She turned resolutely away, and halted again.
"Poor lady! 'Tis a lady soothing them, and weeping herself. I will! She can but bid me exit."
And so marched to the open door, and into the narrow passage, and rapped smartly with her cane on the door of the parlour, bringing all her natural assurance to bear.
Dead silence. The screams halted, as if a tap was turned off: whoever was inside was all ears. She rapped again. And now a scuffling; and Maria opened the door, and six pairs of astonished eyes gloated on the stranger. And no less did hers on the party within; for there sat Mrs Gunning, beautiful and maternal, with the little John's curly pate on her bosom; Elizabeth, lovely as the day, leaning on one shoulder of her mother; Kitty and Lucy, golden-curled cherubs, clinging to her gown; and Maria, like a sorrowful wood-nymph, holding the door. Sure, never was such a family, and these children seemed made of some more exquisite clay than ordinary.
"Lord, am I got into heaven, for I see the angels about me!" says Madam, advancing with a reverence lower than the paltry room demanded. "Forgive an intruder, Madam, and confer a benefit. For being newly come to Dublin, I've lost my way returning from Smock Alley, and while I called up courage to enter and ask it from any other than these savages, I heard a cry that hastened my steps. Be pleased to pardon me, and say if I can be of service to yourself and your sweet family; for 'tis the plain truth--I'm dazzled as I stand, by the beauty of your olive branches."
'Tis not possible to mistake the voice of sympathy, and Mrs Gunning rising from her chair, curtseyed in her turn, and begged the visitor to be seated. "Lord, Madam," says she, "you catch us very unfit for company; but so kind a heart needs no excuse, and I will be candid with you. We are of birth and breeding like yourself." ('Twas a skilful compliment and the lady simpered.) "And therefore, as a gentlewoman of quality, you shall understand my grief when I present myself as my Lord Viscount Mayo's daughter, and add that I have not the wherewithal to clothe or feed these innocents! You are yourself too young to be a mother, Madam" (again the lady simpered), "yet will comprehend a mother's anguish. I am Mrs. Gunning of Castle Coote, and such is my condition!"
She wept again. The lady applied a laced kerchief to either eye. A touching scene.
"Madam, a heart of marble must feel for you, and mine is not marble--far from it. But sure such beauty must open all doors. Marriage--" She broke off. "Alas, Madam, in these days of money-grubbing avarice, what is beauty? My second"--she indicated Elizabeth--"is cruelly rejected by the father of a gentleman of birth not near so high as our own, because she has no estates pinned to her petticoat." "Monster!" cries the lady with spirit.
Mrs Gunning proceeded:--
"And, O, Madam, were you in want, as a lady of quality sometimes is, of a young lady to write letters, to keep accounts, and all those little useful arts such as mending lace and the like, I can truly say that in my Elizabeth you would find solid worth. She is graver than my Maria.