“Yes, but she is Mary Foley; she does not know how to dress, or enter a room, or arrange her hair, or even behave at table. She drinks out of a saucer; she uses her own knife for butter and salt.”
“May I ask how you know?”
“I had tea with her once,” replied Miss Usher drily. “Besides this, I would help her to weed the too forcible expressions out of her vocabulary—expressions such as ‘For the love of God,’ ‘The saints protect me,’ ‘Faix,’ ‘Bedad,’ ‘Musha,’ and ‘Begorra.’ Of course, a month is not long enough to supply the necessary instruction, but it will clip off the sharp corners and give her a little polish before she faces the severe ordeal of being presented to Lady Mulgrave and your relations. To leave her for a short time among her old surroundings would be a true kindness to her. She will have by that time become accustomed to her new character, and may have attained a certain amount of self-possession and confidence.”
“All right then, Miss Usher; but the kindness is entirely yours. If you will continue to be her guide, counsellor, and friend, you lay me under a lifelong obligation. I will return home the day after the funeral and will leave you in sole charge. Shall you remain here?”
“Yes, that Mary may presently see herself as others—her old associates—see her.”
“Miss Usher, you are a clever woman.”
“No, no, only sensible. Bence has our brains.”
“Of course you will have a private sitting-room, a carriage, and a maid?”
“Oh, no maid yet,” she protested—“we are not quite ready for that; but we will be glad of this sitting-room and an outside car. And now I’m going to suggest something funny. Please send her a gold watch and chain. I gather that to an Irish peasant—and she is that—a gold watch and a long chain represent the visible sign of a great rise in life. It will come home to her as a most tangible proof that she is a girl of some position. Every time she looks at the watch she will be reminded of this fact. The watch and chain will give her proper pride and consequence.”
“I cannot imagine it; but you know women, and I do not.”