Loe raamatut: «Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I.», lehekülg 20

CHAPTER XXXV. BEATTIE’S RETURN

The old Chief sat alone in his dining-room over his wine. If somewhat fatigued by the labors of the day, – for the Court had sat late, – he showed little of exhaustion; still less was he, as his years might have excused, drowsy or heavy. He sat bolt upright in his chair, and by an occasional gesture of his hand, or motion of his head, seemed as though he were giving assent to some statement he was listening to, or making his comments on it as it proceeded.

The post had brought a letter to Lucy just as dinner was over. It bore the post-mark “Cagliari,” and was in her brother’s hand; and the old man, with considerate kindness, told her to go to her room and read it. “No, my dear child,” said he, as she arose to leave the room; “no! I shall not be lonely, – where there is memory there are troops of friends. Come back and tell me your news when you have read your letter.”

More than an hour passed over, and he sat there heedless of time. A whole long life was passing in review before him, not connectedly, or in due sequence of events, but in detached scenes and incidents. Now it was some stormy night in the old Irish House, when Flood and Grattan exchanged their terrific denunciations and insults, – now it was a brilliant dinner at Ponsonby’s, with all the wits of the day, – now he was leading the famous Kitty O’Dwyer, the beauty of the Irish Court, to her carriage, amid such a murmur of admiration as made the progress a triumph; or, again, it was a raw morning of November, and he was driving across the park to be present at Curran’s meeting with Egan.

A violent ring of the hall bell startled him, and before he could inquire the cause a servant had announced Dr. Beattie.

“I thought I might be fortunate enough to catch you before bed-hour,” said the doctor, “and I knew you would like to hear some tidings of my mission.”

“You have been to – Where have you been?” said the old Judge, embarrassed between the late flood of his recollections and the sudden start of his arrival.

“To Killaloe, to see that poor fellow who had the severe fall in the hurdle-race.”

“Ay – to be sure – yes. I remember all now. Give me a moment, however.” He nodded his head twice or thrice, as if concurring with some statement, and then said, “Go on, sir; the Court is with you.”

Beattie proceeded to detail the accident and the state of the sufferer, – of whom he pronounced favorably, – saying that there was no fracture, nor anything worse than severe concussion. “In fact,” said he, “were it an hospital case, I’d say there was very little danger.”

“And do you mean to tell me, sir,” said the Judge, who had followed the narrative with extreme attention, “that the man of birth and blood must succumb in any conflict more readily than the low-born?”

“It’s not the individual I was thinking of, so much as his belongings here. What I fear for in the present case is what the patient must confront every day of his convalescence.”

Seeing that the Judge waited for some explanation, Beattie began to relate that, as he had started from Dublin the day before, he found himself in the same carriage with the young man’s mother, who had been summoned by telegraph to her son’s bedside.

“I have met,” said he, “in my time, nearly all sorts and conditions of people. Indeed, a doctor’s life brings him into contact with more maladies of nature and temperament than diseases of material origin; but anything like this woman I never saw before. To begin: she combined within herself two qualities that seem opposed to each other, – a most lavish candor on the score of herself and her family, and an intense distrust of all the rest of mankind. She told me she was a baronet’s wife; how she had married him; where they lived; what his estate was worth; how this young fellow had become, by the death of a brother, the heir to the property; and how his father, indignant at his extravagance, had disentailed the estate, to leave it to a younger son if so disposed. She showed at times the very greatest anxiety about her son’s state; but at other moments just as intense an eagerness to learn what schemes and intrigues were being formed against him, – who were the people in whose house he then was, what they were, and how he came there. To all my assurances that they were persons in every respect her son’s equals, she answered by a toss of the head or a saucy half-laugh. ‘Irish?’ asked she. ‘Yes, Irish.’ ‘I thought so,’ rejoined she; ‘I told Sir Hugh I was sure of it, though he said there were English Sewells.’ From this instant her distrust broke forth. All Ireland had been in a conspiracy against her family for years. She had a brother, she said it with a shiver of horror, who was cruelly beaten by an attorney in Cork for a little passing pleasantry to the man’s sister; he had kissed her, or something of the kind, in a railroad carriage; and her cousin, – poor dear Cornwall is Merivale, – it was in Ireland he found that creature that got the divorce against him two years since. She went on to say that there had been a plot against her son, in the very neighborhood where he now lay ill, only a year ago, – some intrigue to involve him in a marriage, the whole details of which she threatened me with the first time we should be alone.

“Though at some moments expressing herself in terms of real affection and anxiety about her poor son, she would suddenly break off to speculate on what might happen from his death. ‘You know, doctor, there is only one more boy, and if his life lapsed, Holt and the Holt estate goes to the Carringtons.’”

“An odious woman, sir, – a most odious woman; I only wonder why you continued to travel in the same carriage with her.”

“My profession teaches great tolerance,” said the doctor, mildly.

“Don’t call tolerance, sir, what there is a better word for, – subserviency. I am amazed how you endured this woman.”

“Remember – it is to’be remembered – that in my version of her I have condensed the conversation of some hours, and given you, as it were, the substance of much talking; and also that I have not attempted to convey what certainly was a very perfect manner. She had no small share of good looks, a very sweet voice, and considerable attraction in point of breeding.”

“I will accept none of these as alleviations, sir; her blandishments cannot blind the Court.”

“I will not deny their influence upon myself,” said Beattie, gently.

“I can understand you, sir,” said the Judge, pompously. “The habits of your profession teach you to swallow so much that is nauseous in a sweet vehicle, that you carry the same custom into morals.”

Beattie laughed so heartily at the analogy that the old man’s good-humor returned to him, and he bade him continue his narrative.

“I have not much more to tell. We reached the house by about eleven o’clock at night, and my fellow-traveller sat in the carriage till I announced her to Mrs. Sewell. My own cares called me to the sick-room, and I saw no more of the ladies till this morning, just before I came away.”

“She is, then, domesticated there? She has taken up her quarters at the Sewells’ house?”

“Yes. I found her maid, too, had taken possession of Colonel Sewell’s dressing-room, and dispossessed a number of his chattels to make room for her own.”

“It is a happy thing, a very happy thing for me, that I have not been tried by these ordeals,” said the Judge, with a long-drawn breath. “I wonder how Colonel Sewell will endure it.”

“I have no means of knowing; he arrived late at night, and was still in bed and asleep when I left.”

“You have not told me these people’s name?”

“Trafford, – Sir Hugh Beecham Trafford, of Holt-Trafford, Staffordshire.”

“I have met the man, or rather his father, for it was nigh fifty years ago, – an old family, and of Saxon origin; and his wife, – who was she?”

“Her name was Merivale. Her father, I think, was Governor of Madras.”

“If so, sir, she has hereditary claims for impertinence and presumption. Sir Ulysses Merivale enjoyed the proud distinction of being the most insolent man in England. It is well that you have told me who she was, Beattie, for I might have made a very fatal blunder. I was going to write to Sewell to say, ‘As this is a great issue, I would advise you to bring down your mother, “special,”’ but I recall my intention. Lady Lendrick would have no chance against Lady Trafford. Irish insolence has not the finish of the English article, and we put an alloy of feeling in it that destroys it altogether. Will the young man recover?”

“He is going on favorably, and I see nothing to apprehend, except, indeed, that the indiscretions of his mother may prejudice his case. She is very likely to insist on removing him; she hinted it to me as I took my leave.”

“I will write to the Sewells to come up here at once. They shall evacuate the territory, and leave her in possession. As persons closely connected with my family, they must not have this outrage put upon them.” He rang the bell violently, and desired the servant to request Miss Lendrick to come to him.

“She is not very well, my Lord, and has gone to her room. She told Mrs. Beales to serve your Lordship’s tea when you were ready for it.”

“What is this? What does all this mean?” said the old Judge, eagerly; for the idea of any one presuming to be ill without duly apprising him – without the preliminary step of ascertaining that it could not inconvenience him – was more than he was fully prepared for.

“Tell Mrs. Beales I want her,” said he, as he rose and left the room. Muttering angrily as he went, he ascended the stairs and traversed the long corridor which led to Lucy’s room; but before he had reached the door the housekeeper was at his side.

“Miss Lucy said she ‘d like to see your Lordship, if it was n’t too much trouble, my Lord.”

“I am going to see her. Ask her if I may come in.”

“Yes, my Lord,” said Mrs. Beales from the open door. “She is awake.”

“My own dear grandpapa,” said Lucy, stretching out her arms to him from her bed, “how good and kind of you to come here!”

“My dear, dear child,” said he, fondly; “tell me you are not ill; tell me that it is a mere passing indisposition.”

“Not even so much, grandpapa. It is simply a headache. I was crying, and I was ashamed that you should see it; and I walked out into the air; and I came back again, trying to look at ease; and my head began to throb and to pain me so that I thought it best to go to bed. It was a letter I got, – a letter from Cagliari. Poor Tom has had the terrible fever of the island. He said nothing about it at first, but now he has relapsed. There are only three lines in his own hand, – the rest is from his friend. You shall see what he says. It is very short, and not very hard to read.”

The old man put on his spectacles and read: —

“‘My very dear Lucy.’

“Who presumes to address you in this way? ‘Brook Fossbrooke?’ What! is this the man who is called Sir Brook Fossbrooke? By what means have you become so intimate with a person of his character?”

“I know nothing better, nothing more truly noble and generous, than his character,” said she, holding her temples as she spoke, for the pain of’ her head was almost agony. “Do read on, – read on, dearest grandpapa.”

He turned again to the letter, and read it over in silence till he came to the few words in Tom’s hand, which he read aloud: “Darling Lu – I shall be all right in a week. Don’t fret, but write me a long – long” – he had forgotten the word “letter,” – “and love me always.”

She burst into tears, as the old man read the words, for by some strange magic, the syllables of deep affection, uttered by one unmoved, smite the heart with a pang that is actual torture.

“I will take this letter down to Beattie, Lucy, and hear what he says of it,” said the old man, and left the room.

“Read this, Beattie, and tell me what you say to it,” said the Chief Baron, as he handed the doctor Sir Brook’s letter; “I’ll tell you of the writer when you have read it.”

Beattie read the note in silence, and as he laid it on the table said, “I know the man, and his strange old-fashioned writing would have recalled him without his name.”

“And what do you know of him, sir?” asked the Judge, sternly.

“I can tell you the story in three words: He came to consult me one morning, about six or eight months ago. It was about an insurance on his life, – a very small sum he wanted to raise, to go out to this very place he writes from. He got to talk about the project, and I don’t exactly know how it came about, – I forget the details now, – but it ended by my lending him the money myself.”

“What, sir! do you combine usury with physic?”

“On that occasion I appear to have done so,” said Beattie, laughing.

“And you advanced a sum of money to a man whom you saw for the first time, simply on his showing that his life was too insecure to guarantee repayment?”

“That puts the matter a little too nakedly.”

“It puts it truthfully, sir, I apprehend.”

“If you mean that the man impressed me so favorably that I was disposed to do him a small service, you are right.”

“You and I, Beattie, are too old for this impulsive generosity, – too old by thirty years! After forty philanthropy should take a chronic form, and never have paroxysms. I think I am correct in my medical language.”

“Your medicine pleases me more than your morality,” said Beattie, laughing; “but to come back to this Sir Brook, I wish you had seen him.”

“Sir, I have seen him, and I have heard of him, and if not at liberty to say what I have heard of him, it is quite enough to state that my information cannot corroborate your opinion.”

“Well, my Lord, the possibility of what I might hear will not shake the stability of what I have seen. Remember that we doctors imagine we read human nature by stronger spectacles than the laity generally.”

“You imagine it, I am aware, sir; but I have met with no such instances of acuteness amongst your co-professionals as would sustain the claim; but why are we wandering from the record? I gave you that letter to read that you might tell me, is this boy’s case a dangerous one?”

“It is a very grave case, no doubt; this is the malaria fever of Sardinia, – bad enough with the natives, but worse with strangers. He should be removed to better air at once if he could bear removal.”

“So is it ever with your art,” said the Judge, in a loud declamatory voice. “You know nothing in your difficulties but a piteous entreaty to the unknown resources of nature to assist you. No, sir; I will not hear your defence; there is no issue before the Court. What sort of practitioners have they in this island?”

“Rude enough, I can believe.”

“Could a man of eminence be found to go out there and see him?”

“A man in large practice could not spare the time; but there are men of ability who are not yet in high repute: one of these might be possibly induced.”

“And what might the expense be?”

“A couple of hundred – say three hundred pounds, would perhaps suffice.”

“Go upstairs and see my granddaughter. She is very nervous and feverish; calm her mind so far as you are able; say that we are concerting measures for her brother’s benefit; and by the time you shall come down again I will have made up my mind what to do.”

Beattie was a valued friend of Lucy’s, and she was glad to see him enter her room, but she would not suffer him to speak of herself; it was of poor Tom alone she would talk. She heard with delight the generous intentions of her grandfather, and exclaimed with rapture, – “This is his real nature, and yet it is only by the little foibles of his temper that the world knows him; but we, doctor, – we, who see him as he is, know how noble-hearted and affectionate he can be!”

“I must hasten back to him,” said Beattie, after a short space; “for should he decide on sending out a doctor, I must lose no time, as I must return to see this young fellow at Killaloe to-morrow.”

“Oh, in my greater anxieties I forgot him! How is he, – can he recover?”

“Yes, I regard him as out of danger, – that is, if Lady Trafford can be persuaded not to talk him into a relapse.”

“Lady Trafford! who is she?”

“His mother; she arrived last night.”

“And his name is Trafford, and his Christian name Lionel?”

“Lionel Wentworth Trafford. I took it from his dressing-case when I prescribed for him.”

Lucy had been leaning on her arm as she spoke, but she now sank slowly backward and fainted.

It was a long time before consciousness came back, and even then she lay voiceless and motionless, and, though she heard what Beattie said to her, unable to speak to him, or intimate by a gesture that she heard him.

The doctor needed no confidences, – he read the whole story. There are expressions in the human face which have no reference to physical ills; nor are there any indications of bodily suffering. He who asked, “Canst thou minister to a mind diseased?” knew how hopeless was his question; and this very despair it is – this sense of an affliction beyond the reach of art – gives a character to the expression which the doctor’s eye never fails to discriminate from the look worn by mere malady.

As she lay there motionless, her large eyes looking at him with that expression in which eagerness struggles against debility, he saw how he had become her confidant.

“Come, my dear child,” said he, taking her hand between both his own, “you have no occasion for fears on this score, – so far I assure you on my honor.”

She gave his hand a slight, a very slight pressure, and tried to say something, but could not. “I will go down now, and see what is to be done about your brother.” She nodded, and he continued: “I will pay you another visit to-morrow early, before I leave town, and let me find you strong and hearty; and remember that though I force no confidences, Lucy, I will not refuse them if you offer.”

“I have none, sir, – none,” said she, in a voice of deep melancholy.

“So that I know all that is to be known?” asked he.

“All, sir,” said she, with a trembling lip.

“Well, accept me as a friend whom you may trust, my dear Lucy. If you want me, I will not fail you; and if you have no need of me, there is nothing that has passed to-day between us ever to be remembered, – you understand me?”

“I do, sir. You will come to-morrow, won’t you?”

He nodded assent, and left her.

CHAPTER XXXVI. AN EXIT

Colonel Sewell stood at the window of a small drawing-room he called “his own,” watching the details of loading a very cumbrous travelling-carriage which was drawn up before the door. Though the postilions were in the saddle, and all ready for a start, the process of putting up the luggage went on but slowly, – now a heavy imperial would be carried out, and after a while taken in again; dressing-boxes carefully stowed away would be disinterred to be searched for some missing article; bags, baskets, and boxes of every shape and sort came and went and came again; and although the two footmen who assisted these operations showed in various ways what length of training had taught them to submit to in the way of worry and caprice, the smart “maid,” who now and then appeared to give some order, displayed most unmistakable signs of ill-humor on her face. “Drat those dogs! I wish they were down the river!” cried she, of two yelping, barking Maltese terriers, which, with small bells jingling on their collars, made an uproar that was perfectly deafening.

“Well, Miss Morris, if it would oblige you– ” said one of the tall footmen, as he caressed his whisker, and gave a very languishing look, more than enough, he thought, to supply the words wanting to his sentence.

“It would oblige me very much, Mr. George, to get away out of this horrid place. I never did – no, never – in all my life pass such a ten days.”

“We ain’t a-going just yet, after all,” said footman number two, with a faint yawn.

“It’s so like you, Mr. Breggis, to say something disagreeable,” said she, with a toss of her head.

“It’s because it’s true I say it, not because it’s onpleasant, Miss Caroline.”

“I’m not Miss Caroline, at least from you, Mr. Breggis.”

“Ain’t she haughty, – ain’t she fierce?” But his colleague would not assent to this judgment, and looked at her with a longing admiration.

“There’s her bell again,” cried the girl; “as sure as I live, she’s rung forty times this morning;” and she hurried back to the house.

“Why do you think we’re not off yet?” asked George.

“It’s the way I heerd her talking that shows me,” replied the other. “Whenever she ‘s really about to leave a place she goes into them fits of laughing and crying and screaming one minute, and a-whimpering the next; and then she tells the people – as it were, unknownst to her – how she hated them all, – how stingy they was, – the shameful way they starved the servants, and such-like. There’s some as won’t let her into their houses by reason of them fits, for she’ll plump out everything she knows of a family, – who ran away with the Misses, and why the second daughter went over to France.”

“You know her better than me, Breggis.”

“I do think I does; it’s eight years I ‘ve had of it. Eh, what’s that, – was n’t that a screech?” and as he spoke a wild shrill scream resounded through the house, followed by a rapid succession of notes that might either have been laughter or crying.

Sewell drew the curtain; and wheeling an arm-chair to the fireside, lit his cigar, and began to smoke.

The house was so small that the noises could be heard easily in every part of it; and for a time the rapid passage of persons overhead, and the voices of many speaking together, could be detected, and, above these, a wild shriek would now and then rise above all, and ring through the house. Sewell smoked on undisturbed; it was not easy to say that he so much as heard these sounds. His indolent attitude, and his seeming enjoyment of his cigar, indicated perfect composure; nor even when the door opened, and his wife entered the room, did he turn his head to see who it was.

“Can William have the pony to go into town?” asked she, in a half-submissive voice.

“For what?”

“To tell Dr. Tobin to come out; Lady Trafford is taken ill.”

“He can go on foot; I may want the pony.”

“She is alarmingly ill, I fear, – very violent spasms; and I don’t think there is any time to be lost.”

“Nobody that makes such a row as that can be in any real danger.”

“She is in great pain, at all events.”

“Send one of her own people, – despatch one of the postboys, – do what you like, only don’t bore me.”

She was turning to leave the room, when he called out, “I say, when the attack came on did she take the opportunity to tell you any pleasant little facts about yourself or your family?” She smiled faintly, and moved towards the door. “Can’t you tell me, ma’am? Has this woman been condoling with you over your hard fate and your bad husband? or has she discovered how that ‘dear boy’ upstairs broke his head as well as his heart in your service?”

“She did ask me certainly if there was n’t a great friendship between you and her son,” said she, with a tone of quiet disdain.

“And what did you reply?” said he, throwing one leg over the arm of the chair as he swung round to face her.

“I don’t well remember. I may have said you liked him, or that he liked you. It was such a commonplace reply I made, I forget it.”

“And was that all that passed on the subject?”

“I think I’d better send for the doctor,” said she, and left the room before he could stop her, though that such was his intention was evident from the way he arose from his chair with a sudden spring.

“You shall hear more of this, Madam, – by Heaven, you shall!” muttered he, as he paced the room with rapid steps. “Who’s that? Come in,” cried he, as a knock came to the door. “Oh, Balfour! is it you?”

“Yes; what the deuce is going on upstairs? Lady Trafford appears to have gone mad.”

“Indeed! how unpleasant!”

“Very unpleasant for your wife, I take it. She has been saying all sorts of unmannerly things to her this last hour, – things that, if she were n’t out of her reason, she ought to be thrown out of the window for.”

“And why didn’t you do so?”

“It was a liberty I couldn’t think of taking in another man’s house.”

“Lord love you, I’d have thought nothing of it! I’m the best-natured fellow breathing. What was it she said?”

“I don’t know how I can repeat them.”

“Oh, I see, they reflect on me. My dear young friend, when you live to my age you will learn that anything can be said to anybody, provided it only be done by ‘the third party.’ Whatever the law rejects as evidence, assumes in social life the value of friendly admonition. Go on, and tell me who it is is in love with my wife.”

Cool as Mr. Cholmondely Balfour was, the tone of this demand staggered him.

“Art thou the man, Balfour?” said Sewell at last, staring at him with a mock frown.

“No, by Jove! I never presumed that far.”

“It’s the sick fellow, then, is the culprit?”

“So his mother opines. She is an awful woman! I was sitting with your wife in the small drawing-room when she burst into the room and cried out, ‘Mrs. Sewell, is your name Lucy? for, if so, my son has been rambling on about you this last hour in a wonderful way: he has told me about fifty times that he wants to see you before he dies; and now that the doctor says he is out of danger he never ceases talking of dying. I suppose you have no objection to the interview; at least they tell me you were constantly in his room before my arrival.”

“How did my wife take this? – what did she say?” asked Sewell, with an easy smile as he spoke.

“She said something about agitation or anxiety serving to excuse conduct which otherwise would be unpardonable; and she asked me to send her maid to her, – as I think, to get me away.”

“Of course you rang the bell and sat down again.”

“No; she gave me a look that said, I don’t want you here, and I went; but the storm broke out again as I closed the door, and I heard Lady Trafford’s voice raised to a scream as I came downstairs.”

“It all shows what I have said over and over again,” said Sewell, slowly, “that whenever a man has a grudge or a grievance against a woman, he ought always to get another woman to torture her. I ‘ll lay you fifty pounds Lady Traf-ford cut deeper into my wife’s flesh by her two or three impertinences than if I had stormed myself into an apoplexy.”

“And don’t you mean to turn her out of the house?”

“Turn whom out?”

“Lady Trafford, of course.”

“It’s not so easily done, I suspect. I’ll take to the long-boat myself one of these days, and leave her in command of the ship.”

“I tell you she’s a dangerous, a very dangerous woman; she has been ransacking her son’s desk, and has come upon all sorts of ugly memoranda, – sums lost at play, and reminders to meet bills, and such-like.”

“Yes; he was very unlucky of late,” said Sewell, coldly.

“And there was something like a will, too; at least there was a packet of trinkets tied up in a paper, which purported to be a will, but only bore the name Lucy.”

“How delicate! there’s something touching in that, Balfour; isn’t there?” said Sewell, with a grin. “How wonderfully you seem to have got up the case! You know the whole story. How did you manage it?”

“My fellow Paxley had it from Lady Trafford’s maid. She told him that her mistress was determined to show all her son’s papers to the Chief Baron, and blow you sky high.”

“That’s awkward, certainly,” said Sewell, in deep thought. “It would be a devil of a conflagration if two such combustibles came together. I ‘d rather she ‘d fight it out with my mother.”

“Have you sent in your papers to the Horse Guards?”

“Yes; it’s all finished. I am gazetted out, or I shall be on Tuesday.”

“I’m sorry for it. Not that it signifies much as to this registrarship. We never intended to relinquish our right to it, we mean to throw the case into Chancery, and we have one issue already to submit to trial at bar.”

“Who are we that are going to do all this?”

“The Crown,” said Balfour, haughtily.

“Ego et rex meus; that’s the style, is it? Come now, Balfy, if you ‘re for a bet, I ‘ll back my horse, the Chief Baron, against the field. Give me sporting odds, for he ‘s aged, and must run in bandages besides.”

“That woman’s coming here at this moment was most unlucky.”

“Of course it was; it would n’t be my lot if it were anything else. I say,” cried he, starting up, and approaching the window, “what’s up now?”

“She’s going at last, I really believe.”

The sound of many and heavy footsteps was now heard descending the stairs slowly, and immediately after two men issued from the door, carrying young Trafford on a chair; his arms hung listlessly at his side, and his head was supported by his servant.

“I wonder whose doing is this? Has the doctor given his concurrence to it? How are they to get him into the coach, and what are they to do with him when he is there?” Such was the running commentary Balfour kept up all the time they were engaged in depositing the sick man in the carriage. Again a long pause of inaction ensued, and at last a tap came to the door of the room, and a servant inquired for Mr. Balfour.

“There!” cried Sewell, “it’s your turn now. I only hope she ‘ll insist on your accompanying her to town.”

Balfour hurried out, and was seen soon afterwards escorting Lady Trafford to the carriage. Whether it was that she was not yet decided as to her departure, or that she had so many injunctions to give before going, the eventful moment was long delayed. She twice tried the seat in the carriage, once with cushions and then without. She next made Balfour try whether it might not be possible to have a sort of inclined plane to lie upon. At length she seemed overcome with her exertions, sent for a chair, and had a glass of water given her, to which her maid added certain drops from a phial.

“You will tell Colonel Sewell all I have said, Mr. Balfour,” said she, aloud, as she prepared to enter the carriage. “It would have been more agreeable to me had he given me the opportunity of saying it to himself, but his peculiar notions on the duties of a host have prevented this. As to Mrs. Sewell, I hope and believe I have sufficiently explained myself. She at least knows my sentiments as to what goes on in this house. Of course, sir, it is very agreeable to you. Men of pleasure are not persons to be overburdened with scruples, – least of all such scruples as interfere with self-indulgence. This sort of life is therefore charming; I leave you to all its delights, sir, and do not even warn you against its dangers. I will not promise the same discretion, however, when I go hence. I owe it to all mothers who have sons, Mr. Balfour, – I owe it to every family in which there is a name to be transmitted, and a fortune to be handed down, to declare what I have witnessed under this roof. No, Lionel, – no, my dear boy; nothing shall prevent my speaking out.” This was addressed to her son, who by a deep sigh seemed to protest against the sentiments he was not able to oppose. “It may suit Mr. Balfour’s habits, or his tastes, to remain here, – with these I have nothing to do. The Duke of Bayswater might possibly think his heir could keep better company, – with that I have no concern; though when the matter comes to be discussed before me, – as it one day will, I have no doubt, – I shall hold myself free to state my opinion. Good-bye, sir; you will, perhaps, do me the favor to call at the Bilton; I shall remain till Saturday there; I have resolved not to leave Ireland till I see the Viceroy; and also have a meeting with this Judge, I forget his name, Lam – Lena – what is it? He is the Chief something, and easily found.”