"Exactly" said the doctor, all abroad,--"and when there are not too many of them together. I had enough of that, sir, some years ago when a multitude of them were employed on the public works. The Irish were in a state of mutilation, sir, all through the country."
"Ah!" said Thorn,--"had the military been at work upon them?"
"No sir, but I wish they had, I am sure; it would have been for the peace of the town. There were hundreds of them. We were in want of an army."
"Of surgeons,--I should think," said Thorn.
Fleda saw the doctor's dubious air and her uncle's compressed lips; and commanding herself, with even a look of something like displeasure she quitted her seat by Mr. Thorn and called the doctor to the window to look at a cluster of rose acacias just then in their glory. He admired, and she expatiated, till she hoped everybody but herself had forgotten what they had been talking about. But they had no sooner returned to their seats than Thorn began again.
"The Irish in your town are not in the same mutilated state now, I suppose, sir?"
"No sir, no," said the doctor;--"there are much fewer of them to break each other's bones. It was all among themselves, sir."
"The country is full of foreigners," said Mr. Rossitur with praiseworthy gravity.
"Yes sir," said Dr. Quackenboss thoughtfully;--"we shall have none of our ancestors left in a short time, if they go on as they are doing."
Fleda was beaten from the field, and rushing into the breakfast-room astonished Hugh by seizing hold of him and indulging in a most prolonged and unbounded laugh. She did not shew herself again till the company came in to supper; but then she was found as grave as Minerva. She devoted herself particularly to the care and entertainment of Dr. Quackenboss till he took leave; nor could Thorn get another chance to talk to her through all the evening.