No sense of propriety was proof against this announcement; a laugh, loud and general, burst forth, during which Lady Janet, snatching the book indignantly from his hands, cried,--
"You were looking at sixty-eight, Sir Andrew, not fifty-eight; and you have made yourself perfectly ridiculous."
"By my saul, I believe so," muttered the old gentleman, in deep anger. "I 've been looking at 'saxty-eight' ower long already!"
Fortunately, this sarcasm was not heard by her against whom it was directed, and they who did hear it were fain to suppress their laughter as well as they were able. The party was now increased by the arrival of the Dean and his "ancient," Mr. Softly, to the manifest delight of Mrs. Kennyfeck, who at once exclaimed,--
"Ah, we shall now hear something really instructive."
The erudite churchman, after a very abrupt notice of the company, started at speed without losing a moment.
His attention being caught by some curious tableaux of the interior of the great Pyramid, he immediately commenced an explanation of the various figures, the costumes and weapons, which he said were all masonic, showing that Pharaoh wore an apron exactly like the Duke of Sussex, and that every emblem of the "arch" was to be found among the great of Ancient Egypt.
While thus employed, Mr. Howie, seated in a corner, was busily sketching the whole party for an illustration to his new book on Ireland, and once more Cashel and his companion found themselves, of course by the merest accident, standing opposite the same picture in a little boudoir off the large gallery. The subject was a scene from Faust, where Marguerite, leaning on her lover's arm, is walking in a garden by moonlight, and seeking by a mode of divination common in Germany to ascertain his truth, which is by plucking one by one the petals of a flower, saying alternately, "He loves me, he loves me not;" and then, by the result of the last-plucked leaf, deciding which fate is accomplished. Cashel first explained the meaning of the trial, and then taking a rose from one of the flower vases, he said,--
"Let me see if you can understand my teaching; you have only to say, 'Er liebt mich,' and, 'Er liebt mich nicht.'"
"But how can I?" said she, with a look of beaming innocence, "if there be none who--"