BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE LITTLE CHAPEL AT MONAMULLIN,” “THE ROMANCE OF A PORTMANTEAU,” ETC., ETC.
CHAPTER II.
NEW IRELAND AND YOUNG ENGLAND.
How glad I felt when morning came, as it brought me nearer to seeing our fair guest! I gathered a bouquet for her, wet with the kisses of the lingering night-dew. I flatter myself that my bouquets are constructed with a tender regard for tone. I have sat for hours in Paris, upon an upturned empty basket in the Marché aux Fleurs, watching the fleuristes deftly composing those exquisite poems in color which serve to render flowers a charming necessity. Upon this occasion I selected blood-red geraniums as the outer edge, with narrowing circlets of stefanotis and mignonette, the whole enshrined in a bower of maiden-hair fern. How lovely she looked when I presented them to her at breakfast; how enchanting her transparent complexion, that flushed as she spoke, and crimsoned when she was spoken to! Alphonse Karr speaks of a similar indefinable charm in his own delightful way: “Elle avait ce charme poétiquement virginal, qui est la plus grande beauté de la femme.” Alas! my bouquet had been forestalled by the gift of a veritable last rose of summer which Harry Welstone had culled while I was engaged in imparting some finishing touches to my rather bristly hair. The words “too late” to meet me on the very threshold of my new career! It was truly disheartening.
She was attired in a tightly-fitting dress of pure white, adorned by a series of coquettish blue ribbons, the edgings being of the same color. Her cavalier collar and gauntlet cuffs finished a toilette which almost recalled my Virgil, as I could hardly refrain from exclaiming “O Dea certe!”
“Might I ask, if it is not an unparliamentary question, Mr. Ormonde, at what hour you allowed poor papa to retire to his bed? Was it late last night or early this morning?” she asked with a droll archness.
“Well, it was rather late, Miss Hawthorne; but as your father was good enough to favor me with some exceedingly interesting passages in his senatorial career, the time galloped by at a break-neck pace and we took no note of it.”
I had already learned to play the hypocrite. O Master Cupid! and this was thy first lesson.
“Is my memory mocking me, or did I hear awful mention of Irish whisky?” she laughed.
This enabled me to explain the blunder of my retainer in his desire to uphold the honor of the family, and to exonerate myself from the soupçon of having neglected her society for that of the bottle. Peter’s ideas upon the family status seemed to afford her the liveliest merriment, and she laughed the silvery laugh with which, old playgoers tell me, Mme. Vestris used to bring down the house.