'I am sure, mother, you have been plagued quite enough with her already. You have neither been to church nor chapel, and scarcely eaten a morsel all the day. I can't imagine what pleasure you take in such people.'
'I wouldn't care if your father was at home; but I don't quite like to have her into the house without his leave, and she is not fit to be left in the barn.'
'Into the house, mother! That wild Irish beggar! Why, father would get into a fury, and I'm sure I should be afraid to sleep in the same place with such a creature.'
'Oh, my dear child! when will it please the Lord to soften your heart, and teach you that all men and women are brothers and sisters.'
'Never, I'm sure, in that kind of way.'
Whilst the mother and daughter continue their conversation about Gladys, of which the above is a specimen, we will glance at Janetta Prothero, the spoilt daughter of Glanyravon Farm.
She is decidedly a pretty girl? some might call her a beauty. She has dark eyes, black hair, a clear pink and white complexion, a round, dimpled cheek, a fair neck, a passable nose, and a very red-lipped, pouting mouth. She is small of stature—not much taller than her mother—but so well-formed, that her delicate little figure is quite the perfection of symmetry. Her movements are languid rather than brisk like her mother's, and she either has, or is desirous of having, more of the fine lady in her manners and appearance. We discern, as she talks, more of obstinacy than reason, and more of pride than sense, in her conversation, and the face rather expresses self-will than intellect, although not deficient in the latter.
We are led to suppose, from the appearance of the room in which the mother and daughter are located, that Miss Janetta is somewhat accomplished; more so than young ladies in her position commonly were some thirty or forty years ago. This is a large parlour, with some pretensions to be called a drawing-room. True, the furniture is of old-fashioned mahogany, the sofa of hair, the curtains of chintz, and all that appertains to the master and mistress of the house, of solid but ancient make. But the square piano, the endless succession of baskets, card-racks, etc., the footstools with the worsted-work dog and cat thereon emblazoned, the album and other books, so neatly and regularly placed round the table, and above all, three heads in very bad water-colours that adorn the walls—all proclaim the superior education of the daughter of the house, and her aspirations after modern gentility.
We will just take up the thread of the conversation of the mother and daughter at the end of it, and see what conclusions they have arrived at. In a somewhat doggedly excited tone, Miss Janetta says,—
'Well, mother, I know that father would be very angry, and that she might give us all low Irish fever. I shouldn't wonder if she brought a famine with her.'