Note (return) — Chapter II · THE TWO HEIRESSES

In the meantime, the ci-devant [9] Black Rod, Gold Stick, Royal Equerry, and Lord of the Bedchamber, was called away from his robes and his finery, to give an account of the manner in which he had renounced the pomps and vanities of this wicked world; and Frank became Lord Ballindine, with, as I have before said, an honourable mother, two sisters, a large red house, and a thousand a-year. He was not at all a man after the pattern of his grandfather, but he appeared as little likely to redeem the old family acres. He seemed to be a reviving chip of the old block of the O’Kellys. During the two years he had been living at Kelly’s Court as Frank O’Kelly, he had won the hearts of all the tenants—of all those who would have been tenants if the property had not been sold, and who still looked up to him as their “raal young masther”—and of the whole country round. The “thrue dhrop of the ould blood”, was in his veins; and, whatever faults he might have, he wasn’t likely to waste his time and his cash with furs, laces, and hangings.