“I see you are surprised by the motley companionship that surrounds me,” said Miss Daly; “but, as a friend of Bagenal's, and acquainted, doubtless, with his eccentric habits, they will astonish you less. Come, let me hear about him,—is he going to pay me a visit down here?”
“I fear not, at this moment,” said Forester, with an accent of melancholy; “his friendship is heavily taxed at the present juncture. You have heard, perhaps, of the unhappy event which has spread such dismay in Dublin?”
“No! what is it? I hear of nothing, and see nobody here.”
“A certain Mr. Gleeson, the trusted agent of many country gentlemen, has suddenly fled—”
Before Forester could continue, Miss Daly arose, and tore open her brother's letter. For a few seconds Forester was struck with the wonderful resemblance to her brother, as, with indrawn breath and compressed lips, she read; but gradually her color faded away, her hands trembled, and the paper fell from them, while, with a voice scarcely audible, she whispered: “And it has come to this!” Covering her face with the folds of her cloak, she sat for some minutes buried in deep sorrow; and when she again looked up, years seemed to have passed over, and left their trace upon her countenance: it was pale and haggard, and a braid of gray hair, escaping beneath her cap, had fallen across her cheek, and increased the sad expression.
“So is it,” said she, aloud, but speaking as though to herself,—“so is it: the heavy hand is laid on all in turn; happier they who meet misfortune early in life, when the courage is high and the heart unshrinking: if the struggle be life-long, the victory is certain; but after years of all the world can give of enjoyment—You know Maurice?—you know the Knight, sir?”
“Yes, madam, slightly; but with Lady Eleanor and her daughter I have the honor of intimate acquaintance.”
“I will not ask how he bears up against a blow like this. If his own fate only hung in the balance, I could tell that myself; but for his wife, to whom they say he is so devotedly attached—you know it was a love-match, so they called it in England, because the daughter of an Earl married the first Commoner in Ireland. And Bagenal advises their coming here! Well, perhaps he is right; they will at least escape the insolence of pity in this lonely spot. Oh! sir, believe me, there is a weighty load of responsibility on those who rule us; these things are less the faults of individuals than of a system. You began here by confiscation, you would finish by corruption. Stimulating to excesses of every kind a people ten times more excitable than your own,—now flattering, now goading,—teaching them to vie with you in display while you mocked the recklessness of their living, you chafed them into excesses of alternate loyalty or rebellion.”
However satisfied of its injustice, Forester made no reply to this burst of passion, but sat without speaking as she resumed:—
“You will say there are knaves in every country, and that this Gleeson was of our rearing; but I deny it, sir. I tell you he was a base counterfeit we have borrowed from yourselves. That meek, submissive manner, that patient drudgery of office, that painstaking, petty rectitude, make up 'your respectable men;' and in this garb of character the business of life goes on with you. And why? Because you take it at its worth. But here, in Ireland, we go faster; trust means full confidence,—confidence without limit or bound; and then, too often, ruin without redemption. Forgive me, sir; age and sorrow both have privileges, and I perhaps have more cause than most others to speak warmly on this theme. Now, let me escape my egotism by asking you to eat, for I see we have forgotten our supper all this time.”