Breen's daughter--a lovely girl,
brought up in my own house, and who has now come home again to
live with us.
Peter listened attentively while Jack imparted these details, a
peculiar smile playing about the corners of his eyes and mouth,
his only comment at the strangeness of such posthumous honors to
such a man, but he became positively hilarious when Jack reached
that part in the narrative in which the head of the house of Breen
figured as chief contributor.
"And you mean to tell me, Jack," he roared, "that Breen has pushed
himself into poor Minott's stained-glass window, with the saints
and the gold crowns, and--oh, Jack, you can't be serious!"
"That's what the Rector tells me, sir."
"But, Jack--forgive me, my boy, but I have never in all my life
heard anything so delicious. Don't you think if Holker spoke to
the artist that Mr. Iscariot, or perhaps the estimable Mr.
Ananias, or Mr. Pecksniff, or Uriah Heep might also be tucked away
in the background?" And with this the old fellow, in spite of his
sympathy for Jack and the solemnity of the occasion, threw back
his head and laughed so long and so heartily that Mrs.
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