When her father had been with her half-an-hour, and was beginning to think that he could escape and go down to the House,—and he had a rod in pickle for the Speaker's back, such a rod that the Speaker's back should be sore for the rest of the session—Rachel began her lengthened conversation with him. In the last half-hour she had made up her mind as to what she would say. But the conversation was so long and intricate, being necessarily carried on by means of her tablet, that poor O'Mahony's rod was losing all its pickle. "Father, you must go and see Lord Castlewell at once."
"I think, my dear, he understood me altogether when I saw him before, and he seemed to agree with me. I told him I didn't mind being called an ass, but that you were so absurd as to dislike it. In fact, I gave him to understand that we were three asses; but I don't think he'll say it again."
"It isn't about that at all," said the tablet.
"What else do you want?"
Then Rachel went to work and wrote her demand with what deliberation she could assume.
"You must go and tell him that I don't want to marry him at all. He has been very kind, and you mustn't tell him that he's an ass any more. But it won't do. He has proposed to marry me because he has wanted a singing girl; and I think I should have done for him,—only I can't sing."
Then the father replied, having put himself into such a position on the bed as to read the tablet while Rachel was filling it: "But that'll all come right in a very short time."
"It can't, and it won't. The doctor says a year; but he knows nothing about it, and says it's in God's hands. He means by that it's as bad as it can be."
"But, my dear—"
"I tell you it must be so."