Towards eight o\'clock of the evening of the day after his duel with Sir Jasper, Mr. Denis O\'Hara, seated at his open window, disconsolate in a very gorgeous dressing-gown and a slight fever fit, found it indeed so damnably deserted that the sight of a sedan-chair and two toiling chairmen coming up the incline became quite an object of interest to him.
"To be sure," thought he, "don\'t I know it\'s only some old hen being joggled home to roost, after losing sixpence and her temper at piquet? But what\'s to prevent me beguiling myself for a bit by dreaming of some lovely young female coming to visit me in me misfortune? Sure it\'s the rats those fellows are, that not one of them would keep me company to-night! There\'s nobody like your dear friends for smelling out an empty purse. Musha!" said Mr. O\'Hara, putting his head out of the window, "if the blessed ould chair isn\'t stopping at me own door!"
A bell pealing through the house confirmed his observation.
"It\'s a woman! By the powers, it\'s a woman! Tim, Tim, ye devil!" roared Mr. O\'Hara, "come to me this minute, or I\'ll brain ye."
Conscious of his invalid negligé, he rose in his chair; but, curiosity proving stronger than decorum, was unable to tear himself from his post of vantage at the window.
"Oh! the doaty little foot!" he cried in rapture, as arched pink-silk instep and a brocade slipper of daintiest proportion emerged, in a little cloud of lace, from the dim recesses of the chair, upon his delighted vision.
He turned for a moment to bellow again into the room:
"Tim, you limb of Satan, where are you at all? Sure, I\'m not fit to be seen by any lady, let alone such a foot as that!"
When he popped his head once more through the window, only the chairmen occupied the street.
"It\'s for the ground floor, of course; for the French marquis," said O\'Hara, and sat down, feeling as flat as a pancake.
The next instant a knock at the door sent the quick blood flying to the red head. The "limb of Satan," more generally known as Tim Mahoney, an ingratiating, untidy fellow, with a cunning leer and a coaxing manner, stood ogling his master on the threshold; then he jerked with his thumb several times over his shoulder, and grinned with exquisite enjoyment.
"What is it?" said O\'Hara fiercely.
Tim winked, and jerked his thumb once more.
"Speak, ye ugly divil, or by heavens I\'ll spoil your beauty for you!"
"Your sisther!" cried Tim, with a rumbling subterraneous laugh.
"Me sisther, man?"
"Ay, yer honour," said the scamp, who, as O\'Hara\'s foster-brother, was well aware that his master boasted no such gentle tie. "Sure she\'s heard your honour\'s wounded, and she\'s come to visit you. \'I\'m Misther O\'Hara\'s sister,\' says she——"
"And am I not?" cried a sweet voice behind him, "or, if not, at least a very, very dear cousin, and, in any case, I must see Mr. O\'Hara at once, and alone."
"To be sure," cried O\'Hara, eagerly rising in every way to the situation, and leaping forward. "Show in the lady, you villain!—Oh, my darling!" cried the Irishman, opening generous arms, "but I am glad to see ye!—Tim, you scoundrel, shut the door behind you!"
The visitor was much enveloped, besides being masked. But there was not a moment\'s hesitation in the ardour of Mr. O\'Hara\'s welcome.
"Sir, sir!" cried a faint voice from behind the folds of lace, "what conduct is this?"
"Oh, sisther darling, sure, me heart\'s been hungering for you! Another kiss, me dear, dear cousin!"
"Mr. O\'Hara!" cried Mistress Bellairs, in tones of unmistakable indignation; tore off her mask, and stood with panting bosom and fiery eye.
"Tare and ages!" exclaimed the ingenuous Irishman. "If it isn\'t me lovely Kitty!"
"Mistress Bellairs, if you please, Mr. O\'Hara," said the lady with great dignity. "I am glad to see, sir, that that other passion of which I have heard so much has not interfered with the strength of your family affections."
She sat down, and fanned herself with her mask, and, looking haughtily round the room, finally fixed her gaze, with much interest, upon the left branch of the chandelier.
For a second, Mr. O\'Hara\'s glib tongue seemed at a loss; but it was only for a second. With a graceful movement he gathered the skirts of his fine-flowered damask dressing-gown more closely over the puce satin small clothes, which, he was sadly conscious, were not in their first freshness, besides bearing the trace of one over-generous bumper of what he was fond of calling the ruby-wine. Then, sinking on one knee, he began to pour a tender tale into the widow\'s averted ear.
"And it\'s the fine ninny ye must think me, Kitty darling—I beg your pardon, darling; ma\'am it shall be, though I vow to see ye toss your little head like that, and set all those elegant little curls dancing, is enough to make anyone want to start you at it again. Oh, sure, it\'s the divine little ear you have, but, be jabers, Kitty, if it\'s the back of your neck you want to turn on me—there now, if I was to be shot for it, I couldn\'t help it—with the little place there just inviting my lips."
"Keep your kisses for your sister, sir, or your cousin!"
"What in the world—— And d\'ye think I didn\'t know you?"
"A likely tale!"
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