When Ormond returned, in obedience to Mrs. M’Crule’s summons, he found in the room an unusual assemblage of persons—a party of morning visitors, the unmuffled contents of the car. As he entered, he bowed as courteously as possible to the whole circle, and advanced towards Mrs. M’Crule, whose portentous visage he could not fail to recognize. That visage was nearly half a yard long, thin out of all proportion, and dismal beyond all imagination; the corners of the mouth drawn down, the whites or yellows of the eyes upturned, while with hands outspread she was declaiming, and in a lamentable tone deploring, as Ormond thought, some great public calamity; for the concluding words were “The danger, my dear Lady Annaly—the danger, my dear Miss Annaly—oh! the danger is imminent. We shall all be positively undone, ma’am; and Ireland—oh! I wish I was once safe in England again—Ireland positively will be ruined!”
Ormond, looking to Lady Annaly and Miss Annaly for explanation, was somewhat re-assured in this imminent danger, by seeing that Lady Annaly’s countenance was perfectly tranquil, and that a slight smile played on the lips of Florence.
“Mr. Ormond,” said Lady Annaly, “I am sorry to hear that Ireland is in danger of being ruined by your means.”
“By my means!” said Ormond, in great surprise; “I beg your ladyship’s pardon for repeating your words, but I really cannot understand them.”
“Nor I neither; but by the time you have lived as long as I have in the world,” said Lady Annaly, “you will not be so much surprised as you now seem, my good sir, at hearing people say what you do not understand. I am told that Ireland will be undone by means of a protégé of yours, of the name of Tommy Dun—not Dun Scotus.”
“Dunshaughlin, perhaps,” said Ormond, laughing, “Tommy Dunshaughlin! that little urchin! What harm can little Tommy do to Ireland, or to any mortal?”
Without condescending to turn her eyes upon Ormond, whose propensity to laughter had of old been offensive to her nature, Mrs. M’Crule continued to Lady Annaly, “It is not of this insignificant child as an individual that I am speaking, Lady Annaly; but your ladyship, who has lived so long in the world, must know that there is no person or thing, however insignificant, that cannot, in the hands of a certain description of people, be made an engine of mischief.”
“Very true, indeed,” said Lady Annaly.
“And there is no telling or conceiving,” pursued Mrs. M’Crule, “how in the hands of a certain party, you know, ma’am, any thing now, even the least and the most innocent child (not that I take upon me to say that this child is so very innocent, though, to be sure, he is very little)—but innocent or not, there is positively nothing, Lady Annaly, ma’am, which a certain party, certain evil-disposed persons, cannot turn to their purposes.”
“I cannot contradict that—I wish I could,” said Lady Annaly.