When we adjourned to the drawing-room, Colonel Muddleton came towards me with an easy smile and an outstretched snuff-box, both in such perfect keeping: the action was a finished thing.
‘Any relation, may I ask, of a very old friend and brother officer of mine, General Mark O’Leary, who was killed in Canada?’ said he.
‘A capital fellow, brave as a lion, and pleasant. By Jove, I never met the like of him! What became of his Irish property?--he was never married, I think?’
‘No, he died a bachelor, and left his estates to my uncle; they had met once by accident, and took a liking to each other.’
‘No; my uncle died since. They came into my possession some two or three years ago.’
‘Eh--ah--upon my life!’ said he, with something of surprise in his manner; and then, as if ashamed of his exclamation, and with a much more cordial vein than at first, he resumed: ‘What a piece of unlooked-for good fortune to be sure! Only think of my finding my old friend Mark’s nephew!’
‘Never mind, never mind; he was kind of an uncle, you know--any man might be proud of him. What a glorious fellow!--full of fun, full of spirit and animation. Ah, just like all your countrymen! I’ve a little Irish blood in my veins myself; my mother was an O’Flaherty or an O’Neil, or something of that sort; and there’s Laura--you don’t know my daughter?’ ‘I have not the honour.’
‘Come along, and I’ll introduce you to her; a little reserved or so,’ said he, in a whisper, as if to give me the _carte du pays_--’ rather cold, you know, to strangers; but when she hears you are the nephew of my old friend Mark--Mark and I were like brothers.--Laura, my love,’ said he, tapping the young lady on her white shoulder as she stood with her back towards us; ‘Laura, dear---the son of my oldest friend in the world, General O’Leary.’
The young lady turned quickly round, and, as she drew herself up somewhat haughtily, dropped me a low curtsy, and then resumed her conversation with a very much whiskered gentleman near. The colonel seemed, despite all his endeavours to overcome it, rather put out by his daughter’s hauteur to the _son_ of his old friend; and what he would have said or done I know not, but the abbé came suddenly up, and with a card invited me to join a party at whist. The moment was so awkward for all, that I would have accepted an invitation even to écarté to escape from the difficulty, and I followed him into a small boudoir where two ladies were awaiting us. I had just time to see that they were both pleasing-looking, and of that time of life when women, without forfeiting any of the attractions of youth, are much more disposed to please by the attractions of manner and _esprit_ than by mere beauty, when we sat down to our game. La Baronne de Meer, my partner, was the younger and the prettier of the two; she was one of those Flemings into whose families the race of Spain poured the warm current of southern blood, and gave them the dark eye and the olive skin, the graceful figure and the elastic step, so characteristic of their nation.