Harry had no appetite for dinner, but swallowed as much as Mademoiselle O’Faley desired. A remarkably silent meal it would have been, but for her happy volubility, equal to all occasions. At last came the long expected words, “Take away.” When all was taken away, and all were gone, but those who, as O’Shane said, would too soon wish unheard what they were dying to hear, he drew his daughter’s chair close to him, placed her so as “to save her blushes,” and began his story, by relating all that O’Tara had told.
“It was a sudden death—shocking!” Mademoiselle repeated several times; but both she and Dora recovered from the shock, or from the word “shocking!” and felt the delight of Dora’s being no longer a sacrifice.
After a general thanksgiving having been offered for her escape from the butor, Mademoiselle, in transports, was going on to say that now her niece was free to make a suitable match, and she was just turning to wonder that Harry Ormond was not that moment at her niece’s feet; and Dora’s eyes, raised slowly towards him and suddenly retracted, abashed and perplexed Harry indescribably; when Corny continued thus: “Dora is not free, nor am I free in honour yet, nor can I give any body freedom of tongue or heart until I know farther.”
Various exclamations of surprise and sorrow interrupted him.
“Am I never, never, to be free!” cried Dora: “Oh! am not I now at liberty?”
“Hear me, my child,” said her father; “I feel it as you do.”
“And what is it next—Qu’est-ce que c’est—this new obstacle?—What can it be?” said Mademoiselle.
The father then stated sorrowfully, that Old Connal of Glynn would by no means relinquish the promise, but considered it equally binding for the twin born with White Connal, considering both twins as coming under the promise to his son that was to be born. He said he would write immediately to his son, who was now in England.
“And now tell me what kind of a person is this new pretender, this Mr. Black Connal,” cried Mademoiselle.
“Of him we know nothing as yet,” said O’Shane; “but I hope, in Heaven, that the man that is coming is as different from the man that’s gone as black from white.”