第106章

'And no duty opposes my loving him! And my aunt wishes it! my kind aunt! And I may think of him.--You, my best friend, would not assure me of this if you were not certain of the truth.--Oh, how can I thank you for all your kindness, and for that best of all kindness, sympathy.You see, your calmness, your strength of mind supports and tranquillises me.I would rather have heard all I have just learnt from you than from any other person living.I could not have borne it from any one else.No one else knows my mind so perfectly--yet my aunt is very good,--and my dear uncle! should not I go to him?--But he is not my uncle, she is not my aunt.I cannot bring myself to think that they are not my relations, and that I am nothing to them.'

'You may be everything to them, my dear Grace,' said Lady Berryl;'whenever you please, you may be their daughter.'

Grace blushed, and smiled, and sighed, and was consoled.But then she recollected her new relation Mr.Reynolds, her grandfather, whom she had never seen, who had for years disowned her--treated her mother with injustice.She could scarcely think of him with complaisancy; yet, when his age, his sufferings, his desolate state, were represented, she pitied him; and, faithful to her strong sense of duty, would have gone instantly to offer him every assistance and attention in her power.Lady Berryl assured her that Mr.Reynolds had positively forbidden her going to him; and that he had assured Lord Colambre he would not see her if she went to him.After such rapid and varied emotions, poor Grace desired repose, and her friend took care that it should be secured to her for the remainder of the day.

In the meantime, Lord Clonbrony had kindly and judiciously employed his lady in a discussion about certain velvet furniture, which Grace had painted for the drawing-room at Clonbrony Castle.

In Lady Clonbrony's mind, as in some bad paintings, there was no KEEPING; all objects, great and small, were upon the same level.

The moment her son entered the room, her ladyship exclaimed--'Everything pleasant at once! Here's your father tells me, Grace's velvet furniture's all packed; really, Soho's the best man in the world of his kind, and the cleverest--and so, after all, my dear Colambre, as I always hoped and prophesied, at last you will marry an heiress.'

'And Terry,' said Lord Clonbrony, 'will win his wager from Mordicai.'

'Terry!' repeated Lady Clonbrony, 'that odious Terry!--I hope, my lord, that he is not to be one of my comforts in Ireland.'

'No, my dear mother; he is much better provided for than we could have expected.One of my father's first objects was to prevent him from being any encumbrance to you.We consulted him as to the means of making him happy; and the knight acknowledged that he had long been casting a sheep's eye at a little snug place, that will soon be open, in his native country--the chair of assistant barrister at the sessions."Assistant barrister!" said my father; "but, my dear Terry, you have all your life been evading the laws, and very frequently breaking the peace; do you think this has qualified you peculiarly for being a guardian of the laws?" Sir Terence replied, "Yes, sure; set a thief to catch a thief is no bad maxim.And did not Mr.Colquhoun, the Scotchman, get himself made a great justice, by his making all the world as wise as himself, about thieves of all sorts, by land and by water, and in the air too, where he detected the mud-larks?--And is not Barrington chief-justice of Botany Bay?"'My father now began to be seriously alarmed, lest Sir Terence should insist upon his using his interest to make him an assistant barrister.He was not aware that five years' practice at the bar was a necessary accomplishment for this office; when, fortunately for all parties, my good friend, Count O'Halloran, helped us out of the difficulty, by starting an idea full of practical justice.A literary friend of the count's had been for some time promised a lucrative situation under Government; but, unfortunately, he was a man of so much merit and ability, that they could not find employment for him at home, and they gave him a commission, I should rather say a contract, abroad, for supplying the army with Hungarian horses.Now the gentleman had not the slightest skill in horseflesh; and, as Sir Terence is a complete jockey, the count observed that he would be the best possible deputy for his literary friend.We warranted him to be a thoroughgoing friend; and I do think the coalition will be well for both parties.The count has settled it all, and I left Sir Terence comfortably provided for, out of your way, my dear mother, and as happy as he could be, when parting from my father.'

Lord Colambre was assiduous in engaging his mother's attention upon any subject which could for the present draw her thoughts away from her young friend; but, at every pause in the conversation, her ladyship repeated, 'So Grace is an heiress, after all--so, after all, they know they are not cousins! Well!

I prefer Grace, a thousand times over, to any other heiress in England.No obstacle, no objection.They have my consent.Ialways prophesied Colambre would marry an heiress; but why not marry directly?'