Nevertheless, I don't believe that it was that which made him laugh at all.
"A capital party!" said the Major, laughing. "Do you know, Brentwood, I always liked those Donovans, under the rose, and last night I liked them better than ever. They were not such very bad neighbours, although old Donovan wanted to fight a duel with me once. At all events, the welcome I got last night will make me remember them kindly in future."
"I must go down and call there before they go," said Mrs. Buckley. "People who have been our neighbours so many years must not go away without a kind farewell. Was Desborough there?"
"Indeed, he was. Don't you know he is related to the Donovans?"
"Impossible!"
"Fact, my dear, I assure you, according to Mrs. Donovan, who told me that the De Novans and the Desboroughs were cognate Norman families, who settled in Ireland together, and have since frequently inter-married."
"I suppose," said Mrs. Buckley, laughing, "that Desborough did not deny it."
"Not at all, my dear: as he said to me privately, 'Buckley, never deny a relationship with a man worth forty thousand pounds, the least penny, though your ancestors' bones should move in their graves.'"
"I suppose," said Mrs. Buckley, "that he made himself as agreeable as usual."
"As usual, my dear! He made even Brentwood laugh; he danced all the evening with that giddy girl Lesbia Burke, who let slip that she remembered me at Naples in 1805, when she was there with that sad old set, and who consequently must be nearly as old as myself."