“Ah, yes, you mentioned that to me; very singular indeed!”
“For it wasn't in the heart itself, my Lord, but in the bag that houlds it.”
“Oh yes, I remember the explanation perfectly; so you thought you'd just come abroad for a little distraction.”
“Distraction indeed! 'tis the very word for it,” broke in Mr. O'Reilly, eagerly. “My head is bewildered between the lingo and the money, and they keep telling me, 'You'll get used to it, papa, darling—you'll be quite at home yet.' But how is that ever possible?”
“Still, for your charming girls' sake,” said my Lord, caressing his whiskers and adjusting his neckcloth, as if for immediate captivation—“or their sake, O'Reilly, you've done perfectly right!”
“Well, I'm glad your Lordship says so. 'Tis nobody ought to know better!” said he, with a heavy sigh.
“They really deserve every cultivation. All the advantages that—that—that sort of thing can bestow!”
And his Lordship smiled benignly, as though offering his own aid to the educational system.
“What they said to me was this,” said O'Reilly, dropping his voice to a tone of the most confiding secrecy: “'Don't be keeping them down here in Mary's Abbey, but take them where they'll see life. You can give them forty thousand pounds between them, Tim O'Reilly, and with that and their own good looks—-'”
“Beauty, O'Reilly—-downright loveliness,” broke in my Lord.