“Oh, dear, oh, pray forgive me!”
“Oh, Mr. Roland Cashel, don't think of such a thing! Olivia was merely speaking at random. How silly, child, you are to talk that way!”
“Really, mamma, I had not the slightest suspicion—I would n't for the world have said anything if I thought—”
“Of course not, dear; but pray be guarded. Indeed, I own I never did hear you make a lapse of the kind before. But you see, Mr. Cashel, you have really made us forget that we were strangers but yesterday, and you are paying the penalty of your own exceeding kindness. Forget, then, I beseech you, this first transgression.”
“I shall assuredly keep my promise, madam,” said Cashel, proudly; “and I have only to hope Miss Kennyfeck will not offend me by declining so very humble a present. Now, sir, for our worthy friend Mr. Corrigan.”
“Too fast, a great deal to fast, love,” whispered the elder sister in the ear of the younger, and who, to the credit of her tact and ingenuity be it spoken, only gave the most heavenly smile in reply.
“I really am puzzled, sir, what advice to give,” said the attorney, musing.
“I have no difficulties of this sentimental kind,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, with a glance of profound depreciation towards her husband; “and I beg Mr. Cashel to remember that the opportunity now offered will possibly never occur again. If the old man is to retain his farm, of course Mr. Cashel would not think of building a new mansion, which must be ill-circumstanced; from what I can hear of the present house, it is equally certain that he would not reside in that.”
“Is it so very bad?” asked Cashel, smiling.
“It was ill-planned originally, added to in, if possible, worse taste, and then suffered to fall into ruin. It is now something more than eighty years since it saw any other inhabitant than a caretaker.”