“And couldn't Dick's friends do that much for him?” asked my father, half indignantly. “Why, when I left this, Dick was the very life of your city. A dinner without him was a failure. Men would rather have met him at the cover than seen the fox. His hearty face and his warm shake-hands were enough to inspire jollity into a Quaker meeting.” “All true, Watty; but there's been a general shipwreck of us all, somehow. Where the money has gone, nobody knows; but every one seems out at elbows. You are the only fellow the sun shines upon.” “Make hay, then, when it does so,” said my father, laughing; and, taking but his pocket-book, he scribbled a few lines on a leaf which he tore out. “Give that to Dick, and tell him to come down and dine with us on Friday. You'll join him. Quin and Parsons won't refuse me.--And what do you say, Gervy Power? Can you spare a day from the tennis-court, or an evening from piquet?--Jack Gore, I count upon you. Harvey Hepton will drive you down, for I know you never can pay the post-boys.” “Egad, they 're too well trained to expect it. The rascals always look to me for a hint about the young horses at the Curragh, and, now and then, I do throw a stray five-pound in their way.” “We have not seen madam yet. Are we not to have that honor to-day?” said Parsons. “I believe not; she's somewhat tired. We had a stormy time of it,” said my father, who rather hesitated about introducing his bachelor friends to my mother without some little preparation. Nor was the caution quite unreasonable. Their style and breeding were totally unlike anything she had ever seen before. The tone of familiarity they used towards each other was the very opposite to that school of courtly distance which even the very nearest in blood or kindred observed in her own country; and lastly, very few of those then present understood anything of French; and my mother's English, at the time I speak of, did not range beyond a few monosyllables, pronounced with an accent that made them all but unintelligible. “You'll have Kitty Dwyer to call upon you the moment she hears you 're come,” said Quin. “Charmed to see her, if she 'll do us that honor,” said my father, laughing. “You must have no common impudence, then, Watty,” said another; “you certainly jilted her.” “Nothing of the kind,” replied my father; “she it was who refused me.” “Bother!” broke in an old squire, a certain Bob French of Frenchmount; “Kitty refuse ten thousand a-year, and a good-looking fellow into the bargain! Kitty's no fool; and she knows mankind just as well as she knows horseflesh,--and, faix, that's not saying a trifle.” “How is she looking?” asked my father, rather anxious to change the topic. “Just as you saw her last. She hurt her back at an ugly fence in Kennedy's park, last winter; but she's all right again, and riding the little black mare that killed Morrissy, as neatly as ever!” “She's a fine dashing girl!” said my father.