“And now, O’Donahue,” said McShane, “if you are not yet tired of my company, I should like to hear what you have been doing since we parted: be quite as explicit, but not quite so long-winded, as myself; for I fear that I tired you.”
“I will be quite as explicit, my good fellow; but I have no such marvellous adventures to relate, and not such a fortunate wind up. I have been to Bath, to Cheltenham, to Harrogate, to Brighton, and everywhere else where people meet, and people are met with, who would not meet or be met with elsewhere. I have seen many nice girls; but the nice girls were, like myself, almost penniless; and I have seen many ill-favoured, who had money: the first I could only afford to look at—the latter I have had some dealings with. I have been refused by one or two, and I might have married seven or eight; but, somehow or other, when it came near the point, the vision of a certain angel, now in heaven, has risen before me, and I have not had the heart or the heartlessness to proceed. Indeed, I may safely say that I have seen but one person since we parted who ever made the least impression on me, or whom I could fancy in any degree to replace her whom I have lost, and she, I fear, is lost also; so we may as well say no more about it. I have determined to marry for money, as you well know; but it appears to me as if there was something which invariably prevents the step being taken; and, upon my honour, fortune seems so inclined to balk me in my wishes, that I begin to snap my fingers at her, and am becoming quite indifferent. I suffer now under the evil of poverty; but it is impossible to say what other evils may be in store if I were to change my condition, as the ladies say. Come what will, in one thing I am determined—that if I marry a girl for money, I will treat her well, and not let her find it out; and as that may add to the difficulty of a man’s position when he is not in love with his wife, why, all I can say is, Captain O’Donahue doesn’t go cheap—that’s decided.”
“You’re right, my jewel; there’s not such a broth of a boy to be picked up every day in the week. Widows might bid for you, for without flattery, I think you a moral of a man, and an honour to Old Ireland. But O’Donahue, begging your pardon, if it’s not a secret, who may have been this lady who appears to have bothered your brains not a little, since she could you forget somebody else?”
“I met her at the Lakes of Cumberland, and being acquainted with some of the party, was invited to join them. I was ten days in her company at Windermere, Ambleside, Derwentwater, and other places. She was a foreigner, and titled.”
“Murder and Irish! you don’t say so?”
“Yes; and moreover, as I was informed by those who were with her, has large property in Poland. She was, in fact, everything that I could desire—handsome, witty, speaking English and several other languages, and about two or three and twenty years old.”
“And her name, if it’s no offence to ask it?”
“Princess Czartorinski.”
“And a princess in the bargain? And did you really pretend to make love to a princess?”
“Am not I an Irishman, McShane? and is a princess anything but a woman, after all? By the powers! I’d make love to, and run away with, the Pope himself; if he were made of the same materials as Pope Joan is said to have been.”