‘He has had no opportunity,’ interposed Miss O’Shea. ‘My nephew will be three weeks here on Thursday next, and neither Mathew nor his son have called on him.’
‘Scarcely neighbourlike that, I must say,’ cried Miller.
‘I suspect the fault lies on my side,’ said Gorman boldly. ‘When I was little more than a boy, I was never out of that house. The old man treated me like a son. All the more, perhaps, as his own son was seldom at home, and the little girl Kitty certainly regarded me as a brother; and though we had our fights and squabbles, we cried very bitterly at parting, and each of us vowed we should never like any one so much again. And now, after all, here am I three weeks, within two hours’ ride of them, and my aunt insists that my dignity requires I should be first called on. Confound such dignity! say I, if it lose me the best and the pleasantest friends I ever had in my life.’
‘I scarcely thought of your dignity, Gorman O’Shea,’ said the old lady, bridling, ‘though I did bestow some consideration on my own.’
‘I’m very sorry for it, aunt, and I tell you fairly—and there’s no unpoliteness in the confession—that when I asked for my leave, Kilgobbin Castle had its place in my thoughts as well as O’Shea’s Barn.’
‘Why not say it out, young gentleman, and tell me that the real charm of coming here was to be within twelve miles of the Kearneys.’
‘The merits of this house are very independent of contiguity,’ said the priest; and as he eyed the claret in his glass, it was plain that the sentiment was an honest one.
‘Fifty-six wine, I should say,’ said Miller, as he laid down his glass.
‘Forty-five, if Mr. Barton be a man of his word,’ said the old lady reprovingly.
‘Ah,’ sighed the priest plaintively, ‘how rarely one meets these old full-bodied clarets nowadays. The free admission of French wines has corrupted taste and impaired palate. Our cheap Gladstones have come upon us like universal suffrage.’