"So is that medallion portrait, Jack, which has just escaped from your clerical coat."
Jack caught up the medallion, and looking at it fondly, rose to his not over steady feet.
"Here's to the flower of all maidens for beauty; the incomparable! the divine! Dorothy Jacob. Dorothy of my soul and heart."
And when we had drunk her health as often as there were letters in her name, which proceeding was the result of what Jack called "a sweet suggestion of his own," I gathered from him, not without some effort, the following particulars regarding the lady and how he became acquainted with her. I do not, of course, attempt to give them in Jack's own words, for he was frequently breaking out into exclamations about her beauty, and as frequently insisting on my once more drinking her health.
Dorothy's father was a merchant of Kilkenny. She was his only child. Her mother had died young, and she was left in the care of a maiden aunt, who had died a few years previous to Jack's first meeting with the young lady.
The father was a very wealthy merchant, whose riches were partly inherited and partly acquired. He was desperately fond of his money, but still fonder of his daughter. He knew that he was growing old and always dreaded the day when she might leave him for another. He had kept her very much to himself and allowed her to see very little company.
She was very beautiful, so beautiful, as I afterwards discovered, as to fully justify Jack's panegyric. And many an amorous eye was cast upon her as she passed with her father through the streets on her way to church or market, for he seldom allowed her to go out alone. But the maiden never returned a glance, and did not seem to know how many hearts she was setting on fire.
Jack Langrishe lived with his uncle a few miles outside the town of Kilkenny, and was a frequent visitor to the town, and to the club which was the resort of all the young bloods and bucks of the day.
He had heard from them of the pretty Quakeress, had seen her several times, and since he had been sent down from college had fallen over head and ears in love with her.
Over and over he had heard the bucks suggesting that she should be carried off. But Jack always indignantly denounced any suggestion of the kind, and with such heat that he had in consequence to cross swords with one or two of his club associates, and with such effect that he came to be regarded as too formidable an antagonist to be trifled with.