“An indignity they might well have spared us,” said Helen, proudly.
“Such are the world's changes,” continued Lady Eleanor, pursuing her own train of thought. “How very few remember the origin of our proudest houses, and how little does it matter whether the foundations have been laid by the rude courage of some lawless baron of the tenth century, or the crafty shrewdness of some Hickman O'Reilly of the nineteenth!”
If there was a tone of bitter mockery in Lady Eleanor's words, there was also a secret meaning which, even to her own heart, she would not have ventured to avow. By one of those strange and most inexplicable mysteries of our nature, she was endeavoring to elicit from her daughter some expression of dissent to her own recorded opinion of the O'Reillys and seeking for some chance word which might show that Helen regarded an alliance with that family with more tolerant feelings than she did herself.
Her intentions on this head were uot destined to be successful. Helen's prejudices on the score of birth and station were rather strengthened than shaken by the changes of fortune; she cherished the prestige of their good blood as a source of proud consolation that no adversity could detract from. Before, however, she could reply, the tramp of a horse's feet—a most unusual sound—was heard on the gravel without; and immediately after the heavy foot of some one, as if feeling his way in the dark towards the door. Without actual fear, but not without intense anxiety, both mother and daughter heard the heavy knocking of a loaded horsewhip on the door; nor was it until old Tate had twice repeated his question that a sign replied he might open the door.
“Look to the pony there!” cried a voice, as the old man peered out into the dark night. And before he could reply or resist, the speaker pushed past him and entered the room. “I crave your pardon, my Lady Eleanor,” said she,—for it was Miss Daly, who, drenched with rain and all splashed with mud, now stood before them,—“I crave your pardon for this visit of so scant ceremony. Has the Knight returned yet?”
The strong resemblance to her brother Bagenal, increased by her gesture and the tones of her voice, at once proclaimed to Lady Eleanor who her visitor was; and as she rose graciously to receive her, she replied that “the Knight, so far from having returned, had already sailed with the expedition under General Abercrombie.”
Miss Daly listened with breathless eagerness to the words, and as they concluded, she exclaimed aloud, “Thank God!” and threw herself into a chair. A pause, which, if brief, was not devoid of embarrassment, followed; and while Lady Eleanor was about to break it, Miss Daly again spoke, but with a voice and manner very different from before: “You will pardon, I am certain, the rudeness of my intrusion, Lady Eleanor, and you, too, Miss Darcy, when I tell you that my heart was too full of anxiety to leave any room for courtesy. It was only this afternoon that an accident informed me that a person had arrived in this neighborhood with a writ to arrest the Knight of Gwynne. I was five-and-twenty miles from this when I heard the news, and although I commissioned my informant to hasten thither with the tidings, I grew too full of dread, and had too many fears of a mischance, to await the result, so that I resolved to come myself.”
“How full of kindness!” exclaimed Lady Eleanor, while Helen took Miss Daly's hand and pressed it to her lips. “Let our benefactress not suffer too much in our cause. Helen, dearest, assist Miss Daly to a change of dress. You are actually wet through.”
“Nay, nay, Lady Eleanor, you must not teach me fastidiousness. It has been my custom for many a year not to care for weather, and in the kind of life I lead such training is indispensable.” Miss Daly removed her hat as she spoke, and, pushing back her dripping hair, seemed really insensible to the discomforts which caused her hosts so much uneasiness.
“I see clearly,” resumed she, laughing, “I was right in not making myself known to you before; for though you may forgive the eccentricities that come under the mask of good intentions, you 'd never pardon the thousand offences against good breeding and the world's prescription which spring from the wayward fancies of an old maid who has lived so much beyond the pale of affection she has forgotten all the arts that win it.”