Mark was, however, far from confident that he could rely on his promise. It seemed too bright a prospect to be possible. Maitland, who had never been in Ireland,—whom one could, as Mark thought, no more fancy in Ireland than he could imagine a London fine lady passing her mornings in a poorhouse, or inspecting the coarse labors of a sewing-school,—he coming over to see him! What a triumph, were it only to be true! and now the post told him it was true, and that Maitland would arrive at the Abbey on Saturday. Now, when Mark had turned away so hastily and left his sisters, he began to regret that he had announced the approaching arrival of his friend with such a flourish of trumpets. “I ought to have said nothing whatever about him. I ought simply to have announced him as a man very well off, and much asked out, and have left the rest to fortune. All I have done by my ill-judged praise has been to awaken prejudice against him, and make them eager to detect flaws, if they can, in his manner,—at all events in his temper.” The longer he thought over these things the more they distressed him; and, at last, so far from being overjoyed, as he expected, at the visit of his distinguished friend, he saw the day of his coming dawn with dismay and misgiving. Indeed, had such a thing as putting him off been possible, it is likely he would have done it.
The long-looked-for and somewhat feared Saturday came at last, and with it came a note of a few lines from Maitland. They were dated from a little village in Wicklow, and ran thus:—
“Dear L.,—I have come down here with a Yankee, whom I
chanced upon as a travelling companion, to look at the
mines,—gold, they call them; and if I am not seduced into
a search after nuggets, I shall be with you some time—I
cannot define the day—next week. The country is prettier
and the people less barbarous than I expected; but I hear
your neighborhood will compensate me for both
disappointments.
“Yours,
“N. M.”
“Well! are we to send the carriage into Coleraine for him, Mark?” asked Sir Arthur, as his son continued to read the letter, without lifting his eyes.
“No,” said Mark, in some confusion. “This is a sort of put-off. He cannot be here for several days. Some friend or acquaintance has dragged him off in another direction;” and he crushed the note in his hand, afraid of being asked to read or to show it.
“The house will be full after Tuesday, Mark,” said Lady Lyle. “The Gores and the Masseys and the M'Clintocks will all be here, and Gambier Graham threatens us with himself and his two daughters.”
“If they come,” broke in Mark, “you'll have my rooms at your disposal.”
“I delight in them,” said Mrs. Trafford; “and if your elegantly fastidious friend should really come, I count upon them to be perfect antidotes to all his impertinence. Sally Graham and the younger one, whom her father calls 'Dick,' are downright treasures when one is in want of a forlorn hope to storm town-bred pretension.”
“If Maitland is to be baited, Alice, I 'd rather the bullring was somewhere else,” said her brother, angrily.
“The real question is, shall we have room for all these people and their followers?” said Lady Lyle.