“Small but select,” said Lord Culduff, quietly. “May I venture to ask you, Colonel Bramleigh, what determined you in your choice of a residence here?”
“I suppose I must confess it was mainly a money consideration. The bank held some rather heavy mortgages over this property, which they were somewhat disposed to consider as capable of great improvement, and as I was growing a little wearied of City life, I fancied I 'd come over here and—”
“Regenerate Ireland, eh?”
“Or, at least, live very economically,” added he, laughing.
“I may be permitted to doubt that part of the experiment,” said Lord Culduff, as his eyes ranged over the table, set forth in all the splendor that plate and glass could bestow.
“I suspect papa means a relative economy,” said Marion, “something very different from our late life in England.”
“Yes, my last three years have been very costly ones,” said Colonel Bramleigh, sighing. “I lost heavily by the sale of Earlshope, and my unfortunate election, too, was an expensive business. It will take some retrenchment to make up for all this. I tell the boys they'll have to sell their hunters, or be satisfied, like the parson, to hunt one day a week.” The self-complacent, mock humility of this speech was all too apparent.
“I take it,” said Culduff, authoritatively, “that every gentleman”—and he laid a marked emphasis on the “gentleman”—“must at some period or the other of his life have spent more money than he ought—more than was subsequently found to be convenient.”
“I have repeatedly done so,” broke in Cutbill, “and invariably been sorry for it afterwards, inasmuch as each time one does it the difficulty increases.”
“Harder to get credit, you mean?” cried Jack, laughing.