“We 've not seen him yet,” replied his lady, almost tartly. “He ought to have been here at four o'clock, and yet it's past seven.”
“I think I hear a carriage.”
“Another ———,” hackney, Miss Kennyfeck was about to say, when she stopped herself, and, at the instant, Counsellor Clare Jones was announced.
This gentleman was a rising light of the Irish bar, who had the good fortune to attract Mr. Kennyfeck's attention, and was suddenly transferred from the dull duties of civil bills and declarations to business of a more profitable kind. He had been somewhat successful in his college career,—carried off some minor honors; was a noisy member of a debating society; wrote leaders for some provincial papers; and with overbearing powers of impudence, and a good memory, was a very likely candidate for high forensic honor.
Unlike the first arrival, the Counsellor had few, if any, of the forms of good society in his manner or address. His costume, too, was singularly negligent; and as he ran a very dubious hand through a mass of thick and tangled hair on entering, it was easy to see that the greatest part of his toilet was then and there performed. The splashed appearance of his nether garments, and of shoes that might have done honor to snipe-shooting, also showed that the carriage which brought him was a mere ceremonial observance, and, as he would himself say, “the act of conveyance was a surplusage.”
Those who saw him in court pronounced him the most unabashed and cool of men; but there was certainly a somewhat of haste and impetuosity in his drawing-room manner that even a weak observer would have ascribed to awkwardness.
“How do you do, Mrs. Kennyfeck?—how do you do, Miss Kennyfeck?—glad to see you. Ah! Mr. Softly,—well, I hope? Is he come—has he arrived?” A shake of the head replied in the negative. “Very strange; I can't understand it. We have a consultation with the Solicitor-General to-morrow, and a meeting in chambers at four.”
“I should n't wonder if Mr. Cashel detained papa; he is very young, you know, and London must be so new and strange to him, poor lad!”
“Yes; but your father would scarce permit it,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, smartly. “I rather think it must have been some accidental circumstance; coaches are constantly upsetting, and post-horses cannot always be had.”
Mr. Knox Softly smiled benignly, as though to say in these suggestions Mrs. Kennyfeck was displaying a very laudable spirit of uncertainty as to the course of human events.