"No, sir; on the contrary, she knew that she was marrying a
Protestant; she had hopes of converting him; she learnt from
himself, afterward, that he had deceived the priest. She had said to
him that she would many him if Father Power consented. He came back
and said that the consent had been given. He promised to marry her in
Dublin conformably to the license he had got there--or there he had
lived the proper time for getting one, so he declared. But I have
ceased to believe anything he said. Then my brother wrote the girl a
dreadful letter to the direction in Liverpool that she had sent to
him. Then, after some months, she wrote to me at Marston. She was
deserted, and left in the Isle of Man. She supported herself there for
more than a year. I told Mr. Brewer that I knew a sad story of the
daughter of a friend, and one of her letters, saying her last gold was
changed into silvery and that she was too ill and worn oat to win
more, was so dreadful, that I feared for her mind. So Mr. Brewer went
to Dr. Rankin, and got her taken in as a patient, at first, and when
she got well she was kept on as wardrobe-woman. She had got a tender
heart; when she heard of Lady Greystock's trial, she took to her. Dr.
Rankin says he could never have cured Lady Greystock so perfectly nor
so quickly, but for Eleanor."
"That is curious," said Father Daniels, musingly. "Have you been in
Ireland since the girl left it with her husband?"
"I never was there in my life. My mother was Irish, and she lived as a
servant in England. She married an Englishman, and she had two
daughters, my sister--Eleanor's mother--and myself. My mother went
back to Ireland a year after her husband's death, on a visit, and she
left my sister and me with my father's family. She married in Ireland
almost directly, and married well, a man with a good property, a
farmer. She died, and left one son. My sister and I were four and five
years older than this half-brother of ours. Then time wore on and my
sister Ellen went to Ireland, and she married there, and the fever
came to the place where they lived, and carried them both off, and she
left me a legacy--my niece Eleanor--oh, sir I with such a holy letter
of recommendation from her death-bed. Poor sister! Poor, holy soul!
Our half-brother asked to have Eleanor to stay with him when she knew
enough to be useful on the farm. He was a good Christian, and I let
him take the girl. She was very pretty, people said, and I wished her
to marry soon. Then there came--sent, he said, by a great rich English
nobleman--a man who called himself a gardener, or something of that
sort. He lodged close by; he made friends with my brother. He was
often off after rare bog-plants, and seemed to lead a busy if an easy
life. He would go to mass with them. But they knew he was a
Protestant. Eleanor knew that her uncle would not consent to her
marrying a Protestant. But, poor child, she gave her heart away to the
gentleman in disguise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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