There
was no allusion to the existence of any special regard on his part
for Miss Effingham. He had thought that Violet might probably tell
her friend what had occurred at Saulsby;--but if she did so, Lady
Laura was happy in her powers of reticence. Our hero was disturbed
also when he reached home by finding that Mrs. Flood Jones and Miss
Flood Jones had retired from Killaloe for the winter. I do not know
whether he might not have been more disturbed by the presence of the
young lady, for he would have found himself constrained to exhibit
towards her some tenderness of manner; and any such tenderness of
manner would, in his existing circumstances, have been dangerous. But
he was made to understand that Mary Flood Jones had been taken away
from Killaloe because it was thought that he had ill-treated the
lady, and the accusation made him unhappy. In the middle of the heat
of the last session he had received a letter from his sister, in
which some pushing question had been asked as to his then existing
feeling about poor Mary. This he had answered petulantly. Nothing
more had been written to him about Miss Jones, and nothing was said
to him when he reached home. He could not, however, but ask after
Mary, and when he did ask, the accusation was made again in that
quietly severe manner with which, perhaps, most of us have been made
acquainted at some period of our lives.
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