LITMIR.BIZ

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it was in the mouth, – no, it was the chin, – ay, it was the chin was George’s. It was the Barrington chin, and no mistake about it.

      At all events, no opposition was made to the banker’s project, and the little girl was sent off to the convent of the Holy Cross, on the banks of the Meuse. She was inscribed on the roll as the Princess Doondiah, and bore the name till her father’s death, when Mr. Gower suggested that she should be called by her family name. The letter with the proposal, by some accident, was not acknowledged, and the writer, taking silence to mean consent, desired the superior to address her, henceforth, as Miss Barrington; the first startling intimation of the change being a strangely, quaintly written note, addressed to her grand-aunt, and signed “Josephine Barrington.” It was a cold, formal letter, – so very formal, indeed, as to read like the copy of a document, – asking for leave to enter upon a novitiate of two years’ duration, at the expiration of which she would be nineteen years of age, and in a position to decide upon taking the veil for life. The permission, very urgently pressed for by Mr. Gower in another letter, was accorded, and now we have arrived at that period in which but three months only remained of the two years whose closure was to decide her fate forever.

      Barrington had long yearned to see her. It was with deep and bitter self-reproach he thought over the cold neglect they had shown her. She was all that remained of poor George, his boy, – for so he called him, and so he thought of him, – long after the bronzed cheek and the prematurely whitened hair had tempered his manhood. To be sure, all the world said, and he knew himself, how it was chiefly through the “boy’s” extravagance he came to ruin. But it was over now. The event that sobers down reproach to sorrow had come. He was dead! All that arose to memory of him were the traits that suggested hopes of his childhood, or gave triumph in his riper years; and oh, is it not better thus? for what hearts would be left us if we were to carry in them the petty rancors and jealousies which once filled them, but which, one day, we buried in the cold clay of the churchyard.

      Aunt Dinah, moved by reasons long canvassed over in her own mind, at last began to think of recalling her grand-niece. It was so very bold a project that, at first, she could scarcely entertain it. The Popery was very dreadful! Her imagination conjured up the cottage converted into a little Baal, with false gods and graven images, and holy-water fonts at every turn; but the doubtful legitimacy was worse again. She had a theory that it was by lapses of this kind the “blue blood” of old families grew deteriorated, and that the downfall of many an ancient house was traceable to these corruptions. Far better, she deemed it, that the Barringtons should die out forever than their line be continued by this base and ignoble grafting.

      There is a contre for every pour in this world. It may be a weak and an insufficient one, it is true; but it is a certainty that all our projects must come to a debtor or creditor reckoning, and the very best we can do is to strike an honest balance!

      How Miss Dinah essayed to do this we shall learn in the next chapter and what follows it.

      CHAPTER II. A WET MORNING AT HOME

      If there was anything that possessed more than common terror for Barrington, it was a wet day at the cottage! It was on these dreary visitations that his sister took the opportunity of going into “committee of supply,” – an occasion not merely for the discussion of fiscal matters, but for asking the most vexatious questions and demanding the most unpleasant explanations.

      We can all, more or less, appreciate the happiness of that right honorable gentleman on the Treasury bench who has to reply to the crude and unmeaning inquiries of some aspiring Oppositionist, and who wishes to know if her Majesty’s Government have demanded an indemnity from the King of Dahomey for the consul’s family eaten by him at the last court ceremonial? What compensation is to be given to Captain Balrothery for his week’s imprisonment at Leghorn, in consequence of his having thrown the customs officer and a landing waiter into the sea? Or what mark of her Majesty’s favor will the noble lord recommend should be conferred upon Ensign Digges for the admirable imitation he gave of the dancing dervishes at Benares, and the just ridicule he thus threw upon these degrading and heathenish rites?

      It was to a torture of this order, far more reasonable and pertinent, however, that Barrington usually saw himself reduced whenever the weather was so decidedly unfavorable that egress was impossible. Poor fellow, what shallow pretexts would he stammer out for absenting himself from home, what despicable subterfuges to put off an audience! He had forgotten to put down the frame on that melon-bed.

      There was that awning over the boat not taken in. He ‘d step out to the stable and give Billy, the pony, a touch of the white oils on that swelled hock. He ‘d see if they had got the young lambs under cover. In fact, from his perturbed and agitated manner, you would have imagined that rain was one of the rarest incidents of an Irish climate, and only the very promptest measures could mitigate the calamity.

      “May I ask where you are off to in such haste, Peter?” asked Miss Dinah one morning, just as Barrington had completed all his arrangements for a retreat; far readier to brave the elements than the more pitiless pelting that awaited him within doors.

      “I just remembered,” said he, mildly, “that I had left two night-lines out at the point, and with this fresh in the river it would be as well if I ‘d step down and see – ”

      “And see if the river was where it was yesterday,” broke she in, sneeringly.

      “No, Dinah. But you see that there ‘s this to be remarked about night-lines – ”

      “That they never catch any fish!” said she, sternly. “It’s no weather for you to go tramping about in the wet grass. You made fuss enough about your lumbago last week, and I suppose you don’t want it back again. Besides,” – and here her tongue grew authoritative, – “I have got up the books.” And with these words she threw on the table a number of little greasy-looking volumes, over which poor Barrington’s sad glances wandered, pretty much as might a victim’s over the thumb-screws and the flesh-nippers of the Holy Inquisition.

      “I’ve a slight touch of a headache this morning, Dinah.”

      “It won’t be cured by going out in the rain. Sit down there,” said she, peremptorily, “and see with your own eyes how much longer your means will enable you to continue these habits of waste and extravagance.”

      “These what?” said he, perfectly astounded.

      “These habits of waste and extravagance, Peter Barring-ton. I repeat my words.”

      Had a venerable divine, being asked on the conclusion of an edifying discourse, for how much longer it might be his intention to persist in such ribaldries, his astonishment could scarce have been greater than Barrington’s.

      “Why, sister Dinah, are we not keeping an inn? Is not this the ‘Fisherman’s Home’?”

      “I should think it is, Peter,” said she, with scorn. “I suspect he finds it so. A very excellent name for it it is!”

      “Must I own that I don’t understand you, Dinah?”

      “Of course you don’t. You never did all your life. You never knew you were wet till you were half drowned, and that’s what the world calls having such an amiable disposition! Ain’t your friends nice friends? They are always telling you how generous you are, – how free-handed, – how benevolent. What a heart he has! Ay, but thank Providence there’s very little of that charming docility about me, is there?”

      “None, Dinah, – none,” said he, not in the least suspecting to what he was bearing testimony.

      She became crimson in a minute, and in a tone of some emotion said, “And if there had been, where should you and where should I be to-day? On the parish, Peter Barrington, – on the parish; for it ‘s neither your head nor your hands would have saved us from it.”

      “You’re right, Dinah; you’re right there. You never spoke a truer word.” And his voice trembled as he said it.

      “I did n’t mean that, Peter,” said she, eagerly; “but you are too confiding, too trustful. Perhaps it takes a woman to detect all the little wiles and snares that

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