If Lady Annaly had had a mind to moralize, she might have done so to any length, without fear of interruption from either of her auditors, and with the most perfect certainty of unqualified submission and dignified humility on the part of our hero, who was too happy at this moment not to be ready to acknowledge himself to have been wrong and absurd, and worthy of any quantity of reprehension or indignation that could have been bestowed upon him.
Her ladyship went, however, as far from morality as possible—to Paris. She spoke of the success Mr. Ormond had had in Parisian society—she spoke of M. and Madame de Connal, and various persons with whom he had been intimate, among others of the Abbé Morellet.
Ormond rejoiced to find that Lady Annaly knew he had been in the Abbé Morellet’s distinguished society. The happiest hopes for the future rose in his mind, from perceiving that her ladyship, by whatever means, knew all that he had been doing in Paris. It seems that they had had accounts of him from several English travellers, who had met him at Paris, and had heard him spoken of in different companies.
Ormond took care—give him credit for it all who have ever been in love—even in these first moments, with the object of his present affection, Ormond took care to do justice to the absent Dora, whom he now never expected to see again. He seized, dexterously, an opportunity, in reply to something Lady Annaly said about the Connals, to observe that Madame de Connal was not only much admired for her beauty at Paris, but that she did honour to Ireland by having preserved her reputation; young, and without a guide, as she was, in dissipated French society, with few examples of conjugal virtues to preserve in her mind the precepts and habits of her British education.
He was glad of this opportunity to give, as he now did with all the energy of truth, the result of his feelings and reflections on what he had seen of the modes of living among the French; their superior pleasures of society, and their want of our domestic happiness.
While Ormond was speaking, both the mother and daughter could not help admiring, in the midst of his moralizing, the great improvement which had been made in his appearance and manners.
With all his own characteristic frankness, he acknowledged the impression which French gaiety and the brilliancy of Parisian society had at first made upon him: he was glad, however, that he had now seen all that the imagination often paints as far more delightful than it really is. He had, thank Heaven, passed through this course of dissipation without losing his taste for better and happier modes of life. The last few months, though they might seem but a splendid or feverish dream in his existence, had in reality been, he believed, of essential service in confirming his principles, settling his character, and deciding for ever his taste and judgment, after full opportunity of comparison, in favour of his own country—and especially of his own countrywomen.
Lady Annaly smiled benignantly, and after observing that this seemingly unlucky excursion, which had begun in anger, had ended advantageously to Mr. Ormond; and after having congratulated him upon having saved his fortune, and established his character solidly, she left him to plead his own cause with her daughter—in her heart cordially wishing him success.
What he said, or what Florence answered, we do not know; but we are perfectly sure that if we did, the repetition of it would tire the reader. Lady Annaly and tea waited for them with great patience to an unusually late, which they conceived to be an unusually early, hour. The result of this conversation was, that Ormond remained with them in this beautiful retirement in Devonshire the next day, and the next, and—how many days are not precisely recorded; a blank was left for the number, which the editor of these memoirs does not dare to fill up at random, lest some Mrs. M’Crule should exclaim, “Scandalously too long to keep the young man there!”—or, “Scandalously too short a courtship, after all!”
It is humbly requested that every young lady of delicacy and feeling will put herself in the place of Florence Annaly—then, imagining the man she most approves of to be in the place of Mr. Ormond, she will be pleased to fill up the blank with what number of days she may think proper.