The Collegians | Page 9

house; but without being more successful in awakening the attention of the young gentleman.
Mr. Daly winked at his wife.
"Kyrle!" he called aloud, in a tone against which even a lover's absence was not proof-"Do you hear what your mother says?"
"I ask pardon sir-I was absent, I-what were you saying, mother?"
She was saying" continued Mr. Daly with a smile "that you were manufacturing a fine speech for Anne Chute, and that you were just meditating whether you should deliver it on your knees, or out of brief, as if you were addressing the Bench in the Four Courts.
"For shame, my dear!-Never mind him, Kyrle, I said no such thing. I wonder how you can say that, my dear, and the children listening.
"Pooh! the little angels are too busy and too innocent to pay us any attention," said Mr. Daly, lowering his voice however. "But speaking seriously, my boy, you take this affair too deeply to heart; and whether it be in our pursuit suit of wealth-or fame-or even in love itself, an extreme solicirtide to be successful is the surest means of defeating its own object. Besides, it argues an unquiet and unresigned condition. I have had a little experience, you know, in affairs of this kind," he added, smiling and glancing at his fair helpmate, who blushed with the simplicity of a young girl.
"Ah, sir," said Kyrle, as he drew nearer to the breakfast table with a magnanimous affectation of cheerfulness. "I fear I have not so good a ground for hope as you may have had. It is very easy, sir, for one to be resigned to disappointment when he is certain of success."
"Why, I was not bidden to despair, indeed," said Mr. Daly, extending his hand to his wife, while they exchanged a quiet smile, which had in it an expression of tenderness and of melancholy remembrance. "I have, I believe, been more fortunate than more deserving persons. I have never been vexed with useless fears in my wooing days, nor with vain regrets when those days were ended. I do not know, my dear lad, what hopes you have formed, or what prospects you may have shaped out of the future, but I will not wish you a better fortune than that you may as nearly approach to their accomplishment as I have done, and that Time may deal as fairly with you as he has done with your father." After saying this, Mr. Daly leaned forward on the table with his temple supported by one finger, and glanced alternately from his children to his wife; while he sang in a low tone the following verse of a popular song:
"How should I love the pretty creatures, While round my knees they fondly clung, To see them look their mother's features, To hear them lisp their mother's tongue! And when with envy Time transported Shall think to rob us of our joys- You'll in your girls again be courted, And I-- with a glance at Kyrle- And I go wooing with the boys."
And this, thought young Kyrle, in the affectionate pause that ensued, this is the question which I go to decide upon this morning; whether my old age shall resemble the picture which I see before me, or whether I shall be doomed to creep into the winter of my life, a lonely, selfish, cheerless, money-hunting old bachelor. Is not this enough to make a little solicitude excusable, or pardonable at least?
"It is a long time now," resumed Mr. Daly "since I have had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Chute. She was a very beautiful but a very wild girl when I knew her. Nothing has ever been more inexplicable to me than the choice she made of a second husband. You never saw Anne's step- father, Tom Chute, or you would be equally astonished. You saw him, my love, did you not?"
Mrs. Daly laughed and answered in the affirmative.
"It shewed indeed a singular taste said Mr. Daly. They tell a curious story too, about the manner of their courtship. "
"What was that sir?" asked Kyrle, who felt a strong sympathetic interest in all stories connected with wooers and wooing.
"I have it, I confess, upon questionable authority-but you shall hear it, such as it is-Now, look at that young thief!" he added laughing, and directing Kyrle's attention to one of the children, a chubby young fellow, who, having deserted the potato-eating corps at the side-table, was taking advantage of the deep interest excited by the conversation, to make a sudden descent upon the contents of the japanned bread basket. Perceiving that he was detected, the little fellow relaxed his fingers, and drew back a little, glancing, from beneath his eye-lashes, a half dismayed and bashful look at the laughing countenance of his parent.
"Charles is not well to-day"