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Book, page 111 / 491 next: thus giving Lord Colambre the most unfavourable idea of the disposition and character of the lower class of the Irish people. Lady Isabel the while standing by, with the most amiable air of pity, with expressions of the finest moral sensibility, softening all her mother said, finding ever some excuse for the poor creatures, and following, with angelic sweetness, to heal the wounds her mother inflicted. When Lady Dashfort thought she had sufficiently worked upon Lord Colambre's mind to weaken his enthusiasm for his native country; and when Lady Isabel had, by the appearance of every virtue, added to a delicate preference, if not partiality for our hero, ingratiated herself into his good opinion, and obtained an interest in his mind, the wily mother ventured an attack of a more decisive nature; and so contrived it was, that if it failed, it should appear to have been made without design to injure, and in total ignorance. One day, Lady Dashfort, who, in fact, was not proud of her family, though she pretended to be so, was herself prevailed on, though with much difficulty, by Lady Killpatrick, to do the very thing she wanted to do, to show her genealogy, which had been beautifully blazoned, and which was to be produced in evidence in the lawsuit that brought her to Ireland. Lord Colambre stood politely looking on and listening, while her ladyship explained the splendid intermarriages of her family, pointing to each medallion that was filled gloriously with noble, and even with royal names, till at last she stopped short, and covering one medallion with her finger, she said, "Pass over that, dear Lady Killpatrick. You are not to see that, Lord Colambre--that's a little blot in our scutcheon. You know, Isabel, we never talk of that prudent match of great uncle John's: what could he expect by marrying into _that_ family, where, you know, all the men were not _sans peur_, and none of the women _sans reproche_?" "Oh, mamma!" cried Lady Isabel, "not one exception!" "Not one, Isabel," persisted Lady Dashfort: "there was Lady ----, and the other sister, that married the man with the long nose; and the daughter again, of whom they contrived to make an honest woman, by getting her married in time to a _blue riband_, and who contrived to get herself into Doctors' Commons the very next year."
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