hope, as
the club know nothing about that vagabond, that king of the gipsies, you
will not let any one know anything about the prophecy, and all that? I
am sure I am very sorry to have given you so much trouble, Mr. Marshal."
Mr. Marshal assured him that he did not regret the time which he had
spent in endeavouring to clear up all those mysteries and suspicions; and
Mr. Hill gladly accepted his invitation to meet O'Neill at his house the
next day. No sooner had Mr. Marshal brought one of the parties to reason
and good humour than he went to prepare the other for a reconciliation.
O'Neill and his mother were both people of warm but forgiving tempers--the
arrest was fresh in their minds; but when Mr. Marshal represented to them
the whole affair, and the verger's prejudices, in a humorous light, they
joined in the good-natured laugh; and O'Neill declared that, for his
part, he was ready to forgive and to forget everything if he could but
see Miss Phoebe in the Limerick gloves.
Phoebe appeared the next day, at Mr. Marshal's, in the Limerick gloves;
and no perfume ever was so delightful to her lover as the smell of the
rose-leaves in which they had been kept.
Mr. Marshal had the benevolent pleasure of reconciling the two families.
The tanner and the glover of Hereford became, from bitter enemies, useful
friends to each other; and they were convinced by experience that nothing
could be more for their mutual advantage than to live in union.
MADAME DE FLEURY
CHAPTER I
"There oft are heard the notes of infant woe,
The short thick sob, loud scream, and shriller squall--
How can you, mothers, vex your infants so?"--POPE
"D'abord, madame, c'est impossible!--Madame ne descendra pas ici?" said
Francois, the footman of Madame de Fleury, with a half expostulatory,
half indignant look, as he let down the step of her carriage at the
entrance of a dirty passage, that led to one of the most
miserable-looking houses in Paris.
"But what can be the cause of the cries which I hear in this house?" said
Madame de Fleury.
"'Tis only some child who is crying," replied Francois; and he would have
put up the step, but his lady was not satisfied.
"'Tis nothing in the world," continued he, with a look of appeal to the
coachman, "it _can_ be nothing, but some children who are locked up there
above. The mother, the workwoman my lady wants, is not at home: that's
certain."
"I must know the cause of these cr
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