It was the hour of my mother's morning reception, and we found the drawing-room crowded with loungers and fashionable idlers, discussing the news of the day, and above all the Roni fête, the extraordinary finale to which gave rise to a hundred conjectures—some asserting that Monsieur de Roni's song was a violent pasquinade against the Emperor Alexander; others, equally well informed, alleging it was the concerted signal for a general massacre of the Allies, which was to have begun at the same moment in the Rue Montmartre. She is a Bonapartist, a Legitimist, a Neapolitan, an Anversoise,' contended one after another—my only fear being that some one would enlighten the party by saying she was the wife of an Irish attorney. All agreed, however, she was bien mauvais ton; that her fête was, with all its magnificence, anything but select; her supper superb, but too crowded by half; and, in fact, that Madame Roni had enjoyed the pleasure of ruining herself to very little other purpose than that of being generally ridiculed and laughed at.
'And this niece, or ward, or whatever it is—who can tell anything of her?' said my mother.
'Ah, pardieu! she's very handsome,' said Grammont, with a malicious smile.
'Perfect,' said another; 'quite perfect; but a little, a very little too graceful Don't you think so?'
'Why what do you mean?' said Lady Charlotte, as her eyes sparkled with animation at the thought of a secret.
'Nothing,' replied the last speaker carelessly; 'except that one always detects the danseuse. She was thinner when I saw her at Naples.'
I whispered one word—but one—in his ear, and his face became purple with shame and confusion.
'Eh, what is it?' said my mother eagerly. 'John knows something of her too. John, dearest, let us hear it?'
'I am in your ladyship's debt as regards one secret,' said O'Grady, interrupting; 'perhaps I may be permitted to pay it on this occasion. The lady in question is the daughter of an Irish baronet, the descendant of a family as old as any of those who now hear me. That baronet would have been a peer of the realm had he consented to vote once—but once—with the minister, on a question where his conscience told him to oppose him. His refusal was repaid by neglect; others were promoted to rank and honours before him; but the frown of a minister could neither take away the esteem of his country nor his own self-respect. He is now dead; but his daughter is the worthy inheritor of his virtues and his name. Perhaps I might interest the present company as much in her favour by adding, she possesses something like eight thousand per annum.'
'Two hundred thousand livres de rente! said Grammont, smacking his lips with astonishment, 'and perfectly insensible to the tone of mockery in which O'Grady's last words were spoken.