Quin at present the WORTHY agent of the Castle Lyndon
property. This was a son of my old flame Nora, whom I had taken from her
in a fit of generosity; promising to care for his education at Trinity
College, and provide for him through life. But after the lad had been
for a year at the University, the tutors would not admit him to commons
or lectures until his college bills were paid; and, offended by this
insolent manner of demanding the paltry sum due, I withdrew my patronage
from the place, and ordered my gentleman to Castle Lyndon; where I made
him useful to me in a hundred ways. In my dear little boy's lifetime,
he tutored the poor child as far as his high spirit would let him; but
I promise you it was small trouble poor dear Bryan ever gave the
books. Then he kept Mrs. Barry's accounts; copied my own interminable
correspondence with my lawyers and the agents of all my various
property; took a hand at piquet or backgammon of evenings with me and
my mother; or, being an ingenious lad enough (though of a mean boorish
spirit, as became the son of such a father), accompanied my Lady
Lyndon's spinet with his flageolet; or read French and Italian with her:
in both of which languages her Ladyship was a fine scholar, and with
which he also became conversant. It would make my watchful old mother
very angry to hear them conversing in these languages; for, not
understanding a word of either of them, Mrs. Barry was furious when they
were spoken, and always said it was some scheming they were after. It
was Lady Lyndon's constant way of annoying the old lady, when the three
were alone together, to address Quin in one or other of these tongues.

I was perfectly at ease with regard to his fidelity, for I had bred the
lad, and loaded him with benefits; and, besides, had had various proofs
of his trustworthiness. He it was who brought me three of Lord George's
letters, in reply to some of my Lady's complaints; which were concealed
between the leather and the boards of a book which was sent from the
circulating library for her Ladyship's perusal. He and my Lady too had
frequent quarrels. She mimicked his gait in her pleasanter moments;
in her haughty moods, she would not sit down to table with a tailor's
grandson. 'Send me anything for company but that odious Quin,' she would
say, when I proposed that he should go and amuse her with his books and
his flute; for, quarrelsome as we were, it must not be supposed we were
always at it: I w