He squeezed my hand affectionately. "Pretty bird! Dammy, but you'll
break a heart or two, you rogue! Oh, you are your father all over again;
it's that way with you Ormonds--all alike, and handsome as that young
devil Lucifer; too proud to be proud o' your dukes and admirals, and a
thousand years of waiting on your King. As lads together your father
used to take me by the ear and cuff me, crying, 'Beast! beast! You eat
and drink too much! An Ormond's heart lies not in his belly!' And I
kicked back, fighting stoutly for the crust he dragged me from. Dammy,
why not? There's more Dutch Varick than Irish Ormond in me. Remember
that, George, and we shall get on famously together, you and I. Forget
it, and we quarrel. Hey! fill that tall Italian glass for a toast. I
give you the family, George. May they keep tight hold on what is theirs
through all this cursed war-folly. Here's to the patroons, God
bless 'em!"

Forced by courtesy to drink ere I had yet tasted meat, I did my part
with the best grace I could muster, turning the beautiful glass
downward, with a bow to my host.

"The same trick o' grace in neck and wrist," he muttered, thickly,
wiping his lips. "All Ormond, all Ormond, George, like that vixen o'
mine, Dorothy. Hey! It's not too often that good blood throws back; the
mongrel shows oftenest; but that big chit of a lass is no Varick; she's
Ormond to the bones of her. Ruyven's a red-head; there's red in the rest
o' them, and the slow Dutch blood. But Dorothy's eyes are like those
wild iris-blooms that purple all our meadows, and she has the Ormond
hair--that thick, dull gold, which that French Ormond, of King Stephen's
time, was dowered with by his Saxon mother, Helen. Eh? You see, I read
it in that book your father left us. If I'm no Ormond, I like to find
out why, and I love to dispute the Ormond claim which Walter Butler