From that moment Miss Daly never adverted further to the burden of her brother's letter, but led Forester to converse about his journey and the people whom, even in his brief experience, he perceived to be so unlike the peasantry of the West.
“Yes,” said she, in reply to an observation of his, “these diversities of character observable in different places are doubtless intended, like the interminable varieties of natural productions, to increase our interest in life, and, while extending the sphere of speculation, to contribute to our own advancement. Few people, perhaps not any, are to be found without some traits of amiability; here there is much to be respected, and, when habit has dulled the susceptibility of first impressions, much also to be liked. But shall I not have the pleasure of showing you my neighbors and my neighborhood?”
“My visit must be of the shortest; I rather took than obtained my leave of absence.”
“Well, even a brief visit will do something; for my neighbors all dwell in cottages, and my neighborhood comprises the narrow strip of coast between this hut and the sea, whose plash you hear this minute. To-morrow you will be rested from your journey, and if the day permits we 'll try the Causeway.”
Forester accepted the invitation so frankly proffered, and went to his room not sorry to lay his head upon a pillow after two weary nights upon the road.
Forester was almost shocked as he entered the breakfast-room on the following morning to see the alteration in Miss Daly's appearance. She had evidently passed a night of great sorrow, and seemed with difficulty to bear up against the calamitous tidings of which he was the bearer. She endeavored, it is true, to converse on matters of indifference,—the road he had travelled, the objects he had seen, and so on; but the effort was ever interrupted by broken snatches of reflection that would vent themselves in words, and all of which bore on the Knight and his fortunes.
To Forester's account of her brother Bagenal's devotion to his friend she listened with eager interest, asking again and again what part he had taken, whether his counsels were deemed wise ones, and if he still enjoyed to the fullest extent the confidence of his old friend.
“It is no friendship of yesterday, sir,” said she, with a heightened color and a flashing eye; “they knew each other as boys, they walked the mountains together as young men, speculated on the future paths fate might open before them, and the various ambitions which, even then, stirred within them. Bagenal was ever rash, headstrong, and impetuous, rarely firm in purpose till some obstacle seemed to defy its accomplishment. Maurice—the Knight, I mean—was not less resolute when roused, but more often so much disposed to concede to others that he would postpone his wishes to their own; and once believing himself in any way pledged to a course, would forget all, save the fulfilment of the implied promise. Such were the two dispositions, which, acting and reacting on each other, effected the ruin of both: the one wasted in eccentricity what the other squandered in listless indifference; and with abilities enough to have won distinction for humble men, they have earned no other reputation than that of singularity or convivialism.
“As for Bagenal,” she said, after a pause, “wealth was never but an incumbrance to him; he was one of those persons who never saw any use for money, save in the indulgence of mere caprice; he treated his great fortune as a spoiled child will do a toy, and never rested till he had pulled it to pieces, and perhaps derived the same moral lesson too,—astonishment at the mere trifle which once amused him. But Maurice Darcy,—whose tastes were ever costly and cultivated, who regarded splendor not as the means of vulgar display, but as the fitting accompaniment of a house illustrious by descent and deeds, and deemed that all about and around him should bear the impress of himself, generous and liberal as he was,—how is he to bear this reverse? Tell me of Lady Eleanor; and Miss Darcy, is she like the Knight, or has her English blood given the character to her beauty?”
“She is very like her father,” said Forester, “but more so even in disposition than in features.”