e credit to Versailles.

"Perfectly done--grace and elegance itself. The foot a little--a very
little more in advance."

"Just because you want to look at it," cried she, laughing. "Molly,
Molly!" exclaimed the other, rebukingly. "Let him deny it if he can,
Lucy," retorted she. "But here's papa."

And as she spoke, a square-built, short, florid man, fanning his bald
head with a straw hat, puffed his way forward.

"My Lord, I'm your most obaydient!" said he, with a very unmistakably
Irish enunciation. "O'Reilly, I'm delighted to see you. These charming
girls of yours have just put me in good humour with the whole creation.
What a lovely spot this is; how beautiful!"

Though his Lordship's arm and outstretched hand directed attention to
the scenery, his eyes never wandered from the pretty features of the
laughing girl beside him.

[Illustration: 028]

"It's like Banthry!" said Mr. O'Reilly--"it's the very ditto of
Banthry."

"Indeed!" exclaimed my Lord, still pursuing his scrutiny.

"Only Banthry's bigger and wider. Indeed, I may say finer."

"Nothing, in _my_ estimation, can exceed this!" said his Lordship, with
a distinctive smile, addressed to the young lady.

"I'm glad you think so," said she, with a merry laugh. And then, with a
pirouette, she sprang up the steep steps on the rocky path before her,
and disappeared, her sister as quickly following, leaving Mr. O'Reilly
alone with his Lordship.

"What heaps of money she laid out here," exclaimed O'Reilly, as he
looked at the labyrinth of mad ruins, and rustic bridges, and hanging
gardens on every side of him.

"Large sums--very large indeed!" said my Lord, whose thoughts were
evidently on some other track.

"Pure waste--nothing else; the place never could pay. Vines and
fig-trees, indeed--I'd rather see a crop of oats.".

"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