Miss Dalton

“ Ricketts. “Miss Dalton is one of ourselves. All the distinguished Irish are of the Reformed faith.”
“I am a Catholic, madam,” said Kate, not knowing whether to be more amused than annoyed at the turn the conversation had taken.
“I knew it,” cried Purvis, in delight. “I tracked your carriage to the D-D-Duomo, and I went in after you, and saw you at the co-co-co-co—”
“Corner,” whispered Martha, who, from his agonies, grew afraid of a fit. ”

“ Dalton had; and by the answering gleam in his eye, showed he was rewarded for the whim which had prompted him to be the bearer of the good tidings. It amused him to play with this pretty child-wife, and sound the depths of her nature—if there were any!
"What is your age?" he asked abruptly, with a doctor's licence to question a patient as he chose.
"I was nineteen in summer."
"You have no business with a baby when you are one yourself! Now for your tea," and he held the cup while she leant on her elbow to drink its contents, a shower of honey-gold hair falling about her face. ”

“ What worldliness one sees everywhere!” cried she, plaintively.
“The world is excessively worldly, madam,” rejoined Haggerstone; “but I really believe that we are not a jot worse than were the patriarchs of old.”
“Ah, oui, les patriarches!” echoed the Pole, laughing, and always ready to seize upon an allusion that savored of irreverence.
“Count! Colonel Haggerstone!” cried Mrs. Ricketts, in reproof, and with a look to where Martha sat at her embroidery-frame. “And this Miss Dalton is she pretty?” ”

“ Having made a convert of Kate, Lady Hester briefly replied to Sir Stafford, that his proposition was alike repugnant to Miss Dalton as to herself, that she regretted the want of consideration on his part, which could have led him to desire that she should be friendless at a time when the presence of a companion was more than ever needed. ”

“ A queer feeling of sympathy came over him for this gentle little woman on the top floor whom he had always liked. "There hain't none of the tenants no business with them yards; he said so."
"Oh!" said Mrs. Dalton, "I—I'll go then." And she picked up the trowel and rose to her feet.
She passed the janitor without a word, her head held high, and her eyes looking straight before her; but once in the seclusion of the halls, her head drooped, and her eyes rained tears that rolled down her cheeks unceasingly all the way to the top floor. ”

“ The impassable barrier of reserve around them, if it protect from all the rubs and frictions of life, equally excludes from much of its genial enjoyment; and all those little pleasantries which grow out of intimacy are denied those who have no equals.
It was in some such meditation as this Kate Dalton sat, roused occasionally to bestow a smile or a passing word of acknowledgment in return for some of those little morsels of compliment and flattery which old courtiers pay as their rightful tribute to a young and handsome woman. ”

“ You have pity enough for strangers, but none for your own people,” said Dalton, as he arose and paced the room, the very act of motion serving to increase his anger. “He was never used to better; he's just what he always was. But think of me! think of the expectations I was reared to, the place I used to hold, and see me now!”
“Dearest, best papa, do not say those bitter words,” cried Kate, passionately. “Our own dear Nelly loves us truly. What has her life been but self-denial?” ”

“ Dalton, seeing difficulties thickening and troubles gathering, suddenly bethinks him that he has a daughter, a young lady of such attractions that, in a society where wealth and splendor and rank hold highest place, her beauty has already established a dominion which nothing, save her gentleness, prevents being a despotism. ”

“ The trivialities of Dalton amaze you: it is hard to understand how a man within the limit of such influences as Miss Dalton must inevitably exert, can tamely sit down to a rubber of whist, and cigars! There must be a sad lack of congeniality;—it would certainly be a proud thing to supply that lack! ”

“ Some recommended a school to Mr. Dalton, others a governess, but, still more, a wife. The owner of Dalton Park was however not a man to be advised, at least, if people desired that their advice should be taken. An impatient shrug of the shoulder and a still deeper silence was the utmost reply that the ingenious insinuation, or even the more direct attack, ever produced. Every time Mr. Dalton went from home, it was universally decided that he was gone to be married: still, though there is an old proverb stating that what everybody says must be true, yet there is no rule without an exception. ”

“ We are quite accustomed to these seizures. My dear sister's nerves are so susceptible.”
“Yes,” said Scroope, who, be it remarked, had already half finished a bottle of hock, “poor Zoe is all sensibility the scabbard too sharp for the sword. Won't you have a glass of wine, Miss Dalton?”
“Thanks, sir, I take none. I trust she is better now she looks easier.”
“She is better; but this is a difficult moment,” whispered Martha. “Any shock any sudden impression now might prove fatal.”
“What is to be done, then?” said Kate, in terror. ”

“ The wild and rapid utterance of his lips, and the strange fancies they syllabled, often exciting him to laughter, only deepened the gravity of their countenances, and cast over the glances they interchanged a tinge of sadder meaning.
“He could n't have better luck,” muttered Dalton, sorrowfully; “just from being a friend to us! If he had never seen nor heard of us, maybe 't is happy and healthy he 'd be to-day!”
“Nay, nay, papa,” said Nelly, gently; “this is to speak too gloomily; nor is it good for us to throw on fortune the burden that we each should bear patiently.” ”

“ A mere accident” here he glanced at the paper which she still held in her fingers “a mere accident has shown me that you have a difficulty; one for which neither your habits nor knowledge of life can suggest the solution.” He paused, and a very slight nod from Kate emboldened him to proceed. “Were it not so, Miss Dalton were the case one for which your own exquisite tact could suffice, I never would have ventured on the liberty. ”

“ Then followed her life at Dalton Hall. Dalton, afraid of the outside world, afraid to be discovered, after having done so much for safety, at the very time when deliverance seemed near, looked with terror upon Edith's impatience. He risked an interview. He came full of a father's holiest love, yet full of the purpose of his life to redeem the Dalton name for her sake. He met with scorn and hate. From those interviews he retired with his heart wrung by an anguish greater than any that he had ever known before. ”

“ And he snatched the letter from her fingers. “There's Frank's for you.”
“Oh, father, father!” cried Nelly, in a burst of grief, as she tore open Lady Hester's letter; “it is as I feared. Kate is about to be married—if she be not already married.”
“Without my leave—without asking my consent!” cried Dalton, passionately. “Am I nobody at all? Am I the head of the family, or am I not? Is this the way to treat her father? May I never see light, if I won't have him 'out,' if he was a Prince of the Blood! Oh, the ungrateful girl! ”

“ If I knew we were better than other people, it never made me unneighborly; I was always free and affable; my worst enemy could n't say other of me. I 'd like to have these poor devils to dinner, and give them a skinful for once in their lives, just to drink Kate's health, and Frank's; they 'd think of the Daltons for many a long year to come—the good old Dalton blood, that never mixed with the puddle! What a heavenly day it is! and an elegant fine market. There's a bit of roasting beef would feed a dozen ”

“ The time had been when, as Hugh Dalton walked on the deck of his bright Fire-fly, and counted the stars, guided the helm, or watched the clouds flitting past the disk of the silver moon, he thought that, if his pardon were granted, and he could bestow his ship upon one in the beauty and prime of [352] manhood, who would take Barbara to his bosom, and call her by the hallowed name of "wife," he could lay his head upon his pillow, and die in peace, the grandsire of a race of sons, who would carry the name of Dalton honourably over the waves of many lands. ”

“ Kate Dalton's life was, of course, precisely the same. Except the few hours given to controversial topics, and which she passed in reading, and the occasional change from driving to riding in the Cascini, Kate's day was exactly that of her friend. Not, however, with the same results; for while one was wearied with the same routine of unvarying pleasure, tired of the monotonous circle of amusement, the other became each day more and more enamored of a life so unchanging in its happiness. What was uniformity to Lady Hester, imparted a sense of security to Kate. ”

“ The Daltons were remarkable for strong traits of family likeness, not alone in feature, but in character; and what a comfort Frank felt in fancying that the old general would be a thorough Dalton in frankness and kindliness of nature, easy in disposition, with all the careless freedom of his own father! How he should love him, as one of themselves!
It is a well-known fact, that certain families are remarkable above others for the importance that they attach to the ties of kindred, making the boast of relationship always superior to the claims of self-formed friendships. ”

“ As a matter of fact, Captain Dalton was finding a cynical amusement in the study of this—to him—new type of feminine creature: a married woman with the mind of a child, unawakened as yet to the deeper emotions, in whom the instincts of sex were still asleep. He was quite sure that, like most pretty women, she was vain and easily led, and, if it were not himself, it would be some other fellow who would undertake her awakening, since her husband was trustingly content to leave her mental development to chance and nature. ”

“ To possess a bluer turquoise than any king or kaiser, to own an arab of some color never seen before, to have a picture by some artist who never painted but one; but whether it were a gem, a vase, a weapon, a diamond, or a dog, its value had but one test, that it had none its exact equal. Now, Kate Dalton realized these conditions more than any one he had ever met. Her very beauty was peculiar; combining, with much of feminine softness and delicacy, a degree of determination and vigor of character that to Midchekoff smacked of queenly domination. ”

“ Dalton was one of those good-tempered men who are apt to get too much help in spite of themselves from the womenfolk of their family and household, who are supposed to need help when they do not, and who have only themselves to thank for their occasional embarrassment of wealth in this particular form. Nature intends such men to be wife-ridden and happy. ”

“ A thorough Dalton!” added he, gazing on her with rapture.
“How glad am I, sir, to see that all the distinctions your great career has won have not effaced the memory of our old name and house.”
“I have but added to it another as noble as itself,” replied he, haughtily. “Others have given their energies to degrade our ancient lineage. It is to be your task and mine, Madame la Princesse, to replace us in our rightful station.”
Kate instinctively sought out Frank with her eyes, but could barely catch a glimpse of his figure within a recess of a window. ”

“ The third representative of forlorn humanity was a very tall, muscular man, whose jockey-cut green coat and wide-brimmed hat contrasted oddly with a pair of huge white moustaches, that would have done credit to a captain of the Old Guard. On features, originally handsome, time, poverty, and dissipation had left many a mark; but still the half-droll, half-truculent twinkle of his clear gray eyes showed him one whom no turn of fortune could thoroughly subdue, and who, even in the very hardest of his trials, could find heart to indulge his humor for Peter Dalton was an Irishman ”

“ The word was talismanic to Dalton, connected, as it was, in his mind with but one subject. He arose at once, and holding up his goblet in the air, cried out,
“Hip! hip! hurrah! three cheers and success to it! Repeal forever!”
Foglass echoed the sentiment with equal enthusiasm, and draining his glass to the bottom, exclaimed,
“Thank you, Dalton! thank you; the heartiness of that cheer tells me we are friends; and although you know not what my feelings are indeed none can you can execrate with honest indignation those hateful unions!”
“Bad luck to it!” exclaimed Dalton, with energy. ”

“ He read the address two or three times over to himself, as if there was something pleasurable in the very look of the words, and then he turned his glance towards Hans, as in a dreamy half-consciousness he sat still, contemplating the little statue of Marguerite.
“Is n't it droll to think we 'd be writing to the first in the land, and an old toy-maker sitting beside the fire all the time,” said Dalton, as he shook his head thoughtfully, in the firm conviction that he had uttered a very wise and profound remark. “Well well well! Life is a queer thing!” ”

“ Kate Dalton, whose whole nature had been simplicity and frankness itself, was gradually brought to assume a character with every change of toilette; for if she came down to breakfast in a simple robe of muslin, she changed it for a costume de paysanna to walk in the garden, and this again for a species of hunting-dress to ride in the Cascini, to appear afterwards at dinner in some new type of a past age; an endless variety of these devices at last engaging attention, and occupying time, to the utter exclusion of topics more important and interesting. ”