“My father never will listen to any nonsense about rabbits,” proceeded Cecil. “If you once begin there is no end to it, they are sure to encroach. He just sends them a basket of game at the beginning and end of the season.”
“By the bye,” said Raymond, “I hope ours have all been sent out as usual.”
“I can answer for a splendid one at our wedding breakfast,” said Rosamond. “The mess-man who came to help was lost in admiration. Did you breakfast on ortolans, Cecil?”
“Or on nightingales’ tongues?” added Charlie.
“You might as well say fatted dormice and snails,” said Frank. “One would think the event had been eighteen hundred years ago.”
“Poor Frank! he’s stuffed so hard that it is bursting out at all his pores!” exclaimed Charlie.
“Ah! you have the advantage of your elder, Master Charles!” said Raymond, with a paternal sound of approbation.
“Till next time,” said Frank. “Now, thank goodness, mine is once for all!”
The conversation drifted away to Venice and the homeward journey, which Raymond and Cecil seemed to have spent in unremitting sight-seeing. The quantities of mountains, cathedrals, and pictures they had inspected was quite appalling.
“How hard you must have worked!” exclaimed Rosamond. “Had you never a day’s rest out of the thirty?”