‘And thought they had been purloined. Have I not found “Dear Clarendon” often enough in the same packet with cross-bones and a coffin.’
‘What a country!’ said Nina, with a sigh.
‘Very like Greece, I suppose,’ said Kate tartly; then, suddenly, ‘Will you undertake to make this gentleman’s peace with Mr. Walpole, and show how the whole was a piece of ill-directed zeal?’
‘Indiscreet zeal.’
‘Well, indiscreet, if you like it better.’
‘And you fancied, then, that all the fine linen and purple you carried away were the properties of a head-centre?’
‘We thought so.’
‘And the silver objects of the dressing-table, and the ivory inlaid with gold, and the trifles studded with turquoise?’
‘They might have been Donogan’s. Do you know, mademoiselle, that this same Donogan was a man of fortune, and in all the society of the first men at Oxford when—a mere boy at the time—he became a rebel?’
‘How nice of him! What a fine fellow!’