“What is it you say, sir? Speak out,” cried the Judge.
“I was saying,” muttered the other, “I wish they would not provoke—would not irritate you; that people ought to see the state your nerves are in, and should use a little discretion how they contradict and oppose you.” The bland smile of the Chief-Justice, and an assenting gesture of his hand, emboldened Haire to continue, and he went on: “I have always said, Keep away such as excite him; his condition is not one to be bettered by passionate outbreaks. Calm him, humor him.”
“What a pearl above price is a friend endowed with discretion! Leave me, Haire, to think over your nice words. I would like to ponder them alone and to myself. I 'll send for you by and by.”
CHAPTER XXII. COMING-HOME THOUGHTS
Had a mere stranger been a guest on that Sunday when the Chief Baron entertained at dinner Lady Lendrick, the Sewells, and his old schoolfellow Haire, he might have gone away under the impression that he had passed an evening in the midst of a happy and united family.
Nothing could be more perfect than the blending of courtesy and familiarity. The old Chief himself was in his best of humors, which means that, with the high polish of a past age, its deference, and its homage, he combined all the readiness and epigrammatic smartness of a later period. Lady Lendrick was bland, courteous, and attentive. Colonel Sewell took the part assigned him by his host, alternate talker and listener; and Mrs. Sewell herself displayed, with true woman's wit, that she knew how to fall in with the Judge's humor, as though she had known him for years, and that, in each sally of his wit and each flash of his repartee he was but reviving memories of such displays in long-past years. As for Haire, no enchantment could be more complete; he found himself not only listened to but appealed to. The Chief asked him to correct him about some fact or other of recent history; he applied to him to relate some incident in a trial he had taken part in; and, greatest triumph of all, he was called on to decide some question about the dressing of Mrs. Sewell's hair, his award being accepted as the last judgment of connoisseurship.
Lucy talked little, but seemed interested by all around her. It was a bit of high-life comedy, really amusing, and she had that mere suspicion—it was no more—of the honesty and loyalty of the talkers to give an added significance to all she saw and heard. This slight distrust, however, gave way, when Mrs. Sewell sat down beside her in the drawing-room, and talked to her of her father. Oh, how well she appeared to know him; how truly she read the guileless simplicity of his noble nature; how she distinguished—it was not all who did so—between his timid reserve and pride; how she saw that what savored of haughtiness was in reality an excess of humility shrouding itself from notice; how she dwelt on his love for children, and the instantaneous affection he inspired in them towards himself. Last of all, how she won the poor girl's heart as she said, “It will never do to leave him there, Lucy; we must have him here, at home with us. I think you may intrust it to me; I generally find my way in these sort of things.”
Lucy could have fallen at her feet with gratitude as she heard these words, and she pressed her hand to her lips and kissed it fervently. “Why isn't your brother here? Is he not in Dublin?” asked Mrs. Sewell, suddenly.
“Yes, he is in town,” stammered out Lucy, “but grandpapa scarcely knows him, and when they did meet, it was most unfortunate. I 'll tell you all about it another time.”