ssage!

"What am I expected to suggest now?" said Lord Castlewell, after
awhile.

"Just your affectionate blessing, and you're very sorry," said Mr.
O'Mahony, with a shrug. "That's the kind of thing, I should say."

He couldn't send her his affectionate blessing, and he couldn't
say he was very sorry. Had the young lady been about to marry his
son,--had there been such a son,--he could have blessed her; and he
felt that his own personal dignity did not admit of an expression of
sorrow.

Was he to let the young lady off altogether? There was something
nearly akin,--very nearly akin,--to true love in his bosom as he
thought of this. The girl was ill, and no doubt weak, and had been
made miserable by the loss of her voice. The doctor had told him that
her voice, for all singing purposes, had probably gone for ever. But
her beauty remained;--had not so faded, at least, as to have given
any token of permanent decay. And that peculiarly bright eye was
there; and the wit of the words which had captivated him. The very
smallness of her stature, with its perfect symmetry, had also gone
far to enrapture him.

No doubt, he was forty. He did not openly pretend even to be less.
And where was the young lady, singer or no singer, who if disengaged,
would reject the heir to a marquisate because he was forty? And
he did not believe that Rachel had sent him any message in which
allusion was made to his age. That had been added by the stupid
father, who was, without doubt, the biggest fool that either America
or Ireland had ever produced. Now that the matter had been brought
before him in such bald terms, he was by no means sure that he was
desirous of accepting the girl's offer to release him. And the father
evidently had no desire to catch him. He must acknowledge that Mr.
O'Mahony was an honest fool.

"It's very hard to know what I'm to say." Here Mr. O'Mahony shook his
head. "I think that, perhaps, I had better come and call upon her."

"You mustn't speak a word! And, if you're to be considered as no
longer engaged, perhaps there might be--you know--something--well,
something of delicacy in the matter!"

Mr. O'Mahony felt at the moment that he ought to protect the
interests of Frank Jones.

"I understand. At any rate I am not disposed to send her my blessing
at present as a final step. An engagement to be married is a very
serious step in life."

But her father remembered that she had told him that she wanted Frank
Jone