“Worse—than that poor miserable anatomy of a creature! Did you ever see him in shooting boots and long stockings?”
“Never.”
“Well then I have—and his legs look for all the world like a pair of knitting needles, stuck in two sods of turf! Now George Holroyd has a leg that you might model.”
“And you’d have a girl marry a man for his leg?” he asked with a sneer.
“No, you old owl! No, but for his handsome face and honourable conduct and kind heart. If Betty Redmond marries him, she will be a lucky girl, and I’ll give her something more than my blessing! And so you may just keep your gibes to yourself, Paddy Moran.”
CHAPTER VII.
BELLE VERSUS BETTY.
“The last and greatest art, the art to blot.”
—Pope.
Summer had come round once more at Ballingoole, and the little place and surrounding society was much as it had been twelve months previously, save for the change at Bridgetstown—(now let to a dairyman, who churned in the drawing-room, kept ducks in the kitchen, and calves in the pleasure-ground). Belle had spent two brilliant, but barren, months at Southsea, with an elderly widow, and returned in the early autumn to Noone (and to the winter of her discontent). Betty had also been from home, and paid a visit to Roskeen, whence she had arrived somewhat unexpectedly—for a reason only known to Ghosty Moore and herself.
Mrs. Redmond’s health had long been failing; she had entirely relinquished her airings in the bath-chair; she took but a subordinate interest in rabbits and fruit, and had signed a truce with Mrs. Maccabe (who sent an oblation of sweet-breads by Foxy Joe). Latterly the old lady never rose till mid-day, and Betty brought her breakfast and letters to her bedside, read aloud the daily paper, and made suggestions about dinner; whilst Robinson sat in close attendance on the invalid, and devoured choice morsels of buttered toast—for Mrs. Redmond’s appetite was now a thing of the past. Belle was never astir before eleven o’clock, and, with regard to the immortal bird, was inclined to agree with the man who said, “The more fool the worm for getting up so early.” One morning she sauntered into her mother’s room, with an unusually dissatisfied face; it was a wet day. She had had no letters, and she was suffering from a twinge of toothache.