"Olivia is too bad, is she not?" was Eugene's reply, having--during Mrs. de Burgh's speech--been gazing with a fond smile into the expressive countenance of his betrothed, as she listened, half amused--half surprised and shocked, to her cousin's unceremonious ridicule of her uncle's peculiarities before his son. "She is too bad," he continued, "and will give you but a poor idea of what you may expect in this house; when, of course, everything would be set on a very different train on your becoming its inmate." And Eugene took the hand of his betrothed within his own with such tender affection, that Mrs. de Burgh began to experience something of the uncomfortable sensation of feeling herself _de trop_, to which _chaperones_, or any third person, under similar circumstances, are apt to be exposed. So she proposed an immediate adjournment, deeming this the best measure to be adopted for promoting a more comfortable position of affairs. They accordingly proceeded through some of the large apartments, handsome rooms, for the most part, though covered and shut up, and as Mr. Trevor had reported, "cold, very cold." Mrs. de Burgh at least found them so, and Trevor having proposed to show Mary a more pleasant and habitable room, which he thought she would prefer, Mrs. de Burgh applauded the plan, and accompanied them up the staircase, but in the gallery suddenly remembered that she had something particular to say to Marryott, and adding that she would go and look for her, and return to them in the boudoir, when they might go out to walk, she left the lovers alone together. Trevor accordingly proceeded to lead Mary in the direction of the room thus specified. There were pictures on the walls of the corridor through which they passed, and one of these Mary would fain have waited more particularly to survey. It was a large oil painting, representing a group composed of three boys, from about the ages of ten to fourteen. One, apparently the eldest, was mounted on a handsome pony, the reins of which were held by the second, the most striking in appearance of the party, and whose fine animated countenance was turned eagerly aside towards the third and youngest, a dark-haired, dark-eyed little fellow, carrying a cricket-bat in his hand. A large Newfoundland dog completed the picture. "Yes," Trevor said, in answer to the look of interest and half-uttered enquiry which a glimpse of the painting drew forth from Mary, "that gentleman with the bat was intended to represent my hopeful self." But there was something of constraint in the smile which accompanied, and in the tone in which he uttered these words, which instinctively caused Mary to pass on without further demonstration of the wish she felt to pause for its closer inspection.