Mrs. Dalton

“ 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?” ”

“ She was evidently the great lady of the cabin; and round her couch a knot of gossips had collected, when Flora, followed by Hannah carrying the baby, entered upon the scene.
The character of Mrs. Dalton formed the topic of conversation. The little old maid was remorselessly tearing it to tatters. “No woman who valued her reputation,” she said, with pious horror in her looks and tone, “would flirt in the disgraceful manner that Mrs. Dalton was doing.” ”

“ Kate hung her head in silence, while her heart felt as if it would burst from very agony.
“This is no idle curiosity of mine, Miss Dalton,” said he, speaking with a slow and measured utterance. “The society you have mixed with here is not above any reproach nor beneath any suspicion. I insist upon knowing where you have been, and with whom? So, then, you refuse to speak, you will not tell. If it be Lady Hester's secret—”
“No, no! The secret is mine, and mine only. I swear to you, by all we both believe in, that it has no concern with any one save myself.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Dalton angrily, "making these children fancy themselves ill. You coddle them till they fancy they are like no one else. Come, Ellen, you have already dawdled half the morning away." The child walked a few steps feebly—and then, staggering towards Eda, sank again insensible, and would have fallen—but, that her nurse, who had seen her change countenance, was in time to catch her up in her arms. Mrs. Dalton was now thoroughly alarmed—she disliked the children from a petty jealousy—and she domineered over them from a naturally despotic temper, made worse from constant indulgence ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ You are in a fearful position, Miss Dalton. You are in the power of an unprincipled and a desperate man. I feel for you most deeply. You are always in my thoughts. In order to assist you I have done all that I could. I do not wish to make any allusions to what I have done, but rather to what I have felt, and shall feel. You have become very dear to me. I know I am not worthy of you. You are above me. I am only a humble lieutenant; you are the lady of Dalton Hall; but I can not bear to—to go away and leave one whom I love in the power of a villain. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ You may, perhaps, have heard of the Abbé D'Esmonde?”
“Repeatedly,” cried Frank, taking the proffered hand in his own. “Nelly spoke of you in almost every letter. You were always so kind to Kate in Italy.”
“How amply am I recompensed, were not the pleasure of knowing Miss Dalton a sufficient reward in itself. It is rare to find that combination of excellence which can command all the homage of fashion, and yet win the approbation of a poor priest.” ”

“ Dalton could not help thinking that the alternate hauteur and mirth of the handsome widow at his grave, solemn, and earnest love-making were—to say the least of them—exceedingly ill-timed, while her pretty apparent indifference to the strength of the passion that filled his soul, especially when on the eve of his departure to a distant land, piqued and exasperated him.
'Can the woman be a "free-lance," though still in society?' he surmised, with pain in his heart, for, 'free-lance' or not, he felt that he loved her—yea, madly—as only men at his age often do love a woman. ”

“ What jolly times they were when men resisted the law and never feared a debt! Not that, while devouring all the “rapparee” experiences of the father, he had no eye for the daughters, and did not see what was passing around him. Ay, that did he, and mark well how Lady Hester attached herself to Kate Dalton, flattered by every sign of her unbought admiration, and delighted with the wondering homage of the artless girl. He watched Onslow, too, turn from the inanimate charms of Nelly's sculptured figures, to gaze upon the long dark lashes and brilliant complexion of her sister. ”

“ Dalton must be an abandoned creature, for she is indifferent to the fact that she is creating a disgusting scandal. When you think of how devoted that man was to his pretty little wife, you feel inclined, to believe anything of men! But, as I say, he cannot be himself. Let us hope it is only due to the sunstroke, and that his wife will come out soon and look after him."
Honor took this news to heart and wrote the appeal to Joyce of which the reader is already aware: she also gradually brought her mind to the point of speaking frankly to Captain Dalton on the subject. ”

“ See how she dwells upon his immense wealth and the splendor of his position.”
“Let us hear about that,” cried Dalton, eagerly.
“My heart is nigh to bursting when I think of you and dearest Nelly living with me, in all the enjoyment that riches can bestow, nothing denied you that you can fancy, and free to indulge every taste and every wish. To know that I can at last repay, in some sort, all your affection—that poor worthless Kate can minister to your pleasure and your comfort—would make me dare a rasher destiny than this. And he is so generous, Nelly. ”

“ Even had Lady Hester's good breeding not prompted a gracious reception of what was so generously offered, the very singularity of the scene would have had its charm in her estimation. She was delighted with everything, even to Kate Dalton's slippers, which, by a most happy flattery, were a little too large for her. She fancied, too, that her costume, curiously made up of shreds and patches the most incongruous, was the dress of an Irish peasant, and was in an ecstasy at the thought of a similar one at her next fancy ball. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are not very frightful, are they? nor very romantic, either—only a little girl you know kept out of the way while her uncle-in-law could spend all her money!”
“Indeed, dear Marie, I fear it is but too true that he has spent it, for did he not confess that he had ruined you.”
[393] “Then, Martin, I shall have to work for my living, that is all. I will be a governess, or a companion, to one of the Dutch ladies in Batavia.”
“No, Marie,” replied my brother, impatiently, “Claud and I have money; you shall share it, as you have a right: it has been left to us by your father ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”