“You do!” cried Mr. Usher, coming to an abrupt halt, and fixing his sharp eyes on his companion.
“In troth I do,” rejoined the old man doggedly.
“What grounds have you to go upon for supposing there is something in it?” asked the lawyer.
“Faix, it’s no sacret,” he answered, with an air of sullen resolution; “any one would see it that had eyes in their head. John and Katty was as black as two crows. Mary has hair like a copper kettle, a white swan throat, a dancing eye, and a little weenchie hand. Oh, I declare she’s the born image of her ladyship. Now, is not that strange?” and he turned and looked fixedly at his companion’s hard-set, wizened face.
“Not if she is her daughter!”
“Whisht!” he cried, turning about, as if he feared that the very trees had ears. “Never let that pass yer lips; I only whisper it in my heart, when I go there alone, and sit on the terrace of a Sunday—and to you, a black stranger, it makes no matter what I say; and somehow it’s a relief to give out me thoughts to another creature, whether a gentleman or a man.”
“Has this strange likeness struck other people?” inquired Mr. Usher, in his cool, judicial tone.
“No, sir!”—now drawing up his bent back, and speaking with overwhelming dignity. “You see none of the neighbours had much chance of seeing the Countess. She was mostly out boating, or staying at home. It’s twenty-wan years ago, ye know, and not a sowl remembers whether her hair was black or yellow. Now, I saw her every day, and I can never forget her, for I never saw any wan like her, and never will again.”
“Except Mary Foley,” amended his listener. “Is she not admired, and remarked all over the country?”