"
"Master Richard?"
"Master Richard Dawson. 'Twas him came in to-day with some of the
quality ladies they have stopping at Damerstown. He didn't mean any
harm, Miss Bawn."
So it was Richard Dawson, the only son of the rich money-lender, on whom
we of the older, more exclusive gentry turn our backs. He had been wild
in his boyhood, and had quarrelled with his father and flung himself off
to America. We had not heard of his return.
I noticed half consciously the pleading look of Nora's blue eyes under
their black lashes. Why was the child so much concerned at what had
offended me? But I hardly thought of her.
I was thinking with an unreasonable wave of repulsion that I should
doubtless meet Richard Dawson, if not in the drawing-rooms of our
friends at least about our quiet lanes and roads, where hitherto there
had been nothing to fear. I wished he had stayed in America; and on one
subject I made up my mind. That was that if I must meet Richard Dawson I
should certainly be as cold to him as was compatible with civility to
those in whose houses I might meet him.
For we were not all a century behind our times. Some of us had a Dublin
season every year and had been presented at Court, and some of us even
went to London for the season.
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