With her, impulse meant action, and at the unusual hour of eleven o’clock in the morning she had put on her bonnet and shawl, and seized her umbrella, and posted out to cross-examine the Redmonds, root and branch. On the canal bridge just beyond the town, she encountered Belle herself—also afoot at an unusually early hour—walking into Ballingoole with a brisk step and beaming face, to give orders about her outfit, to post some glowing letters, and to receive the congratulations of the community. With present contentment in her heart, re-assured vanity whispering in her ear, and (as she firmly believed) a delightful future before her, everything seemed couleur de rose; even Ballingoole, hated Ballingoole, looked quite pretty, as it sloped towards the canal, showing a series of sunny old gardens, brilliant with gay August flowers, their crumbling grey walls almost hidden by a wealth of autumn fruit. Even detestable old Sally Dopping, as she paused on the top of the high “fly” bridge, and leant on her redoubtable umbrella, looked less like a malevolent old witch, and more like a generous, good fairy, who would bring a valuable wedding present in her hand! And as to the Mahons, Finnys, Maccabes, she really felt quite fond of them—now that she was going to leave them—and she had not the smallest doubt in her own mind, that they would all sincerely regret her departure.
But Belle, could she but see herself as others saw her, was not popular in the neighbourhood.
The Irish are quick to discern character, and are, when they choose, incisive and severe critics. Belle was judged to be a smart, dashing young woman, but hot-tempered and stingy, and had never been known to give a copper to any one—not even the poor “dark” man by the post office steps. “She is not fit to open the door to Miss Betty. She will be as fat as her mother yet, and every bit as mane!” Such was the village verdict.
“Well, Miss Dopping,” she exclaimed, “you are out early. I suppose you have heard my news?”
“So then it is you!” was the rather ungracious reply.
“Of course,” with a smile of triumphant complacency, “and what do you say to it?”
“Umph—say to it; I say better late than never!”
“Oh,” with an angry laugh, but determined not to lose her temper, “come now, Miss Dopping, you would not have said that if it had been Betty!”
“No—how could I? And she only nineteen? Look here, Isabella, you know I never mince my words, do I? I always thought it was Betty. I say so plainly to your face, and I suppose I must be dropping into my second childhood, for I declare I certainly thought by the looks of that young fellow, that he was desperately in love with her, and it seemed to me, when I’d seen them riding together side by side, so handsome and so happy, that the Lord made them for one another! Will you swear to me here on the top of Ballingoole Bridge, that there has been no bamboozling about letters, and no trickery of any kind?”
Such an insinuation was more than the expectant bride-elect could tamely bear—even from rich Miss Dopping.