[Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray]@TWC D-Link book
Barry Lyndon

CHAPTER III
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'Had she lost much ?' 'Everything: her purse, containing upwards of a hundred guineas; her jewels, snuff-boxes, watches, and a pair of diamond shoe-buckles of the Captain's.' These mishaps I sincerely commiserated; and knowing her by her accent to be an Englishwoman, deplored the difference that existed between the two countries, and said that in OUR country (meaning England) such atrocities were unknown.
'You, too, are an Englishman ?' said she, with rather a tone of surprise.
On which I said I was proud to be such: as, in fact, I was; and I never knew a true Tory gentleman of Ireland who did not wish he could say as much.
I rode by Mrs.Fitzsimon's chair all the way to Naas; and, as she had been robbed of her purse, asked permission to lend her a couple of pieces to pay her expenses at the inn: which sum she was graciously pleased to accept, and was, at the same time, kind enough to invite me to share her dinner.

To the lady's questions regarding my birth and parentage, I replied that I was a young gentleman of large fortune (this was not true; but what is the use of crying bad fish?
my dear mother instructed me early in this sort of prudence) and good family in the county of Waterford; that I was going to Dublin for my studies, and that my mother allowed me five hundred per annum.

Mrs.Fitzsimons was equally communicative.

She was the daughter of General Granby Somerset of Worcestershire, of whom, of course, I had heard (and though I had not, of course I was too well-bred to say so); and had made, as she must confess, a runaway match with Ensign Fitzgerald Fitzsimons.

Had I been in Donegal ?--No! That was a pity.


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