"Mary, Eugene is quite jealous—that is to say," correcting herself, "Eugene is very anxious to know whether you have quite lost your heart to that gallant ancestor of his over the mantelpiece, for it seems to attract your most earnest interest and attention?"
Mary smiled.
"Not quite," she said, "though he is very handsome, I confess; but what most drew my attention to the picture, is its extreme likeness to a person with whom I am acquainted."
"Indeed!" Eugene exclaimed gaily, "well I cannot say that much mends the matter, does it, Olivia? A likeness to a person Miss Seaham has seen—a likeness too, she owns so handsome, attracting so much interest and attention, that we have scarcely had one glance cast upon us all this long time. We must really make some further enquiries about this 'person.'"
Mary responded to this fond raillery of her lover by an affectionate beaming smile, whilst Mr. Trevor in whose mind his son's words did not appear to awaken any suspicions, began for Mary's edification, to give an account of the name, birth, parentage and exploits of the warrior in question; which Mrs. de Burgh and Eugene interrupted, in the midst, by rising and moving from the table, and the former proposing that they should take Mary to show her over some parts of the house and gardens.
Whereupon the old gentleman expressed his fears that they would find all the rooms worth seeing, "shut, and covered up, and cold—very cold" (though in truth they could not have been much colder than the one in which they now found themselves) "and the garden very desolate"—and then he went off to his library.
CHAPTER XIV.
And side by side the lovers sate,
* * * * *
Their talk was of the future; from the height
Of Hope, they saw the landscape bath'd in light,
And where the golden dimness veil'd the gaze,
Guess'd out the spot, and marked the sites of happy days.
THE NEW TIMON.