A sort of imploring, beseeching anxiety from his daughter Kate here brought Dalton to a dead stop, and he pulled up as suddenly as if on the brink of a precipice.
“Pray, go on, Mr. Dalton,” said Lady Hester, with a winning smile; “you cannot think how much you have interested me. You are aware that we really know nothing about poor dear Ireland; and I am so delighted to learn from one so competent to teach.”
“I did n't mean any offence, my Lady,” stammered out Dalton, in confusion. “There 's good and bad everywhere; but I wish to the Lord the cotton-spinners would n't come among us, and their steam-engines, and their black chimneys, and their big factories; and they say we are not far from that now.”
A gentle tap at the door which communicated with the sitting-room was heard at this moment, and Dalton exclaimed,
“Come in!” but, not suffering the interruption to stop the current of his discourse, he was about to resume, when Mr. Prichard's well-powdered head appeared at the door.
“I began to suspect you had forgotten me, Mr. Dalton,” said he; but suddenly catching a glimpse of Lady Hester, he stopped to ask pardon for the intrusion.
“Faith, and I just did,” said Dalton, laughing; “couldn't you contrive to step in in the morning, and we 'll talk that little matter over again?”
“Yes, Prichard; pray don't interrupt us now,” said Lady Hester, in a tone of half-peevishness. “I cannot possibly spare you, Mr. Dalton, at this moment;” and the man of law withdrew, with a most respectful obeisance.
“You'll forgive me, won't you?” said she, addressing Dalton, with a glance whose blandishment had often succeeded in a more difficult case.
“And now, papa, we'll adjourn to the drawing-room,” said Kate, who somehow continued to notice a hundred deficiencies in the furniture of a little chamber she had often before deemed perfect.