“Ay, my poor boy, I knew I’d find you so,” said O’Shane, as he got ashore. “There’s my hand, you have my heart—I wish I had another hand to give you—but it’s all over with us, I fear. Oh! my poor Dora!—and here she is coming down the bank, and the aunt!—Oh, Dora! you have reason to hate me!”
“To hate you, sir? Impossible!” said Ormond, squeezing his hand strongly, as he felt.
“Impossible!—true—for her to hate, who is all love and loveliness!—impossible too for you, Harry Ormond, who is all goodness!”
“Bon Dieu!” cried Mademoiselle, who was now within exclamation distance. “What a course we have had after you, gentlemen! Ladies looking for gentlemen!—C’est inouï!—What is it all? for I am dying with curiosity.”
Without answering Mademoiselle, the father, and Harry’s eyes, at the same moment, were fixed on one who was some steps behind, and who looked as if dying with a softer passion. Harry made a step forward to offer his arm, but stopped short; the father offered his, in silence.
“Can nobody speak to me?—Bien poli!” said Mademoiselle.
“If you please, Miss O’Faley, ma’am,” cried a hatless footman, who had run after the ladies the wrong way from the house: “if you please, ma’am, will she send up dinner now?”
“Oui, qu’on serve!—Yes, she will. Let her dish—by that time she is dished, we shall be in—and have satisfied our curiosity, I hope,” added she, turning to her brother-in-law.
“Let us dine first,” said Cornelius, “and when the cloth is removed, and the waiting-ears out of hearing, time enough to have our talk to ourselves.”
“Bien singulier, ces Anglois!” muttered Mademoiselle to herself, as they proceeded to the house. “Here is a young man, and the most polite of the silent company, who may well be in some haste for his dinner; for to my knowledge, he is without his breakfast.”