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Fanny McDermot
by
Mrs. Hyat gave Fanny small encouragement to communicate a scene in which the banned Irish were the principal actors. But after a little struggle, her sense of justice to them overcame her dread of the old woman’s prejudices, and she told the true story.
“The overseer at the new buildings gave me leave to bring my basket again for kindlings. Pat and Ellen O’Roorke were there before me, and they picked out all the best bits and put them into my basket, and it was pretty heavy, and Pat would bring it home for me; he was so kind, how could I huff him, Aunt Sara? but I was afraid you would see him, that was the truth, and I wanted to take the basket before we got to the house; so I ran across the street after him, and there was a young gentleman driving a beautiful carriage, with a servant beside him, and another behind, and one of the horses just brushed against me and knocked me over. Pat and Ellen were frightened, and mad too, and Pat swore, and Ellen screamed, and the gentleman stoppe
d, and the man behind jumped off and came to us, and Pat kicked him, and he struck Pat, and the gentleman got out and stopped the fight, and said he was very sorry, and offered Pat money, and Pat would not touch it. The Irish have some high feelings, aunt, for all; and I am sure they are kind as kind can be.”
“Well, well, go on; did the gentleman say any thing to you?”
“Yes, aunt; he saw there was a little blood on my cheek, and he took off my bonnet and turned off my hair; it was but a little bruised—and—and—”
” And, and, and what, child?”
“Nothing, aunt, only he wiped off the place with his pocket handkerchief, and—kissed it.”
“It’s the last time you shall stir outside the door, Fanny, without me.”
“Aunt Sara! I am sure he meant no harm, he was a beautiful gentleman.”
“Beautiful, indeed! Did he say any thing more to you?”
“He said something about my hair being—looking—pretty, and he cut off a lock with my scissors that you hung at my side yesterday, and he—he put it in his bosom.” As Fanny finished, there was a tap at the door, and on opening it, she recognized the liveried footman of her admirer. In one hand he held a highly ornamented bird-cage containing a canary, and in the other a paper parcel.
“The gentleman as had the misfortune to knock you down yesterday, sends you these,” he said, smiling at Fanny; and setting them down on the table, he withdrew.
Fanny was enchanted.”The very thing I always wanted,” she exclaimed. The little singing bird began at once to cheer her solitude, to break with its sweet notes the heavy monotony of her day, to chime in harmony with the happy voice of her childhood. While Fanny, forgetting her supper and the paper parcel, was trying to quiet the frightened fluttering of the timid little stranger, Mrs. Hyat, lost in a reverie of perplexity and anxiety, was revolving Fanny’s adventure and its consequences; a world of dangers that must beset the poor girl, when, as in the course of nature it soon must be, her protection was withdrawn, were all at once revealed to her.
Fanny was just thirteen, and the extreme beauty that had marked her childhood, instead of passing away with it, was every day developing and ripening. Her features were symmetrical, and of that order which is called aristocratic, and so they were, of nature’s aristocracy; if that be so which is reserved for her rarest productions. Her completion was fair and soft as the rose-leaf, and the colour, ever varying on her cheek, ever mounting and subsiding, with the flow and ebb of feeling; her hair was singularly beautiful, rich and curling, and though quite dark, reflecting, when the light fell on it, a ruddy glow.