"Bother!" said Dalton, with a wave of his hand. "How much you know about it! 'T is just as they used to talk long ago about drunkenness. Sure, I remember well when there was all that hue and cry about Irish gentlemen's habits of dissipation, and the whole time n.o.body took anything to hurt his const.i.tution. Well, it's just the same with confession,--everybody uses his discretion about it. _You_ have your peccadilloes, and _I_ have my peccadilloes, and that young lady there has her--Well, I did n't mean to make you blush, miss, but 'tis what I'm saying, that n.o.body, barrin' a fool, would be too hard upon himself!"

"So that it ain't con-confession at all," exclaimed Purvis.

"Who told you that?" said Peter, sternly. "Is it nothing to pay two-and-sixpence in the pound if you were bankrupt to-morrow? Does n't it show an honest intention, any way?" said he, with a wink.

"Then what are the evils of Ireland?" asked Mrs. Ricketts, with an air of inquiring interest.

"I 'll tell you, then," said Dalton, slowly, as he filled a capacious gla.s.s with champagne. "It is n't the priests, nor it isn't the potatoes, nor it isn't the Protestants either, though many respectable people think so; for you see we had always priests and potatoes, and a sprinkling of Protestants besides; but the real evil of Ireland--and there's no man living knows it better than I do--is quite another thing, and here's what it is." And he stooped down and dropped his voice to a whisper. "'Tis this: 'tis paying money when you have n't it!" The grave solemnity of this enunciation did not seem to make it a whit more intelligible to Mrs. Ricketts, who certainly looked the very type of amazement. "That's what it is," reiterated Dalton, "paying money when you have n't it! There's the ruin of Ireland; and, as I said before, who ought to know better? For you see, when you owe money, and you have n't it, you must get it how you can. You know what that means; and if you don't, I 'll tell you. It means mortgages and bond debts; rack-renting and renewals; breaking up an elegant establishment; selling your horses at Dycer's; going to the devil entirely; and not only yourself, but all belonging to you. The tradesmen you dealt with, the country shop where you bought everything, the t.i.thes, the priests' dues,--not a farthing left for them."

"But you don't mean to say that people shouldn't p-p-pay their debts?"

screamed Purvis.

"There's a time for everything," replied Dalton. "Shaving oneself is a mighty useful process, but you wouldn't have a man get up out of his bed at night to do it? I never was for keeping money,--the worst enemy would n't say that of me. Spend it freely when you have it; but sure it's not spending to be paying debts due thirty or forty years back, made by your great-grandfather?"

"One should be just before being ge-gen-gene-gene----"

"Faix! I'd be both," said Dalton, who with native casuistry only maintained a discussion for the sake of baffling or mystifying an adversary. "I'd be just to myself and generous to my friends, them's my sentiments; and it 's Peter Dalton that says it!"

"Dalton!" repeated Mrs. Ricketts, in a low voice,----"did n't he say Dalton, Martha?"

"Yea, sister; it was Dalton."

"Did n't you say your name was Da-Da-a-a----"

"No, I didn't!" cried Peter, laughing. "I said Peter Dalton as plain as a man could speak; and if ever you were in Ireland, you may have heard the name before now."

"We knew a young lady of that name at Florence."

"Is it Kate,--my daughter Kate?" cried the old man, in ecstasy.

"Yes, she was called Kate," replied Mrs. Ricketts, whose strategic sight foresaw a world of consequences from the recognition. "What a lovely creature she was!"

"And you knew Kate?" cried Dalton again, gazing on the group with intense interest. "But was it my Kate? Perhaps it was n't mine!"

"She was living in the Mazzarini Palace with Lady Hester Onslow."

"That's her,--that's her! Oh, tell me everything you know,--tell me all you can think of her. She was the light of my eyes for many a year! Is the old lady sick?" cried he, suddenly; for Mrs. Ricketts had leaned back in her chair, and covered her face with her handkerchief.

"She 's only overcome," said Martha, as she threw back her own shawl and prepared for active service; while Scroope, in a burst of generous anxiety, seized the first decanter near him and filled out a b.u.mper.

"She and yonr da-daughter were like sisters," whispered Scroope to Dalton.

"The devil they were!" exclaimed Peter, who thought their looks must have belied the relationship. "Isn't she getting worse?--she's trembling all over her."

Mrs. Ricketts's state now warranted the most acute sympathy; for she threw her eyes wildly about, and seemed like one gasping for life.

"Is she here, Martha? Is she near me----can I see her--can I touch her?" cried she, in accents almost heartrending.

"Yes, yes; you shall see her; she 'll not leave you," said Martha, as if caressing a child. "We must remove her; we must get her out of this."

"To be sure; yes, of course!" cried Dalton. "There's a room here empty.

It's a tender heart she has, any way;" and, so saying, he arose, and with the aid of some half-dozen waiters transported the now unconscious Zoe, chair and all, into a small chamber adjoining the Saal.

"This is her father's hand," murmured Mrs. Ricketts, as she pressed Dalton's in her own,----"her father's hand."

"Yes, my dear!" said Dalton, returning the pressure, and feeling a strong desire to blubber, just for sociality's sake.

"If you knew how they loved each other," whispered Martha, while she busied herself pinning cap-ribbons out of the way of cold applications, and covering up lace from the damaging influence of restoratives.

"It 's wonderful,--it's wonderful!" exclaimed Peter, whose faculties were actually confounded by such a rush of sensations and emotions.

"Make him go back to his dinner, Martha; make him go back," sighed the sick lady, in a half-dreamy voice.

"I couldn't eat a bit; a morsel would choke me this minute," said Dalton, who could n't bear to be outdone in the refinements of excited sensibility.

"She must never be contradicted while in this state," said Martha, confidingly. "All depends on indulgence."

"It's wonderful!" exclaimed Dalton, again,----"downright wonderful!"

"Then, pray go back; she'll be quite well presently," rejoined Martha, who already, from the contents of a reticule like a carpet-bag, had metamorphosed the fair Zoe's appearance into all the semblance of a patient.

"It's wonderful; it beats Banagher!" muttered Peter, as he returned to the Saal, and resumed his place at the table. The company had already taken their departure, and except Purvis and the General, only a few stragglers remained behind.

"Does she often get them?" asked Peter of Purvis.

"Only when her fee-fee-feelings are worked upon; she's so se-sensitive!"

"Too tender a heart," sighed Peter, as he filled his gla.s.s, and sighed over an infirmity that he thought he well knew all the miseries of. "And her name, if I might make bould?"

"Ricketts,----Mrs. Montague Ricketts. This is Ge-Ge-General Ricketts."

At these words the old man looked op, smiled blandly, and lifted his gla.s.s to his lips.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 228]

"Your good health, and many happy returns to yoo," said Peter, in reply to the courtesy. "Ricketts,----Ricketts. Well, I 'm sure I heard the name before."

"In the D-D-Duke's despatches you may have seen it." "No, no, no. I never read one of them. I heard it here in Baden. Wait, now, and I'll remember how." Neither the effort at recollection nor the aid of a b.u.mper seemed satisfactory, for Dalton sat musingly for several minutes together. "Well, I thought I knew the name," exclaimed he, at last, with a deep sigh of discomfiture; "'t is runnin' in my head yet; something about chilblains,----chilblains."

"But the name is R-R-Ricketts," screamed Purvis.

"And so it is," sighed Peter. "My brain is woolgathering. By my conscience, I have it now, though!" cried he, in wild delight. "I knew I 'd scent it out. It was one Fogles that was here,----a chap with a red wig, and deaf as a door-nail."

"Fogla.s.s, you mean,--Fo-Fogla.s.s,----don't you?"

"I always called him Fogies; and I 'm sure it's as good a name as the other, any day."

"He's so pl-pleasant," chimed in Scroope, who, under the influence of Dalton's champagne, was now growing convivial,----"he's so agreeable; always in the highest cir-circles, and dining with no-no-no----"

"With n.o.bs," suggested Peter. "He might do better, and he might do worse. I 've seen lords that was as great rapscallions as you 'd meet from this to Kilrush."