Blind Love

The Irish lord had a word to say to his wife, before he submitted to

her the letter which he had just written.

He had been summoned to a meeting of proprietors at the office of the

newspaper, convened to settle the terms of a new subscription rendered

necessary by unforeseen expenses incurred in the interests of the

speculation. The vote that followed, after careful preliminary

consultation, authorised a claim on the purses of subscribing

proprietors, which sadly reduced the sum obtained by Lord Harry's

promissory note. Nor was this inconvenience the only trial of endurance

to which the Irish lord was compelled to submit. The hope which he had

entertained of assistance from the profits of the new journal, when

repayment of the loan that he had raised became due, was now plainly

revealed as a delusion. Ruin stared him in the face, unless he could

command the means of waiting for the pecuniary success of the

newspaper, during an interval variously estimated at six months, or

even at a year to come.

"Our case is desperate enough," he said, "to call for a desperate

remedy. Keep up your spirits, Iris--I have written to my brother."

Iris looked at him in dismay.

"Surely," she said, "you once told me you had written to your brother,

and he answered you in the cruellest manner through his lawyers."

"Quite true, my dear. But, this time, there is one circumstance in our

favour--my brother is going to be married. The lady is said to be an

heiress; a charming creature, admired and beloved wherever she goes.

There must surely be something to soften the hardest heart in that

happy prospect. Read what I have written, and tell me what you think of

it."

The opinion of the devoted wife encouraged the desperate husband: the

letter was dispatched by the post of that day.

If boisterous good spirits can make a man agreeable at the

dinner-table, then indeed Mr. Vimpany, on his return to the cottage,

played the part of a welcome guest. He was inexhaustible in gallant

attentions to his friend's wife; he told his most amusing stories in

his happiest way; he gaily drank his host's fine white Burgundy, and

praised with thorough knowledge of the subject the succulent French

dishes; he tried Lord Harry with talk on politics, talk on sport, and

(wonderful to relate in these days) talk on literature. The preoccupied

Irishman was equally inaccessible on all three subjects. When the

dessert was placed on the table--still bent on making himself agreeable

to Lady Harry--Mr. Vimpany led the conversation to the subject of

floriculture. In the interests of her ladyship's pretty little garden,

he advocated a complete change in the system of cultivation, and

justified his revolutionary views by misquoting the published work of a

great authority on gardening with such polite obstinacy that Iris

(eager to confute him) went away to fetch the book. The moment he had

entrapped her into leaving the room, the doctor turned to Lord Harry

with a sudden change to the imperative mood in look and manner.