“Yes,” muttered Driscoll, as if in a revery, “that's the only good o' me now,—I can think of what will be of use to others.”
“Did n't I tell you we were in a vein of good luck, Bella?” said Kellett, between his teeth; “didn't I say awhile ago there was more coming?”
“'But,' says I to Mary,” continued Driscoll, “'you must take care to recommend Miss Kellett among your friends—'”
Kellett dashed his glass down with such force on the table as to frighten Driscoll, whose speech was thus abruptly cut short, and the two men sat staring fixedly at each other. The expression of poor Terry's vacant face, in which a struggling effort to deprecate anger was the solitary emotion readable, so overcame Kellett's passion that, stooping over, he grasped the other's hand warmly, and said,—
“You 're a kind-hearted creature, and you 'd never hurt a living soul. I 'm not angry with you.”
“Thank you, Captain Kellett,—thank you,” cried the other, hurriedly, and wiped his brow, like one vainly endeavoring to follow out a chain of thought collectedly. “Who is this told me that you had another daughter?”
“No,” said Kellett; “I have a son.”
“Ay, to be sure! so it was a son, they said, and a fine strapping young fellow too. Where is he?”
“He 's with his regiment, the Rifles, in the Crimea.”
“Dear me, now, to think of that,—fighting the French, just the way his father did.”