berryl's passion for living in
London and at watering-places.  She had made her husband an
ABSENTEE--an absentee from his home, his affairs, his duties, and
his estate.  The sea, the Irish Channel, did not, indeed, flow
between him and his estate; but it was of little importance
whether the separation was effected by land or water--the
consequences, the negligence, the extravagance, were the same.

Of the few people of his age who are capable of profiting by the
experience of others, Lord Colambre was one.  'Experience,' as an
elegant writer has observed, 'is an article that may be borrowed
with safety, and is often dearly bought.'



CHAPTER V

In the meantime, Lady Clonbrony had been occupied with thoughts
very different from those which passed in the mind of her son.
Though she had never completely recovered from her rheumatic
pains, she had become inordinately impatient of confinement to
her own house, and weary of those dull evenings at home, which
had, in her son's absence, become insupportable.  She told over
her visiting tickets regularly twice a day, and gave to every
card of invitation a heartfelt sigh.  Miss Pratt alarmed her
ladyship, by bringing intelligence of some parties given by
persons of consequence, to which she was not invited.  She feared
that she should be forgotten in the world, well knowing how soon
the world forgets those they do not see every day and everywhere.
How miserable is the fine lady's lot who cannot forget the world,
and who is forgot by the world in a moment!  How much more
miserable still is the condition of a would-be fine lady, working
her way up in the world with care and pains!  By her, every the
slightest failure of attention, from persons of rank and fashion,
is marked and felt with jealous anxiety, and with a sense of
mortification the most acute--an invitation omitted is a matter
of the most serious consequence, not only as it regards the
present, but the future; for if she be not invited by Lady A, it
will lower her in the eyes of Lady B, and of all the ladies of
the alphabet.  It will f