CHAPTER VI. TWO FRIENDS AND THEIR CONFIDENCES
By the details of my last two chapters, I have been obliged to recede, as it were, from the due course of my story, and speak of events which occurred prior to those mentioned in a former chapter; but this irregularity was a matter of necessity, since I could not pursue the narrative of my father’s life without introducing to the reader certain characters who, more or less, exerted an influence on his fortunes. Let me now, however, turn to my tale, from which it is my intention in future to digress as seldom as possible. A few lines, written in haste, had summoned MacNaghten to Castle Carew, on the morning of that Friday for which my father had invited his friends to dinner. With all his waywardness, and all the weaknesses of an impulsive nature, Dan MacNaghten stood higher in my father’s esteem than any other of his friends. It was not alone that he had given my father the most signal proofs of his friendship, but that, throughout his whole career, marked as it was by folly and rashness, and the most thoughtless extravagance, he had never done a single action that reflected on his reputation as a man of honor, nor, in all the triumphs of his prosperous days, or in the trials of his adverse ones, had be forfeited the regard of any who knew him. My father had intrusted to him, during his absence, everything that could be done without correspondence; for amongst Dan’s characteristics. none was more remarkable than his horror of letter-writing; and it was a popular saying of the time “that Dan MacNaghten would rather fight two duels than write one challenge.” Of course, it may be imagined how much there was for two such friends to talk over when they met, for if my father’s letters were few and brief, MacNaghten’s were still fewer and less explicit, leaving voids on either side that nothing but a meeting could supply.
Early, therefore, that Friday morning, Dan’s gig and mottled gray, the last remnant of an extensive stable establishment, rattled up the avenue of Castle Carew, and MacNaghten strolled into the garden to loiter about till such time as my father might be stirring. He was not many minutes there, however, when my father joined him, and the two friends embraced cordially, and arm-in-arm returned to the house.
It was not without astonishment Dan saw that the breakfast-table was spread in the same little garden-room which my father always used in his bachelor days, and, still more, that only two places were laid.
“You are wondering, where’s my wife, Dan. She never breakfasts with me; nor indeed, do we see each other till late in the afternoon, – a custom, I will own, that I used to rebel against at first, but I ‘m getting more accustomed to it now. And, after all, Dan, it would be a great sacrifice of all her comfort should I insist on a change; so I put up with it as best I can.”
“Perhaps she ‘ll see herself, in time, that these are not the habits here.”
“Perhaps so,” said my father; “but usually French people think their own ways the rule, and all others the exception. I suppose you were surprised at my marriage, Dan.”
“Faith, I was, I own to you. I thought you one of those inveterate Irishers that could n’t think of anything but Celtic blood. You remember, when we were boys, how we used to rave on that theme.”
“Very true. Like all the grafts, we deemed ourselves purer than the ancient stock; but no man ever knows when, where, or whom he’ll marry. It’s all nonsense planning and speculating about it. You might as well look out for a soft spot to fall in a steeplechase. You come smash down in the very middle of your speculations. I ‘m sure, as for me, I never dreamed of a wife till I found that I had one.”
“I know so well how it all happened,” cried Dan, laughing. “You got up one of those delightful intimacies – that pleasant, familiar kind of half-at-homishness that throws a man always off his guard, and leaves him open to every assault of female fascination, just when he fancies that he is the delight of the whole circle. Egad, I’ve had at least half-a-dozen such, and must have been married at least as many times, if somebody hadn’t discovered, in the mean while, that I was ruined.”
“So that you never fell in love in your prosperous days, Dan?”
“Who does – who ever did? The minor that wrote sonnets has only to come of age, and feel that he can indite a check, to be cured of his love fever. Love is a passion most intimately connected with laziness and little money. Give a fellow seven or eight thousand a-year, good health and good spirits, and I ‘ll back him to do every other folly in Christendom before he thinks of marriage.”
“From all of which I am to conclude that you set down this act of mine either as a proof of a weak mind or a failing exchequer,” said my father.
“Not in your case,” said he, more slowly, and with a greater air of reflection. “You had always a dash of ambition about you; and the chances are that you set your affections on one that you half despaired of obtaining, or had really no pretentions to look for. I see I ‘m right, Walter,” said he, as my father fidgeted, and looked confused. “I could have wagered a thousand on it, if I had as much. You entered for the royal plate, and, by Jove! I believe you were right.”
“You have not made so bad a guess of it, Dan; but what say the rest? What’s the town gossip?”
“Do you not know Dublin as well or better than I do? Can’t you frame to a very letter every syllable that has been uttered on the subject? or need I describe to you my Lady Kilfoyle’s fan-shaking horror as she tells of ‘that poor dear Carew, and his unfortunate marriage with Heaven knows whom!’ Nor Bob French’s astonishment that you, of all men, should marry out of your sphere, – or, as he calls it, your ‘spire.’ Nor how graphically Mrs. Stapleton Harris narrates the manner of your entanglement: how you fought two brothers, and only gave in to the superior force of an outraged mamma and the tears of your victim! Nor fifty other similar stories, in which you figured alternately as the dupe or the deceived, – the only point of agreement being a universal reprobation of one who, with all his pretentions to patriotism, should have entirely forgotten the claims of Irish manufacture.”
“And are they all so severe, – so unjust?”
“Very nearly. The only really warm defender I ‘ve heard of you, was one from whom you probably least expected it.”
“And who might that be?”
“Can’t you guess, Watty?”
“Harry Blake – Redmond – George Macartney?”
“Confound it, you don’t think I mean a man!”
“A woman, – who could she be? Not Sally Talbot; not Lady Jane Rivers; not – ”
“Kitty Dwyer; and I think you might have guessed her before, Watty! It is rather late, to be sure, to think of it; but my belief is that you ought to have married that girl.”
“She refused me, Dan. She refused me,” said my father, growing red, between shame and a sense of irritation.
“There ‘s a way of asking that secures a refusal, Watty. Don’t tell me Kitty was not fond of you. I ought to know, for she told me so herself.”
“She told you so,” cried my father, slowly.
“Ay, did she. It was in the summer-house, down yonder. You remember the day you gave a great picnic to the Carbiniers; they were ordered off to India, and you asked them out here to a farewell breakfast. Well, I did n’t know then how badly matters were with me. I thought at least that I could scrape together some thirteen or fourteen hundreds a year; and I thought, too, that I had a knowledge of the world that was worth as much more, and that Kitty Dwyer was just the girl that suited me. She was never out of humor, could ride anything that ever was backed, did n’t care what she wore, never known to be sick, sulky, nor sorry for anything; and after a country dance that lasted two hours, and almost killed everybody but ourselves, I took her a walk round the gardens, and seated her in the summer-house there. I need n’t tell all I said,” continued he, with a sigh. “I believe I could n’t have pleaded harder for my life, if it was at stake; but she stopped me short, and, squeezing my hand between both of hers, said: ‘No, Dan, this cannot be, and you are too generous to ask me why.’ But I was not! I pressed her all the more; and at last – not without seeing a tear in her eye, too – I got at her secret, and heard her say your name. I swore by every saint we could either of us remember, never to tell this to man or mortal living; and I suppose, in strict fact, I ought n’t to do so now; but, of course, it ‘s the same thing as if you were dead, and you, I well know, will never breathe it again.”
“Never!” said my father, and sat with his head on his hand, unable to utter a word more.
“Poor Kitty!” said Dan, with a heavy sigh, while he balanced his spoon on the edge of his teacup. “I half suspect she is the only one in the world that you ever seriously wronged, and yet she is the very first to uphold you.”
“But you are unjust, Dan, – most unjust,” cried my father, warmly. “There was a kind of flirtation between us – I don’t deny it, – but nothing more than is always going forward in this free-and-easy land of ours, where people play with their feelings as they do with their fortunes, and are quite astonished to discover, some fine morning, that they have fairly run through both one and the other. I liked her, and she perhaps liked me, somewhat better than any one else that she met as often. We got to become very intimate; to feel that in the disposal of our leisure hours – which meant the livelong day – we were excessively necessary to each other; in fact, that if our minds were not quite alike, our tastes were. Of course, before one gets that far, one’s friends, as they call themselves, have gone far beyond it. There’s no need of wearying you with detail. Somebody, I ‘m sure I forget who it was, now took occasion to tell me that I was behaving ill to Kitty; that unless I really intended seriously, – that’s the paraphrase for marriage, – my attentions were calculated to do her injury. Ay, by Jove! your match-making moralists talk of a woman as they would of a horse, and treat a broken flirtation as if it were a breach of warranty. I was, I own it, not a little annoyed at the unnecessary degree of interest my friends insisted on taking in my welfare; but I was not fool enough to go to war with the world single-handed, so I seemed to accept the counsel, and went my way. That same day, I rode out with Kitty. There was a large party of us, but by some chance we found ourselves side by side and in an avenue of the wood. Quite full as my mind was of the communication of the morning, I could not resist my usual impulse, which was to talk to her of any or every thing that was uppermost in my thoughts. I don’t mean to say, Dan, that I did so delicately, or even becomingly, for I confess to you I had grown into that kind of intimacy whose gravest fault is that it has no reserve. I ‘m quite certain that nothing could be worse in point of taste or feeling than what I said. You can judge of it from her reply: ‘And are you such a fool, Walter, as to cut an old friend for such silly gossip?’ I blundered out something in defence of myself, – floundered away into all kinds of stupid, unmeaning apologies, and ended by asking her to marry me. Up to that moment we were conversing in all the freedom of our old friendship, not the slightest reserve on either side; but no sooner had I uttered these words than she turned towards me with a look so sad and so reproachful, I did not believe that her features could have conveyed the expression, while, in a voice of deepest emotion, she said: ‘Oh, Walter, this from you!’ I was brute enough – there ‘s only one word for it – to misunderstand her; and, full of myself and the splendid offer I had made her, and my confounded amour propre, I muttered something about the opinion of the world, the voice of friends, and so on. ‘Tell your friends, then,’ said she, and with such an emphasis on the word, – ‘tell your friends that I refused you!’ and giving her mare a tremendous cut of the whip, she dashed off at speed, and was up with the others before I had even presence of mind to follow her.”
“You behaved devilish badly, – infamously. If I ‘d been her brother, I’d have shot you like a dog!” cried Dan, rising, and walking the room.
“I see it,” said my father, covering his face with his handkerchief.
“I am sorry I said that, Watty, – I don’t mean that,” said Dan, laying his hand on my father’s shoulder. “It all comes of that infernal system of interference! If they had left you alone, and to the guidance of your own feelings, you ‘d never have gone wrong. But the world will poke in its d – d finger everywhere. It’s rather hard, when good-breeding protests against the bystander meddling with your game at chess, that he should have the privilege of obtruding on the most eventful incident of your existence.”
“Let us never speak of this again, Dan,” said my father, looking up with eyes that were far from clear.
MacNaghten squeezed his band, and said nothing.
“What have you been doing with Tony Fagan, Dan?” said my father, suddenly. “Have you drawn too freely on the Grinder, and exhausted the liberal resources of his free-giving nature?”
“Nothing of the kind; he has closed his books against me this many a day. But why do you ask this?”
“Look here.” And he opened a drawer and showed a whole mass of papers, as he spoke. “Fagan, whom I regarded as an undrainable well of the precious metals, threatens to run dry; he sends me back bills unaccepted, and actually menaces me with a reckoning.”
“What a rascal, not to be satisfied with forty or fifty per cent!”
“He might have charged sixty, Dan, if he would only ‘order the bill to lie on the table.’ But see, he talks of a settlement, and even hints at a lawyer.”
“You ought to have married Polly.”
“Pray, is there any one else that I should have married, Dan?” cried my father, half angrily; “for it seems to me that you have quite a passion for finding out alliances for me.”
“Polly, they say, will have three hundred thousand pounds,” said Dan, slowly, “and is a fine girl to boot. I assure you, Watty, I saw her the other day, seated in the library here; and with all the splendor of your stained-glass windows, your gold-fretted ceiling, and your gorgeous tapestries, she looked just in her place. Hang me, if there was a particle of the picture in better style or taste than herself.”
“How came she here?” cried my father, in amazement. And MacNaghten now related all the circumstances of Fagan’s visit, the breakfast, and the drive.
“And you actually sat with three hundred thousand pounds at your side,” said my father, “and did not decamp with it?”
“I never said she had the money in her pocket, Watty. Egad! that would have been a very tempting situation.”
“How time must have changed you, Dan, when you could discuss the question thus calmly! I remember the day when you ‘d have won the race, without even wasting a thought on the solvency of the stakeholder.”
“Faith, I believe it were the wisest way, after all, Watty,” said he, carelessly; “but the fact is, in the times you speak of, my conscience, like a generous banker, never refused my drafts; now, however, she has taken a circumspect turn, and I ‘m never quite certain that I have not overdrawn my account with her. In plain words, I could not bring myself to do with premeditation what once I might have done from recklessness.”
“And so the scruple saved Polly?” cried my father.
“Just so; not that I had much time to reflect on it, for the blacks were pulling fearfully, and Dan had smashed his splinter-bar with a kick. Still, in coming up by the new shrubbery there, I did say to myself: ‘Which road shall I take?’ The ponies were going to decide the matter for me; but I turned them short round with a jerk, and laid the whip over their flanks with a cut, – the dearest, assuredly, I ever gave to horseflesh, for it cost me, in all likelihood, three hundred thousand.”
“Who ‘d have ever thought Dan MacNaghten’s conscience would have been so expensive!”
“By Jove, Watty, it’s the only thing of value remaining to me. Perhaps my creditors left it on the same polite principle that they allow a respectable bankrupt to keep his snuff-box or his wife’s miniature, – a cheap complaisance that reads well in the newspapers.”
“The Grinder, of course, thought that he had seen the last of you,” said my father, laughing.
“He as much as said so to me when I came back. He even went further,” said Dan, reddening with anger as he spoke: “he proposed to me to go abroad and travel, and that he would pay the cost. But he ‘ll scarcely repeat the insolence.”
“Why, what has come over you all here? I scarcely know you for what I left you some short time back. Dan Mac-Naghten taking to scruples, and Tony Fagan to generosity, seem, indeed, too much for common credulity! And now as to politics, Dan! What are our friends doing? for I own to you I have not opened one of Bagwell’s letters since I left Paris.”
“You ‘re just as wise as if you had. Tom has got into all that Rotundo cant about the ‘Convention,’ and the ‘Town Council,’ and the ‘Sub-Committee of Nine,’ so that you’d not make anything out of the correspondence. I believe the truth is, that the Bishop is mad, and they who follow him are fools. The Government at first thought of buying them over; but they now perceive it’s a cheaper and safer expedient to leave them to themselves and their own-indiscretions. But I detest the subject; and as we ‘ll have nothing else talked of to-day at dinner, I’ll cry truce till then. Let us have a look at the stable, Watty. I want to talk to you about the ‘nags.’” And so saying, MacNaghten arose from table, and, taking my father’s arm, led him away into the garden.
CHAPTER VII. SHOWING HOW CHANCE IS BETTER THAN DESIGN
It was not the custom of the day for the lady of the house to present herself at dinner when the party consisted solely of men, so that my mother’s absence from table appeared nothing remarkable. To her, however, it did seem somewhat singular that, although she descended to the drawing-room in all the charming elegance of a most becoming costume, not one of the guests presented himself to pay his respects, or, as she would have said, his dutiful homage. It is possible that my father had forgotten to apprise her that the company of a dinner-party were not usually in that temperate and discreet frame of mind which would make their appearance in a drawing-room desirable. In his various lessons, it is more than likely that this escaped him; and I believe I am not far wrong in wishing that many other of his instructions had shared the same fate. The fact was, that in preparing my mother for the duties and requirements of a novel state of society, he had given her such false and exaggerated notions of the country and the people, she had imbibed a hundred absurd prejudices about them which, had she been left to her own unguided good sense and tact, she would have totally escaped; and while, as he thought, he was storing her mind with a thorough knowledge of Ireland, he was simply presenting her with a terrifying picture of such inconsistency, incongruity, and wrongheadedness that no cleverness on her part could ever succeed in combating.
It is perfectly true that the courtly deference and polished reserve of old French manners, its thousand observances, and its unfailing devotion to ladies, were not the striking features of Irish country-house life; but there was a great deal in common between them, and perhaps no country of Europe in that day could so easily, and with such little sacrifice, have conformed to the French standard of good-breeding as Ireland; and I have little doubt that if left to herself, my mother would have soon discovered the points of contact, without even troubling her head or puzzling her ingenuity over their discrepancies. However that may be, there she sat, in all the attractive beauty of full dress, alone and in silence, save when the door of the distant dinner-room opening bore to her ears the wild and vociferous merriment of a party excited by wine and conviviality.
I know not, I can but fancy, what thoughts of her own dear land were hers at that moment, what memory of delicious evenings spent amidst alleys of orange and lime trees, the rippling fountain mingling its sounds with the more entrancing music of flattery; what visions rose before her of scenes endeared from infancy, of objects that recalled that soft, luxurious dalliance which makes of life a dream. I can but imagine that of this kind were her reveries, as she sat in solitude, or slowly paced up and down the immense room which, but partially lighted up, looked even larger than it was. To cut off every clew to her family, my father had sent back from England the maid who accompanied her, and taken in her place one who knew nothing of my mother’s birth or connections, so that she had not even the solace of so much confidential intercourse, and was utterly, completely alone. While in Wales she had been my father’s companion for the entire day, accompanying him when he walked or rode, and beside him on the river’s bank as he fished; scarcely had they arrived in Ireland, however, when the whole course of life was changed. The various duties of his station took up much of his time, he was frequently occupied all the day, and they met but rarely; hence had she adopted those old habits of her native country, – that self-indulgent system which surrounds itself with few cares, fewer duties, and, alas! no resources.
So fearful was my father that she might take a dislike to the country from the first impressions produced upon her by new acquaintances that he actually avoided every one of his neighbors, hesitating where or with whom to seek companionship for his wife: some were too old, some too vulgar, some were linked with an objectionable “set,” some were of the opposite side in politics. His fastidiousness increased with every day; and while he was assuring her that there was a delightful circle into which she would be received, he was gradually offending every one of his old neighbors and associates. Of the great heap of cards which covered her table, she had not yet seen one of the owners, and already a hundred versions were circulated to account for the seclusion in which she lived.
I have been obliged to burden my reader with these explanations, for whose especial enlightenment they are intended, for I desire that he should have as clear an idea of the circumstances which attended my mother’s position as I am able to convey, and without which he would be probably unjust in his estimate of her character. In all likelihood there is not any one less adapted to solitude than a young, very handsome, and much-flattered Frenchwoman. Neither her education nor her tastes fit her for it; and the very qualities which secure her success in society are precisely those which most contribute to melancholy when alone; wit and brilliancy when isolated from the world being like the gold and silver money which the shipwrecked sailor would willingly have bartered for the commonest and vilest articles of simple utility.
Let the reader, then, bearing all this in his mind, picture to himself my mother, who, as the night wore on, became more and more impatient, starting at every noise, and watching the door, which she momentarily expected to see open.
During all this time, the company of the dinner-room were in the fullest enjoyment of their conviviality, – and let me add, too, of that species of conviviality for which the Ireland of that day was celebrated. It is unhappily too true: those habits of dissipation prevailed to such an extent that a dinner-party meant an orgie; but it is only fair to remember that it was not a mere festival of debauch, but that native cleverness and wit, the able conversationalist, the brilliant talker, and the lively narrator had no small share in the intoxication of the hour. There was a kind of barbaric grandeur in the Irish country gentleman of the time – with his splendid retinue, his observance of the point of honor, his contempt of law, and his generous hospitality – that made him a very picturesque, if not a very profitable, feature of his native country. The exact period to which I refer was remarkable in this respect: the divisions of politics had risen to all the dignity of a great national question, and the rights of Ireland were then on trial.
It is not my object, perhaps as little would it be the reader’s wish, to enter on any description of the table-talk, where debates in the House, duels, curious assize cases, hard runs with fox-hounds, adventures with bailiffs, and affairs of gallantry all followed pell-mell, in wild succession. None were above telling of their own defeats and discomfitures. There was little of that overweening self-esteem which in our time stifles many a good story, for fear of the racy ridicule that is sure to follow it. Good fellowship and good temper were supreme, and none felt that to be offence which was uttered in all the frank gayety of the bottle. Even then the western Irishman had his distinctive traits; and while the taste for courtly breeding and polished manners was gradually extending, he took a kind of pride in maintaining his primitive habits of dress and demeanor, and laughed at the newfangled notions as a fashionable folly that would last its hour and disappear again. Of this school was a certain Mr., or rather, as he was always called, “Old Bob Ffrench,” the familiar epithet of Bitter Bob being his cognomen among friends and intimates. I am unwilling to let my readers suppose, even for a moment, that he really deserved the disparaging prefix. He was, indeed, the very emblem of an easy-tempered, generous-hearted old man, the utmost extent of whose bitterness was the coarseness of a manner that, however common in his own country, formed a strong contrast to the tone of the capital. Although a man of a large fortune and ancient family, in his dress and appearance he looked nothing above the class of a comfortable farmer. His large loose brown coat was decorated with immense silver buttons, and his small clothes, disdaining all aid from braces, displayed a liberal margin of linen over his hips; but his stockings were most remarkable of all, being of lamb’s wool and of two colors, a light-brown and blue, – an invention of his own to make them easy of detection if stolen, but which assuredly secured their safety on better grounds. He was a member of Parliament for a western borough; and despite many peculiarities of diction, and an occasional lapse of grammar, was always listened to with attention in the House, and respected for the undeviating honor and manly frankness of his character. Bob had been, as usual, an able contributor to the pleasures of the evening; he had sung, told stories, joked, and quizzed every one around him, and even, in a burst of confidence, communicated the heads of a speech he was about to make in the House on the question of reform, when he suddenly discovered that his snuffbox was empty. Now, amongst his many peculiarities, one was the belief that no man in Ireland knew how to apportion the various kinds of tobacco like himself, and Bob’s mixture was a celebrated snuff of the time.
To replenish his box he always carried a little canister in his great-coat pocket, but never would intrust the care of this important casket to a servant; so that when he saw that he was “empty,” he quietly stole from the room and went in search of his great-coat. It was not without some difficulty that he found his way through the maze of rooms and corridors to the antechamber where he had deposited his hat and coat. Having found it at last, however, he set out to retrace his steps; but whether it was that the fresh air of the cool galleries, or the walking, or that the wine was only then producing its effects, certain is it Mr. Ffrench’s faculties became wonderfully confused. He thought he remembered a certain door; but, to his misery, there were at least half-a-dozen exactly like it; he knew that he turned off into a passage, but passages and corridors opened on all sides of him. How heartily did he curse the architect that could not build a house like all the world, with a big hall, having the drawing-room to the left and the dinner-room to the right, – an easy geography that any one could recollect after dinner as well as before. With many a malediction on all newfangled notions, he plodded on, occasionally coming to the end of an impassable gallery, or now straying into rooms in total darkness. “A blessed way to be spending the evening,” muttered he to himself; “and maybe these rascals are quizzing me all this time.” Though he frequently stopped to listen, he never could catch the sounds of a conviviality that he well knew was little measured, and hence he opined that he must have wandered far away from the right track. In the semi-desperation of the moment, he would gladly have made his escape by a window, and trusted to his chance of discovering the hall door; but unfortunately the artifices of a modern window-bolt so completely defied his skill that even this resource was denied him. “‘I’ll take one ‘cast’ more,” muttered he, “and if that fails, I ‘ll lie down on the first snug place I can find till morning.” It became soon evident to him that he had, at least, entered new precincts; for he now found himself in a large corridor, splendidly lighted, and with a rich carpeting on the floor. There were several doors on either side, but although he tried them each in turn, they were all locked. At last he came to a door at the extreme end of the gallery, which opened to his hand, and admitted him into a spacious and magnificently furnished apartment, partially lit up, and by this deceptive light admitting glimpses of the most rare and costly objects of china, glass, and marble. It needed not the poetizing effects of claret to make Bob fancy that this was a fairy palace; but perhaps the last bottle contributed to this effect, for he certainly stood amazed and confounded at a degree of magnificence and splendor with which he had never seen anything to compare. Vainly endeavoring to peer through the dubious half light, and see into the remote distance of the chamber, Ffrench reached the middle of the room, when he heard, or thought he heard, the rustling sounds of silk. It was in the days of hoops and ample petticoats. He turned abruptly, and there stood directly in front of what, in his own description, he characterized as “the elegantest crayture ye ever set eyes upon.” Young, beautiful, and most becomingly dressed, it is no wonder if my mother did produce a most entrancing effect on his astounded senses. Never for a moment suspecting that his presence was the result of an accident, my mother courtesied very low, and, with a voice and a smile of ineffable sweetness, addressed him. Alas! poor Bob’s mystifications were not to end here, for she spoke in French, and however distinguished the City of the Tribes might be in many respects, that language was but little cultivated there. He could, therefore, only bow, and lay his hand on his heart, and look as much devotion, respect, and admiration as it was in his power to express at that late hour of the evening.