The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I

I suppose it was the influence of habit betrayed me, for, in a fit of abstraction, I took the charming widow into my arms, and saluted her as if she were Mrs. Dodd. If this was in London, Tom, or even in Dublin, there 's no saying what mischief might not have grown out of it. I might have been fighting duels every day for the last week, not to mention still more formidable encounters of a domestic nature; but just to show you what the Continent does for us, – how instinctively, as it were, we rise above the little narrow prejudices of our insular situation, – she threw herself into a chair and laughed immoderately. Ay, and droller again, so did Mrs. D.! To tell you the truth, Tom, I could n't well believe my senses when I saw it. It would seem to be the same in morals as in murder, – you can dignify the offence by the rank of your victim; for if it had been one of the maids at home, Mrs. D. would have left my face like a piece of music paper!

There 's a great deal in how you open an acquaintance! You may be card-leaving, and bowing, and how-d'ye-doing for years, and never get farther; or, on the other hand, by some lucky accident, you come plump down into the right place, just as a chance shell will now and then drop into a magazine, and finish an engagement at once.

In less than an hour after her arrival, Mrs. Gore Hampton was one of ourselves. It was not that she was calling the girls dearest Cary, and darling Mary Anne, but she had got a regular sisterly tone with Mrs. D. and myself – treating James all the while as if he was about twelve years old, and at home for the holidays. She had not only done all this, but before luncheon was on the table we had ratified a solemn league and covenant that she was to travel with us, and be one of us, going wherever we went, and living as we did. How the treaty was ever mooted, who proposed, and who signed it, I know no more than the man in the moon. It was done in a kind of rattling, bantering fashion; and when we rose from table it was all settled. Mrs. Gore Hampton was to take Cary and Mary Anne with her in the britschka; the "dear boy" – viz. James – would be the "guard in the rumble." There was a place for everybody and everything; and I believe, if any one had proposed that I should ride the leader, it would have been carried without opposition. Never was there such unanimity! The whole arrangement was huddled up like a road-presentment on a Grand Jury, or a private bill before the House on a "Wednesday afternoon. As for myself, if I had even the will, I could not have summoned the shamelessness to offer any opposition to the measure.

"Devilish good thing for you, Dodd!" whispered Lord George. "Mrs. G. knows everybody in the world, and doesn't care for money." – "Oh, papa! she is delightful; there never was such a piece of good fortune as our meeting with her," cried Mary Anne. And Mrs. D. assured me that, for the very first time in her life, she had met a person thoroughly companionable to her in all respects; in fact, a "kindred soul," though not a "blood relation."

Now, Tom, considering that we came abroad to enjoy the advantages of high society, fashionable habits, and * refined associations, this accident did indeed seem a propitious one; for, disguise it how we may, the great world is a dangerous ocean to venture upon without a pilot. Our own little experiences might teach that lesson. We sailed out in all the confidence of a stout crew and a safe vessel, and a pretty voyage we made of it! Perhaps we did not make more mistakes than our neighbors, but assuredly our blunders were neither few nor insignificant!

Mrs G., however, would soon rectify all this. "No more making acquaintance with wrong people, K. I." says Mrs. D.; "no more getting into vulgar intimacies at the café, and cementing friendships over a game of dominos. James will know the class of young men that he ought to mix with, and the girls will only dance with suitable partners." It sounded well, Tom! It was a grand protective policy, that really secured the Dodd family in the possession of all home advantages, and relieved them of all aggressions "from the foreigner."

If we had fallen on a prize in the lottery, I don't think the joy of our circle could have been greater. I am not going to pretend that I did n't join in it! I make no affectation of prudent reserve and caution, and Heaven knows what other elegant qualities, that, however natural to other people, very seldom fall to the lot of an Irishman. I vow to you, Tom, I went off full cry like the rest of the pack. She is a fine woman, this Mrs. Gore Hampton; she has a low, soft voice, a very bewitching smile, and a way of looking at you while you are talking to her, that somehow half suggests to yourself that you must be making love without knowing it. Now, don't misunderstand me, Tom, and come out with one of your long whistles, as much as to say, "Kenny James is as great a fool as ever!" No such thing! a suit in Chancery, the repeal of the corn laws, and the Estates Court, have made me an altered man. The very nature of me is changed, and changed so much that many's the time I ask myself, "Is this Kenny Dodd? Where upon earth is that light-hearted, careless, hopeful vagabond, that always took the sunny road in life, though maybe it was n't exactly the way to the place he was going?" I'm another man now; I 'm wiser, as they call it; and, upon my conscience, I 'm mighty sorry for it!

But I hear you say, "Have n't you just confessed that you were – what shall I call it? – fascinated by the widow?"

And if I did, Tom Purcell, do you mean to tell me that you would have escaped her? Not a bit of it. The brown wig would have been set a little more forward, so as to bring one of those silky curls over your right eye. I think I see you exchanging your spectacles for a double eye-glass, and turning out your toes so as to display to the best advantage that shapely calf in its trim brown silk stocking. Ah, Tom! not even quarter sessions and a rate in aid will drive these thoughts out of an Irishman's head.

From the moment that this new alliance was signed, we entered upon a new existence. Bonn, as I have told you, was a quiet little collegiate place, with primitive habits of no very expensive kind. The chief pleasures were weak wine in a garden, or small whist in a summer-house, with now and then an "aesthetic tea," as they phrase it, at the Pro-Rector's; of which, of course, I understand nothing, but sincerely hope the discourse was better than the beverage. It was, I own it, Tom, a strange kind of life, that seemed to me always like a moral convalescence, when you were only strong enough for small virtues. One undoubted advantage it had, – it was inexpensive, Tom. We were living, with few comforts and some privations, I confess, at only one-third more than we used to spend at Dodsbor-ough; and, considering that we know nothing of the language, I conclude that we were enjoying the Continent as cheaply as was practicable.

I won't pretend that it suited me. I don't want you to believe that I was taking a scientific or a studious turn. Still I liked the place for one thing, which was this, – its quiet monotony, its placid, unvarying simplicity was telling upon Mrs. D. and the children in an astonishing manner. It was exactly the way that the water-cure works its wonders with old drunkards; the mountain air, the light diet, and the early hours being the best of the remedy. They were getting into a healthy state of mind without ever suspecting it.

Our grand junction, as Cary calls it, finished this; from the day Mrs. G. arrived our reforms began. First, we had to change our hotel, and betake ourselves to one on the river-side, three times as dear, and not one-fourth as good.

The second story was fine enough for us before; now we have the whole "premier," taking two rooms more than we want, lest anybody should live on the same floor with us. Instead of the table d'hôte, that was cheap and cheerful, we were to dine upstairs, – "a particular dinner," as they call what is particularly bad, and costly besides. Then we have had to hire two lackeys, one of whom sits in an anteroom all day reading the newspaper, and only rises to make me a grand bow as I pass; which worries me so much that I usually go down by the back stairs to escape him.

We have two job coaches, for we are too many for one, and a boat hired by the week, with a considerable retinue of mountain ponies and donkeys, guides, goats, whey-sellers, and geological specimen-folk without end. If Mrs. G. was only fashionable, we could n't be more than ruined; but she is learned and literary, and given to the "ologies," Tom, and that's what I fear will drive us clean mad. She has an eternal restlessness in her to be at something; one day, it's the date of a medal; the next, it is the family connections of a "moss," or the chemistry of a meteoric stone; and, shall I own to you, my dear friend, that I don't believe she either understands or cares one jot about them all? There 's a big herbarium bound in green, and a grand book of autographs in blue and gold, on the drawing-room table; there's a bit of "gneiss," a big beetle, and a fossil frog on the chimney-piece; but my name isn't Kenny Dodd if she has n't more sympathies with modern dandies than antediluvian monsters. That's my private opinion;» and, of course, I mention it in confidence. You 'll say, "What matter is that to you?" and, true enough, it is not, as regards her; but what will become of us, if Mrs. D. takes a turn for entomology or comparative anatomy, and worse, maybe? She's just the kind of woman to do it. She'd learn the tight-rope if she thought it was fashionable, or, as the newspapers say, "patronized by the aristocracy." Now, Tom, you can fancy the unknown sea upon which we have embarked. For, however unadapted we may be to fashionable life, one thing is quite clear, – we never were made for the abstract sciences; and it strikes me forcibly that the great lesson of Continental life is that everybody can do everything. I am not going to say that it is not a pleasant and a very flattering theory, but is it quite safe, Tom? That's the question. The highest step I ever attained in chemistry was how to concoct a tumbler of punch; and my knowledge of botany does not go far beyond distinguishing "greens" from geraniums; and it's not at my time of life that I'm to drive myself crazy with hard names and classifications; and if I know anything of Mrs. D., her intellectual faculties have attained all the vigor that nature meant for them many a year ago.

My own private opinion about these sciences is, they 're capital things for employing young people, and keeping them out of wickedness! The fellows that teach them, too, are musty, snuff-taking, prosy old dogs, with heavy shoes and greasy cravats, – the very reverse of your race of dancing and music masters, who are a pestilent crew! So that, for a man who has daughters abroad, my advice is – stick to the sciences. Gray sandstone is safer than the polka, and there's not as dangerous an experiment in all chemistry as singing duets with some black-bearded blackguard from Naples or Palermo. Now mind, Tom, this counsel of mine applies to the education of the young; for when people come to the forties, you may rely upon it, if they set about learning anything, they 'll have the devil for a schoolmaster. What does all the geology mean? Junketing, Tom, – nothing but junketing! Primitive rock is another name for picnic, and what they call quartz is a figurative expression for iced champagne. Just reflect for a moment, and see what it comes to. You can enter a protest against family extravagances when they take the shape of balls and soirees, but what are you to do against botanical excursions and antiquarian researches? It 's like writing yourself down Goth at once to oppose these. "Oh, papa hates chemistry; he despises natural history," that's the cry at once, and they hold me up to ridicule, just in the way the rascally Protestant newspapers did Dr. Cullen for saying that he did n't believe the world was round. If the liberty of the subject be worth anything, – if the right for which the same Protestants are always prating, private judgment, be the great privilege they deem it, – why should n't Dr. Cullen have his own opinion about the shape of the earth? He can say, "It suits me to think I 'm walking erect on a flat surface, and not crawling along with my head down, like a fly on the ceiling! I 'm happier when I believe what does n't puzzle my understanding, and I don't want any more miracles than we have in the Church." He may say that, and I'd like to know what harm does that do you or me? Does it endanger the Protestant succession or the State religion? Not a bit of it, Tom. The real fact is simply this: private judgment is a boon they mean to keep for themselves, and never share with their neighbors. So far as I have seen of life, there's no such tyrant as your Protestant, and for this reason: it's bad enough to force a man to believe something that he doesn't like, but it's ten times worse to make him disbelieve what he's well satisfied with; and that's exactly what they do. Even on the ground of common humanity it is indefensible. If my private judgment goes in favor of saints' toe-nails and martyrs' shin-bones, I have a right to my opinion, and you have no right to attack it. Besides, I won't be badgered into what may suit somebody else to think. My opinion is like my flannel waistcoat, that I'll take off or put on as the weather requires; and I think it very cruel if I must wear mine simply because you feel cold.

I get warm – I almost grow angry – when I think of these things; and I wonder within myself why our people don't expose them as they might. Not that some are not doing the duty well and manfully, Tom. M'Hale is a glorious fellow; and for blackguarding a Prime Minister, for a real good effective slanging, it's hard to find his equal. He never embarrasses himself with logic, – he wastes no time in arguing, but "goes in" at once, and plants his blow between the eyes! That's what the English can't stand. They want discussion. They are always fishing for evidence for this, and a proof of that; but come down on them with a strong torrent of foul abuse, and you sweep them away like mud in a mill-race.

That's where we always beat them in our controversial discussions, Tom; and we never failed so long as we relied on this superiority. It was like the bayonet in the hands of our infantry.

Is n't it strange how I get back to Ireland in spite of me? I 'm like that madman in the story that can't keep Charles the First out of his memorial? And, after all, why should I? Is there anything more natural than to think of my country, if I can't manage to live in it? And this reminds me to ask you about home matters. What was it you wrote at the end of your letter about Jones McCarthy? I can't make out the word, whether it is his "death," or his "debts;" though, from my experience of the family, I surmise it to be the latter. If it's dead he is, I suppose we 'll come in for that blessed legacy that Mrs. D. has been talking about every day for the last twenty-five years, the history of which I have heard so often that I actually know nothing about it, except that it was the only bit of property possessed by my wife's relations they couldn't make away with. It was so strictly "tied up," as they call it in law, that nobody could ever get the use of it, – pretty much like the silver sixpence given to a schoolboy, with the express stipulation that he is never to change it.

I am rather curious to know what Mrs. D. will think of these "wise provisions" of her ancestors, if she succeeds to the bequest. To tell you the plain truth, Tom, I don't know a greater misfortune for a man that has married a wife without money, than to discover at the end of some fifteen or twenty years that somebody has left her a few hundred pounds! It is not only that she conceives visions of unbounded extravagance, and raves about all manner of expense, but she begins to fancy herself an heiress that was thrown away, and imagines wonderful destinies she might have arrived at, if she had n't had the bad luck to meet you. For a real crab-apple of discord, I 'll back a few hundreds in the Three per Cents against all the family jars that ever were invented. Save us then from this, if you can, Tom. There must surely be twenty ways to avoid the legacy; and so that Mrs. D. does n't hear of it, I 'd rather you 'd prove her illegitimate than allow her to succeed to this bequest I 'll not enlarge upon all I feel about this subject, hoping that by your skill and address we may never bear more of it; but I tell you, frankly, I 'd face the small-pox with a stouter heart than the news of succeeding to the M'Carthy inheritance.

There are many other matters I intended to write about, but I believe I must keep them for the next time; such as the plan for taking away the Church property, and the income-tax for Ireland; and that business of the Madiais, that I read of in the papers. So far as I have seen, Tom, the King of Tuscany – if that be his name – was right. There were plenty of books the Madiais might have read without breaking the laws. There are translations of all the rascally French novels of the day, from Georges Sand down to Paul de Kock; and if they wanted mischief, might n't these have satisfied them? But the truth is, Protestants are never easy without they are attacking the true Church, and if there were more of them sent to the galleys, the world would be all the quieter.

You amaze me about the Great Exhibition for this year in Dublin. Faith! I remember when I used to think that the less we exhibited ourselves the better! I suppose times are changed. I think, if I could send Mrs. D. over as a specimen of Continental plating on Irish manufacture, she 'd deserve a place, and maybe a prize.

Well, well! it's a queer world we live in. They 've just come to tell me that the man of the post-office has shut up an hour earlier, as he is engaged out to dine, so that I 'll keep this open till to-morrow's mail.

Wednesday Morning. I suspect that the mischief is done, Tom, – I mean about the legacy. Mrs. D. received a strange-looking, square-shaped, formally addressed epistle this morning, the contents of which, not being a demand for money, she did not communicate to me. She and Mary Anne both retired to peruse it in secret, and when they again appeared in the drawing-room, it was with an air of conscious pride and self-possession that smacked terribly of a bequest I own to you, the prospect alarms me; it may be that my fears take an exaggerated shape, but I can't shake off the impression that this is the hardest trial I had ever to go through.

I know her in most of her moods, Tom, and have got a kind of way of managing her in each of them, – not very successful, perhaps, but sufficiently so to get on with. I have seen her in straits about money; I have seen her in her jealous fits; I have seen her in her moments of family pride; and I have repeatedly seen her on what she calls "her dying couch," – an opportunity she always seizes to say the most disagreeable things she can think of, so that I often speculate what she 'd say if she was really going off: but all these convey no notion to me of how she 'd behave if she thought herself rich. As for our poverty, we never knew anything else; the jealousy I 'm getting used to; the family pride often gives me a hearty laugh when I 'm alone; and I am as hardened about death-bed scenes as if I was an undertaker. It's the prosperity I have n't strength for, Tom; and I feel it.

Maybe, after all, it's only false terror alarms me. I hope it may turn out so; and in this last wish I am sure of your hearty sympathy and good feeling.

Ever yours, most sincerely,

Kenny I. Dodd.

LETTER XVII. MRS. DODD TO MISTRESS MARY GALLAGHER, DODSBOROUGH

The Rhine Hotel, Bonn

MY dear Molly, – If my well-known hand did not strike you, the sight of all the black around this letter, and the mourning seal, might suggest the thought that your poor Jemima was no more. Your next impression will be that Providence had sent for K. I. No, my dear Molly, I am still reserved for more trials in this vale of tears. I must bear my burden further! As for K. I., he's just as he used to be, – croaking away about the pain in his toe, or a gouty cramp in his stomach. He's always taking things that disagrees with him, and what he calls the "correctives" makes him worse. I cannot give you the least notion of how irritable he 's grown. You know as well as anybody the blessings he has about him. I don't speak of myself, nor the stock I came from. I don't want to revive the dreadful mistake that I made in my youth, nor to mention the struggles I 've had with him on every subject for more than five-and-twenty years, – struggles, my dear Molly, that would have killed any one that had n't the constitution of a horse; but that now, thanks to the goodness of Providence, have become a part of my nature, so that there is n't an hour of the day or night that I 'm not able and willing to dispute and argue with him on any question whatsoever. I don't want to mention these blessings, – but is n't there James and Mary Anne, and, indeed, except for some things, Caroline, – was there ever a father with more reason to be proud? And so you 'd say if you only saw them. As a dear friend of mine, Mrs. Gore Hampton, said this morning, "Where will you see such natural advantages?" And I must own, Molly, it's not flattery; for the way they talk French and waltz, even how they come into a room, salute, or sit down, has something in it that shows them to be brought up in the top of fashion.

Any other man than K. I. would overflow with gratitude for all this, but you 'd scarcely believe, Molly, he only ridicules it!

"If we meant her for the stage," says he, – this is the way he talks of Mary Anne, – "if we meant her for the stage, I think she has effrontery enough to stand before a full house, and I don't say it would discompose her; but for the wife of some respectable man of the middle rank, I see no use in all this flouncing about here, and flourishing there, whisking through a room, upsetting small tables and crockery by way of gracefulness, and never sitting down on a chair till she has spread out her petticoats like a peacock!"

If I 've said it once to him, Molly, I 've said it fifty times, there's nothing I despise so much as a respectable man in the middle rank. There's no refinement about them, – no elegance! They may be what's called estimable in their families; but what's the use of all that for the world at large? A man can only have one wife, but he may have a thousand acquaintances. We don't ask how amiable he is at home; what we want is, that he should be delightful abroad. "That," says Lord George, "is true, both socially and economically; it's the grand principle that everybody stands up for, 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number!'" And talking of this, I 'd strenuously advise your cultivating your mind on matters of political economy. It appears dry and uninteresting at first, but as you get on it improves wonderfully, and takes a great hold of the mind. I don't think I was ever more unhappy than since I read a chapter describing what would become of us when the population got too thick; and if the unthinking creatures in Ireland don't take warning, it's exactly what will happen. When my mind was full of it, I ordered up Betty Cobb, and gave her such a lecture about it she 'll never forget.

But you 'll say it's not for this I 'm gone into black; neither is it, Molly, – it's for my poor relative, the late Jones McCarthy, of the Folly, one of the last surviving members of the great McCarthy stock, in the west of Ireland. Grief and sorrow for the miserable condition of his country preyed upon him, and made him seek obliteration in drink; and more's the pity, for he was a man of enlarged understanding and capacious mind. My heart overflows when I think of the beautiful sentiments I 've heard from him at various times. He loved his country, and it was a treat to hear him praise it. "Ah!" he would say, "there's but one blot on her, – the judges is rogues, the Government 's rogues, the grand jury's rogues, and the people is villains!"

He died as he lived, a little in drink, but a true patriot "Tell Jemima," says he, "I forgive her. She was a child when she married, and she never meant to disgrace us; but as she now succeeds to the estate, I hope she 'll have the pride to resume the family name."

Yes, Molly, the M'Carthy property, that once extended from Gorramuck to Knocksheedownie, with seventeen townlands and four baronies, descends now to me. To be sure, it was all mortgaged over and over again, and 'tis little there's left but the parchments and the maps; and, except the property in the funds, there 's not a great deal coming to me. This is all that I know at present, for Waters, the attorney, writes in such a confused way, I can make nothing of it, and I don't wish to show the letter to K. I. That seems strange to you, Molly, but you 'll think it stranger when I tell you that the bare notion of my succeeding to the estate drives him half crazy. He thinks that all the money being on his side makes up for his low birth, and makes a Dodd equal to a M'Carthy, and that now when I get my fortune the tables will be turned. Maybe he 's right there; I won't say that he is not; but sure it would be time enough to show this feeling when my manner was changed to him.

I suppose he must have heard something from Purcell about the matter, for when I came into the room, with my eyes red from crying, he said, "Is it for old Jones M'Carthy you 're crying? Begad, then, you must have a feeling heart, for you never saw him since you were three years old!"

Did you ever hear a more barbarous speech, Molly, not to say a more ignorant one? Twenty or thirty years might be a very long time in a family called Dodd, but is it more than a week or so in one with the name of M'Carthy? And so I told him.

"You don't pretend that you 're sorry after him?" says he. And I could only answer him with my sobs. "If it was Giles Moore, the distiller," says he, "that went into mourning, one could understand the sense of it, for he has lost a friend indeed!"

"They're to bury him in Cloughdesman Abbey," says I, not wishing to let his sarcastic remarks provoke me.

"They need n't take much trouble about embalming him, anyway," says he, "for there's more whiskey soaked into him than could preserve a whole family!"

You may think, Molly, how far I was overcome by grief when he ventured to talk this way to me; and, indeed, I left the room in a flood of tears. When I grew more composed, I went over Waters's letter again with Mary Anne, but without any great success. There is so much law in it, and so many words that we never saw before, and to which, indeed, our pocket dictionary gave us little help: Administer being set down, – to perform the duty of an administrator; and for Administrator, we are told to see Administer, – a kind of hide-and-go-seek that one does n't expect in books like this.

The lawyers and the doctors, my dear Molly, go on the same plan, – they never let us know the hard names they have for everything. If we once come to do that, we 'll know what's the matter with ourselves and our affairs, and neither need one nor the other. Mary Anne thinks that administering means going to show the will to somebody that's to pay the money; but my private opinion is that it's something about Ministers' Money, for I remember my poor cousin Jones never would consent to pay it, nor, indeed, anything else that went to the Established Church. It was against his conscience, he used to say; and the Government that coerces a man's conscience is worthy of "Grim Tartary." My notion is, then, that they 're coming against me for the arrears, as if I had n't any conscience too!

At all events, Molly, the property is to come to me; and the very thought of it gives me a feeling of independence and pride that is really overwhelming. K. I.'s temper was, indeed, becoming a sore trial, and how I was to go on bearing it was more than I could imagine. He may now return to Ireland and his dear Dodsborough whenever he pleases. Mary Anne and I are determined to live abroad. Fortunately for us we have made acquaintance with a very distinguished English lady – a Mrs. Gore Hampton – who can introduce us everywhere. She is in the very height of the fashion, and knows all the great people of Europe. She took a sudden liking – I might call it an affection – for me and Mary Anne, and actually proposed our all travelling together as one party. There never was luck like it, Molly! She has a beautiful barouche of her own, with the arms on it, and a French maid and a courier, and such heaps of luggage, you wouldn't believe it could be carried. K. I. was afraid of the expense, and gave, as you may believe, every kind of opposition to the plan. He said it would "lead us into this," and "lead us into that;" the great thing he dreaded being led into – as I told him – being good society and high company.

So far from costing us anything, I believe it will be a considerable saving; for, as Lord George says, "You can always make a better bargain at the hotels when you 're a strong party." And he has kindly taken the whole of this on himself.

He is a wonderful young man, Lord George; and, considering his tip-top rank and connections, he's never above doing anything to serve, or be useful to us. He knows K. I. as well, too, as I do myself. "Let me alone," says he, "to manage the governor; I know him. He's always grumbling about expense and moaning over his poverty; but you may remark that he does get the money somehow." And the observation is remarkably just, Molly; for no matter what distress or distraction he's in, he does contrive to rub through it; and this convinces me that he is only deceiving us in talking about his want of means, and so forth. Since I have discovered this, I never fret the way I used about expense.

It was Lord George that arranged our compact with Mrs. G. "You had better leave all to me," said he to K. I., "for Mrs. Gore Hampton is a perfect child about money. She tells that old fool of a courier to put a hundred pounds in his bag, and he pays away till it's all gone, or till he says it's gone; and then she gives him another check for the same amount. So that she's not bored with accounts, nor ever hears of them, she never cares."

"Of course, then," said I, "her expenses are very great."

"I should say enormous," replied he; "for though personally the simplest creature on earth, she never objects to the cost of anything."

I hinted that, with our moderate fortune, we should never be able to maintain a style of living equal to hers; but he stopped me short, saying, "Don't let that distress you; besides, she has taken such a fancy for you and Miss Dodd that it would be a downright cruelty to deny her your companionship; and at this moment, too, when really she requires sympathy." I was dying to ask on what account, Molly, – was it that she is a widow, or is she separated, and what? – but I had n't the courage; nor, indeed, did he give me time, for he went on so fast: "Let her pay half the expense, it's only fair; she has plenty of tin, and nothing to do with it Even then she will be a gainer, for old Grégoire pockets as much as he pays away."