It is not necessary to go over the conversation between father and daughter, which she subsequently retailed to Jack, and which he repeated to me. Enough to say, that Jack resolved on calling, and that the old gentleman finally received him with such coldness, and always alone, that Jack, except for the glance of the young girl's eye through the partially drawn curtain of the glass door that separated the living-room from the shop and counting house, might as well have met him in the street. He saw there was little use of continuing visits of this kind.
Whenever Jack entered the shop, he found the fair Dorothy, acting under her father's orders, escaping from it. He continued, nevertheless, to correspond with her through the aid of an old domestic, who quickly discovered the character of the relation between Jack and her young mistress, and whose almost withered heart had a green spot in it, in which bloomed the flower of sympathy with the passion of youthful lovers.
But this did not satisfy Jack. He longed for a sight of his lady love, who was kept a close prisoner in the house by her father, who suspected Jack's intentions, and saw in him a possible robber of his daughter's affections.
At length, after a good deal of cogitation, he hit upon the expedient of adopting the disguise in which I saw him. It was so perfect that his most intimate friends could not penetrate it, and as he was a first rate mimic, he never allowed his voice to betray him, and in order to prevent any possibility of suspicion, he had in his own proper character set out for Dublin, and when a few days after, he returned disguised to Kilkenny, it was as an antiquarian who had come down to spend some weeks there, in studying its ruins. He secured lodgings in the house of an old lady not far from the Quaker's place of business, which he found it necessary to visit every day to make some trivial purchase, such as gloves, hat bands, kerchiefs, etc.
The old Quaker, suspecting nothing, saw him come in day after day, and never thought it necessary to ask Dorothy to retire. On the contrary, he often quitted the shop, leaving Dorothy talking to the clerical looking old gentleman, and she and Jack continued to have some very agreeable talk together.