Here they all roared at Moriarty, who was excessively angry, but felt himself in such a ridiculous position that he could not quarrel with anybody.
“Pardon me, my dear captain,” said the Father; “I only wanted to show you that a poor priest has to run the risk of his life just as much as the boldest soldier of them all. But don't you think, Squire, 't is time to join the ladies? I'm sure the tay will be tired waiting for us.”
CHAPTER XXXIII
Mrs. Egan was engaged in some needlework, and Fanny turning over the leaves of a music-book, and occasionally humming some bars of her favourite songs, as the gentlemen came into the drawing-room. Fanny rose from the pianoforte as they entered.
“Oh, Miss Dawson,” exclaimed Moriarty, “why tantalise us so much as to let us see you seated in that place where you can render so much delight, only to leave it as we enter?”
Fanny turned off the captain's flourishing speech with a few lively words and a smile, and took her seat at the tea-table to do the honours. “The captain,” said Father Phil to the doctor, “is equally great in love or war.”
“And knows about as little of one as the other,” said the doctor. “His attacks are too open.”
“And therefore easily foiled,” said Father Phil; “How that pretty creature, with the turn of a word and a curl of her lip, upset him that time! Oh! what a powerful thing a woman's smile is, doctor? I often congratulate myself that my calling puts all such mundane follies and attractions out of my way, when I see and know what fools wise men are sometimes made by silly girls. Oh, it is fearful, doctor; though, of course, part of the mysterious dispensation of an all-wise Providence.”