“A friend of her father’s!” and who can this friend be, whose delicacy of judgment so nicely adapts the gifts to the taste of her on whom they are lavished. For, undoubtedly, the same hand that made the offering of the vases, presented also those other portable elegancies which are so strongly contrasted by the rude original furniture of the Boudoir. The tasteful donneur and author of that letter whose torn fragment betrayed the sentiment of no common mind, are certainly one and the same person. Yet, who visits the castle? scarcely any one; the pride and circumstances of the Prince equally forbid it. Sometimes, though rarely, an old Milesian cousin, or poor relation will drop in, but those of them that I have seen, are mere commonplace people. I have indeed heard the Prince speak of a cousin in the Spanish service, and a nephew in the Irish brigades, now in Germany. But the cousin is an old man, and the nephew he has not seen since he was a child. Yet, after all, these presents may have come from one of those relatives; if so, as Glorvina has no recollection of either, how I should curse that jealous temper which has purchased for me some moments of torturing doubts. I remember you used often to say, that any woman could pique me into love by affecting indifference, and that the native jealousy of my disposition would always render me the slave of any woman who knew how to play upon my dominant passion. The fact is, when my heart erects an idol for its secret homage, it is madness to think that another should even bow at the shrine, much less that his offerings should be propitiously received.
But it is the silence of Glorvina on the subject of this generous friend, that distracts me; if, after all—oh! it is impossible—it is sacrilege against heaven to doubt her! She practised in deception! she, whose every look, every motion betrays a soul that is all truth, innocence, and virtue! I have endeavoured to sound the priest on the subject, and affected to admire the vases; repeating the same questions with which I had teased Glorvina. But he, too, carelessly replied, “they were given her by a friend of her father’s.”
H. M.
LETTER XXV.
TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.
Just as I had finished my last, the Prince sent for me to his room; I found him alone, and sitting up in his bed! he only complained of the effects of years and sickness, but it was evident that some recent cause of uneasiness preyed on his mind. He made me sit by his bed-side, and said, that my good-nature, upon every occasion, induced him to prefer a request, he was induced to hope would not meet with a denial. I begged he would change that request to a command, and rely in every instance on my readiness to serve him. He thanked me, and told me in a few words, that the priest was going on a very particular, but not very pleasing business for him (the Prince) to the north; that the journey was long, and would be both solitary and tedious to his good old friend, whose health I might have observed was delicate and precarious, except I had the goodness to cheat the weariness of the journey by giving the priest my company. “I would not make the request,” he added, “but that I think your compliance will be productive of pleasure and information to yourself; in a journey of a hundred miles, many new sources of observation to your inquiring mind will appear. Besides, you who seem to feel so lively an interest in all which concerns this country, will be glad to have an opportunity of viewing the Irish character in a new aspect; or rather of beholding the Scotch character engrafted upon ours.”
“But,” said the Prince, with his usual nationality, “that exotic branch is not very distinguishable from the old stock.”
I need not tell you that I complied with this request with seeming readiness, but with real reluctance.
In the evening, as we circled round the fire in the great hall, I proposed to Father John to accompany him on his journey the following day.