“I am only surprised that Colonel Bramleigh never thought it worth his while to treat with my father, who, all things considered, would have been easily dealt with; he was always pauvre diable, out of one scrape to fall into another; so reckless that the very smallest help ever seemed to him quite sufficient to brave life with.”
“I know nothing of the story; tell it to me.”
“It is very long, very tiresome, and incumbered with details of dates and eras. I doubt you 'd have patience for it; but if you think you would, I 'm ready.”
“Begin, then; only don't make it more confused or more tangled than you can help, and give me no dates—I hate dates.”
Pracontal was silent for a moment or two, as if reflecting; and then, drawing his chair a little nearer to her sofa, he leaned his forehead on his hand, and in a low, but distinct voice, began:—
“When Colonel Bramleigh's father was yet a young man, a matter of business required his presence in Ireland. He came to see a very splendid mansion then being built by a rich nobleman, on which his house had advanced a large sum by way of mortgage.”
“Mon cher M. Pracontal, must we begin so far back? It is like the Plaideur in Molière, who commences, 'Quand je vois le soleil, quand je vois la lune—'”
“Very true; but I must begin at the beginning of all things, and, with a little patience, I 'll soon get further. Mr. Montague Bramleigh made acquaintance in Ireland with a certain Italian painter called Giacomo Lami, who had been brought over from Rome to paint the frescos of this great house. This Lami—very poor and very humble, ignoble, if you like to say so—had a daughter of surpassing beauty. She was so very lovely that Giacomo was accustomed to introduce her into almost all his frescos, for she had such variety of expression, so many reflets, as one may say, of character in her look, that she was a Madonna here, a Flora there, now a Magdalene, now a Dido. But you need not take my word for it; here she is as a Danaë.” And he opened his watch-case as he spoke, and displayed a small miniature in enamel, of marvellous beauty and captivation.
“Oh, was she really like this?”
“That was copied from a picture of her at St. Servain, when she was eighteen, immediately before she accompanied her father to Ireland; and in Giacomo's sketchbook, which I hope one of these days to have the honor of showing to you, there is a memorandum saying that this portrait of Enrichetta was the best likeness of her he had ever made. He had a younger daughter called Carlotta, also handsome, but vastly inferior in beauty to my grandmother.”