The manner in which he spoke the words was so palpably intended for herself, that she felt all the charm of a flattery to which the disparity of their years imparted force.
Soon after tea, Sir Marmaduke retired with Hemsworth to his study. Frederick took his leave at the same time, and Sybella and Kate were left alone together.
“I have a long letter to write this evening, my dear Sybella,” said Kate, after they had talked some time. “Poor Herbert has failed in his examination, and I have promised to break the news to my uncle. Not so difficult a task as the poor boy deems, but one to which he is himself unequal.”
“Does he then feel it so deeply?” said Sybella, timidly.
“Too much, as regards the object of the ambition; but no more than he ought as a defeat. It is so bad to be beaten, Sybella,” said she, with a sharp distinctness on each word. “I shall hate the sight of that University until he carries off the next prize; and then—then I care not whether his taste incline him for another effort;” and so saying, she embraced her friend, and they parted for the night.
The epistle which Kate had promised to conclude was in itself a lengthy one—written at different intervals during the week before the examination, and containing a minute account of his progress, his hopes and his fears, up to that very moment. There was little in it which could interest any but him to whom it was addressed, and to whom every allusion was familiar, and the reference to each book and subject thoroughly known—what difficulties he had found here, what obscurity there—how well he had mastered this, how much he feared he might have mistaken the other—until on the evening of the first day's examination, when the following few lines, written with a trembling hand, appeared:—
“They say I shall gain it. H——— called my translation
of Horace a brilliant one, and asked the Vice-Provost to
listen to my repeating it. I heard. I gave it in blank
verse. Oh, my dearest uncle, am I deceiving myself, and
deceiving you? Shall I be able to write thus to-morrow
night?”
Then came one tremulous line, dated, “Twelve o'clock:”—
“Better and better—I might almost even now say, victory;
but my heart is too much excited to endure a chance.”
“And it remains for me, my dear uncle,” wrote Kate after
these words, “to fulfil the ungrateful task of bearing bad
tidings; and I, who have never had the good fortune to
bring you happiness, must now speak to you of misfortune.—
My dear cousin has failed.”
She followed these few lines by the brief narrative Herbert had given her—neither seeking to extenuate his errors, nor excuse his rashness—well knowing in her heart that Sir Archy would regard the lesson thus conveyed, an ample recompense for the honour of a victory so hardly lost.
“It is to you he looks for comfort—to you, sir, whom his
efforts were all made to please, and for whose praise his
weary nights and toilsome days were offered. You, who know
more of the human heart than I do, can tell how far so
severe a discouragement may work for good or evil on his
future life; for myself, I feel the even current of
prosperity is but a sluggish stream, that calls for no
efforts to stem its tide; and were his grief over, I'd
rather rejoice that he has found a conflict, because he
may now discover he has courage to meet it.
“Even I, to follow a theme as dispiriting, even I, grow
weary of pleasure, and tired of gaiety. The busy world of
enjoyment leaves not a moment free for happiness, and
already I am longing to be back in the still valley of
Glenflesk. It is not that Dublin is not very brilliant, or
that society has less of agreeability than I expected—both
have exceeded my anticipations; nor is it, that I have not
been what we should call in France 'successful' in my
'debut'—far from that, I am the fashion, or, rather, half
the fashion—Sybella dividing public favour with me;—but,
somehow, nobody contradicts me here—no one has courage to
tell me I'm wrong—no one will venture to say, what you have
often said, and even oftener looked, that 'I talked of what
I knew nothing;' and, in fact, my dear uncle, every one is
so very much in love with me, that I am beginning to detest
them, and would give the world to be once more at home,
before I extend the hatred to myself, which I must
inevitably end by doing, if nobody anticipates me in the
sentiment.
“You told me I should prove faithless to you. Well, I have
refused heaven knows how many 'brilliant offers,' for such
even the proposers called them. Generals of fourscore,
guardsmen of twenty, dignitaries in the church, sergeants
learned in the law, country gentlemen in hordes, two
baronets, and one luckless viscount, have asked for the
valueless hand that writes these lines; and yet—and yet,
my dear chevalier, I shall still write myself at the bottom
of this page, Kate O'Donoghue. I have no doubt you are very
vain of my constancy, and will be so when you read this;
and it is right you should be, for, I promise you, in my
'robe, couleur de cerise,' looped with white roses, and my
'chapeau de paysanne,' I am a very pretty person indeed—at
least, it seems a point the twelve judges agree upon, and
the Master of the Rolls tells me, 'that with such long eye-
lashes I might lift my eyes very high indeed.'
“And now, my dear, kind uncle, divide your sorrow between
your niece who is dying of vanity, and your nephew who is
sick of grief—continue your affection to both—and believe
me, in all sincerity of heart, your own fond and faithful,
“Kate O'Donoghue.”
“I have met Hems worth, and, strange to say, found him both
pleasant and agreeable.”
Such were the concluding lines of an epistle, in which few, who did not possess Sir Arches acuteness, could successfully trace any thing of the real character of the writer.