I had my horses to buy, my establishment to arrange, my entree into the genteel world to make; and, having announced my intention to purchase horses and live in a genteel style, was in a couple of days so pestered by visits of the nobility and gentry, and so hampered by invitations to dinners and suppers, that it became exceedingly difficult for me during some days to manage my anxiously desired visit to Mrs.Barry.
It appears that the good soul provided an entertainment as soon as she heard of my arrival, and invited all her humble acquaintances of Bray to be present: but I was engaged subsequently to my Lord Ballyragget on the day appointed, and was, of course, obliged to break the promise that I had made to Mrs.Barry to attend her humble festival.
I endeavoured to sweeten the disappointment by sending my mother a handsome satin sack and velvet robe, which I purchased for her at the best mercers in Dublin (and indeed told her I had brought from Paris expressly for her); but the messenger whom I despatched with the presents brought back the parcels, with the piece of satin torn half way up the middle: and I did not need his descriptions to be aware that something had offended the good lady; who came out, he said, and abused him at the door, and would have boxed his cars, but that she was restrained by a gentleman in black; who I concluded, with justice, was her clerical friend Mr.Jowls.
This reception of my presents made me rather dread than hope for an interview with Mrs.Barry, and delayed my visit to her for some days further.

I wrote her a dutiful and soothing letter, to which there was no answer returned; although I mentioned that on my way to the capital I had been at Barryville, and revisited the old haunts of my youth.
I don't care to own that she is the only human being whom I am afraid to face.

I can recollect her fits of anger as a child, and the reconciliations, which used to be still more violent and painful: and so, instead of going myself, I sent my factotum, Ulick Brady, to her; who rode back, saying that he had met with a reception he would not again undergo for twenty guineas; that he had been dismissed the house, with strict injunctions to inform me that my mother disowned me for ever.

This parental anathema, as it were, affected me much, for I was always the most dutiful of sons; and I determined to go as soon as possible, and brave what I knew must be an inevitable scene of reproach and anger, for the sake, as I hoped, of as certain a reconciliation.
I had been giving one night an entertainment to some of the genteelest company in Dublin, and was showing my Lord Marquess downstairs with a pair of wax tapers, when I found a woman in a grey coat seated at my doorsteps: to whom, taking her for a beggar, I tendered a piece of money, and whom my noble friends, who were rather hot with wine, began to joke, as my door closed and I bade them all good-night.
I was rather surprised and affected to find afterwards that the hooded woman was no other than my mother; whose pride had made her vow that she would not enter my doors, but whose natural maternal yearnings had made her long to see her son's face once again, and who had thus planted herself in disguise at my gate.

Indeed, I have found in my experience that these are the only women who never deceive a man, and whose affection remains constant through all trials.