Burke is gone down there; and if we stay here
quietly, there will be time for the velvet furniture to get there before
us, and to be unpacked, and up in the drawing-room.'
'That's true, my lord,' said Lady Clonbrony; 'and there is a great deal
of reason in all you say--so I second that motion, as Colambre, I see,
subscribes to it.'
They stayed some time in Derbyshire, and every day Lord Clonbrony
proposed some pleasant excursion, and contrived that the young people
should be left to themselves, as Mrs. Broadhurst used so strenuously to
advise; the recollection of whose authoritative maxims fortunately still
operated upon Lady Clonbrony, to the great ease and advantage of the
lovers.
Happy as a lover, a friend, a son; happy in the consciousness of having
restored a father to respectability, and persuaded a mother to quit the
feverish joys of fashion for the pleasures of domestic life; happy in
the hope of winning the whole heart of the woman he loved, and whose
esteem, he knew, he possessed and deserved; happy in developing every
day, every hour, fresh charm in his destined bride--we leave our hero,
returning to his native country.
And we leave him with the reasonable expectation that he will support
through life the promise of his early character; that his patriotic
views will extend with his power to carry wishes into action; that
his attachment to his warm-hearted countrymen will still increase upon
further acquaintance; and that he will long diffuse happiness through
the wide circle, which is peculiarly subject to the influence and
example of a great resident Irish proprietor.
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