"At breakfast at the barrack!" repeated Miss Kennyfeck after him. "What a formidable affair, if it always lasts twenty-four hours."
"What do you mean? How do you know that?" asked Roland, half in shame, half in surprise, at this knowledge of his movements.
"Not to speak of the brilliant conversation, heightened by all the excitement of wit, champagne, and hazard,--dreadful competitors with such tiresome society as ours," said Olivia.
"Never mind them, Mr. Cashel," broke in Miss O'Hara, in a mellifluous Doric; "'tis jealous they are, because you like the officers better than themselves."
A most energetic dissent was entered by Cashel to this supposition, who nevertheless felt grateful for the advocacy of the old lady.
"When I was in the Cape Coast Fencibles," broke in Peter, with an accent that would have induced one to believe Africa was on the Shannon, "we used to sit up all night,--it was so hot in the day; but we always called it breakfast, for you see--"
"And when are we to visit your pictures, Mr. Cashel?" said Mrs. Kennyfeck, whose efforts to suppress Peter were not merely vocal, as that injured individual's shins might attest.
"That depends entirely on you, madam," said Roland, bowing. "I have only to say, the earlier the more agreeable to me."
"He has such a beautiful collection," said Mrs. Kennyfeck, turning to her sister.
"Indeed, then, I delight in pictures," said "Aunt Fanny," as her nieces called her. "I went the other day to Mount Bennett, to see a portrait painted by Rousseau."
"By Rubens, I suppose you mean, aunt," interposed Miss Kennyfeck, tartly.
"So it may be, my dear, I never know the names right; but it was a dark old man, with a hairy cap and a long gray beard, as like Father Morris Heffernan as ever it could stare."
"Is your new Carlo Dolce so very like Olivia?" interposed Mrs. Kennyfeck, who was sadly hampered by her country relatives and their reminiscences.
"So very like, madam, that I beg you to accept it as a portrait," replied Roland.
"Upon my word, then, young gentleman, you 're not so fond of a pretty face as you might be," broke in Aunt Fanny, "or you would n't be so ready to give it away." A very hearty laugh at the old lady's eccentricity relieved Cashel from all necessity of explanation.