Lord Kilgobbin | Page 9

bonds we make for

ourselves by our passions--' And the rest of the sentence was
erased--she evidently thinking she had delineated all that could give a
clue to a despondent reflection.
The present letter was written in English, but in that quaint, peculiar
hand Italians often write. It began by asking forgiveness for daring to
write to him, and recalling the details of the relationship between them,
as though he could not have remembered it. 'I am, then, in my right,'
wrote she, 'when I address you as my dear, dear uncle, of whom I have
heard so much, and whose name was in my prayers ere I knew why I
knelt to pray.'
Then followed a piteous appeal--it was actually a cry for protection.
Her father, she said, had determined to devote her to the stage, and
already had taken steps to sell her--she said she used the word
advisedly--for so many years to the impresario of the 'Fenice' at Venice,
her voice and musical skill being such as to give hope of her becoming
a prima donna. She had, she said, frequently sung at private parties at
Rome, but only knew within the last few days that she had been, not a
guest, but a paid performer. Overwhelmed with the shame and
indignity of this false position, she implored her mother's brother to
compassionate her. 'If I could not become a governess, I could be your
servant, dearest uncle,' she wrote. 'I only ask a roof to shelter me, and a
refuge. May I go to you? I would beg my way on foot if I only knew
that at the last your heart and your door would be open to me, and as I
fell at your feet, knew that I was saved.'
Until a few days ago, she said, she had by her some little trinkets her
mother had left her, and on which she counted as a means of escape,
but her father had discovered them and taken them from her.
'If you answer this--and oh! let me not doubt you will--write to me to
the care of the Signori Cayani and Battistella, bankers, Rome. Do not
delay, but remember that I am friendless, and but for this chance
hopeless.--Your niece,
'NINA KOSTALERGI.'

While Kearney gave this letter to his daughter to read, he walked up
and down the room with his head bent and his hands deep in his
pockets.
'I think I know the answer you'll send to this, papa,' said the girl,
looking up at him with a glow of pride and affection in her face. 'I do
not need that you should say it.'
'It will take fifty--no, not fifty, but five-and-thirty pounds to bring her
over here, and how is she to come all alone?'
Kate made no reply; she knew the danger sometimes of interrupting his
own solution of a difficulty.
'She's a big girl, I suppose, by this--fourteen or fifteen?'
'Over nineteen, papa.'
'So she is, I was forgetting. That scoundrel, her father, might come after
her; he'd have the right if he wished to enforce it, and what a scandal
he'd bring upon us all!'
'But would he care to do it? Is he not more likely to be glad to be
disembarrassed of her charge?'
'Not if he was going to sell her--not if he could convert her into money.'
'He has never been in England; he may not know how far the law
would give him any power over her.'
'Don't trust that, Kate; a blackguard always can find out how much is in
his favour everywhere. If he doesn't know it now, he'd know it the day
after he landed.' He paused an instant, and then said: 'There will be the
devil to pay with old Peter Gill, for he'll want all the cash I can scrape
together for Loughrea fair. He counts on having eighty sheep down
there at the long crofts, and a cow or two besides. That's money's worth,
girl!'
Another silence followed, after which he said, 'And I think worse of the

Greek scoundrel than all the cost.'
'Somehow, I have no fear that he'll come here?'
'You'll have to talk over Peter, Kitty'--he always said Kitty when he
meant to coax her. 'He'll mind you, and at all events, you don't care
about his grumbling. Tell him it's a sudden call on me for railroad
shares, or'--and here he winked knowingly--'say, it's going to Rome the
money is, and for the Pope!'
'That's an excellent thought, papa,' said she, laughing; 'I'll certainly tell
him the money is going to Rome, and you'll write soon--you see with
what anxiety she expects your answer.'
'I'll write to-night when the house is quiet, and there's no racket nor
disturbance about me.' Now though Kearney said