As the O'Donoghue was speaking, the young man had approached the window, and was busily perusing the letter. As he read, his face changed colour more than once. Breaking off, he said—
“You don't know, then, what news we have here? More embarrassment—ay, by Jove, and a heavier one than even it seems at first sight. The French armies, it appears, are successful all over the Low Countries, and city after city falling into their possession; and so, the convents are breaking up, and the Sacré Cour, where Kate: is, has set free its inmates, who are returning to their friends. She comes here.”
“What!—here?” said the O'Donoghue, with some evidence of doubt at intelligence so strange and unexpected. “Why, Mark, my boy, that's impossible—the house is a ruin; we haven't a room; we have no servants, and have nothing like accommodation for the girl.”
“Listen to this, then,” said Mark, as he read from the letter:—“You may then conceive, my dear old papa—for I must call you the old name again, now that we are to meet—how happy I am to visit Carrig-na-curra once more. I persuade myself I remember the old beech wood in the glen, and the steep path beside the waterfall, and the wooden railings to guard against the precipice. Am I not right? And there's an ash tree over the pool, lower down. Cousin Mark climbed it to pluck the berries for me, and fell in, too. There's memory for you!”
“She'll be puzzled to find the wood now,” said the O'Donoghue, with a sad attempt at a smile. “Go on, Mark.”
“It's all the same kind of thing: she speaks of Molly Cooney's cabin, and the red boat-house, and fifty things that are gone many a day ago. Strange enough, she remembers what I myself have long since forgotten. 'How I long for my own little blue bed-room, that looked out on Keim-an-eigh P——”
“There, Mark—don't read any more, my lad. Poor dear Kate!—what would she think of the place now?”
“The thing is impossible,” said Mark, sternly; “the girl has got a hundred fancies and tastes, unsuited to our rude life; her French habits would ill agree with our barbarism. You must write to your cousin—that old Mrs. Bedingfield—if that's her name. She must take her for the present, at least; she offered it once before.”
“Yes,” said the old man, with an energy he had not used till now, “she did, and I refused. My poor brother detested that woman, and would never, had he lived, have entrusted his daughter to her care. If she likes it, the girl shall make this her home. My poor Harry's child shall not ask twice for a shelter, while I have one to offer her.”
“Have you thought, sir, how long you may be able to extend the hospitality you speak of? Is this house now your own, that you can make a proffer of it to any one?—and if it were, is it here, within these damp, discoloured walls, with ruin without and within, that you'd desire a guest—and such a guest?”