He looked up with a sudden expression of pain in his noble, benevolent countenance.
"We shall be beggars, my child! that's all."
Miss Vernon walked into the drawing-room, and opened the piano mechanically; while her thoughts were busily engaged in conjecturing whether the lingering debility of indisposition, rather than justly grounded fears, prompted her grandfather's gloomy view of Lady Desmond's intelligence.
"Shall we then really know the poverty, nurse talks of? Shall I be strong enough to say, in sincerity, 'Thy will be done!'"
But soon these gloomy speculations gave place to the pleasanter topic of her cousin's invitation, which seemed to have escaped her grandfather's notice.
She had been thus meditating for some time, when nurse entered with a letter in her hand.
"The master's love, Miss Kate, and if it's not too early he'd like you to go out wid him, he says he does not feel so well!"
"Yes, nurse, I will go and get my bonnet and shawl, when I have settled this music."
"Faith now, alannah, I'm not plaised at all with the looks iv him!"
"How?" said Kate, suspending her occupation of replacing the books in the music-stand, and looking up anxiously in Mrs. O'Toole's face, which wore an unusual look of care, especially about the depressed corners of her expressive mouth.
"Sorra one iv me can tell why, but he looks like as when a big black cloud is beginin' to be dhrawn over the sun in a fine summer's day; he just sits in the chair tired like; an ses he, 'only one letther for the post, nurse,' ses he, 'but be sure it's in time for the Irish maal,' and then he give me the message, I gave yes. The Cross iv Christ betune us an harum, ses I, as soon as I see 'J. Moore, Esquire,' on the letther; how are we to have luck or grace when we have any thing to say to the man that sould Dungar, an give it up to the spalpeen that has it now; look Miss Kate, thim's the Esquires that's going now! Faith an I remember Paddy Moore, his father, carrying sacks iv corn to the mill, an meself own maid up at the big house! Ay, then, J. Moore, Esquire, ye'r the first esquire in yer family, any ways, an there was ever an always sorra to sup when there was letthers goin back an forward betune you an the masther!"
"But, nurse, I have always heard that Mr. Moore was an upright honourable man, and I hope grandpapa's letter will be only productive of good."
"Well, well, may be so, but I'd a mighty quare dhrame both last night an the night afore. Oh, ye may laugh now, Miss Kate, but no matther! I seen the masther as plain as I see yer own sweet face forenent me, slippin, slippin down a steep slim place wid the say roarin mad ondher, an you houlding him for the dear life, an yer round white arms all strained an tremblin wid the weight that was too much for yez, an I couldn't help yez, tho' I struve an struve to run to yez; an in the struggle I woke up, all in a shake; an God forgive the word, but it's a mighty bad dhrame intirely!"
"No, Nurse – you say dreams go by contraries, so it is grandpapa that will be ascending some lofty eminence and dragging me after him."
"It was in the mornin', asthore, in the mornin' I dhreamt it."
"Never mind, nurse, if so, God will lend these slight arms strength for all that may be required of them – do not tell me any more dreams now, I must go to grandpapa."
"Sweet Mary, shield ye darlint!" ejaculated Mrs. O'Toole, as she looked after her nursling, "but we've rested so long widout them thieving attorneys, I don't like to see them beginin' their letthers agin. J. Moore, esquire! the divil go wid such esquires! amen."
Fearful and wonderful indeed is our spiritual organisation. Reason may smile at fears, unsubstantiated by any tangible motive, but the instant her accents of reproof have ceased, lo! the same formless and gnawing terror steals back, undiminished by one iota of its influence, to depress the soul, until again routed by reason's disciplined troops; a true guerilla warfare in which the irregular forces, ever ready to disperse and reassemble, always repulsed, but never conquered, are sure to wear out resistance in the end.
So Kate Vernon, in spite of her clear and cultivated intellect, her sound judgment, and her sense of the ridiculous, could not keep nurse's evil omen from dwelling on her mind; more, ay, a thousand times more, than her grandfather's apparent anxiety about the intelligence communicated by Lady Desmond, and they accomplished the circuit of the walls, silently, or, exchanging occasional remarks very foreign from the subject occupying both their minds.
At length the Colonel said abruptly —
"Kate, my child, what do you think of Lady Desmond's invitation?"
"Oh! I think it a delightful plan; but you, grandpapa, do you think we shall be able to accept it?"
"At present decidedly not. I must not be farther from Dublin than I am – I fear I shall have much letter writing, if indeed I am not obliged to go to Ireland myself; if matters come right again, I shall certainly endeavour to let the Priory, and take you to Italy; this complete retirement is not good or safe."
"Safe!" said Kate, laughing. "Why I thought it was quite selon les regles, of all romances, that a dethroned prince, and his lovely and interesting daughter, like you and I, should be safe only while in obscurity."
"According to old romances, I grant; but according to reality, there is more danger in the strong contrasts which the occasional breaks in a life of retirement present, in the tone of mind it engenders, than in the action of society, at least to you, Kate."
"Danger! Oh, tempt me not to boast," cried Kate, endeavouring to draw her grandfather from his moralising mood. "You may despise old romances, but you are nevertheless assuming the tone of some melancholy Count Alphonso, warning a sensitive and angelic Lady Malvina, against the world in general: dearest and best," she continued, in graver and tenderer tones, "I must swim down the troubled current of life, as you have done before me, and meet its difficulties and trials – leave me then to the same guide by whose aid, you have passed many a dangerous rapid safely, to float in a smooth, though diminutive haven at last."
"You are right, Kate, quite right; but how much longer the smoothness will last, God only knows."
"Well, there is a God, to know all, and direct all, and that consciousness, must rob the future of all apprehension. Shall I write to Lady Desmond, on our return, and tell her of our indecision and its causes?"
"By all means. Yet, dear child, I wish you would accept her invitation, you want change, and I could remain quite comfortably with nurse and – "
"Do not utter such treason! Leave you! and to amuse myself in Italy, when there is a chance that so far from being able to do without me, you may peculiarly want me."
"My dear, dear, unselfish child."
"Not a bit unselfish —tout au contraire. I should be miserable away, besides – but here are our friends, Winter and Gilpin, so, dearest grandpapa, leave the future to take care of itself; all will be arranged for the best."
There was no time to say more, as the painter and organist approached; but though the Colonel made no reply, some unexplained current of feeling induced him to pass his arm through Kate's, instead of offering it, as was his habit, for her support.
"Ha! Miss Vernon, I see you have taken advantage of a stray gleam of sun, to seduce the Colonel into risking another cold – the wind is truly detestable, but as I could not keep Gilpin in doors, I came out with him, he has not a grain of prudence!"
"My dear Winter, it is a remarkable fine day for March, I am glad, Gilpin, you felt equal to a walk."
"I think you look better," observed Kate.
"Yes: I think I am better, I feel to revive at the approach, however boisterous, of spring."
"Cospetto! three months in Italy would make you a new man; but here, the great mystery to me is, how any one who catches a cold ever loses it."
"The remedy is worse than the disease; imagine a depressed invalid in a strange country, without