Previous - next
think you guess my riddle without more trouble. LOVE! sure the word
is formed on purpose out of the prettiest soft vowels and consonants
in the language, and he or she who does not care to read about it is
not worth a fig, to my thinking.
My uncle's family consisted of ten children; who, as is the custom
in such large families, were divided into two camps, or parties; the
one siding with their mamma, the other taking the part of my uncle
in all the numerous quarrels which arose between that gentleman and
his lady. Mrs. Brady's faction was headed by Mick, the eldest son,
who hated me so, and disliked his father for keeping him out of his
property: while Ulick, the second brother, was his father's own boy;
and, in revenge, Master Mick was desperately afraid of him. I need
not mention the girls' names; I had plague enough with them in
after-life, Heaven knows; and one of them was the cause of all my
early troubles: this was (though to be sure all her sisters denied
it) the belle of the family, Miss Honoria Brady by name.
She said she was only nineteen at the time; but I could read the
fly-leaf in the family Bible as well as another (it was one of the
three books which, with the backgammon-board, formed my uncle's
library), and know that she was born in the year '37, and christened
by Doctor Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin: hence she was three-
and-twenty years old at the time she and I were so much together.
When I come to think about her now, I know she never could have been
handsome; for her figure was rather of the fattest, and her mouth of
the widest; she was freckled over like a partridge's egg, and her
hair was the colour of a certain vegetable which we eat with boiled
beef, to use the mildest term. Often and often would my dear mother
make these remarks concerning her; but I did not believe them then,
and somehow had gotten to think Honoria an angelical being, far
above all the other angels of her sex.
And as we know very well that a lady who is skilled in dancing or
singing never can perfect herself without a deal of study in
private, and that the song or the minuet which is performed with so
much graceful ease in the assembly-room has not been acquired
without vast labour and perseverance in private; so it is with the
dear creatures who are skilled in coquetting. Honoria, for instance,
was always practising, and she would take poor me to rehearse her
accomplishment upon; or the exciseman, when he came his rounds, or
the steward, or the poor curate, or the young apothecary's lad from
Brady's Town: whom I recollect beating once for that very reason. If
he is alive now I make him my apologies. Poor fellow! as if it was
HIS fault that he should be a victim to the wiles of one of the
greatest coquettes (considering her obscure life and rustic
breeding) in the world.
If the truth must be told--and every word of this narrative of my
life is of the most sacred veracity--my passion for Nora began in a
very vulgar and unromantic way.
Previous - next
