'Is that it? Do you believe in love at first sight?'
'I believe in anything where love exists; it makes fools of the wisest of us.'
'That's right; and now that the cat's out of the bag I may as well tell you that I have fallen in love at first sight, and that's what I have to say to you.'
O'Hara removed his pipe, and gave a long, low, significant whistle, which reached even unto the dog in the yard, and stimulated him into an inquisitive yelp, which might have been heard had it not been stifled in its birth.
'Who has glamoured you—a Frenchwoman?'
'Yes; Chauvin's grand-daughter.'
'The little Song-bird?'
'The same; and I intend to go to-morrow—no, perhaps this very night, to make a formal proposal for her hand to the old soldier.'
'In that instance, I believe, I am justified in telling you what I know of her history, as Captain Chauvin told it to me himself,' said O'Hara, laying down his pipe. Simply and briefly he proceeded to narrate to his companion the story which had been confided to him. 'So now you are the best judge,' he finished, 'whether you are justified in offering your hand to the daughter of a—a—to a woman who will bring a bend sinister to your escutcheon.'
'Who will bring cheerfulness to my fireside, you meant to say, sir,' said Friezecoat, with a certain tone of displeasure in his voice. 'Bend sinister! There's your virtuous, charitable world, that would exact penalty of an innocent child for the sin of a progenitor who was mouldered in his tomb before she was born. Bend sinister be blowed! Thank God, I'm burdened with no escutcheon to put it on. There's the coat of arms of the O'Hoolohan Roe,' stretching out his open palm, 'and there are its supporters,' pointing to the trophy and opening a drawer, filled with thick rouleaux of yellow Napoleons—'steel on one side and gold on the other.'