“Grand!—grand! It’s the finest place I ever saw, and well kept up, too! There’s eight men in the garden, and the head-gardener told me he might have as many more, if he wanted them.”
“The horses are overfed; they are like prize oxen.”
“They’re fat, to be sure; but it’s fine to see them standing there, with their glossy skins, and their names over them, and their tails hanging down like tassels, and no more call for them to work than if they were lords themselves.”
“I’ll make a grand clearance of all that rubbish one day. I’ll have none of those German elephants, I promise you, when I come to the property.”
“He isn’t going to make room for you yet awhile, he says,” said O’Rorke, with a grin.
“What do you mean?”
“If what he said to me this morning is to be relied on, he means to marry.”
“And haye a family, perhaps?” added Ladarelle, with a laugh.
“He said nothing about that; he talked like a man that hoped to see many years, and happy ones.”
“No one ever lived the longer for wishing it, or else we heirs-expectant would have a bad time of it. But this is not the question. What answer did he give you?”