CHAPTER LXII. CONCLUSION
It would be even more wearisome to my reader than the fact was worrying to myself, were I to recount the steps by which my father communicated to Lady Charlotte the intended marriages, and finally obtained her consent to both. Fortunately, for some time previous she had been getting tired of Paris, and was soon brought to suppose that these little family arrangements were as much 'got up' to afford her an agreeable surprise and a healthful stimulant to her weak nerves as for any other cause whatever.'
With Mrs. Rooney, on the other hand, there was considerable difficulty. The holy alliance she had contracted with the sovereigns had suggested so much of grandeur to her expectations that she dreamed of nothing but archdukes and counts of the empire, and was at first quite inexorable at the bare idea of the mésalliance that awaited her ward. A chance decided what resisted every species of argument. Corny Delany, who had been sent with a note to Mr. Rooney, happened to be waiting in the hall while Mrs. Rooney passed out to her carriage escorted by the 'Tartar' of whom we have already made mention. Mrs. Rooney was communicating her orders to her bearded attendant by a code of signals on her fingers, when Corny, who watched the proceeding with increasing impatience, exclaimed—
'Arrah, can't you tell the man what you want? Sure, though you have him dressed like a wild baste, he doesn't forget English.'
It is a Tartar!' said Mrs. Rooney, with a contemptuous sneer at Corny and a forbidding wave of her hand ordaining silence.
'A Tarther! Oh, blessed Timothy! there's a name for one that comes of dacent people! He's a county Oarlow man, and well known he is in the same parts. Many a writ he served—eh, Tim?'
'Tim!' said Mrs. Rooney, in horror, as she beheld her wild-looking friend grin from ear to ear, with a most fearful significance of what he heard.