“I have a weakness for the picturesque, I must own,” said my Lord, as his eye still followed the retreating figures of the girls. “Well, I like a waterfall; and, indeed, I like a summer-house myself,” said O'Reilly, as though confessing to a similar trait on his own part. “This is the first time you have been abroad, O'Reilly?” said his Lordship, to turn the subject of the conversation. “Yes, my Lord, my first, and, with God's blessing, my last, too! When I lost Mrs. O'Reilly, two years ago, of a complaint that beat all the doctors--” “Ah, yes, you mentioned that to me; very singular indeed!” “For it wasn't in the heart itself, my Lord, but in the bag that houlds it.” “Oh yes, I remember the explanation perfectly; so you thought you'd just come abroad for a little distraction.” “Distraction indeed! 'tis the very word for it,” broke in Mr. O'Reilly, eagerly. “My head is bewildered between the lingo and the money, and they keep telling me, 'You'll get used to it, papa, darling--you'll be quite at home yet.' But how is that ever possible?” “Still, for your charming girls' sake,” said my Lord, caressing his whiskers and adjusting his neckcloth, as if for immediate captivation--“or their sake, O'Reilly, you've done perfectly right!” “Well, I'm glad your Lordship says so. 'Tis nobody ought to know better!” said he, with a heavy sigh. “They really deserve every cultivation. All the advantages that--that--that sort of thing can bestow!” And his Lordship smiled benignly, as though offering his own aid to the educational system. “What they said to me was this,” said O'Reilly, dropping his voice to a tone of the most confiding secrecy: “'Don't be keeping them down here in Mary's Abbey, but take them where they'll see life. You can give them forty thousand pounds between them, Tim O'Reilly, and with that and their own good looks---'” “Beauty, O'Reilly---downright loveliness,” broke in my Lord. “Well, indeed, they are handsome,” said O'Reilly, with an honest satisfaction, “and that's exactly why I thought the advice was good. 'Take them abroad,' they said; 'take them into Germany and Italy--but more especially Italy'--for they say there's nothing like Italy for finishing young ladies.” “That is certainly the general impression!” said his Lordship with the barest imaginable motion of his nether lip. “And here we are, but where we're going afterwards, and what well do when we're there, that thief of a Courier we have may know, but I don't.” “So that you gave up business, O'Reilly, and resigned yourself freely to a life of ease,” said my Lord, with a smile that seemed to approve the project. “Yes, indeed, my Lord; but whether it's to be a life of pleasure, I don't know. I was in the provision trade thirty-eight years, and do you know I miss the pigs greatly.” “Every man has a hankering of that sort. Old cosmopolite as I am, I have every now and then my longing for that window at Brookes's, and that snug dinner-room at Boodle's.”