“Is that her trunk, Nelly?” said Dalton, breaking silence after a long interval, and pointing to an old and journey-worn valise that lay half-open upon the floor.
“Yes, papa,” said Nelly, with a sigh.
“Why, it's a mean-looking, scrubby bit of a thing; sure it 's not the size of a good tea-chest,” said he, angrily.
“And yet too roomy for all its contents, papa. Poor Kate's wardrobe is a very humble one.”
“I 'd like to know where 's the shops here; where 's the milliners and the haberdashers? Are we in College Green or Grafton Street, that we can just send out and have everything at our hand's turn? 'T is n't on myself I spend the money. Look at these gaiters; they 're nine years old next March; and the coat on my back was made by Peter Stevens, that 's in his grave now. The greatest enemy ever I had could not face me down that I only took care of myself. If that was my way would I be here now? See the rag I 'm wearing round my throat, a piece of old worsted like a rug a thing—”
He stopped, and stammered, and then was silent altogether, for he suddenly remembered it was Nelly herself who had worked the article in question.
“Nay, papa,” broke she in, with her own happy smile, “you may give it to Andy to-morrow, for I 've made you a smart new one, of your own favorite colors, too, the Dalton green and white.”
“Many a time I 've seen the same colors coming in first on the Corralin course!” cried Dalton, with enthusiasm; for at the impulse of a new word his mind could turn from a topic of deep and painful interest to one in every way its opposite. “You were too young to remember it; but you were there, in the 'landau,' with your mother, when Baithershin won the Murra handicap, the finest day's flat racing I have it from them that seen the best in England that ever was run in the kingdom. I won eight hundred pounds on it, and, by the same token, lost it all in the evening at 'blind hookey' with old Major Haggs, of the 5th Foot, not to say a trifle more besides. And that 's her trunk!” said he, after another pause, his voice dropping at the words, as though to say, “What a change of fortune is there! I wonder neither of you hadn't the sense to take my old travelling chest; that's twice the size, and as heavy as a lead coffin, besides. Sorrow one would ever know if she hadn't clothes for a whole lifetime! Two men wouldn't carry it upstairs when it's empty.”
“When even this valise is too large, papa?”
“Oh dear, oh dear!” broke in Dalton; “you've no contrivance, after all. Don't you see that it 's not what 's inside I 'm talking about, at all, but the show before the world? Did n't I live at Mount Dalton on the fat of the laud, and every comfort a gentleman could ask, five years and eight months after I was ruined? And had n't I credit wherever I went, and for whatever I ordered? And why? Because of the house and place! I was like the big trunk beyond; nobody knew how little there was in it. Oh, Nelly dear, when you 've seen as much of life as me, you 'll know that one must be up to many a thing for appearance' sake.”