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The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth
Book, page 141 / 300


immediately pursue his tour in Ireland. We pass over all the
castles in the air which the young ladies of the family had
built, and which now fell to the ground. We pass all the civil
speeches of Lord and Lady Killpatrick; all the vehement
remonstrances of Lady Dashfort; and the vain sighs of Lady
Isabel, To the last moment Lady Dashfort said--

'He will not go.'

But he went; and, when he was gone, Lady Dashfort exclaimed,
'That man has escaped from me.' And after a pause, turning to
her daughter, she, in the most taunting and contemptuous terms,
reproached her as the cause of this failure, concluding by a
declaration that she must in future manage her own affairs, and
had best settle her mind to marry Heathcock, since every one else
was too wise to think of her.

Lady Isabel of course retorted. But we leave this amiable mother
and daughter to recriminate in appropriate terms, and we follow
our hero, rejoiced that he has been disentangled from their
snares. Those who have never been in similar peril will wonder
much that he did not escape sooner; those who have ever been in
like danger will wonder more that he escaped at all. Those who
are best acquainted with the heart or imagination of man will be
most ready to acknowledge that the combined charms of wit,
beauty, and flattery, may, for a time, suspend the action of
right reason in the mind of the greatest philosopher, or operate
against the resolutions of the greatest of heroes.

Lord Colambre pursued his way to Castle Halloran, desirous,
before he quitted this part of the country, to take leave of the
count, who had shown him much civility, and for whose honourable
conduct, and generous character, he had conceived a high esteem,
which no little peculiarities of antiquated dress or manner could
diminish. Indeed, the old-fashioned politeness of what was
formerly called a well-bred gentleman pleased him better than the
indolent or insolent selfishness of modern men of the ton.
Perhaps, notwithstanding our hero's determination to turn his
mind from everything connected with the idea of Miss Nugent, some
latent curiosity about the burial-place of the Nugents might have

 
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