There 's a great deal in how you open an acquaintance! You may be card-leaving, and bowing, and how-d'ye-doing for years, and never get farther; or, on the other hand, by some lucky accident, you come plump down into the right place, just as a chance shell will now and then drop into a magazine, and finish an engagement at once.
In less than an hour after her arrival, Mrs. Gore Hampton was one of ourselves. It was not that she was calling the girls dearest Cary, and darling Mary Anne, but she had got a regular sisterly tone with Mrs. D. and myself—treating James all the while as if he was about twelve years old, and at home for the holidays. She had not only done all this, but before luncheon was on the table we had ratified a solemn league and covenant that she was to travel with us, and be one of us, going wherever we went, and living as we did. How the treaty was ever mooted, who proposed, and who signed it, I know no more than the man in the moon. It was done in a kind of rattling, bantering fashion; and when we rose from table it was all settled. Mrs. Gore Hampton was to take Cary and Mary Anne with her in the britschka; the "dear boy"—viz. James—would be the "guard in the rumble." There was a place for everybody and everything; and I believe, if any one had proposed that I should ride the leader, it would have been carried without opposition. Never was there such unanimity! The whole arrangement was huddled up like a road-presentment on a Grand Jury, or a private bill before the House on a "Wednesday afternoon. As for myself, if I had even the will, I could not have summoned the shamelessness to offer any opposition to the measure.
"Devilish good thing for you, Dodd!" whispered Lord George. "Mrs. G. knows everybody in the world, and doesn't care for money."—"Oh, papa! she is delightful; there never was such a piece of good fortune as our meeting with her," cried Mary Anne. And Mrs. D. assured me that, for the very first time in her life, she had met a person thoroughly companionable to her in all respects; in fact, a "kindred soul," though not a "blood relation."
Now, Tom, considering that we came abroad to enjoy the advantages of high society, fashionable habits, and * refined associations, this accident did indeed seem a propitious one; for, disguise it how we may, the great world is a dangerous ocean to venture upon without a pilot. Our own little experiences might teach that lesson. We sailed out in all the confidence of a stout crew and a safe vessel, and a pretty voyage we made of it! Perhaps we did not make more mistakes than our neighbors, but assuredly our blunders were neither few nor insignificant!
Mrs G., however, would soon rectify all this. "No more making acquaintance with wrong people, K. I." says Mrs. D.; "no more getting into vulgar intimacies at the café, and cementing friendships over a game of dominos. James will know the class of young men that he ought to mix with, and the girls will only dance with suitable partners." It sounded well, Tom! It was a grand protective policy, that really secured the Dodd family in the possession of all home advantages, and relieved them of all aggressions "from the foreigner."
If we had fallen on a prize in the lottery, I don't think the joy of our circle could have been greater. I am not going to pretend that I did n't join in it! I make no affectation of prudent reserve and caution, and Heaven knows what other elegant qualities, that, however natural to other people, very seldom fall to the lot of an Irishman. I vow to you, Tom, I went off full cry like the rest of the pack. She is a fine woman, this Mrs. Gore Hampton; she has a low, soft voice, a very bewitching smile, and a way of looking at you while you are talking to her, that somehow half suggests to yourself that you must be making love without knowing it. Now, don't misunderstand me, Tom, and come out with one of your long whistles, as much as to say, "Kenny James is as great a fool as ever!" No such thing! a suit in Chancery, the repeal of the corn laws, and the Estates Court, have made me an altered man. The very nature of me is changed, and changed so much that many's the time I ask myself, "Is this Kenny Dodd? Where upon earth is that light-hearted, careless, hopeful vagabond, that always took the sunny road in life, though maybe it was n't exactly the way to the place he was going?" I'm another man now; I 'm wiser, as they call it; and, upon my conscience, I 'm mighty sorry for it!
But I hear you say, "Have n't you just confessed that you were—what shall I call it?—fascinated by the widow?"
And if I did, Tom Purcell, do you mean to tell me that you would have escaped her? Not a bit of it. The brown wig would have been set a little more forward, so as to bring one of those silky curls over your right eye. I think I see you exchanging your spectacles for a double eye-glass, and turning out your toes so as to display to the best advantage that shapely calf in its trim brown silk stocking. Ah, Tom! not even quarter sessions and a rate in aid will drive these thoughts out of an Irishman's head.