“Admirably done!” cried the young lady, with heightened color; “but 'bide a wee.’ Look at that little dame. There is fire for you. She was Countess of Ovoca in her own right—a Geraldine. She defended this castle against two attacks of Cromwell’s crop-eared curs, and when it was intimated to her that the defence jeopardized her husband’s life, she naïvely replied: 'I could replace my husband, but I could not replace Coolgreny.’ 'Wasn’t that complimentary to that ill-looking fellow opposite leaning upon his sword? I do believe that he steps out of that frame occasionally for the purpose of upbraiding her, poor dear!”
Redmond laughed heartily as he replied that he thought the cavalier was likely to get the worst of it.
“Here is a Lely—my great, great, great, ever-so-great grandmamma. Isn’t she lovely? Look at her cool blue pastoral drapery, her bright brown hair, her matchless eye, and her ivory complexion.”
“I am looking at her,” said Redmond, gazing earnestly at Miss O’Byrne, “and she is lovely.”
It was as if the portrait had been painted for herself.
“Mr. Redmond, you are incorrigible. I absolutely refuse to act as cicerone. Tyrconnel was madly in love with her.”
“Of course he was; and if he wasn’t he ought to have been,” laughed Philip. “Pray who is that sparkling brunette, with the color glowing beneath her swarthy skin, and with the head and hair of Cleopatra?”
“That is Mistress Lettice O’Byrne, who received King James in this very hall, as, blood-stained and travel-sore, he honored our poor house by resting here after the disaster of the Boyne. He heard Mass in our little chapel before he started at daybreak.”
They wandered from portrait to portrait, she chatting gaily, brilliantly, until they came directly opposite that of a very young man attired in a gorgeous hussar uniform.
“This is a picture of today,” said Redmond. “Who is he?”