And we, the elder of the
party, who followed the Doctor's handsome little brown mare, kept our
ears open, and spoke little,--but gave ourselves fully up to the
enjoyment of his learning and eloquence.
But the Doctor did not absorb the whole party; far from it. He had a
rival. All the young men, and Miss Alice besides, were grouped round
Captain Desborough. Frequently we elders, deep in some Old World
history of the Doctor's, would be disturbed by a ringing peal of
laughter from the other party, and then the Doctor would laugh, and we
would all join; not that we had heard the joke, but from sheer sympathy
with the hilarity of the young folks. Desborough was making himself
agreeable, and who could do it better? He was telling the most
outrageous of Irish stories, and making, on purpose, the most
outrageous of Irish bulls. After a shout of laughter louder than the
rest, the Doctor remarked,--
"That's better for them than geology,--eh, Mrs. Buckley?"
"And so my grandmother," we heard Desborough say, "waxed mighty wrath,
and she up with her goldheaded walking stick in the middle of
Sackville Street, and says she, 'Ye villain, do ye think I don't know
my own Blenheim spannel when I see him?' 'Indeed, my lady,' says Mike,
''twas himself tould me he belanged to Barney.
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