"Oh, then, I remember her the beauty wonst!" said Tate, as he closed the door, after peering out for some seconds into the dark night: "and proud she was too,--riding a white Arabian, with two servants in scarlet liveries after her! The world has quare changes; but hers is the greatest ever I knew!"
Long after Miss Daly's departure, Lady Eleanor continued to discuss the eccentricity of her manners and the wilful abruptness of her address; for although deeply sensible and grateful for her kindness, she dwelt on every' peculiarity of her appearance with a pertinacity that more than once surprised her daughter. Helen, indeed, was very far from being a patient listener, not only because she was more tolerant in her estimate of their visitor, but because she was eager to read the letter so secretly intrusted to her hands. A dread of some unknown calamity, some sad tidings of her father or Lionel, was ever uppermost in her thoughts, nor could she banish the impression that Miss Daly's visit had another and very different object than that which she alleged to Lady Eleanor.
It may be reckoned among the well-known contrarieties of life, that our friends are never more disposed to be long-winded and discursive than at the very time we would give the world to be alone and to ourselves. With a most malicious intensity they seem to select that moment for indulging in all those speculations by which people while away the weary hours. In such a mood was Lady Eleanor Darcy. Not only did she canvass and criticise Miss Daly, as she appeared before them, but went off into long rambling reminiscences of all she had formerly heard about her; for although they had never met before, Miss Daly had been the reigning Belle of the West before her own arrival in Ireland.
"She must have been handsome, Helen, don't you think so?" said she, at the end of a long enumeration of the various eccentricities imputed to her.
"I should say very handsome," replied Helen.
"Scarcely feminine enough, perhaps," resumed Lady Eleanor,--"the features too bold, the expression too decided; but this may have been the fault of a social tone, which required everything in exaggeration, and would tolerate nothing save in excess."