“Now, Mr. Dalton,” said he, as he sat up with a replenished glass in his hand, “I am going to redeem my pledge, and about to give you the health of the most beautiful girl in Italy, one whose attractions are the theme of every tongue, and whose ambitions may realize any height, or attain any eminence, that she pleases.”
“Here 's to you, Kate Dalton,” broke in the father, “my own sweet child; and if you only come back to me as you went away, the sorrow better I ask, or grander.”
“She will be a duchess; she may be a princess if she likes.”
“Who knows who knows?” said Dalton, as he hung down his head, and hammered away with his spoon at the sugar in his glass.
“Every one knows, every one sees it, Mr. Dalton,” said Foglass, authoritatively. “From the Archduke Ernest of Austria to the very pages of the court, all are her worshippers and admirers. She'll come back to you with a proud name and a high coronet, Mr. Dalton.”
“The devil a better than Dalton ever 'twill be! that I can tell you. 'T is n't yesterday we took it, the same name; there 's stones in the churchyard of Ballyhack can show who we are; and if she married the—the God forgive me, I was going to say the Pope, but I meant the Grand Turk she would n't be better than she is now, as Kate Dalton.”
“Not better, certainly, but in a more exalted rank, in a position of more recognized distinction,” said Foglass, blandly.
“No; nor that neither,” cried Dalton, angrily. “The Daltons goes back to the ancient times of all. There 's one of our name in the Bible. I 'm not sure where, but I believe it 's in the Book of Kings, or maybe the Psalms; but wherever it is, he was a real gentleman, living on his own estate, with his livery-servants, and his horses, and everything in good style about him; high on the grand jury, maybe the sheriff of the county.”
Foglass, who had followed this description but imperfectly, could only bow in a deep acknowledgment of what he did not understand.
“The man that marries Kate Dalton isn't doing a piece of condescension, anyhow! that I can tell him. The dirty acres may slip away from us, but our good blood won't.”