“I mean as a match!”
“Such as an earl’s only daughter, with, say, ten thousand a year—oh, stop coddin, now!”
“Barky, where do you get hold of such horrible expressions?”
“Anyhow, Ulick is in India,” he continued. “Shall I telegraph out to him, ‘Come home at once—Mary Foley is a peeress’?”
“No, she is not a peeress—and you’re an unmannerly boor!” As she spoke, Mrs. Doran got up and pushed back her chair; and as she walked to the door, Barky gave a loud, unfilial laugh,—
“If ye were more civil to common folk, mammy, and less civil to the big ones, it would be better for us. Look at Aunt Nora, and the fine fortune you lost me! And now Mary Foley, and the great match you lost Ulick!”
“How was I to know that the old bagwoman was your aunt herself, coming to spy on me?” she demanded passionately. “And would any mother, in her senses, allow her son to marry a common country girl off the side of the road? Tell me that? When you talk such nonsense you drive me mad!” and she went out and slammed the door with violence.
Mrs. Doran called in due state on Mary and Miss Usher. She sent up her cards in proper form.
“Oh, it’s Mrs. Doran,” cried Mary. “Oh, miss, I don’t want to see her. I can’t bear her; she makes me tingle all over, ever since I was a young one. ’Tis she is the hard bitter woman.”
“Still, she is coming to start a fresh acquaintance, with a new Mary Foley, and you must receive her as one lady receives another.”