“And what is more,” continued the other, warming with his theme, “what I have done I have done for all time. I have laid the foundations deep, that the edifice might endure. A man of inferior ambition would have been satisfied with wealth, and the enjoyments it secures; he might have held a seat in Parliament, sat on the benches beside the Minister, mayhap have held some Lordship of This or Under-Secretaryship of that, selling his influence ere it matured, as poor farmers sell their crops standing,—but I preferred the' patient path. I made a waiting race of it, father, and see what the prize is to be. Your son is to be a peer of Great Britain!”
The old man's mouth opened wide, and his eyes glared with an almost unnatural brightness, as, catching his son with both arms, he tried to embrace him.
“There, dear father,—there!” said Dunn, calmly; “you must not over-excite yourself.”
“It's too much, Davy,—it's too much; I'll never live to see it.”
“That you will, sir,—for a time, indeed, I was half disposed to stipulate that the title should be conferred upon yourself. It would have thus acquired another generation in date, but I remembered how indisposed you might feel to all the worry and care the mere forms of assuming it might cost you. You would not like to leave this old spot, besides—”
“No, on no account,” said the old man, pensively.
“And then I thought that your great pride, after all, would be to hear of me, your own Davy, as Lord Castle-dunn.”
“I thought it would be plain Dunn,—Lord Dunn,” said the old man, quickly.
“If the name admitted of it, I 'd have preferred it so.”
“And what is there against the name?” asked he angrily.