“Well, Dr. Delaven, why are you blowing like a bellows?” she asked, with a smile of good nature.
“Out of sympathy, my lady,” replied the young Irishman.
“Now, how can you possibly sympathize understandingly with a mother’s feelings, you Irish pretender?” she asked with a note of fondness in her tones. “I sigh because I have not seen my little Evilena for six weeks.”
“And I because I am never likely to see that lovely duplicate of yourself at all, at all! Ah, you laugh! But have you not noticed that each time I am allowed to enter this room I pay my devotions to that particular corner of the mantel?”
“A very modern shrine,” observed the Countess; “and why should you not see the original of the picture some day. It is not so far to America.”
“True enough, but I’ll be delving for two years here in the medical college,” he replied with lamentation in his tone. 43 “And after that I’ll be delving for a practice in some modest corner of the world, and all the time that little lady will be counting her lovers on every one of her white fingers, and, finally, will name the wedding day for a better boy than myself, och hone! och hone!”
Both the ladies laughed over his comical despair, and when Lieutenant McVeigh entered and heard the cause of it he set things right by promising to speak a good word for Delaven to the little girl across the water.
“You are a trump, Lieutenant; sorry am I that I have no sister with which to return the compliment.”
“She might be in the way,” suggested the Countess, and made a gesture towards the other picture. “You perceive; our friend need not come abroad for charming faces; those at home are worth courting.”
“True for you, Madame;” he gave a look askance at the Lieutenant, and again turned his eyes to the photograph; “there’s an excuse for turning your back on the prettiest we have to offer you!” and then in an undertone, he added: “Even for putting aside the chance of knowing our so adorable Marquise.”