“Ah! my dear Dore, un cabriolet!” cried Mademoiselle, entering in ecstacy. “Here is Monsieur de Connal for you in a French cabriolet, and a French servant riding on to advertise you and all. Oh! what are you twisting your neck, child? I will have no toss at him now—he is all the gentleman, you shall see: so let me set you all to rights while your father is receive. I would not have him see you such a horrible figure—not presentable! you look—”
“I do not care how I look—the worse the better,” said Dora: “I wish to look a horrible figure to him—to Black Connal.”
“Oh! put your Black Connals out of your head—that is always in your mouth: I tell you he is call M. de Connal. Now did I not hear him this minute announced by his own valet?—Monsieur de Connal presents his compliments—he beg permission to present himself—and there was I, luckily, to answer for your father in French.”
“French! sure Black Connal’s Irish born!” said Sheelah: “that much I know, any way.”
A servant knocked at the door with King Corny’s request that the ladies would come down stairs, to see, as the footman added to his master’s message, to see old Mr. Connal and the French gentleman.
“There! French, I told you,” said Mademoiselle, “and quite the gentleman, depend upon it, my dear—come your ways.”
“No matter what he is,” said Dora, “I shall not go down to see him; so you had better go by yourself, aunt.”
“Not one step! Oh! that would be the height of impolitesse and disobedience—you could not do that, my dear Dore; consider, he is not a man that nobody knows, like your old butor of a White Connal. Not signify how bad you treat him—like the dog; but here is a man of a certain quality, who knows the best people in Paris, who can talk, and tell every where. Oh! in conscience, my dear Dore, I shall not suffer these airs with a man who is somebody, and—”
“If he were the king of France,” cried Dora, “if he were Alexander the Great himself, I would not be forced to see the man, or marry him against my will!”
“Marry! Who talk of marry? Not come to that yet; ten to one he has no thought of you, more than politeness require.”