Long afterwards he and I went to call on Aunt H., and as usual I had Prince under my arm. I noticed Aunt H. break off in a sentence, and fix a surprised and indignant eye on my dog. I had forgotten all about Prince's collar being Aunt H.'s bracelet, and only thought she did not like my bringing the dog to call, till I caught Willie's eye. He had at once taken in the situation, and became so convulsed with laughter that I hastily made my adieu and hustled him off.
Sir Seymour Fitzgerald lent us Holbrook Hall for our honeymoon, a kindness that proved unkind, as the pomp and ceremony entailed by a large retinue of servants for our two selves were very wearisome to me. There was little or no occupation for us, as the weather was too bad to get out much; our kind host had naturally not lent us his hunters, and we were, or Willie was, too much in awe of the conventions to ask anyone to come and relieve our ennui. Indeed, I think that no two young people were ever more rejoiced than we were when we could return to the life of the sane without comment.
Willie had sold out of the army just before his marriage, { 20} and his Uncle John, who had married a Spanish lady and settled in Madrid, offered Willie a partnership in his bank, O'Shea and Co., if he would put the £4,000 he received for his commission into it. This was too good an offer to be refused, so I said good-bye to my people, and bought some little presents for the servants at home, including a rich silk dress for my old nurse Lucy, who had been in my mother's service since the age of sixteen, and who was much upset that her youngest and dearest nursling should be taken away to such "heathenish, far-off places."
Before leaving England Willie and I stayed for a few days in London, and his mother and sister Mary called on us. They had not attended the marriage, as they would not lend their countenance to a "mixed" marriage, though once accomplished they accepted the situation. They were very nice and kind, and so gently superior that at once I became politely antagonistic. They brought me some beautiful Irish poplins which were made into gowns to wear in Madrid to impress the Spanish cousins, and a magnificent emerald bracelet, besides £200 worth of lovely Irish house-linen. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law were most generous indeed, and I then, and always, acknowledged them to be thoroughly good, kind-hearted women, but so hidebound with what was to me bigotry, with conventionality and tactlessness, that it was really a pain to me to be near them. They admired me, and very plainly disapproved of me; I admired them for their Parisian finish--(for want of a better term)--and for their undoubted goodness, but, though I was rather fond of Mary, they wearied me to death.