(and I will do nothing particular without first letting you know).
They were all loud against this paragraph, but they could not carry their point.
I must tell you, dear Barry, that you are very much mistaken about the people of this house: they are dear, kind friends to me, and, wherever I am, I must love them to the last day of my life—but indeed I am, and hope you believe so,
Your affectionate sister,
ANASTASIA LYNCH.
When the last paragraph was read over Anty’s shoulder, Meg declared she was a dear, dear creature: Jane gave her a big kiss, and began crying; even the widow put the corner of her apron to her eye, and Martin, trying to look manly and unconcerned, declared that he was “quite shure they all loved her, and they’d be brutes and bastes av’ they didn’t!”
The letter, as given above, was finally decided on; written, sealed, and despatched by Jack, who was desired to be very particular to deliver it at the front door, with Miss Lynch’s love, which was accordingly done. All the care, however, which had been bestowed on it did not make it palatable to Barry, who was alone when he received it, and merely muttered, as he read it, “Confound her, low-minded slut! friends, indeed! what business has she with friends, except such as I please?—if I’d the choosing of her friends, they’d be a strait waistcoat, and the madhouse doctor. Good Heaven! that half my property—no, but two-thirds of it,—should belong to her!—the stupid, stiff-necked robber!”
These last pleasant epithets had reference to his respected progenitor.
On the same evening, after tea, Martin endeavoured to make a little further advance with Anty, for he felt that he had been interrupted just as she was coming round; but her nerves were again disordered, and he soon found that if he pressed her now, he should only get a decided negative, which he might find it very difficult to induce her to revoke.
Anty’s letter was sent off early on the Monday morning—at least, as early as Barry now ever managed to do anything—to the attorney at Tuam, with strong injunctions that no time was to be lost in taking further steps, and with a request that Daly would again come out to Dunmore. This, however, he did not at present think it expedient to do. So he wrote to Barry, begging him to come into Tuam on the Wednesday, to meet Moylan, whom he, Daly, would, if possible, contrive to see on the intervening day.
“Obstinate puppy!” said Barry to himself—“if he’d had the least pluck in life he’d have broken the will, or at least made the girl out a lunatic. But a Connaught lawyer hasn’t half the wit or courage now that he used to have.” However, he wrote a note to Daly, agreeing to his proposal, and promising to be in Tuam at two o’clock on the Wednesday.
On the following day Daly saw Moylan, and had a long conversation with him. The old man held out for a long time, expressing much indignation at being supposed capable of joining in any underhand agreement for transferring Miss Lynch’s property to his relatives the Kellys, and declaring that he would make public to every one in Dunmore and Tuam the base manner in which Barry Lynch was treating his sister. Indeed, Moylan kept to his story so long and so firmly that the young attorney was nearly giving him up; but at last he found his weak side.