If it were not for this unhappy event, I must own to you, Molly, that we never enjoyed ourselves anywhere more than we do here. It's a scene of pleasure and gayety all day,—and, indeed, all nightlong; and nothing but the anticipation of K. I. 's return could damp the ardor of our happiness. However it's managed, I can't tell; but the most elegant balls and entertainments are given here free and for nothing! Who keep up the rooms, pays for the lighting, the servants, and the refreshments, is more than I can say. All I know is, that your humble servant never contributed a sixpence to one of them. Lord George says that the Grand Duke is never happy except when the place is crammed; and that he 'd spend his last shilling rather than not see people amuse themselves. And there's a Frenchman, too,—a Mr. Begasset, or Benasset, or something like that,—who is so wild about amusement that he goes to any expense about the place, and even keeps a pack of hounds for the public.
Contrast this, my dear Molly, with one of our little miserable subscription balls at home, where Dan Cassidy, the dancing-master, is driving about the country, for maybe three weeks, in his old gig, before he can scrape together a matter of six or seven pounds, to pay for mutton lights, two fiddles, and a dulcimer; and, after all, it's perhaps over the Bridewell we 'd be dancing, and the shouts of the dirty creatures below would be coming up at every pause of the music. Now, here, it's like a royal palace,—elegant lustres, with two hundred wax-lights in each of them,—a floor like glass. Ask Mary Anne if it isn't as slippery! The dress of the company actually magnificent! none of your little shabby-colored muslins, or Limerick lace; none of your gauze petticoats, worn over glazed calico, to look like satin, but everything real, Molly,—the lace, the silk, the satin, the jewels, the gold trimmings, the feathers,—all the best of the kind, and fresh as they came out of the shop. You don't see the white satin shoes with the mark of a man's foot on them, nor the satin body with four fingers and a thumb on the back of it, as you would at a Patrick's Ball in Dublin! Everything is new for each night.
How Mary Anne laughs at the Irish notions of dress, of what they call in the "Evening Post," "a beautiful lama petticoat over a white satin slip!" or "a train of elegant figured tabinet." Why, Molly darling, you might as well wear a mackintosh, or go out in a suit of glazed alpaca cloth. Mary Anne says that the ball at the Castle of Dublin is like a tournament, where all the company dance in armor; and, indeed, when I think of the rattling of bead bracelets, false pearls, and Berlin necklaces, it rather reminds me of a hornpipe in fetters!
I must confess to you, Molly, there 's nothing as low anywhere as Dublin, and latterly, when anybody asks Mary Anne or me if it's pleasant, we always say with a strong English accent, "Our military friends say, vastly, but we really don't know ourselves." Is n't that a pretty pass to be reduced to? But I 'm told that all the Irish, of any distinction, are obliged to do the same, and never confess to have seen more of Ireland than one does from the Welsh mountains. It's no want of patriotism makes me say this. I wish, with all my heart, that Ireland was a perfect paradise; and it's no fault of mine that Providence intended otherwise.
If I was n't writing with my head so full of Tom Purcell and his late impudence, I 'd have plenty to tell you about the girls and James. Mary Anne is more admired than any girl here, and so would Cary, if she 'd only let herself be so; but she has got a short, snubby, tart kind of way with people, that never goes down abroad, where, as Lord G. says, "every cat plays with his claws covered."
And as to Lord George himself, I wonder is it Mary Anne or Cary that he's after. I watch him day by day, and can make nothing of it; but sure and certain it is he means one of the two, and that is the reason why he left this suddenly the other morning for England, and saying,—
"There 's no use letter-writing; I'll just dash over and have a talk with my governor."
I would n't ask him about what, but I saw the way the girls looked down when he spoke, and that was enough to show me in what quarter the wind was blowing.
I wish from my heart and soul the proposal would come before K. I. came back. I 'd like to have to show the superior way I have always managed the family affairs; for I need n't tell you, Molly, that he never had an eye to the peerage for one of his daughters! but if he returns before it's settled, he 'll say that he had his share in it all! As to James, he is everything that a fond and doting mother could wish. Six feet two and a half,—he grew the half since he came here,—with dark eyes, and a pair of whiskers and moustaches that there's not the like here, dressed in the very top of the fashion, with opal and diamond studs to his shirt and waistcoat, and a black velvet paletot with turquoise buttons for evening wear. The whole room turns to look at him wherever he goes, for he walks along just for all the world as if he owned the place. You may suppose, my dear Molly, how little he resembles K. I.; and, indeed, I have heard many make the same remark when we were at Bonn.
I made Mary Anne write me down a list of the great people here who have all called on us; but what 's the use of sending it, after all? You could n't pronounce them if they were before you! I send you, however, a bit I cut out of "Galignani's Messenger," where you 'll see that we are put down amongst the distinguished visitors as "Madame M'Carthy Dodd, family and suite!" James still thinks if K. I. would call himself "The O'Dodd," it would serve us greatly; and Mary Anne agrees with the opinion; and perhaps now, when he comes back under a cloud, as one may say, it may not be so difficult to make him give in. As James remarks, "Print it on your card, call out and shoot the first fellow that addresses you as Mr.—make it no laughing matter for anybody, before your face at least,—and the thing is done." Maybe we 'll live to see this yet, Molly, but I fear it won't be till Providence sends for K. I.