“‘Neither of us can be of much use to the other.’ That’s plain talking, anyhow, Peter. She’s a young lady that makes herself understood, I must say that!”
“I never ‘dragged’ on her for a farthin’,” said Malone, with a mournful sigh.
“Lucky for you, Peter; lucky for you!”
“Nor I wouldn’t, if I was starvin’!” said he, with a fierce energy.
“Lucky for you, I say again!”
“You mane, that she wouldn’t help me, Tim O’Rorke. You mane, that she’d turn her back on her ould grandfather. That’s as it may be. God knows best what’s in people’s hearts! I can’t tell, nor you either; but this I can tell, and I can swear to it: That for all the good she could do me—ten, ay, fifty times told—I’d not disgrace her, nor bring her to the shame of saying, ‘That ould man there in the ragged frieze coat and the patched shoes, that’s my mother’s father!’”
“If it’s to your humility you’re trusting, Peter, my man,” said the other, scoffingly, “you’ve made a great mistake in your granddaughter; but let us finish the reading. Where was it I left off? Yes, here, ‘Neither of us of much use to the other. You want to know what intercourse exists between the Vyners and myself——’ The Vyners! Ain’t we grand!” cried O’Rorke. “The Vyners! I wonder she don’t say, ‘between the Vyners and the O’Haras!’”
“Go on, will you?” said Malone, impatiently.
“‘—It is soon told—there is none; and what’s more, Sir Within no longer hears from or writes to them. Although, therefore, my own connexion with this family has ceased, there is no reason why this should influence yours; and I would, above all things, avoid, if I were you, letting my fortunes interfere with your own. You can, and with truth, declare that you had nothing whatever to do with any step I have taken; that I went my own way, and never asked you for the road. My guardian, Sir Within, wrote, it is true, to Mr. Luttrell of Arran, but received no answer. It will be my duty to write to him in a few days, and not improbably with the same result.
“‘You seem anxious to know if I have grown tall, and whether I am still like what I was as a child. I believe I may say, Yes, to both questions; but I shall send you, one of these days, a sketch from a picture of me, which the painter will this year exhibit at the Academy. It is called a great likeness. And last of all, you ask after my soul. I am sorry, dear grandfather, that I cannot be as certain of giving you as precise intelligence on this point as I have done on some others. It may satisfy you, however, perhaps, if I say I have not become a Protestant——‘”