ed, and muttered, "Eh, very like, the born image
of him!" and coloring deeply at his own awkwardness, mumbled out a few
unmeaning commonplaces. As for the Major, he eyed him with one of his
steadiest stares,--unflinching, un-blenching; and even said to Mrs.
Trafford in a whisper, "I didn't catch the name; was it Green you said?"
Seated between Lady Lyle and Mrs. Trafford, M'Caskey felt that he was
the honored guest of the evening: Maitland's absence, so feelingly
deplored by the others, gave him little regret; indeed, instinct told
him that they were not men to like each other, and he was all the
happier that he had the field for a while his own. It was not a very
easy task to be the pleasant man of an Irish country-house, in a
foreign tongue; but if any man could have success, it was M'Caskey.
The incessant play of his features, the varied tones of his voice,
his extraordinary gestures, appealed to those who could not follow his
words, and led them very often to join in the laughter which his sallies
provoked from others. He was, it is true, the exact opposite to all they
had been led to expect,--he was neither well-looking, nor distinguished,
nor conciliatory in manner,--there was not a trace of that insinuating
softness and gentleness Maitland had spoken of,--he was, even to those
who could not follow his speech, one of the most coolly unabashed
fellows they had ever met, and made himself at home with a readiness
that said much more for his boldness than for his breeding; and
yet, withal, each was pleased in turn to see how he out-talked some
heretofore tyrant of conversation, how impudently he interrupted a bore,
and how mercilessly he pursued an antagonist whom he had vanquished. It
is not at all improbable, too, that he owed something of bis success to
that unconquerable objection people feel at confessing that they do not
understand a foreign language,--the more when that language is such a
cognate one as French. What a deal of ecstasy does not the polite world
expend upon German drama and Italian tragedy, and how frequently are
people moved to every imaginable emotion, without the slightest clew to
the intention of the charmer! If he was great at the dinner-table, he
was greater in the drawing-room. Scarcely was coffee served than he was
twanking away with a guitar, and singing a Spanish muleteer song, with
a jingling imitation of bells for the accompaniment; or seated at the
piano, he carolled out a French canzon