“Alas! why was I not born above the ordinary range of the domestic affections?  Yet so long as I have my darling child—­who is all affection—­why should I complain on this account?  Alas, my Maria, it is now that thou art avenged for the neglect you experienced at my hands, and for the ambition that occasioned it.  Cursed ambition!  Did the coronet I gained by my neglect of you, beloved object of my first and only affection, console my heart under the cries of conscience, or stifle the grief which returned for you, when that ambition was gratified?  Ah, that false and precipitate step!  How much misery has it not occasioned me since I awoke from my dream!  Your gentle spirit seemed to haunt me through life, but ever with that melancholy smile of tender and affectionate reproach with which your eye always encountered mine while living.  And thou, wicked woman, what has thy act accomplished, if it should be successful?  What has thy fraudulent contrivance effected?  Sorrow to one who was ever thy friend—­grief, shame, and degradation to the innocent!”

Whilst the old man indulged in these painful and melancholy reflections, his son, on the other hand, was not without his own speculations.  On retiring to his dressing-room, he began to ponder over the admonitory if not prophetic words of his father.

“What the deuce can the matter be?” he exclaimed, surveying himself in the glass; “a good style of face that, in the meantime.  Gad, I knew she would surrender in form, and I was right.  Something is wrong with—­that gold button—­yes, it looks better plain—­the old gentleman—­something’s in the wind—­in the meantime I’ll raise this window—­or why should he talk so lugubriously as he does?  Upon my soul it was the most painful interview I ever had.  There is nothing on earth so stupid as the twaddle of a sick old lord, especially when repenting for his sins.  Repentance!  I can’t at all understand that word; but I think the style of the thing in the old fellow’s hands was decidedly bad—­inartistic, as they say, and without taste; a man, at all events, should repent like a gentleman.  As far as I can guess at it, I think there ought to be considerable elegance of manner in repentance—­a kind of genteel ambiguity, that should seem to puzzle the world as to whether you weep for or against the sin; or perhaps repentance should say—­as I suppose it often does—­’D—­n me, this is no humbug; this, look you, is a grand process—­I know what I’m about; let the world look on; I have committed a great many naughty things during my past life; I am now able to commit no more; the power of doing so has abandoned me; and I call gods and men to witness that I am very sorry for it.’—­Now, that, in my opinion, would be a good style of thing.  Let me see, however, what the venerable earl can mean.  I am threatened, am I?  Well, but nothing can affect the title; of that I’m sure when the cue, ‘exit old peer,’ comes; then, as to the property; why, he is one of the wealthiest men in the Irish peerage, although he is an English one also.  Then, what the deuce can his threats mean?  I don’t know—­perhaps he does not know himself; but, in any event, and to guard against all accidents, I’ll push on this marriage as fast as possible; for, in case anything unexpected and disagreeable should happen, it will be a good move to have something handsome—­something certain, to fall back upon.”