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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rossmoyne, by Unknown
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Rossmoyne
+
+Author: Unknown
+
+Release Date: March 3, 2010 [EBook #31492]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROSSMOYNE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  ROSSMOYNE.
+
+  BY THE AUTHOR OF
+  "PHYLLIS," "MOLLY BAWN," "PORTIA," ETC.
+
+
+      "Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?--
+      Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?
+
+      "Here's much to do with hate, but more with love."--
+
+          ROMEO AND JULIET.
+
+
+  NEW YORK AND CHICAGO
+
+  BUTLER BROTHERS
+
+
+  TROW'S
+  PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY,
+  NEW YORK.
+
+
+
+
+ROSSMOYNE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+  How a Dove-cot was fluttered in Rossmoyne.
+
+
+The old-fashioned clock is ticking loudly, ponderously, as though
+determined to betray the flight of fickle time and impress upon the
+happy, careless ones that the end of all things is at hand. The roses
+knock their fragrant buds against the window-panes, calling attention to
+their dainty sweetness. The pigeons coo amorously upon the sills
+outside, and even thrust their pretty heads into the breakfast-room,
+demanding plaintively their daily crumbs; but no one heeds.
+
+A deadly silence has fallen upon this room at Moyne, albeit life is
+fully represented here, and two eyes, in which the light of youth is
+quenched, are looking anxiously into the two other eyes that have also
+seen the best and the sweetest of their days.
+
+Hopelessly the golden roses scatter their petals. In vain the white and
+tawny birds entreat backsheesh. To no purpose does the elderly clock
+count out its numbers. The urn is hissing angrily, the two cups of tea
+so carefully prepared are growing cold. So are the crisp little hot
+cakes, so is the----
+
+No! by the bye, it isn't! Honey can't. What a chance I was near giving
+the reviewers!
+
+One bird, growing annoyed at the prolonged quiet, flies from the open
+window to the back of Miss Penelope's chair, and settles there with an
+indignant flutter and a suppressed but angry note. This small suggestion
+of a living world destroyes the spell that for the last few minutes has
+been connecting the brain with a dead one.
+
+Miss Penelope, raising her head, gives words to her thoughts.
+
+"Poor, poor Katherine!" she says, gently smoothing out the letter that
+lies upon her knee. "How her happiness was wrecked and what a sad ending
+there has been to everything! Her children coming home to us,
+fatherless--motherless! Dear child! what a life hers has been! It is
+quite twenty years ago now, and yet it all seems to me as fresh as
+yesterday."
+
+"She shouldn't have taken things so easily; she should have asserted
+herself at the _time_," says Miss Priscilla, whose voice is always a
+note sharper than her sister's.
+
+"It requires a great deal of thought and--and a great deal of moral
+courage to assert one's self when a man has behaved abominably to
+one,--has, in fact, _jilted_ one!" says Miss Penelope, bringing out the
+awful word with a little shudder and a shake of her gentle head, that
+sets two pale lavender ribbons on her cap swaying mildly to and fro.
+
+"Why was she so fatally silent about everything, except the one bare
+fact of his refusal, at the last moment, to marry her, without assigning
+any cause for his base desertion? Why didn't she open her whole heart to
+me? I wasn't afraid of the man!" says Miss Priscilla, with such terrible
+energy and such a warlike front as might well have daunted "_the man_,"
+or indeed any man, could he have seen her. "She should have unburdened
+her poor bruised spirit to me, who--if my mother was not hers, and if I
+was many years her senior--had at least a sister's love for her."
+
+"A true love," says Miss Penelope, with another sigh.
+
+"Instead of which," regretfully, "she hid all her sorrows in her own
+bosom, and no doubt wept and pined for the miscreant in secret."
+
+"Poor soul!" says Miss Penelope, profoundly affected by this dismal
+picture. Tears born of tenderness spring to her eyes. "Do you remember,
+Priscilla, how she refused to show his letter, wishing, I suppose, even
+_then_ to spare him?"
+
+"I forget nothing!" with some acerbity. "Often, when saying my prayers,
+I have wished I could forget him, but I can't, so I have to go on being
+uncharitable and in sin,--if indeed sin it be to harden one's heart
+against a bad man."
+
+"Do you remember, too, my dear Priscilla, how she refused to go to
+church the Sunday after she received his cold-blooded missive telling
+her he wished his engagement at an end? I often wonder in what language
+he could have couched such a scandalous desire; but she tore the letter
+up. Dear! dear! it might have happened to-day, it is all so clear to
+me."
+
+"Too clear," says Miss Priscilla.
+
+"I recollect, too," says Miss Penelope, leaning her elbows on the table,
+pushing her untasted tea from her, and warming to the dismal memory,
+"how she would not come down to dinner on that eventful evening, though
+we had the red-currant tart she was so fond of, and how I took some up
+myself and knocked at her door and entreated her to open to me and to
+eat some of it. There was whipped cream on it; and she was very fond of
+cream, too."
+
+"And she refused to open the door?" asks Miss Priscilla, with the
+satisfied air of one who has often heard the thrilling recital before,
+yet was never tired of it.
+
+"Absolutely! so I laid the plate on a little table outside her door.
+Some hours afterwards, going up to bed, I saw the plate was gone and her
+door slightly ajar. Stealing into her room on tiptoe, I saw she was
+sleeping peacefully, and that she had eaten the red-currant tart. I felt
+so happy then. Poor dear child! how fond she was of that tart."
+
+"She liked everything that had sugar in it," says Miss Priscilla,
+mournfully.
+
+"It was only natural. 'Sweets to the sweet,'" says Miss Penelope,
+letting one little white jewelled hand fall slowly, sadly upon the
+other.
+
+There is a lengthened pause.
+
+Presently, stooping slightly towards her sister, Miss Penelope says in a
+mysterious whisper,--
+
+"I wonder, my dear Priscilla, _why_ she married James Beresford a month
+afterwards."
+
+"Who can read the human heart? Perhaps it was pride drove her into that
+marriage,--a desire to show George Desmond how lightly she treated his
+desertion of her. And James was a handsome young fellow, whereas George
+was----"
+
+"Ugly," says Miss Penelope, with quite an amazing amount of vicious
+satisfaction for her.
+
+"Strikingly so," says Miss Priscilla, acquiescing most agreeably. "But
+then the Desmond estates mean half the county; and we _used_ to think he
+was the soul of honor."
+
+"It was our father's expressed desire upon his deathbed that Katherine
+should marry him."
+
+"Yes, yes; a desire to be held sacred. And Katherine gave her promise to
+our dying parent. Nothing," says Miss Priscilla, in a solemn tone,
+"should induce any one to break such an oath. I have often said so to
+the dear child. But she appeared not only willing, but anxious, to marry
+George Desmond. _His_ was the traitorous mind."
+
+"I daresay he has had his own punishment," says Miss Penelope, mildly.
+
+"I hope so," says Miss Priscilla, sternly. Then, with a return to
+sadness, "Twenty years ago it is, and now she has been a twelvemonth
+dead and in her quiet grave."
+
+"Oh, _don't_, my dear Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, in a broken voice,
+burying her face in her pocket-handkerchief.
+
+"Ah! well, well, we had better look to the future; the past has no
+charms for us," says Miss Priscilla, with a ghastly attempt at
+cheerfulness. "Let me see," referring through a pair of gold-rimmed
+spectacles to the letter in her hand: "That the dear children have
+landed we know, and--h'm--yes, this very--yes, plainly, _very_
+respectable person, the captain, writes to say they will be with us
+to-morrow."
+
+"_To-morrow!_ and that was written yesterday," says Miss Penelope,
+putting down her handkerchief and starting once more into life. "Why, at
+that rate, my dear Priscilla, they will be here _to-day_!"
+
+"Bless me! you don't mean it!" exclaims Miss Priscilla, again applying
+her glasses to the letter. "Monday, and this is Tuesday: yes, sure
+enough you are right. What a head you have, my dear Penelope!"
+
+"Oh, not at all," says Miss Penelope, flushing with pleasure at this
+tribute to her intellect.
+
+"To-day,--in a few hours. Now, what is to be done about the beds?"
+
+"But surely they are aired?"
+
+"Aired?--yes. They have been aired every day regularly for the past two
+months, ever since I first heard the children were likely to come to us.
+But still I am uncertain about them. I know they will want hot jars; and
+then the rooms, they will want flowers and many things--and----"
+
+"Can't I help you?" demands Miss Penelope, eagerly.
+
+"My dear girl, not at all," says Miss Priscilla, with a calmly superior
+air, arising from the fact that she is quite eighteen months her senior.
+"You can assist me with your valuable counsel, but I would not have you
+disturb yourself for worlds. You must be cool and collected, and hold
+yourself in readiness to receive them when they come. They will be shy,
+no doubt, coming here all the way from Palestine, and it must be your
+part to make them feel quite at home."
+
+This to Miss Penelope, who is afraid of strangers in any guise, appears
+such a fearful mission that she pales, and says, tremblingly,--
+
+"But you too will be present at our first meeting? I must indeed _beg_
+you to be present, my dear Priscilla."
+
+"Of course, of course," says Miss Priscilla, encouragingly. Then,
+doubtfully, "I hope the boy won't take a dislike to us."
+
+"I wonder how we shall get on with children," says Miss Penelope. She is
+evidently growing extremely nervous. "It seems so strange they should be
+coming here to the old house."
+
+"Monica cannot be a child now. She must be at least eighteen," says Miss
+Priscilla, thoughtfully. "It was in 1863 that----"
+
+"1864, I think," interrupts Miss Penelope.
+
+"1863," persists Miss Priscilla.
+
+"You may be right, my dear," says Miss Penelope, mildly but firmly, "you
+often are,--but I know it was in '64 that----"
+
+"What?" asks Miss Priscilla, sharply.
+
+"The Desmond jilted our Katherine."
+
+"You are wrong, Penelope, utterly wrong. It was in '63."
+
+"I am nearly always wrong," says Miss Penelope, meekly, yet with a
+latent sense of suppressed power. "But I cannot forget that in the year
+George Desmond behaved so shamefully to our sweet Katherine, Madam
+O'Connor's cow had two calves, and _that_," triumphantly, "was in '64."
+
+"You are right--quite right," says Miss Priscilla, vanquished, but not
+cast down. "So it was. What a memory you have, my dear Penelope!"
+
+"Nothing when compared with _yours_," says Miss Penelope, smiling.
+
+At this moment the door opens and an old man enters the room. He is clad
+in the garb of a servant, though such wonderful habiliments as those in
+which he has arrayed himself would be difficult to purchase nowadays:
+whether there are more wrinkles in his forehead or in his trousers is a
+nice question that could not readily be decided at a moment's notice.
+
+He is quite ten years older than either of his mistresses; and, indeed,
+both he and his garments belong to a by-gone generation. His knees are
+bent, so is his back; his face is like a Ribston pippin, his coat is a
+marvel both in cut and in texture, but his linen is irreproachable, and
+what hair nature has still left him is most carefully brushed. There is,
+too, in his small gray Irish eyes a mischievous twinkle, and a fund of
+honest good humor that goes far to defy the ravages of time. In spite
+of his seventy years and his quaint attire, he still at times can hold
+his own with many a younger man.
+
+"Well, Timothy," says Miss Priscilla, looking up as he approaches the
+table, "we have had news of Miss Katherine's--I mean Mrs.
+Beresford's--children."
+
+"Rest her sowl!" says Timothy, in a reverential tone, alluding to that
+part of the late Mrs. Beresford.
+
+"It seems they have landed and will be with us to-day."
+
+"The day, miss?" growing brisk at this unexpected announcement.
+
+"Yes, they have reached England in safety, and are now in Dublin. What a
+long, long journey it has been for them," with another dreamy glance at
+the letter, "all the way from Palestine!"
+
+"An' so it has, miss, poor little crathurs!" says Timothy, who knows as
+much about the whereabouts of Palestine as he does about the man in the
+moon.
+
+"You mustn't think they are very young, Timothy," says Miss Penelope,
+hastily. "Miss Priscilla and I have been talking it over, and we believe
+Miss Beresford must be now seventeen, Master Terence sixteen, and Miss
+Kate fourteen."
+
+"And so of course they must be, miss. Thrue for ye, ma'am. Dear, dear,
+though only to think now; it seems only the other day the dear young
+lady was married to Mister Beresford. But you aren't eating a bit,
+miss," anxiously; "you haven't tasted a morsel, ma'am. What can I get ye
+now?"
+
+"Nothing, Timothy. The fact is----"
+
+"There's an iligant ham downstairs, ma'am," says the old man, now really
+concerned for the mistresses, who still always appear to him as "the
+young ladies:" "let me bring it up to you."
+
+"No, thank you, Timothy: we are just a little upset by this sudden news.
+We cannot help wondering how the old house will be with children in it,
+after all these years of calm and quiet."
+
+"Sure an' a grand change it will be for us all, miss; 'twill indeed,
+ma'am," says Timothy, cheerfully, though his mind misgives him. "There's
+nothing like children, when all's told: sure's there's music in every
+sound of their footsteps."
+
+"I hope they will be good," says Miss Penelope, with a doubtful sigh.
+
+"Faix, what else would they be, miss?" says the old man, with assumed
+reproach. "'Tis well I mind of poor Miss Katherine herself,--the soft
+tongue she had in her head, an' never a cross word out of her, save to
+Nelly Doolin--an' she was the divil herself, savin' your presence, miss,
+and enough to provoke all the saints--glory be----"
+
+"I trust they will be happy here," goes on Miss Penelope, still wistful.
+
+"An' why not, miss? Sure the counthry is the finest place at all for the
+young; and where's a finer counthry than ould Ireland?"
+
+"Much can't be said for it of late, Timothy," says Miss Priscilla,
+sadly: "all it can boast of now is rebellion, sedition, and bloodshed."
+
+"Sure every one must have a kick up sometimes, miss," says Timothy, with
+youthful lightness; "an', afther all, isn't the ould place only doin'
+what she can for herself, more power to her?"
+
+"Ryan," says Miss Priscilla, sternly, addressing her butler by his
+surname,--a thing that is never done except in dire cases,--and fixing
+upon him an icy glance beneath which he quails, "I regret you should so
+far forget yourself as to utter such treasonable sentiments in our
+presence. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
+
+"So I am miss. I humbly ask yer pardon, ma'am," says Mr. Ryan, promptly.
+"But all the different opinions one hears addles the brain. 'Twas only
+last night the Murphys had a meeting, and they do say, miss," lowering
+his voice confidentially, "that the Squire down there," pointing
+apparently through the breakfast-room wall, "is in a bad way with the
+League boys."
+
+"The Desmond?"
+
+"Yes, miss. He's been evictin' again, ma'am, an' there's queer talk
+about him. But," with a relapse into former thought, "if he's a bad
+landlord, what can he expect?"
+
+"No, no, Timothy. He is not a bad landlord," says Miss Priscilla,
+hastily, though this allowance of grace to her enemy causes her a bitter
+pang. "He has been most patient for years. That I _know_."
+
+"Well, maybe so, miss," says Ryan, deferentially, but with a reservation
+in his manner that speaks volumes. "It isn't for the likes of me ma'am,
+to contradict the likes of you. But did ye hear, miss, that Misther
+Desmond's nephew has come to stay with him?"
+
+"At Coole?"
+
+"At the Castle. Yes, miss. Faix 'twas meself was surprised to hear it.
+But there he is, safe enough, an' another gentleman with him; an' they
+do say that the old masther is as proud as Punch of him. But his blood's
+bad, I'll no doubt."
+
+"No doubt," says Priscilla, severely.
+
+Miss Penelope sighs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+  How two Old Maids are made acquainted with a very Young One.
+
+
+Already we have reached the afternoon. In these warm June days, when all
+the earth is languorous and glad with its own beauty, time slips from us
+unannounced, and the minutes from morn to eventide, and from the
+gloaming till nightfall, melt into one another, until all seem one
+sweet, lengthened hour.
+
+Just now the hot sun is pouring down upon garden and gravelled walks at
+Moyne; except the hum of the industrious bees, not a sound can be heard;
+even the streamlet at the end of the long lawn is running sleepily,
+making sweet music as it goes, indeed, but so drowsily, so heavily, that
+it hardly reaches the ear; and so, too, with the lap-lapping of the
+waves upon the shore below, as the tide comes and goes.
+
+Not a breath of air comes to disturb the languid grandeur of the huge
+elms that stand staring up to heaven just opposite the hall door. The
+crows swinging in their branches up above are all subdued; hardly have
+they energy enough to flap their great, broad wings.
+
+Little stationary clouds lie like flecks of silver upon the pale-blue
+sky; far far away, in the woods of Coole, a cuckoo may be heard at long
+and yet longer intervals,--last remnant of a vanished spring; but all
+the other birds have succumbed to the power of the great god of light,
+and are wrapped in silence.
+
+Certain stray little sunbeams, half wild with glee, rushing hither and
+thither through the roses, discover Miss Penelope Blake sitting in the
+drawing-room at Moyne. She is dressed in her very best lavender silk,
+that would stand alone, and be glad to do it if it was let, but
+unabashed by her splendor Apollo's saucy babies dance down upon her,
+and, seizing on her knitting-needles, play hide and seek among them,
+until the poor lady's eyes are fairly dazzled.
+
+Fortunately, at this instant Miss Priscilla, entering the room, draws
+down the blind and restores order: after which she seats herself almost
+directly opposite her sister.
+
+The Misses Blake are not pretty old ladies at all. I don't want to
+deceive you in this matter. They are, in fact, quite ugly old ladies.
+Their noses are all wrong, their cheeks are as wrinkled as Timothy's
+forehead, and their mouths out of all drawing.
+
+Miss Priscilla's eyes are brown,--a deep startling brown, that seems to
+look you through and through and compels the truth. Her hair is brown,
+too, and soft, and silky, and pretty, though thickly sprinkled with
+gray. She has a great deal of this hair, and is secretly very proud of
+it.
+
+Miss Penelope's eyes are pale blue,--with very little blue,--and but for
+her long lashes (sole remnants of goodlier days) would be oppressive.
+Her hair is pale, too, and sandy, and is braided back from her forehead
+in severe lines.
+
+There is a pensive air about Miss Penelope that might suggest to the
+casual observer an early and disastrous love-affair. But all such
+imaginings on his part would be vain. No winged cupid ever hid in Miss
+Penelope's ear, or played bo-peep in her virgin bosom, or nestled in her
+sandy locks: she is free from all taint of such wild frivolisms.
+
+"All is ready now," says Miss Priscilla,--who is the Martha at Moyne,
+while we may regard Miss Penelope as the Mary. "The rooms are prepared,
+nothing is wanting, and the flowers smell so sweet. I have sent the
+carriage to meet them, though I know the train cannot be here for quite
+an hour yet; but I think it wise always to be in time."
+
+"There is nothing like it," says Miss Penelope, placidly.
+
+"Now I shall rest here with you a little while," goes on the elder
+maiden, complacently, "and think of all that is likely to happen."
+
+"Really," says Miss Penelope, lowering her work and glancing restlessly
+at her sister, "I feel more nervous than I can say, when I think of
+their coming. What on earth should we do, dear Priscilla, if they took a
+dislike to us?"
+
+"I have thought of that myself," says Miss Priscilla, in an awe-struck
+tone. "We are not attractive, Penelope: beyond a few--a _very_
+few--insignificant touches," with an inward glance at her fine hair, "we
+are absolutely outside the pale of beauty. I wonder if Monica will be
+like her mother, or if----"
+
+Here something happens that puts a final stop to all conversation. The
+door is opened, quickly, impetuously; there is a sound as of many
+footsteps on the threshold without.
+
+The old ladies start in their seats, and sit upright, trembling
+excessively. What can have happened? Has the sedate Ryan come to
+loggerheads with Mrs. Reilly the cook? (a state of things often
+threatened); and are they now standing on the mat meditating further
+bloodshed?
+
+A moment surcharged with thrilling suspense goes by, and then, not Ryan
+or the cook, but a much more perplexing vision comes slowly into the
+room.
+
+It is a very radiant vision, though it is clothed in mourning garments,
+full of grace and beauty. Very shy, with parted lips, and brilliant
+frightened eyes, but perfect as an opening flower.
+
+Is it a child or a woman? is the first question that strikes Miss
+Penelope. As for Miss Priscilla, she is too surprised for thought of any
+kind, too lost in admiration of the little, gracious uncertain, figure,
+with its deep-blue eyes glancing up at her with a half-terrified yet
+trusting expression, to give way to speech of any kind.
+
+She is slight, and slim as a hazel wand. Her hair is nut-brown, with a
+red gold tinge running through it. Her nose is adorable, if slightly
+tilted; her mouth is a red, red rose, sad but sweet, and full of
+purpose. Her eyes are large and expressive, but touched, like her lips,
+with a suspicion of melancholy that renders them only a degree more
+sweet and earnest.
+
+There is a spirituality about her, a calm, a peace that shines out of
+these dark Irish eyes, and rests upon her perfect lips, as it were a
+lingering breath of the heaven from whence she came.
+
+She stands now, hesitating a little, with her hands loosely
+clasped,--brown little hands, but beautifully shaped. Indeed, all her
+skin owes more of its coloring to Phoebus Apollo than nature intended.
+She draws her breath somewhat quickly, and then, as though anxious to
+get through the troublous task assigned her, says, nervously, in a low,
+sweet voice,--
+
+"I am Monica."
+
+As she says this, she glances entreatingly from one old lady to the
+other, with some trouble in her great eyes, and some tears. Then all at
+once her lips tremble to a smile, and a soft light breaks upon her face.
+
+"_You_ are Aunt Priscilla," she says, turning to Miss Blake; "I know you
+by your dark eyes, and by your _pretty_ hair!"
+
+At the sound of her voice the two old ladies wake from their
+abstraction.
+
+"Yes, yes, it is your aunt Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, eagerly, with
+a sudden pleased smile. Had the compliment been made to herself she
+could not possibly have appeared more delighted, and certainly would not
+have betrayed her satisfaction so openly. "Her hair," she says, "was
+always beautiful."
+
+As for Miss Priscilla, she is smiling too, but in a shamefaced fashion,
+and is blushing a warm pretty crimson, such as a girl of seventeen might
+be guilty of, listening to a first word of love.
+
+She takes Monica's right hand in hers and pats it softly; and Miss
+Penelope takes her left; and then the two old ladies stoop forward, and,
+one after the other, kiss the pale, girlish cheek, and with the kiss
+take her at once and forever into their very hearts.
+
+"But surely, dear child, you did not come alone?" says Miss Priscilla,
+presently, calling to remembrance the fact that there ought to be two
+other Beresfords somewhere.
+
+"No; Terence and Katherine are with me."
+
+"But where, my dear?"
+
+"Well, I _think_ they are standing on the mat, just outside the door,"
+says Monica, blushing and laughing; and then she says, rather louder,
+"Terry and Kit, you may come in now. It is all right."
+
+As to what was evidently supposed not to be "all right" up to this, the
+Misses Blake have no time to decide upon before a fresh nephew and niece
+present themselves to their view. They come in quite gayly,--reassured,
+no doubt, by Monica's tone: Terence, a tall slim lad of about sixteen,
+and a little girl somewhat like Monica, but more restless in features,
+and even a degree more pallid.
+
+"My dear children, why didn't you come in before?" said Miss Priscilla,
+aghast at the inhospitable thought that they had been shivering with
+needless nervousness in the hall for the last five minutes.
+
+"They said they wouldn't come in until I paved the way for them," says
+Monica, with a slight shrug of her shoulders that is a trick of hers.
+"They always put everything upon my shoulders: a little shabby of them
+_I_ call it."
+
+"I am afraid you must have pictured us as ogres," says Miss Priscilla,
+which idea strikes the old ladies as such a delicious flight of fancy
+that they laugh outright, and look at each other with intense enjoyment
+of their little joke.
+
+"Well, of course we couldn't tell what you would be like," says Monica,
+gravely. "You might have been people likely to impress one with awe;
+but, as _it is_----This is Terry," laying her hand upon her brother's
+arm; "and this is Kit. She is really Katherine, you know, but no one
+ever calls her by so long a name. She isn't worth it."
+
+At this the three Beresfords laugh among themselves, as children will,
+at time-worn fun, knowing no fatigue; after which Katherine and Terence
+are embraced and made much of by their new-found relatives, and freely
+commented upon.
+
+But ever and anon the eyes of both old ladies wander thoughtfully,
+admiringly, to where the lissome Monica stands, like a pale, pensive
+lily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"But how have you managed to be here so soon?" asks Miss Priscilla, when
+the impromptu luncheon, improvised by the startled Timothy, has come to
+an end. The children were all hungry, and have eaten a great deal, and
+have talked more. Indeed, though Miss Priscilla has been dying to ask
+this question for a long time, it has been impossible for her to do so,
+as there has not been so much as a comma in the conversation for the
+last hour.
+
+The Beresfords are like so many clocks wound up, and bound to go for a
+certain time whether they like it or not; and, apparently, they do like
+it. Now they have run down a little, Terence being exhausted after his
+last laughing attack, and Kit wrapped in contemplation of an
+old-fashioned hair brooch that is fastening an equally old-fashioned
+piece of priceless lace that adorns Miss Penelope's throat.
+
+"Well, I can't think how they do it!" she says, lost in admiration of a
+little slim hair lady bending over a miniature hair urn in the most
+lachrymose attitude conceivable. "But they have put her eye in wrongly:
+she looks as if she is dying with laughter."
+
+Here Miss Priscilla edges in her question, as to how they have contrived
+to be at Moyne at so early an hour.
+
+"We came by the wrong train," says Terry. "We generally do. Ever since
+we left the South of France--where we were staying with the Bohuns, you
+know, on our way here--we have been missing our trains right and left,
+and turning up at all sorts of unexpected places. Haven't we, Kit?"
+
+"_You_ have," says Kit, with suspicious emphasis. "You have such a
+pretty trick of rushing into the first train you see, without ever
+asking any one where it is going. No wonder we always turned up at the
+wrong end."
+
+"_You've_ a pretty trick of putting everything down on other people's
+shoulders," says Terence, with open disgust. "Whose fault was it we were
+always so late at the stations that we hadn't time to make inquiries,
+I'd like to know? Could you," with fine irony, "tell us?"
+
+"Certainly; it was nurse," replies Kit, with dignity.
+
+"Dear me! and where is your nurse now?" asks Miss Priscilla, anxiously.
+The query is a fortunate one, in that it turns the conversation into a
+different channel, and checks the eloquence of Kit and Terry, who are
+plainly on the brink of an open war.
+
+"When last _I_ saw her," says Terence, "she was sitting on the top of
+our biggest box, with everything else strewn around her, and her feet
+resting on two brown-paper parcels.--I wonder," says Mr. Beresford,
+addressing Monica, "what on earth she had in those brown paper parcels.
+She has been hugging them night and day ever since she left Jerusalem."
+
+"Dynamite," suggested Monica, lightly; whereupon the two Misses Blake
+turn pale.
+
+"At that rate, Aunt Priscilla, we needn't trouble about her," says
+Terence, pleasantly, "as she _must_ be blown up by this. None of those
+clock-work affairs could be arranged to go on much longer. Poor thing!
+when in the flesh she wasn't half bad. I forgive her everything,--even
+her undying hatred to myself."
+
+"If she is in fragments, so are our things," says Kit. "I think she
+_needn't_ have elected to sit on them at the supreme moment."
+
+"You don't really think," says Miss Penelope, in a somewhat troubled
+tone, remembering how an innocent baker in Rossmoyne had had some of the
+explosive matter in question thrown into his kitchen the night before
+last,--"you don't really think that these parcels you speak of contain
+infernal machines?--Yes, that is what they call them, my dear
+Priscilla," turning to her sister, as though anxious to apologize for
+having used a word calculated to lead the mind to the lower regions.
+
+By this time both Kit and Terence are convulsed with delight at the
+sensation they have created, and would probably have gone on to declare
+the innocent Mrs. Mitchell an advanced Nihilist of the most dangerous
+type, but for Monica's coming to the rescue and explaining matters
+satisfactorily.
+
+"Still, I cannot understand how you got up here so quickly," says Miss
+Penelope. "You know Moyne--home I hope you will call it for the future,
+my dears--" with a little fond pat on Monica's hand, "is quite three
+miles from the station."
+
+"We should have thought nothing of that," says Terence, "but for Kit;
+she has had a fever, you know," pointing to the child's closely-cropped,
+dark little head; "so we said we would just stroll on a little and see
+what the country was like."
+
+"And lovely it is," puts in Kit, enthusiastically. "We got up on a high
+hill, and saw the sea lying like a great quiet lake beneath us. There
+was scarcely a ripple on it, and only a soft sound like a sob." Her
+eyes, that are almost too big for her small face, glow brilliantly.
+
+"And then there came by a man with a cart filled with hay, and he nodded
+to us and said, 'Good-morning, sir;' and so I nodded back, and said,
+'How d'ye do?' to him and asked him was it far to Moyne House. 'A good
+step,' he said; 'three miles at the very least.'"
+
+"He didn't; he said _laste_," says Kit, who is plainly in a litigious
+mood.
+
+"At that," says Monica, breaking in eagerly, feeling, no doubt, she has
+been left too long out in the cold, and that it is time her voice were
+heard, "I suppose I looked rather forlorn, because he said, quite nicely
+'Maybe ye'd not be too proud, miss, to get into me cart, an I'll dhrive
+the lot of ye up to the House, where as luck has it, I'm goin' meself.'"
+She mimicks the soft Southern brogue very prettily.
+
+"So up we got," says Kit, gayly, "and away we went in the nice sweet
+hay, jog trot, jog trot, and _so_ comfortable."
+
+The Misses Blake by this time are filled with dismay. In Rossmoyne,
+where families are few and far between, and indecent scandal unknown,
+the smallest trifles are seized upon with avidity and manufactured into
+mountains. "A good appearance," Miss Penelope was taught at school, "is
+the first step in life," and here have these children been making
+_their_ appearance for the first time in a common hay-cart.
+
+What will Madam O'Connor say? Madam O'Connor's father having always laid
+claim to being a direct descendant of one of the old kings of Munster,
+Madam's veins of course are filled with blood royal, and as such are to
+be held in reverence. What _won't_ this terrible old woman say, when she
+hears of the Beresfords' escapade?
+
+The Misses Blake sit shivering, blinking their eyelids, and afraid to
+say anything.
+
+"We got on splendidly," Terence is saying, "and might indeed have
+finished our journey respectably, but for Monica. _She_ laid our
+reputation in the dust."
+
+Monica turns upon him an appealing glance from her large soft eyes that
+would have melted any heart but that of a brother's.
+
+"Aunt Priscilla," says the adamantine youth, "what is the name of the
+house with a big gate, about a half a mile from this?"
+
+"Coole Castle," replies she, stiffly, the very fact of having to mention
+the residence of the detested Desmond making her heart beat violently.
+But Terry is a person blind to speaking glances and deaf to worded
+hints. In effect, Terry and tact are two; so he goes on, unheeding his
+aunt's evident disrelish for the subject,--
+
+"Well, just as we got to Coole, I saw a fellow standing inside the
+entrance-gate, smoking a cigar. I fancied he looked amused, but would
+have thought nothing of that, only I heard him laugh aloud, and saw he
+was staring over my head--I was driving--to where Monica and Kit were,
+on the top of the hay. It occurred to me then to see what the girls were
+doing, so I stood up on the shaft, and looked, and----"
+
+Here he pauses, as though slightly overcome.
+
+"What, my dear?" asks Miss Priscilla, anxiously.
+
+"There was Monica lying in an ęsthetic attitude,--_very_ ęsthetic,--with
+her chin in her hands, and her eyes on the horse's ears, and her
+thoughts I presume in heaven, or wherever young ladies keep them, and
+with her heels----"
+
+"It isn't _truth_!--it _isn't_!" interrupts Monica, blushing furiously,
+and speaking with much indignation. "I don't believe a single word of
+it!"
+
+"And with her heels----"
+
+"_Terence!_"
+
+"In mid-air. She was kicking them up and down with delight," says
+Terence, fairly bubbling over with joy at the recollection. "It was the
+most humiliating sight for a modest brother. I shall never forgive her
+for it. Besides, the strange young man was----"
+
+"If you say another word," says Monica, white with wrath and tears in
+her eyes, "I shall never speak to you again, or help you out of any
+trouble."
+
+This awful threat has the desired effect of reducing Mr. Beresford to
+subjection. He goes down before the foe, and truckles to her meanly.
+
+"You needn't take it so much to heart," he says soothingly: "there
+wasn't much in it, after all; and your shoes are very pretty, and so are
+your feet."
+
+The compliment works wonders; Monica quite brightens up again, but the
+two old ladies are hopelessly scandalized.
+
+"I feel assured, Terence," says Miss Priscilla, with much dignity, "that
+under _no_ circumstances could a niece of mine show too much of
+her----her----"
+
+Here Miss Priscilla blushes, and breaks down.
+
+"Legs?" suggests Terry, politely.
+
+"But who was the strange young man?" asks Miss Penelope, curiously.
+
+"Our friend of the hay-cart said his name was Desmond, and that he was
+nephew to the master of the house behind the big gates," returns Kit,
+fluently.
+
+"Desmond!" says Miss Priscilla, greatly agitated. "Let me never hear you
+mention that name again! It has been our bane! Forget you have ever been
+so unfortunate as to encounter this young man; and if ill luck should
+ever drive him across your path again, remember you do not--you never
+_can_--know him."
+
+"But I'm certain he will know Monica if he sees her again," says Kit.
+"He stared at her as if she had seven heads."
+
+"No wonder, considering her equivocal position. And as to knowing
+Monica, I'm not certain of that, of course, but I'm utterly positive he
+could swear to her _shoes_ in a crowd," says Terence, with unholy
+delight. "He was enchanted with them, and with the clocks on her
+stockings: I think he was taking the pattern of them."
+
+"He was _not_," says Monica, almost weeping. "He couldn't see them. I
+was too high up."
+
+"What will you bet he doesn't know the color of them?" asks her
+tormentor, with a fresh burst of appreciation of the undignified scene.
+"When I see him again I'll ask him."
+
+"Terence," says Miss Priscilla, growing very pale, "you must never see
+him again, or, at all events, you must never speak to him. Understand,
+once for all, that intimacy between us and the inhabitants of Coole is
+impossible. This feud I hint at touches you even more closely than it
+touches us, but you cannot feel it more than we do,--perhaps not as
+much. The honor of our family has suffered at the hands of the Master of
+Coole. He is the enemy of our house!"
+
+"Priscilla!" murmurs Miss Penelope, in a low and trembling tone.
+
+"Do not try to check me, Penelope. I _will_ speak," says Miss
+Priscilla, sternly. "This man, years ago, offered one near and dear to
+us an indignity not to be lightly borne. The world is wide," turning to
+the astonished children, "you can make friends where you choose; but I
+would have you recollect that _never_ can a Beresford and a Desmond have
+aught in common."
+
+"But what have the Desmonds done to us, Aunt Priscilla?" asks Monica, a
+good deal awed by the old lady's solemnity.
+
+"Some other time you shall know all," says Miss Priscilla in the low
+tone one might adopt if speaking of the last appalling murder.
+
+"Yes, some other time," echoes Miss Penelope, gently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+  How Monica studies the landscape.
+
+
+"Is it thrue, ma'am, what I hear, that ye'll be wantin' a maid for Miss
+Monica?" asks Mrs. Reilly, the cook at Moyne, dropping a respectful
+courtesy just inside the drawing-room door. "Ryan let dhrop a word to me
+about it, so I made so bould, ma'am, as to come upstairs an' tell ye I
+think I know a girl as will come in handy to ye."
+
+"And who is she, Reilly?" asks Miss Priscilla anxiously.
+
+"She's a very good girl, ma'am, an' smart, an' nate, an' I think ye'll
+like her," replies cook, who, like all Irish people, finds a difficulty
+in giving a direct answer to a direct question. Perhaps, too, there is a
+little wiliness in her determination not to name the new servant's
+parentage just at present.
+
+"I daresay; I place great reliance upon your opinion, Reilly. But who is
+she? Does she come from the village, or from one of the farms? I should
+prefer the farms."
+
+"She's as tidy as she can be," says Mrs. Reilly, amiably but still
+evasively, "an' a bit of a scholard into the bargain, an' a very civil
+tongue in her head. She's seventeen all out, ma'am, and never yet gave
+her mother a saucy word."
+
+"That is as it should be," says Miss Priscilla, commendingly. "You feel
+a great interest in this girl, I can see. You know her well?"
+
+"Yes, miss. She is me uncle's wife's sisther's child, an' as good a girl
+as ever stepped in shoe leather."
+
+"She is then?" asks Miss Priscilla, faintly, puzzled by this startling
+relationship.
+
+"She's that girl of the Cantys', ma'am, and as likely a colleen as ever
+ye met, though I say it as shouldn't, she being kin-like," says Mrs.
+Reilly, boldly, seeing her time is come.
+
+"What! that pretty, blue-eyed child that called to see you yesterday?
+She _is_ from the village, then?" with manifest distaste.
+
+"An' what's the matther wid the village, ma'am?" By this time Mrs.
+Reilly has her arms akimbo, and has an evident thirst for knowledge full
+upon her.
+
+"But I fear she is flighty and wild, and not at all domesticated in any
+way."
+
+"An' who has the face to say that, ma'am? Give me the names of her
+dethractors," says Mrs. Reilly, in an awful tone, that seemed to demand
+the blood of the "dethractors."
+
+"I feel sure, Reilly," says Miss Priscilla, slowly, "that you are not
+aware of the position your arms have taken. It is most unbecoming." Mrs.
+Reilly's arms dropped to her sides. "And as for this girl you speak of,
+I hear she is, as I say, very flighty."
+
+"Don't believe a word of it, ma'am," says cook, with virtuous
+indignation. "Just because she holds up her head a bit, an' likes a
+ribbon or two, there's no holdin' the gossips down below," indicating
+the village by a backward jerk of her thumb. "She's as dacent a little
+sowl as you'd wish to see, an' has as nate a foot as there is in the
+county. The Cantys has all a character for purty feet."
+
+"Pretty feet are all very well in their way," says Miss Priscilla,
+nodding her head. "But can she sew? and is she quiet and tractable,
+and----"
+
+"Divil a thing she can't do, ma'am, axin' yer pardon," says Mrs. Reilly,
+rather losing herself in the excitement of the moment. "Just thry her,
+ma'am, an' if ye don't like her, an' if Miss Monica finds even one fault
+in her, just send her back to her mother. I can't say fairer nor that."
+
+"No, indeed. Very well, Reilly, let her come up to me to-morrow; and see
+that her inside clothes are all right, and let her know she must _never_
+be out after dark."
+
+"Yes, ma'am," says the triumphant Reilly, beating a hasty retreat.
+
+Half an hour afterwards she encounters Monica upon the avenue.
+
+"Why, where are you going, Mrs. Reilly?" asks Monica, seeing that cook
+is got up in all her war-paint, regardless of expense.
+
+"To mass first, miss," says Mrs. Reilly.
+
+"Where's that?" asks Monica, with foreign ignorance.
+
+"Law! to the chapel, miss," says Reilly, with an amused smile.
+
+"But it isn't Sunday?"
+
+"No, miss. It's a saint's day--may they be good to us!" crossing
+herself. "It's different with you, miss, you see; but we poor folks, we
+must say our prayers when we can, or the Virgin will dhrop us out of her
+mind."
+
+"Is your chapel pretty?" asks Monica, who has now been a week in the
+country, and through very weariness feels a mad desire to talk to
+somebody or anybody.
+
+"Faix, it's lovely, miss, since Father Jerry took it in hand! There's
+the finest pictures ye ever saw on the walls, an' an altar it 'ud do ye
+good to look at."
+
+"Would it? Then I'll go some day to see it," says Monica, smiling, not
+knowing that her aunts would as soon let her enter a pandemonium as a
+Roman Catholic chapel.
+
+Dear old ladies! frightened by shadows, they have been bred in the
+belief that the Evil One dwells beneath the shade of the Romish Church,
+and will therefore surely die in it.
+
+"Do, then, agra!" said Mrs. Reilly, who has, of course, like all the
+other servants, gone down before Monica: "it's proud we'd be to see ye
+there."
+
+There is no thought of conversion in the woman's mind, you must
+remember,--merely a hospitable desire to let her know she will be
+welcome anywhere.
+
+"By the same token, Miss Monica," says she, "there's something I was
+near forgettin' to tell ye."
+
+"Yes!" says Monica.
+
+"Ye're goin' to have me uncle's wife's niece for yer own maid, miss."
+
+"Am I? I'm glad of that," says Monica, with a native courtesy. "Is
+she"--with some hesitation and a faint blush--"is she pretty, Reilly?"
+
+"She's the purtiest girl ye ever set eyes on," says Mrs. Reilly, with
+enthusiasm.
+
+"I'm glad of _that_; I can't bear ugly people," says Monica.
+
+"Faix, then, there's a bad time before ye wid the ould ladies," mutters
+Mrs. Reilly, _sotto voce_, gathering up her cloak and stepping onwards.
+She is a remarkably handsome woman herself, and so may safely deplore
+the want of beauty in her betters.
+
+Monica, turning aside, steps on a high bank and looks down towards the
+village. Through the trees she can see the spire of the old cathedral
+rising heavenwards. Though Rossmoyne is but a village, it still can
+boast its cathedral, an ancient edifice, uncouth and unlovely, but yet
+one of the oldest places of worship in Ireland.
+
+Most of my readers would no doubt laugh it to scorn, but we who belong
+to it reverence it, and point out with pride to passers by the few
+quaint marks and tokens that link it to a bygone age.
+
+There is a nave, broad and deep, comprising more than a third of the
+whole building, with its old broken stone pavement, and high up, carven
+upon one of its walls the head of St. Faughnan, its patron saint,--a
+hideous saint, indeed, if he resembled that ancient carving. How often
+have I gazed upon his unlovely visage, and wondered in my childish
+fashion why the grace that comes from so divine an origin had not the
+power to render his servant's face more beautiful!
+
+In these later years they have improved (?) and modernized the old
+structure. A stone pulpit, huge and clumsy, erected by subscription to
+the memory of some elderly inhabitant, stands like a misshapen blot
+before the altar rails; a window, too broad for its length, and
+generally out of proportion, throws too much light upon the dinginess
+within; the general character of the ugly old place has lost something,
+but assuredly gained nothing, by these innovations. It is hard to put "a
+piece of new cloth on an old garment" successfully.
+
+The village itself stands upon a high hill; the ocean lies at its feet.
+From Moyne House one can see the shimmer of the great Atlantic as it
+dances beneath the sunbeams or lashes itself into furious foam under the
+touch of the north wind. The coastguard station, too, stands out,
+brilliant in its whitewash, a gleaming spot upon the landscape.
+
+To the left of the station lies Ounahincha,--a long, deep line of
+sea-beach that would make its fortune as a bathing place under happier
+auspices and in some more appreciated clime.
+
+Monica, looking down from her height, takes in all the beauties of the
+landscape that surround her, and lets the music of the melancholy ocean
+sink into her very soul.
+
+Then she lets her eyes wander to the right, and rest with pardonable
+curiosity upon Coole Castle, where dwells the ogre of her house. Above
+Coole, and about two miles farther on, lies Aghyohillbeg, the residence
+of Madam O'Connor, that terrible descendant of one of Ireland's kings;
+whilst below, nestling among its firs and beeches, is Kilmore, where the
+Halfords--a merry tangle of boys and girls--may be seen at all hours.
+
+Then there is the vicarage, where the rector lives with his family,
+which is large; and nearer to the village, the house that holds the
+curate and his family, which, of course, is larger. Besides which,
+Monica can just see from her vantage-ground the wooded slopes of
+Durrusbeg that have lately called young Ronayne master,--a distant
+cousin having died most unexpectedly and left him all his property.
+
+       +       +       +       +       +
+
+Six months ago, Ulic Ronayne was spoken of by anxious matrons as a wild
+lad, with nothing to recommend him save his handsome face and some
+naughty stories attached to his name. Now he is pronounced charming, and
+the naughty stories, which indeed never had any foundation, are
+discovered to have been disgraceful fabrications. Marriageable daughters
+are kinder to him than words can say, and are allowed by the most
+cautious mothers to dance with him as often as they choose, and even to
+sit unlimited hours with him in secluded corners of conservatories
+unrebuked.
+
+Truly, O Plutus! thou art a god indeed. Thou hast outlived thy greater
+brethren. Thy shrine is honored as of old!
+
+After a last lingering glance at the distant ocean and the swelling
+woods that now in Merry June are making their grandest show, Monica
+jumps down from her bank again and goes slowly--singing as she
+goes--towards the river that runs at the end of Moyne.
+
+Down by its banks Moyne actually touches the hated lands of Cooles, a
+slight boundary fence being all that divides one place from the other.
+The river rushes eagerly past both, on its way to the sea, murmuring
+merrily on its happy voyage, as though mocking at human weals and woes
+and petty quarrels.
+
+Through the waving meadows, over the little brook, past the stile,
+Monica makes her way, plucking here and there the scarlet poppies, and
+the blue cornflowers and daisies, "those pearled Arcturi of the earth,
+the constellated flower that never sets."
+
+The sun is tinting all things with its yellow haze, and is burning to
+brightest gold the reddish tinge in the girl's hair as she moves with
+dallying steps through the green fields. She is dressed in a white gown,
+decked with ribbons of sombre tint, and wears upon her head a huge poky
+bonnet, from which her face peeps out, half earnest, half coquettish,
+wholly pure.
+
+Her hands are bare and shapely, but a little brown; some old-fashioned
+rings glisten on them. She has the tail of her gown thrown negligently
+over her arm, and with her happy lips parted in song, and her eyes
+serene as early dawn, she looks like that fair thing of Chaucer's, whose
+
+    "Berthe was of the womb of morning dew,
+    And her conception of the joyous prime."
+
+And now the sparkling river comes in sight. Near its brink an old
+boat-house may be seen fast crumbling to decay; and on the river itself
+lies, swaying to and fro, a small punt in the very last stages of
+decline. It is a very terrible little boat, quite at death's door, and
+might have had those lines of Dante's painted upon it without libel:
+
+    "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."
+
+But Monica, in happy ignorance of rotting timbers, thinks only of the
+joy she felt last evening when the discovery of this demoralized
+treasure was made. In the mouldering boat-house she had found it, and so
+had claimed it for her own.
+
+She had told no one of her secret, not even Kit, who is, as a rule, her
+prime minister, her confidante, and her shadow. She has, indeed, had
+great difficulty in escaping from "her shadow" just now, but after much
+diplomatic toil had managed it. To find herself upon the calm and gentle
+river, to dream there her own sweet thoughts beneath the kindly shade of
+the pollard willows, to glide with the stream and bask in the sunlight
+_all alone_, has been her desire since yester-eve.
+
+To-morrow, if to-day proves successful and her rowing does not fail her,
+of which she has had some practice during the last two years of her
+life, she will tell Kit and Terry all about it, and let them share her
+pleasure. But to-day is her own.
+
+The boat is connected with the shore by a rope tied round the stump of a
+tree by most unskilful hands. Flinging her flowers into the punt, she
+strives diligently to undo the knot that she herself had made the night
+before, but strives in vain. The hard rope wounds her tender hands and
+vexes her gentle soul.
+
+She is still struggling with it, and already a little pained frown has
+made a wrinkle on her smooth brow, when another boat shoots from under
+the willows and gains the little landing-place, with its pebbly beach,
+that belongs equally to Coole Castle and to Moyne.
+
+This new boat is a tremendous improvement on our heroine's. It is the
+smartest little affair possible, and as safe as a church,--safer,
+indeed, as times go now. Not that there is anything very elaborate about
+it, but it is freshly painted, and there are cushions in it, and all
+over it a suppressed air of luxury.
+
+Besides the cushions, there is something else in it, too,--a young man
+of about six and twenty, who steps lightly on to the bank, though it is
+a miracle he doesn't lose his footing and come ignominiously to the
+ground, so bent is his gaze on the gracious little figure at the other
+side of the boundary-fence struggling with the refractory rope.
+
+It doesn't take any time to cross the boundary.
+
+"Will you allow me to do that for you?" says the strange young man,
+raising his hat politely, and taking the rope out of Monica's hand
+without waiting for permission.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+  How Monica makes a most important discovery and, changing suddenly
+  from "lively to severe," is reprehensibly cruel to a most
+  unoffending young man.
+
+
+"You are very kind," says Monica slowly, feeling not so much
+embarrassment as surprise at this sudden advent.
+
+Then the young man looses the rope, and, having done so, casts a cursory
+glance at the boat to which it is attached. As he does so, he lifts his
+brows.
+
+"Surely you are not dreaming of going on the river in _that_!" he says,
+indicating the wretched punt by a contemptuous wave of his hand.
+
+"Yes. Why not?" returns she.
+
+"There isn't a sound bit of timber in her. What _can_ your people be
+thinking of, to let you trust yourself in such a miserable affair?"
+
+"My people have nothing to do with it," says Monica, somewhat grandly.
+"I am _my own mistress_."
+
+She has picked up her flowers again out of the despised punt, and now
+stands before him with her hands filled with the June blossoms, blue,
+and white, and red. They show bravely against the pallor of her gown,
+and seem, indeed, to harmonize altogether with her excessive fairness,
+for her lips are as red as her poppies, and her cornflowers as blue as
+her eyes, and her skin puts her drooping daisies all to shame.
+
+"As you _are_ your own mistress," says the young man, with a suspicion
+of a smile, as he takes in the baby sweetness of her mouth, and each
+detail of her slight girlish figure, that bespeaks the child rather than
+the woman, "I entreat you to have mercy upon _yourself_."
+
+"But what is the matter with it?" asks Monica, peering into the boat.
+"It _looks_ all right; I can't see a hole in it."
+
+"It's nothing _but_ holes, in my opinion," says the strange young man,
+peering in his turn. "It's a regular _coffin_. You will be committing
+nothing less than suicide if you put your foot in it."
+
+"Dear me," says Monica, blankly, feeling impressed in spite of herself,
+"I do think I am the most unfortunate person alive. Do you know,"
+lifting her eyes to his, "I didn't sleep a wink last night, thinking of
+this row on the river to-day, and now it comes to nothing! That is just
+like my luck always. I was so bent on it; I wanted to get round that
+corner over there," pointing to it, "to see what was at the other side,
+and now I can't do it." It seems to the young man looking at her, as
+though her glance is reproachful, and as if she connects him, innocent
+as he is, with her disappointment.
+
+"There is no reason why you shouldn't," he is beginning, anxiously, when
+she contradicts him.
+
+"After all," she says, doubtfully, bending over to look into the clear
+bed of the river, "I don't believe, if things came to the worst, and I
+_did_ get swamped, I should be drowned."
+
+"Certainly not, if you could swim, or if there was any one watching over
+your welfare from the banks that could."
+
+"Well, I can't," confesses Monica, with a sigh; "and unless _you_," with
+an irrepressible laugh that shows all her white and even teeth, "will
+promise to run along the banks of the river all the afternoon to watch
+over me, I don't think there is much chance of my escaping death."
+
+"I shouldn't mind in the least being on guard in such a cause," says the
+stranger, politely, with the same carefully suppressed smile upon his
+lips (which are very handsome) as had moved them a while ago. "Command
+me if you will; but I would have you remember that, even though I should
+come to the rescue, it would not save you an unpleasant ducking,
+and--and your pretty gown," with a glance that is almost affectionate at
+the white Indian cotton, "would be completely ruined."
+
+"Even that dire idea doesn't daunt me," says Monica, gayly: "you forgot
+that the more limp I am the more ęsthetic I shall look. Well," with a
+sudden relapse into melancholy, "I suppose I must give it up, and not go
+round the corner to-day."
+
+"But _why_ not?" exclaims he, eagerly. "My boat is at your service. _Do_
+take it. I have quite done with it, I have indeed, and it is lighter
+than it looks."
+
+"Too heavy for me, I am afraid," says Monica with a sigh.
+
+"Is it? Then," with desperate boldness, "let _me_ row you."
+
+"Oh, _no_!" returns she, blushing warmly. "You forget," with a swift
+glance at him, "you are quite a stranger to me."
+
+Yet he is not quite such a stranger as she thinks. She is not such a
+stranger to him at least, because her face, seen for a minute about a
+week a go, has haunted him persistently ever since.
+
+"As we live in the same neighborhood, we cannot long continue
+strangers," he says, gently; "and, in the mean time, why lose this
+lovely afternoon, and that corner you were speaking of? The view of the
+sea, when you get round it, is really worth seeing."
+
+"Yes, yes, I daresay," reluctantly turning to leave him. "I shall see it
+some day."
+
+"Look here," says the young man, very earnestly, following her as she
+moves. "If you will come with me you will see it _now_. I will only be
+your oarsman; I won't say a word to you unless you wish it; I won't even
+_look_ at you. Think of me as a common boatman you have hired by the
+hour; or, better still, don't think of me at all. With a little care you
+might bring yourself to imagine I wasn't there."
+
+"But if we met any one?" says Miss Beresford, visibly relenting.
+
+"Impossible! There is never a soul on this stream save myself. I have
+been here now every day for ten days, and never yet came upon even the
+ghost of anything human."
+
+"Very well," says Monica, though still with palpable hesitation. "Now,
+remember, you have pledged yourself not to speak to me, or to look at
+me." At this he fixes on her so prolonged a gaze that one may readily
+understand he means it to be a last one for some time.
+
+Then he turns aside, and, having brought his boat to her side of the
+fence, holds out to her his hand. As he does this he keeps his eyes bent
+upon the ground, as though determined to let her know his penance has
+already begun.
+
+"I am not in the boat yet," says Monica, with a quaint little smile,
+laying her palm on his. Whereupon he looks at her again; and then, as
+their eyes meet, they both laugh joyously, as youth will when it meets
+youth.
+
+Lightly she steps into his boat, and slowly, lazily, he rows her down
+the little river,--flower-clad on either bank,--letting the boat drift
+almost at its own sweet will.
+
+The willows, drooping towards the water's edge, woo them as they pass;
+the foolish weeds would hold them in embrace; the broad flag-flowers
+would fain entwine them. But they, though loving them, go by them,
+thinking their own thoughts, and wondering vaguely at the beauty of the
+
+    "Starry river-buds among the sedge,
+    And floating water-lilies broad and bright,
+           *       *       *       *       *
+    And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
+    As soothes the dazzled eye with sober sheen."
+
+So far silence has been scrupulously kept. Not a word has been spoken
+since they left the bank, not a look exchanged. Monica is letting her
+little slender fingers trail through the water and the flat leaves of
+the lilies. He, with his coat off, is pretending to row, but in reality
+is letting his body grow subservient to his mind. He has even adhered
+honorably to his promise not to look at her, and is still mentally
+ambitious about being true to his word in this respect, when an
+exclamation from her puts an end to all things.
+
+"Oh! look at _that_ lily!" she says, excitedly. "Was there ever such a
+beauty? If you will row a little more to the right, I am sure I shall be
+able to get it."
+
+"Don't stir. I'll get it," returns he, grateful to the lily for this
+break in their programme; and presently the floating prize is secured,
+and he lays it, wet and dripping, in her outstretched hands.
+
+"After all, you see, you broke your promise," she says, a moment later,
+most ungratefully, glancing up at him coquettishly from under her long
+lashes.
+
+"But who made me do it?" asks he, reproachfully, whereupon she laughs
+and reddens.
+
+"I never confess," she says, shaking her pretty head; "and after all--do
+you know?--I am rather glad you spoke to me, because, though I like
+being quite by myself at times, still I _hate_ silence when any one is
+with me."
+
+"So do I," says her companion, with the utmost cheerfulness.
+
+"I think," leaning towards him with a friendly smile, "I cannot do
+better than begin our acquaintance by telling you my name. It is Monica
+Beresford."
+
+"Monica," lingering over it lovingly; "a beautiful name, I think. I
+think, too, it suits you. Mine is not to be compared to yours; but, such
+as it is, I give it you!"
+
+He throws a card into her lap.
+
+"I hope it isn't John Smith," says Monica, smiling and picking up the
+card. But, as she reads what is printed thereon, the smile fades, and an
+expression of utter dismay overspreads her face.
+
+"'Desmond'--Oh! _not_ Desmond!" she says, imploringly, her lips growing
+quite pale.
+
+"Yes, it _is_ Desmond," says the young man, half amused, half puzzled.
+"You really think it ugly, then! Do you know I rather fancy my surname,
+although my Chris----"
+
+"You are not--you cannot be _the_ Desmond," interrupts she, hastily.
+
+"No; that's my uncle," says the young man, innocently.
+
+"Oh! then you acknowledge the crime?" in deep distress.
+
+"I didn't know that an old Irish title must necessarily be connected
+with guilt," says her companion, fairly puzzled.
+
+"Eh?" says Monica, puzzled in her turn. "I don't understand you: I only
+want to know if you are one of the _particular_ Desmonds?"
+
+"I suppose not," he replies, now openly amused, "because I regret to
+say we have never yet done anything worthy of note, or likely to
+distinguish us from all the other Desmonds, whose name is legion."
+
+"If you are going to tell me you live at Coole," says Miss Beresford, in
+a tone that is almost tragic, "I warn you it will be the last straw, and
+that I shan't be able to bear it."
+
+"I am not going to tell you anything," protests he.
+
+"But you must," declares she, illogically. "I may as well hear the worst
+at once. Go on," heroically; "tell me the truth. _Do_ you live there?"
+
+"I'm awfully afraid I do," says Mr. Desmond, feeling somehow, without
+knowing why, distinctly ashamed of his name and residence.
+
+"I knew it! I _felt_ it!" says Monica, with the calmness of despair.
+"Take me back to the bank at once,--this very instant, please. Oh, what
+a _row_ I should get into if they only knew!"
+
+Very justly offended at the turn affairs have taken, Mr. Desmond rows
+her in silence to the landing-place, in silence gives her his hand to
+alight, in silence makes his boat safe, without so much as a glance at
+her, although he _knows_ she is standing a little way from him,
+irresolute, remorseful, and uncertain.
+
+He might, perhaps, have maintained this dignified indifference to the
+end, but that, unfortunately lifting his eyes, he catches sight of her
+in this repentant attitude, with her head bent down, and her slim
+fingers toying nervously with the lilies of his own gathering.
+
+This picture flings dignity to the winds. Going up to her, he says, in a
+would-be careless but unmistakably offended voice, "May I ask what I
+have done, that 'they,' whoever they are, should consider you had
+disgraced yourself by being with me for half an hour?"
+
+"_You_ have done nothing," says Monica, faintly. "It was your uncle."
+
+"My _uncle!_--George Desmond! Why, what on earth can _he_ have done?"
+demands he, bewildered.
+
+"I don't know." Feeling this is indeed a lame answer to a most natural
+question, she goes on hurriedly, "It all happened twenty years ago,
+and----"
+
+"But what happened?" asks he, with pardonable impatience.
+
+"Something dreadfully wicked," says Monica, solemnly. "Something really
+very, _very_ bad, because Aunt Priscilla can't hear you spoken of with
+common patience."
+
+"_Me!_"
+
+"Not so much you, perhaps, as your name. She hates the very sound of it.
+There isn't a doubt about _that_; because, though I have not heard the
+exact story yet, I know both my aunts grow actually faint with horror
+when your uncle's name is mentioned."
+
+"Good gracious!" says the horrified nephew of this apparently
+disreputable old man. He is staring at Monica, but in reality he does
+not even see her. Before his mind's eye is a picture of a stout old
+gentleman, irascible, but kindly, with a countenance innocent of guile.
+Yet how can he doubt this girl's story? Twenty years ago, as it seems,
+George Desmond had done something too bad to be discussed. After all,
+how impossible it is to trust to appearances! As a rule, the most
+seemingly harmless people are those who are guilty of the vilest
+misdemeanors. And, yet, what on earth _could_ George have done twenty
+years ago? Visions of forgery, murder, homicide, rise up before him,
+but, try as he will, he cannot connect Mr. Desmond's face with any of
+them.
+
+"You don't exactly know yourself what the crime is with which he is
+charged?" he asks her, with growing diffidence.
+
+"No. But I shall find out, and tell----But that will be
+impossible!"--with a glance full of liveliest regret. "I _cannot_ tell
+you, because after to-day I shall never see or speak to you again."
+
+"That is the most insane nonsense I ever heard in my life," says Mr.
+Desmond.
+
+The girl shakes her head sadly.
+
+"If you won't speak to me I shall speak to you, whether you like it or
+not," says Desmond, with decision.
+
+"That will be out of your power, as you will never see me."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me I may not call at Moyne?"
+
+"Certainly I do. They wouldn't hear of it. They wouldn't, in fact,
+receive you."
+
+"But why must they visit my uncle's sins upon my shoulders? I have heard
+of a father's sins being entailed upon his heir, but never an uncle's."
+
+"It is your name," says Monica. Then she laughs a little, in spite of
+herself, and quotes, in a low tone, "Oh! Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art
+thou Romeo?"
+
+But he takes no heed of this frivolous quotation.
+
+"You mean me to understand, then, that I am never to speak to you
+again?"
+
+"I do, indeed."
+
+"What! Do you know we are to be close neighbors for the future, you and
+I? This is to be your home. Coole is to be mine. At the most, only a
+mile of road lies between us, and _here_ not quite a yard. And yet you
+calmly tell me I am from this day forth to be only a common stranger to
+you."
+
+"You look as if you were angry with _me_," says Monica, with sudden
+tears in her eyes at his injustice. "It isn't my fault; I haven't done
+anything wicked. Blame your uncle for it all."
+
+"The whole thing is simply absurd," says the young man, taking now the
+superior tone that is meant to crush the situation by holding it up to
+ridicule. "You forget, perhaps, that we shall _have_ to meet sometimes.
+I suppose the people down here give balls occasionally, and
+tennis-parties, and that; and when I meet you at them, is it your wish
+that I shall pretend never to have seen you before,--never to have known
+you?"
+
+"Yes," says Monica, with as much hesitation as lets him know how she
+hates saying it. "When next you meet me, you are to look right over my
+head, and pass on!"
+
+"I couldn't do it," returns he, gazing at her steadily. "I couldn't
+indeed. In fact, I feel it is just the last thing in the world I _could_
+do."
+
+"But you must," says Monica, imperiously, terrified to death as she
+conjures up before her Aunt Priscilla's face as it will surely be if
+this Philistine dares to address her: "I tell you my aunts would never
+forgive me if they knew I had interchanged even one syllable with you.
+From this moment you must forget me. There will really be no difficulty
+about it, as our acquaintance is but of an hour's growth. You have seen
+me for the first time to-day, and a chance meeting such as this is
+easily driven from the mind."
+
+"That is your opinion," says the young man, moodily. "It is not mine. I
+dare say _you_ will find it very easy to forget. I shan't! And this
+isn't the first time I have seen you, either. It seems to me as if years
+have rolled by since last I looked upon your face. I was standing at the
+gate of Coole, and saw you pass by, the day of your arrival in
+Rossmoyne. So, you see, we are--in spite of you--almost old friends."
+
+A bombshell flung at her feet could hardly have produced a greater
+sensation than this apparently harmless speech. All at once there rushes
+back upon her the recollection of that fatal day when she lay upon a
+cart-load of hay and (according to Terence) kicked up her heels in the
+exuberance of her joy. Oh, horror! she grows crimson from her soft
+throat to her forehead! even her little ears do not escape the tint, but
+turn a warm and guilty pink.
+
+Never until this unlucky instant did it occur to her that this strange
+young man must be the detested one who had stood in the gateway and
+laughed at her undignified position and taken the clocks of her
+stockings into careful remembrance.
+
+The one absorbing thought that he was nephew to Aunt Priscilla's bugbear
+has swallowed up all others; but now, as he himself reveals this other
+truth to her, she feels that her cup is indeed full.
+
+Deeper and deeper grows the crimson tint that dyes her pale, shy face,
+until her cheeks are all aflame. Something like anger, too, is rendering
+her sweet eyes brilliant beyond their wont. Delicately but haughtily she
+gathers up the train of her white gown and casts one expressive glance
+upon the way she came. This glance says much. Somehow it tells him as
+distinctly as though she said it aloud that she is sorry she ever came
+down to this river, and that her sorrow arises from the fact that it was
+here she encountered him.
+
+While he is still sore perplexed by her sudden change of demeanor, she
+turns away from him. Then, pausing, she turns again, and bestows upon
+him so indignant a look as completely finishes this ill used young man.
+
+"I object to hasty friendships," she says, icily. "And," pausing as if
+to make the effect greater, "if I were _you_, I think I should seek some
+better employment than standing _idling all day long_ at your uncle's
+gate."
+
+With this parting shaft, and before he can recover from his
+consternation, she goes swiftly away from him, up through the meadows,
+home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+  How Monica is put in possession of a dreadful secret--And how Kit
+  protests against the injustice of the world.
+
+
+"An invitation from Madam O'Connor," says Miss Priscilla in a pleased
+tone, glancing at them all, over the top of her spectacles. She has the
+card in her hand, and slowly reads aloud the information printed upon
+it, to the effect that Madam O'Connor will be at home on Friday the
+15th, from four to six o'clock, etc.
+
+"I am very glad she has asked Terence and Monica," says Miss Penelope.
+"Excessively attentive I call it."
+
+"Will you go, Aunt Priscilla?" asks Monica, in a sneaky sort of tone.
+Her young soul hankers after the world, and will not be subdued. Upon
+Miss Priscilla's "yes" or "no" she waits with an anxiety that surprises
+even herself.
+
+"Certainly, my dear," says Miss Blake, drawing herself up. "I shall feel
+it my duty to take you to all such places as will enable you to mix with
+people in your own rank of life. I am not one of those who think it well
+for young girls to lead the life of nuns. No, indeed!"
+
+"I quite agree with you, my dear Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, who is
+an echo of her elder sister. "Yes, we will rouse ourselves, and once
+more seek the world."
+
+"But I would not have you make yourselves unhappy," says Monica,
+falteringly.
+
+"Nay, my dear, it will be a pleasure, for _your_ sake."
+
+Not for worlds, even to themselves, would these two old ladies
+acknowledge that they are right glad of the chance that has come to them
+of introducing so beautiful a niece to the gay world around them, and of
+mingling, even in a subdued and decorous fashion, with the amusements
+that for the last five years they have (most unwillingly, be it said,
+but on the score of age) declined.
+
+"I wonder who will be there," says Monica, in a fresher tone, striving
+vainly to drown the hope that is taking possession of her, a hope that
+connects itself with a certain blue-eyed, dark-haired young man, last
+seen in boating flannels.
+
+"Everybody," says Miss Priscilla,--"the entire country. Madam
+O'Connor may not be--is not--there may be certain points about
+her--that"--floundering hopelessly--"I mean"--with a rush--"there are
+a few who object to her _manner_ but her birth is undeniable, and she
+has a large fortune; you must know, my dear, her father was a direct
+descendant of King O'Toole, and her husband the head of one of the
+oldest families in Ireland."
+
+"Is that the old woman who called here the day before yesterday?" asked
+Terence, irreverently. They are all sitting in the drawing-room, Terence
+being rather on the balcony perhaps.
+
+"Yes--I regret you were not in to receive her. I should have liked you
+to make her acquaintance, Monica, before going to Aghyohillbeg."
+
+"Oh I saw her," says Terence, contemptuously, "she's got an eye like a
+lance, and a man's figure. She drove herself, and held the reins like
+this," throwing himself into position.
+
+"If you are going out, Terence, you may as well go at once," says Miss
+Priscilla, with dignity, pretending neither to hear nor see him.
+Whereupon Terence gladly departs.
+
+"Go on, auntie," says Monica, slipping down on a footstool close to Aunt
+Penelope, and leaning both her arms across the old lady's knee. "Who
+else will be there?"
+
+"Yes, tell her everything, Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, smoothing the
+girl's hair softly, and feeling a strange thrill of pleasure in her
+heart as she notices the little confident gesture with which the girl
+nestles close to her.
+
+"Well, there will be her own guests, of course, I mean those staying
+with her, for she always has her house full," says Miss Priscilla, after
+a slight pause, being still somewhat ruffled by Terry's remarks. "The
+Fitzgeralds will be there, of course. Bella is considered a very
+handsome girl, but I don't think you will like her much."
+
+"No, no, she is not at all our Monica's style," says Miss Penelope,
+stroking the pretty cheek near her with her mittened hand. "Yet she has
+a fine skin."
+
+"Ay, and a fine temper under it, or I'm a Dutchman," says Miss
+Priscilla. "And she is more peculiar than handsome; but men admire her,
+so _we_ say nothing."
+
+"Is she tall?" asks Monica, anxiously, who is a little thing herself,
+and looks even smaller than she really is because of her slender,
+girlish figure. She wonders in a vague, uncomfortable fashion
+whether--whether most men like tall women best.
+
+"Tall? yes, and large in proportion; and as for her _manners_," says
+Miss Priscilla, in her severest tone, "in my opinion they are simply
+unbearable. Modesty in my days was a virtue, nowadays it is as _naught_.
+Bella Fitzgerald is never content unless she has every man in the room
+at her side, and goodness alone knows what it is she says to them. The
+way she sets her cap at that poor boy Ronayne, just because he has
+fallen in for that property, is quite revolting."
+
+"And a mere lad, too," says Miss Penelope.
+
+Monica draws a breath of relief. Perhaps if Miss Fitzgerald likes Mr.
+Ronayne she will not care to practise her fascinations upon----any other
+man.
+
+"How old is she?" she asks, feeling deeply interested in the
+conversation.
+
+"She _says_ she is twenty-four," says Miss Priscilla, with an eloquent
+sniff. "There is nothing easier to say than that. I _won't_ be
+uncharitable, my dear Penelope,--you needn't look at me like that,--but
+this I must say, she looks every hour of eight and twenty."
+
+"Her mother ought to know," says Miss Penelope.
+
+"She ought, indeed," grimly. "But, as from the way she dresses we may
+reasonably conclude she thinks _herself_ nineteen, I suppose she has
+lost her memory on all points."
+
+"Her father, Otho Fitzgerald, was the same," says Miss Penelope,
+reflectively. "He never could bear the idea of age. He was one who saw
+nothing honorable in it. Gray hairs with him were a crime."
+
+"So he used to dye them," says Miss Priscilla, maliciously; "and when he
+got warm the dye used to melt, and (unknown to him) run all down his
+cheek."
+
+"Oh, Priscilla, how you remember things? Dear, dear, I think I see him
+now," says Miss Penelope. And here the two old ladies, overcome by this
+comical recollection, laugh until the tears run down their faces. Monica
+joins in from sheer sympathy; but Kit, who is sitting in the embrasure
+of a distant window and who had been strangely silent ever since the
+invitation came from Aghyohillbeg, maintains a stern gravity.
+
+"Poor man," says Miss Penelope, wiping her eyes, "I shall never forget
+the night your sweet mother, my dear Monica, most unintentionally
+offended him about the diamond--you recollect, Priscilla? Tell Monica of
+it."
+
+"He always wore a huge diamond ring upon his little finger," says Miss
+Priscilla, addressing Monica, "of which he was very proud. He was at
+this time about fifty-three, but used to pose as a man of thirty-nine.
+One evening showing the ring to your mother, then quite a girl, he said
+to her, in his stilted way, 'This jewel has been in our family for fifty
+years.' 'Ah! did you buy it, Mr. Fitzgerald?' asks your mother, in her
+sweet innocent way. Ha, ha, ha!" laughs Miss Priscilla, "you should have
+seen his face. It was a picture! and just when he was trying to make
+himself agreeable to your poor mother, and acting as if he was a
+youthful beau of twenty-five, or at least as young as the best of us."
+
+"That was so like mother," says Monica, in a low tone. "She always knew
+where to _touch_ people."
+
+"Oh, no, my dear, not at all like her," says Miss Penelope, hastily.
+"She didn't _mean_ it, you must understand; she was the very soul of
+sweetness, and would not willingly affront any one for the world."
+
+For just an instant Monica lifts her eyes and gazes earnestly at her
+aunt; but the old face is so earnest and sincere that with a faint sigh
+she lowers her eyes again, and makes no further remark.
+
+"After that he married his cousin's wife, a widow with one child, this
+girl, Bella," says Miss Priscilla, still full of reminiscences, as old
+people will be. "A most unpleasant person I thought her, though she was
+considered quite a belle in those days."
+
+"She always appeared to me such a silly woman," says Miss Penelope.
+
+"She is worse than that now," says Miss Priscilla, who seems specially
+hard on the Fitzgeralds. "She is a shocking old woman, with a nose like
+a flower-pot. I won't say she drinks, my dear Penelope, because I know
+you would object to it; but I _hear_ she does, and certainly her nose is
+her betrayer."
+
+"Do you remember," says Miss Penelope, "how anxious she once was to
+marry George Desmond?" This she says in a very low tone.
+
+"Yes, I remember." The bare mention of her enemy's name has sent a flush
+of crimson into Miss Priscilla's cheeks. "But he never bestowed a
+thought upon _her_."
+
+"Oh, no, never," says Miss Penelope, after which both the Misses Blake
+grow silent and seem to be slowly sinking into the land of revery.
+
+But Monica, having heard the "enemy's name" mentioned, becomes filled
+with a determination to sift the mystery connected with him, now, to the
+end.
+
+"Aunt Priscilla," she says, softly, looking at her with grave eyes
+across Miss Penelope's knees, "tell me, now, why Mr. Desmond is our
+enemy."
+
+"Oh, not _now_," says Miss Penelope, nervously.
+
+"Yes, now, please," says Monica, with ever-increasing gravity.
+
+"It may all be said in a few words, Monica," says Miss Priscilla,
+slowly. "And what I have to say affects you, my dear, even more than
+us."
+
+"_Me?_"
+
+"Yes, in that it affects your mother. Twenty years ago George Desmond
+was her affianced husband. Twenty years ago, wilfully and without
+cause, he deliberately broke with her his plighted troth."
+
+"He threw her over?" exclaims Monica, aghast at this revelation.
+
+"Well, I never heard be used actual violence to her, my dear," says Miss
+Penelope, in a distressed tone; "but he certainly broke off his
+engagement with her, and behaved as no man of honor could possibly
+behave."
+
+"And mother must have been quite beautiful at that time, must she not?"
+says Monica, rising to her knees in her excitement, and staring with
+widely-opened eyes of purest amazement from one aunt to the other.
+
+"'Beautiful as the blushing morn,'" says Miss Priscilla, quoting from
+some ancient birthday-book. "But, you see, even her beauty was powerless
+to save her from insult. From what we could learn, he absolutely refused
+to fulfil his marriage-contract with her. He was false to the oath he
+had sworn over our father's dying bed."
+
+Nothing can exceed the scorn and solemnity of Miss Priscilla's manner as
+she says all this.
+
+"And what did mother do?" asks Monica, curiously.
+
+"What _could_ she do, poor child? I have no doubt it went nigh to
+breaking her heart."
+
+"Her heart?" says Monica.
+
+"She suffered acutely. That we could see, or rather we had to guess it,
+as for days she kept her own chamber and would see no one, going out
+only when it was quite dusk for a solitary ramble. Ah! when sorrow
+afflicts the soul, there is no balm so great as solitude. Your poor
+mother took the whole affair dreadfully to heart."
+
+"You mean that she really _fretted_?" asks Monica, still in the same
+curious way, with her eyes fixed on her aunt. There is, indeed, so much
+unstudied surprise in her whole manner as might have produced a
+corresponding amount in the Misses Blake, had they noticed it.
+
+"Yes, my dear, of course. Dear, dear, dear! what a sad thing it all was!
+Well, now you understand all that it is needful you should, Monica,"
+says Miss Penelope, with a glance at her sister, who really seems quite
+overcome. "So we will say no more about it. Only you can see for
+yourself how impossible it is for any of our blood to be on friendly
+terms with a Desmond."
+
+"They may not all be like _that_ Mr. Desmond," says Monica, timidly,
+coloring to her brow.
+
+"Yes, yes. Like father, like son; you know the old adage; and a nephew
+is as close a relation almost. We can know no one at Coole."
+
+"I would almost rather see you dead than intimate with one of the name,"
+says Miss Priscilla, with sudden harshness.
+
+"I don't think we told Monica about the other guests at Aghyohillbeg,"
+says Miss Penelope, hastily, with the kindly intention of changing the
+conversation. "A very pretty young woman came there about a week before
+your arrival, child, and is to remain, I believe, for some time. She is
+a widow, and young, and--by the bye, I wonder if she can be any relation
+to your friends in the South of France."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Her name is Bohun, and----"
+
+"Not _Olga_ Bohun?" says Monica, springing to her feet. "A widow, you
+say, and young. Oh! auntie, if she only _might_ be Olga!"
+
+"Well, certainly she has a heathenish--I mean, a Russian--name like
+that," says Miss Priscilla. "She is a very little woman, with merry
+eyes, and she laughs always, and she has the prettiest, the most
+courteous manners. Quite a relief I found her, after the inanities of
+Bella Fitzgerald."
+
+"She is even smaller than I am. Yes, and her eyes do laugh!" says
+Monica, delight making her cheeks warm. "She is the prettiest thing. Ah!
+how happy I shall be if I may see her sometimes!"
+
+"You shall see her just as often as ever you and she wish," say the two
+old maids in a breath, glad in the thought that they can make her home
+at Moyne happy to her.
+
+"I hope _you_ like her," says Monica, glancing from one to the other of
+them.
+
+"Yes. I thought her quite fascinating," says Miss Penelope. "Some people
+say she is rather--rather _fast_, I believe is the word they use
+nowadays," getting the word out with difficulty, as though afraid it may
+go off and do somebody an injury. "But for my part I don't believe a
+word of it. She is quite natural, and most pleasing in manner,
+_especially_ to those who are older than herself. A great charm in these
+times, my dear, when age is despised."
+
+Plainly, the little widow at Aghyohillbeg has been playing off her
+sweetest graces upon the two Misses Blake.
+
+"I dare say Monica will like young Ronayne," says Miss Priscilla. "He is
+quite nice, that lad. But I hope, Monica, that, even if circumstances
+should throw you together, you will take no notice of young Mr.
+Desmond. I myself would not exchange a word with him if a queen's diadem
+were offered me as a bribe."
+
+"You might speak to him without knowing him," says Monica, blushing
+again that nervous crimson of a while ago.
+
+"Impossible, my dear. Instinct, sharpened by hatred, would tell me when
+one of the race was near me."
+
+"Well, as it is your first party here, dear child, I hope you will enjoy
+it," says Miss Penelope, quickly, as though again anxious to throw oil
+on the waters by changing the conversation. "It is a charming place, and
+its mistress, if a little rough, is at least kindly."
+
+At this moment Kit, emerging from the curtains that have hidden her for
+the past hour, comes slowly to the front. Her face, her very attitude,
+is martial. She is plainly in battle-array. Pausing before Miss
+Priscilla, she directs her first fire upon her.
+
+"Am I not asked at all?" she says, in a terrible tone, that contrasts
+painfully with the ominous silence she has maintained ever since the
+invitation was brought by Mrs. O'Connor's groom.
+
+"My dear child, you must remember you are only fourteen," says Miss
+Priscilla, who is sincerely sorry the child has not been included in the
+invitation, and, in fact, thinks it rather unkind she has been left out.
+
+"I _know_ that, thank you," says the youngest Miss Beresford,
+uncompromisingly, fixing her aunt with a stony glare. "I know my
+birthday as well as most people. And so, just because I am a child, I am
+to be slighted, am I? I call it unfair! I call it beastly _mean_, that
+every one here is to be invited out to enjoy themselves except _me_."
+
+"Young people are seldom asked to grown-up parties," says Miss
+Priscilla, in her best conciliatory manner. "When you are as old as
+Monica, of course you will go everywhere. In the meantime you are only a
+child."
+
+"I am old enough to conduct myself properly, at all events," says Kit,
+unmoved. "I suppose at _fourteen_"--as if this is an age replete with
+wisdom--"I am not likely to do anything _very_ extraordinary, or make
+myself unpleasant, or be in anybody's way."
+
+"That is not the question, at all: it is merely one of age," says Miss
+Priscilla.
+
+"Is it? And yet people say a great deal about childhood being the
+happiest time of one's life," says Kit, almost choking with scornful
+rage. "I should just like to see the fellow who first said that. Maybe I
+wouldn't enlighten him, and tell him what a hypocrite he was. Whoever
+said it, it is a decided untruth, and I know I wish to goodness I was
+grown up, because then," with withering emphasis, "I should not be
+trampled upon and insulted!"
+
+This is dreadful. The two old ladies, unaccustomed in their quiet lives
+to tornadoes and volcanoes of any kind, are almost speechless with
+fright.
+
+"Dearest," says Monica, going up to her, "how _can_ you look at it in
+such a light?"
+
+"It's all very well for you," says the indignant Kit: "_you're_ going,
+you know. I'm to stay at home, like that wretched Cinderella!"
+
+"Katherine, I am sure you are quite unaware of the injustice of your
+remarks," says Miss Priscilla, at last finding her voice. She is bent on
+delivering a calm rebuke; but inwardly (as any one can see) she is
+quaking. "And I have frequently told you before that the expression 'I
+wish to goodness,' which you used just now, is anything but ladylike. It
+is not nice; it is not proper."
+
+"I don't care what is proper or improper, when I am treated as I now
+am," says the rebel, with flashing eyes and undaunted front.
+
+"There is really _nothing_ to complain of," says Miss Priscilla,
+earnestly, seeing censure has no effect. "Madam O'Connor would not
+willingly offend any one; she is a very kind woman, and----"
+
+"She is a regular old wretch!" says the youngest Miss Beresford, with
+considerable spirit.
+
+"My _dear_ Katherine!"
+
+"And it's my belief she has done it _on purpose_!" with increasing rage.
+
+"Katherine, I must insist----"
+
+"You may insist as you like, but I'll be even with her yet," persists
+Kit, after which, being quite overcome with wrath, she breaks down, and
+bursts into a violent fit of weeping.
+
+"My dear child, don't do that," says Miss Penelope, rising
+precipitately, and going over to the weeping fury. "Priscilla," in a
+trembling tone, "I fear it is selfish. I think, my dear, I shall stay at
+home, too, the day you all go to Madam O'Connor's."
+
+This kills the storm at once.
+
+"No, no, indeed, Aunt Penny, you shan't." Kit cries, subdued, but still
+in tears. She is overcome with remorse, and blames herself cruelly in
+that her ill temper should have led to this proposal of self-sacrifice.
+To give in to Kit is the surest and quickest method of gaining your own
+point. She throws her arms, as she speaks, around Miss Penelope's neck,
+and nearly strangles that dear old lady in her remorseful agitation, to
+say nothing of the deadly havoc she makes of her frills and laces.
+
+"But indeed, my Kitten, it will be no privation to me to stay at home
+with you, and we will be quite happy together, and we will have our tea
+out in the orchard," says Miss Penelope, soothing her with sweet words;
+while Miss Priscilla, who is thoroughly frightened by the sobbing, pats
+the refractory child on the back, with a view to allaying all fear of
+convulsions.
+
+"You shan't stay at home, Aunt Penny,--you shan't indeed," cries the
+inconsistent Kitten. "I like being alone, I _love_ it; if you don't go
+to that place with the long name, and enjoy yourself very much, I shall
+be miserable all my life, though I love you very, very, _very_ much for
+wishing to keep me from being lonely. Tell her I mean it, Monica."
+
+"Yes, I am sure she means it," says Monica, earnestly, whereupon peace
+is once more restored to the breasts of the terrified aunts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+  How Monica goes to Aghyohillbeg, and meets there an old friend and a
+  very new one.
+
+
+Time flies, and no man can reach his hand to stay it. A very good thing,
+too, thinks Monica, as she stands before her looking-glass putting the
+last pretty touches to her white toilet.
+
+It is Friday. Madam O'Connor's garden-party lies before her, and,
+probably, other things. Here she blushes at herself, as she sees that
+pretty soul in the glass, though, indeed, she has no cause to do so; but
+possibly the vague thought of those "other things" has something to do
+with it, and perhaps it is for their sake too that she places with such
+care the heavy, blood-colored rose beneath her chin.
+
+This is the only suspicion of color about her. Her gown is white; her
+hat is white; long white silk gloves run up her rounded arms as though
+bent on joining her sleeves far above the elbow. A white Surat sash is
+tied round her dainty waist. She is looking "as fair as the moon, as
+lovely as a rose," and altogether distinctly dangerous.
+
+Perhaps she half recognizes this fact, because she smiles at her own
+reflection, and--vain little girl that she is--stoops forward and kisses
+herself in the happy glass that holds her even for so brief a minute;
+after which she summons her maid from her dressing-room beyond.
+
+"Canty," she says, as the "uncle's wife's sister's child" enters, "I am
+dressed now; and----"
+
+"Shure, so you are, miss; and lovely ye look, more power to ye."
+
+"Make my room very tidy," says Monica, giving her her directions before
+starting. "And, Canty, I shall want my blue dress for dinner. You can
+put it out."
+
+"Yes, miss," whereupon Monica prepares to leave the room; but the new
+maid stops her.
+
+"If ye please, Miss Monica," she says, hesitating, and applying her
+apron to her lips.
+
+"Yes, Canty?"
+
+"I'd be very thankful to ye, miss, if ye wouldn't call me that."
+
+"Call you what?"
+
+"Canty, miss."
+
+"But," astonished, "isn't it your name?"
+
+"No, miss; me name is Bridget."
+
+"But surely Canty is your name, too?"
+
+"Well, it's me father's name, miss, no doubt; but faix I feel just like
+a boy when ye call me by it, an' ye wouldn't like me to feel like a boy,
+miss, would ye?" says the village beauty casting an anxious glance at
+Monica from her dark Irish eyes, and blushing deeply.
+
+"Certainly not," says Monica, laughing a little. "Very well, Bridget; I
+shall try to forget you ever had a surname."
+
+"Thank ye, miss," says Bridget, with a sigh of profound relief.
+
+Then Monica runs downstairs, where she finds her aunts in the
+drawing-room, dressed in their very best silk gowns, waiting for the
+carriage to come round. There is a little delay, which wasted time the
+two old ladies spend in endeavoring to drill Terence into shape.
+Something of this sort is going on as Monica enters.
+
+"When I introduce you to Madam O'Connor or Lady Rossmoyne, my dear boy,
+be sure you make a very low bow. Nothing distinguishes a gentleman so
+much from the common herd as the manner of his salute. Now make me a
+bow, that I may judge of your style." Thus Miss Priscilla.
+
+"I couldn't make one to order like that," says Terence; yet he sulkily
+complies, making a very short, stiff, and uncompromising nod that makes
+both aunts lift their hands in dismay.
+
+"Oh, no, my dear!--that won't do _at all_! Most ungraceful, and totally
+devoid of the dignity that should inspire it. Now look at me. It should
+be something like _this_," making him a reverence that might well have
+created admiration in the court of Queen Anne.
+
+"Ah, yes! that is something like what it should be," chimes in Miss
+Penelope, paying a tribute to the talent of her sister. "Priscilla has
+caught the true tone. I wish, Terence, we could see you more like your
+dear grandfather; _he_ was a man to bow."
+
+Terence, calling to mind the portrait of his "dear grandfather," as
+represented in the elaborate gilt frame in the dining-room, in a court
+suit and a periwig, and with an abominable simper, most devoutly thanks
+his gods that he is _not_ like unto him. He is, indeed (feeling goaded
+to the last degree), about to break into unseemly language, when,
+fortunately, the arrival of the ancient equipage that has done duty at
+Moyne as state carriage for generations is announced.
+
+The coachman, who is considerably older than Timothy, draws up the old
+horses before the door with a careful manner that impresses the beholder
+with the belief that he thinks they would run away in a minute if he
+relaxed a muscle on the reins; and a small boy who acts as footman and
+looks decidedly depressed, lets down the rickety steps.
+
+Miss Priscilla Blake then enters the carriage. She is followed with much
+ceremony by Miss Penelope. After which Monica, who is impressed by the
+proceedings, and Terence, who is consumed with secret mirth, step in and
+seat themselves. Then the coachman says, "Gee up!" in exactly the tone
+he has employed for forty years; and the gloomy boy settling down beside
+him, they are all presently on the fair road to Aghyohillbeg.
+
+The drive is a very pleasant one, though filled with injunctions of the
+most obsolete from the Misses Blake as to their behavior, etc. The fact
+is, that the two old maids are so puffed out with pride at the thought
+that they will presently introduce to the county the handsome lad and
+beautiful girl opposite them that they have grown fidgety and
+over-anxious about the niceties of their presentation.
+
+"Surely," say the Misses Blake to themselves and to each other, "not
+half so pretty a pair could be produced by any family in the south!"
+
+Which is saying a great deal, as in the south of Ireland a pretty face
+is more the rule than the exception.
+
+Over the dusty road they go, calmly, carefully, the old horses being
+unaccustomed to fast ways of any sort; slowly, with much care they pick
+their aged steps, never stumbling, never swerving, but as certainly
+never giving way to frivolous haste.
+
+Then, all at once, as it seems to Monica, the hillside seems to break in
+twain, and a great iron gate appears, into which they turn to drive in
+their solemn fashion down a dark avenue shaded by swaying elms.
+
+It is a perfect place, old as the hills that surround it, and wild in
+its loveliness. To right and left great trees, gnarled and moss-grown,
+and dipping tangles of blackberry and fern; patches of sunlight, amidst
+the gloom, that rests lovingly upon a glowing wilderness of late
+bluebells, and, beyond all these broad glimpses of the glorious,
+restless ocean, as it sleeps in its bay below.
+
+Gazing at all this natural beauty, Monica's soft eyes and heart expand,
+and,--
+
+    "Joy rises in her like a summer morn."
+
+And then she sees an old house, low, broad, picturesque, with balconies
+and terraces, and beyond the house slanting lawns, and at one side
+tennis-courts, where many gayly-clad figures are moving to and fro.
+There is a sound of subdued laughter and the perfume of many flowers,
+and a general air of gayety; it is as though to-day care has utterly
+forgotten this one favored corner of the earth.
+
+Then they all descend from the time honored chariot, and cross the lawn
+to where they can see their hostess standing, tall and erect and
+handsome, in spite of her sixty years.
+
+"Your niece?" says Madam O'Connor, staring hard at Monica's pure little
+face, the girl looking straight back at her with a certain amount of
+curiosity in her eyes.--"Well, I wish you no greater fortune than your
+face, my dear," says the old Irishwoman. "It ought to be a rich one,
+I'm thinking. You're like your mother, too; but your eyes are honester
+than hers. You must know I knew Kitty Blake very well at one time."
+
+"I have heard my mother speak of you," says Monica.
+
+"Ay--so? Yet I fear there wasn't much love lost between us."
+
+Then she turns a little aside to greet some one else, and Monica lets
+her eyes roam round the grounds. Suddenly she starts, and says out
+loud,--
+
+"Ah! there is Olga?"
+
+"You know Mrs. Bohun, then?" says her hostess, attracted by her
+exclamation and her pretty vivacious expression.
+
+"So very, very well," says Monica. She has flushed warmly, and her eyes
+are brilliant. "I want to speak to her; I want to go to her, _please_."
+
+"Bless me! what a shame to waste that lovely blush on a mere woman!"
+says Madam O'Connor, with a merry laugh. "Here, Fred," turning to a
+young man standing close to her with a very discontented expression, "I
+am going to give you a mission after your own heart. You are to take
+Miss Beresford over there, to where Mrs. Bohun is dealing death to all
+those boys.--This is Lord Rossmoyne, Miss Beresford: he will see you
+safely over your rubicon."
+
+"Oh, thank you!" says Monica, gratefully smiling at her.
+
+"Tut, child! thank me when I have done something for you. It is Fred's
+turn to thank me now," says Madam O'Connor, with a merry twinkle in her
+gray eyes.
+
+She is a large woman close on sixty, with an eagle eye and a hawk's
+nose. As Monica leaves her she continues her gossip with the half dozen
+young men round her, who are all laughing at some joke. Presently she
+herself is laughing louder than any of them (being partial to boys and
+their "fun," as she calls it). Bestowing now a smart blow with her fan
+upon the youngest and probably therefore most flippant of her
+attendants, she stalks away from them across the lawn, to where two
+ladies are sitting together.
+
+One is elderly, but most ridiculously dressed in juvenile attire, that
+might have well suited the daughter sitting beside her. This latter is a
+tall girl, and large in every way, with curious eyes and a rather harsh
+voice; she is laughing now at some remark made by a man lounging at the
+back of her chair, and the laugh is both affected and discordant.
+
+"Have you seen that girl of Kitty Beresford's, Edith?" asks Madam
+O'Connor of the elder lady.
+
+"That little washed-out-looking girl who came with those two old Miss
+Blakes?" asks the youthful old woman, with a profoundly juvenile lisp.
+
+"Faith, I don't know about her being washed out," says Madam O'Connor,
+bluntly. "I think she is the prettiest creature I've seen this many a
+day."
+
+"You are so impulsive, my dear Theresa!" says her friend, with a simper:
+"all your geese are swans."
+
+"And other people's swans my geese, I suppose," says Madam, with a
+glance at the tall girl, which somehow brings the conversation to a full
+stop.
+
+Meantime, Monica is crossing the soft turf, with the moody man called
+Rossmoyne beside her. She can see her goal in the distance, and finds
+comfort in the thought that soon she must be there, as she cannot bring
+herself to be agreeable to her new acquaintance; and certainly he is
+feeling no desire just at present to be agreeable to her or to anybody.
+
+As Monica comes nearer to her friend, she gazes anxiously at her, as
+though to see if time has worked a change in her.
+
+She is quite a little woman about five and twenty, but looking at least
+four years younger than that. Her eyes are large, dark, and mischievous.
+Her hair is so fair as to be almost silvery; naturally wavy, it is cut
+upon the forehead in the prevailing fashion, but not curled. Her mouth
+is small, mutinous, and full of laughter; her nose distinctly retroussé.
+Altogether she is distractingly pretty, and, what goes for more
+nowadays, very peculiar in style, and out of the common.
+
+She is exquisitely dressed in a costume that suggests Paris. She is a
+harmony in black and white, as Lord Rossmoyne told her an hour ago, when
+he was _not_ wearing his discontented expression. Seated beside her is a
+tall pallid woman with a cold face, but very velvety eyes and a smile
+rare but handsome. Every now and then this smile betrays itself, as her
+companion says anything that chances to amuse her. She is a Mrs.
+Herrick, a cousin of Olga Bohun's, and is now on a visit with her at
+Aghyohillbeg.
+
+There are several men grouped round Mrs. Bohun, all in various standing
+positions. One man is lying at her feet. He is a tall slight young
+fellow, of about twenty-three, with a lean face, dark hair, and
+beautiful teeth. He has, too, beautiful eyes, and a most lovable
+expression, half boyish, but intensely earnest and very sensitive.
+
+Just now he appears happy and careless, and altogether as if he and the
+world are friends indeed, and that he is filled with the belief that
+every one likes him; and, in truth, he is right in so believing, for
+every one does like him, and a great many are fond of him, and some love
+him.
+
+He is looking up at Mrs. Bohun, and is talking rapidly, as Monica and
+Lord Rossmoyne come up behind them.
+
+"What! another bit of scandal?" exclaims Mrs. Bohun, lifting her brows
+in pleased anticipation. "The air seemed full of it. An hour ago I heard
+of the dire discomfiture of two of my dearest friends, and just now I
+listened to a legend of Belgravia that was distinctly _fifi_ and had a
+good deal to do with a marchioness. It is really quite too much
+happiness for _one_ day."
+
+"My tale does not emanate from such an aristocratic region as
+Belgravia," says Ulic Ronayne, the man at her feet: "it is, I blush to
+say, from the city."
+
+"Ah!" in a regretful tone; "then it will of course be decenter. Don't
+trouble to expend color on it, as I daresay there isn't a blush in the
+whole of it. Well," resignedly, "go on."
+
+In the usual quick manner habitual to him, and with the slight but
+eloquent amount of gesture common to Irish people, Ronayne tells his
+news, which is received with low laughter by those around.
+
+"I've heard better stories," says Mrs. Bohun, discontentedly; "and it
+isn't a bit like what Lord Tommy would do. It is more in Rossmoyne's
+line. I don't think I believe it. And the roundabout way in which you
+told it reminds one of a three-volume novel: the first leads up to the
+point, the third winds up the point, the second _is_ the point. I
+confess I like the second volume best. When I grow funny over my friends
+I'm _all_ second."
+
+"Then don't be funny about me, please," says Ronayne, lazily.
+
+"_Are_ you my friend?" asks she, glancing at him. Lifting his eyes to
+hers, he pauses, and then says slowly, the smile dying from his face,--
+
+"Well, perhaps _not_."
+
+Then he lowers his eyes again, and goes back to his idle occupation of
+decorating with daisies some of the fantastic loops upon her gown.
+
+At this moment Lord Rossmoyne, coming forward, says, sullenly, "May I
+hear the story that just now reminded you of me? But first----" He
+pauses, and glances at Monica. Mrs. Bohun, following his glance, rises
+hurriedly from her seat, and going up to the girl, embraces her warmly.
+
+"Ah! my _pretty_ Monica! my little saint!" she cries, in her sweet, gay
+voice, "what happy breeze has blown you hither?"
+
+"I am living here,--at Moyne,--with my aunts," in a happy, breathless
+way. "Some days ago they described you to me, and I knew it must be you.
+I was right. And to-day I have found you."
+
+"I'm always found out, as a rule," says Mrs. Bohun, with a light laugh.
+"That is my standing grievance. You know Hermia, don't you?" indicating
+the tall, cold-looking woman near her, who so far unbends as to take
+Monica's hand kindly and bestow upon her one of her handsome smiles.
+"She has come here to look after me and see that I don't get into a
+scrape or make myself unhappy."
+
+"Could you be unhappy?" says Rossmoyne, from behind her chair, in so
+disagreeable a tone that every one looks at him. "Decidedly," thinks
+Monica to herself, "he has either neuralgia or an execrable temper."
+
+"Miserably so," says the pretty widow, airily. "Though, after all,"
+reflectively, "I believe I have even a greater talent for making others
+so. That, however, is my misfortune, not my fault. I was 'born so,' like
+that poor man with the twisted neck."
+
+"Well, this is not one of your miserably unhappy hours, at all events,"
+says Hermia Herrick. "You have been in magnificent spirits ever since
+you came to Aghyohillbeg."
+
+"You've learned it?" says Olga, staring at her with pretended surprise.
+"The name, I mean. Well, you _are_ clever. It takes most people four
+long weeks. Oh, yes, I am blissfully happy here. I _ought_ to be. It
+would be the grossest ingratitude if I were otherwise, as all the men
+have been good enough to fall in love with me, and that, of course, is
+the principal thing."
+
+At this the young man at her feet smiles openly and presses his face
+unperceived against her gown; but Rossmoyne throws up his head and
+glances with a coldly displeased expression into the vague distance.
+
+"Have you been here long?" asks Monica, turning to her friend.
+
+"_Very_ long," pettishly. Something--perhaps Rossmoyne--has annoyed the
+capricious beauty.
+
+"Only a fortnight," says Mrs. Herrick, briefly. "You _must_ know that."
+
+"I don't judge time by days and weeks; it _seems_ long," says Mrs.
+Bohun, "years,--an eternity almost!"
+
+A sudden gloom appears to have fallen upon the group. Rossmoyne's dark
+face grows darker still; the smile fades from Ronayne's face, a shadow
+falls athwart his eyes.
+
+"I think I like the country," says Monica, suddenly. "It is so calm, so
+quiet, and there are moments when the very beauty of it brings tears to
+my eyes."
+
+"I love it too," says Ronayne, quickly, addressing her pointedly in a
+friendly tone, although no introduction has been gone through between
+them. "I wonder how any one who has once tasted the sweetness of it can
+ever again long for the heat and turmoil of the town."
+
+"Yes, for a time it is charming, all-sufficing," says Mrs. Bohun, "but
+for what a _little_ time! Perhaps,--I am not sure,--but _perhaps_ I
+should like to live for three months of every year in the country. After
+that, I know I should begin to pine again for the smoke and smuts of my
+town."
+
+"If you are already wearied, I wonder you stay here," says Lord
+Rossmoyne, sullenly.
+
+"And I wonder what has happened to-day to your usually so charming
+temper," returns she, laughingly uplifting her face to his, and letting
+her eyes rest on him with almost insolent inquiry.
+
+"Desmond says good temper is a mere matter of digestion," says some one
+at this moment. Monica starts more at the name mentioned than at the
+exceedingly worn-out words uttered. She glances at the speaker, and sees
+he is a very ugly young man, with a nice face, and a remarkably dismal
+expression. He is looking at Rossmoyne. "Sit down, dear boy," he says,
+_sotto voce_ and very sadly. "There's too much of you; you should never
+stand. You appear to so much better advantage when doubled in two. It
+don't _sound_ well, does it? but----"
+
+"But really, when you come to think of it," Mrs. Bohun is saying,
+feelingly, "there is very little in the country."
+
+"There is at least the fascinating tulip and lily," says the sad man who
+mentioned Desmond's name. "Don't put yourself beyond the pale of art by
+saying you had forgotten those ęsthetic flowers,--blossoms, I mean.
+Don't you yearn when you think of them? _I_ do."
+
+"So glad you are awake at last, Owen!" says Mrs. Bohun.
+
+"That silly craze about tulips," says Mrs. Herrick, contemptuously, "I
+have always treated it with scorn. Why could not the art idiots have
+chosen some better flower for their lunatic ravings? What can _any_ one
+see in a tulip?"
+
+"Sometimes earwigs," says the man called Owen.
+
+"Nonsense! I don't believe even earwigs would care for it. Foolish,
+gaudy thing, uplifting its lanky neck as though to outdo its fellows!
+There is really nothing in it."
+
+"Like the country," says Owen, meekly, "according to Mrs. Bohun."
+
+"And like Bella Fitzgerald," says that graceless person, with a little
+grimace.
+
+"My _dear_ Olga," says Mrs. Herrick, glancing quickly to right and left.
+"Do you never _think_?"
+
+"As seldom as ever I can. But why be nervous, Hermia? If any one were to
+compare _me_ with a tulip, I should die of--no, not chagrin--_joy_, I
+mean, of course. Monica, what are you saying to Owen?"
+
+"I don't think I know who Owen is," says Monica, with a glance at the
+gentleman in question, that is half shy, half friendly.
+
+"That argues yourself unknown," says Olga. "He is Master Owen Kelly, of
+Kelly's Grove, county Antrim, and the bright and shining light of the
+junior bar. They all swear by him in Dublin,--all, that is except the
+judges, and they swear _at_ him."
+
+Monica looks at Master Owen Kelly in a faintly puzzled fashion.
+
+"It is all quite true," says that young man, modestly, in a reassuring
+tone.
+
+"Now tell us what you were saying to each other," says Olga.
+
+"It was nothing," returns Monica. "We were only talking about this
+Egyptian war. But I don't really," nervously, "understand anything about
+it."
+
+"You needn't blush for your ignorance on that score," says Mr. Kelly.
+"You're in the general swim: nobody knows."
+
+"It is the most senseless proceeding altogether," says Hermia Herrick,
+in her decided way. "Gladstone's wars are toys. He has had three of them
+now, dear little fellow, to amuse himself with, and he ought to be proud
+of his victories."
+
+"According to Erasmus, war is the 'malady of princes,'" says Lord
+Rossmoyne, sententiously.
+
+"Rossmoyne isn't well," says Mr. Kelly, softly. "He is calling the
+wood-cutter a prince. It reminds one of Hans Andersen's fairy-tale: all
+hewers of wood and drawers of water were blood-royal then."
+
+"Yet Gladstone has intellect," says Mrs. Herrick, in oh, _such_ a tone:
+would that the master of Hewarden could have heard her!
+
+"Some!" said Mr. Kelly. "He is indeed 'a thing apart.' I know nothing
+like him. 'Once, in the flight of ages past, there lived a _man_.' In
+ages to come they will say that of our modern immortal William. They
+will probably add that no _real_ man has ever lived since."
+
+"How silly you can be at times!" says Olga.
+
+"It isn't mine; it's Montgomery's nonsense," says Mr. Kelly, sadly.
+"Blame him, not me."
+
+"I don't want to blame any one," says Olga, with a skillfully-suppressed
+yawn; "but, taking your view of the case, I think it will be an awful
+age when there _doesn't_ live a man."
+
+"Your 'occupation will be o'er,' indeed," says Rossmoyne, with an
+accentuated bitterness, "when that time comes."
+
+("He must be very much in love with her," thinks Monica, with a touch of
+inspiration, "he is so excessively rude to her!")
+
+"Lord Rossmoyne," says Mrs. Bohun, turning to him with ineffable
+sweetness, "will you do something for me?"
+
+The transition from coldness to tender appeal is too much for Rossmoyne:
+his face brightens.
+
+"You know there is nothing I would not do for you," he says, gravely but
+eagerly.
+
+"Then," promptly, "please take that ugly frown off your forehead and put
+it in your pocket; or--no, throw it away altogether; if you kept it near
+you, you might be tempted to put it on again."
+
+"I did not know I was frowning."
+
+"You were," sweetly. "You are all right again now, and so shall be
+rewarded. You can't think how unbecoming frowns are, and how much better
+you look when you are all 'sweetness and light' as now for example.
+Come," rising, "you shall take me for a nice long walk through these
+delightful old gardens."
+
+As she moves she sees the daisies still clinging to her gown that Ulic
+Ronayne has been amusing himself with during the past half-hour. More
+than this, she sees, too, the imploring gaze of his dark eyes upturned
+to hers.
+
+"Silly boy!" she says, stooping to shake away the daisies with her hand;
+but her words have a double meaning. Involuntarily, unseen by all the
+others--except Monica--his hand closes upon hers.
+
+"Do not go with him," he says, with deep entreaty.
+
+"I must--now."
+
+"Then let me come too?"
+
+"No." Then she raises herself, and says, gayly, "You shall stay and make
+love to Miss Beresford--Monica, I have desired Mr. Ronayne to stay here
+and amuse you."
+
+She moves across the lawn with Rossmoyne beside her. Mrs. Herrick and
+Mr. Kelly are strolling lazily in another direction. Monica and Ulic are
+alone.
+
+"Is there anything I can take you to see?" asks he, gently.
+
+"No, thank you. I am quite happy here."
+
+Then, noticing the extreme sadness on his beautiful face, she says,
+slowly, "But you are not, I am afraid."
+
+"I _should_ be, with so fair a companion." He smiles as he says this,
+but his smile is without mirth, and she does not return it. Suddenly
+leaning forward, she says to him, very tenderly,--
+
+"You love Olga, do you not?"
+
+She never afterwards thinks of this speech without blushing deeply and
+wondering why she said it. It was an impulse too strong to be conquered,
+and it overpowers her. His face changes, and he colors perceptibly; he
+hesitates too, and regards her inquiringly. Something, perhaps, in her
+expression reassures him, because presently he says, bravely,--
+
+"Yes, I do. I love her with all my heart and soul; as I never have
+loved, as I never shall love again. _This_ thought is my happiness: my
+sorrow lies in the fear that she will never love _me_. Forgive my saying
+all this to you: she told me to amuse you," with a faint smile, "and I
+have woefully neglected her commands."
+
+"You must forgive me," says Monica. "I should not have asked you the
+question."
+
+"Do not be sorry for that: it has done me good, I think. I am glad I
+have said it _out loud_ to somebody at last. It is odd though,--isn't
+it?--I should have made my confession to you, of all people, whom I
+never saw until ten minutes ago!"
+
+Then Monica remembers that this is the second young man she has found
+herself on friendly terms with since her arrival at Moyne, without the
+smallest introduction having been gone through on any side. It all
+sounds rather dreamy, and certainly very irregular.
+
+"Ah! there is Madam O'Connor beckoning to me," says Ronayne, rising
+lazily to his feet. "I suppose she wants me for a moment. Will you mind
+my leaving you for a little, or will you come with me? I shan't be any
+time."
+
+"I shall stay here," says Monica. "There, go: she seems quite in a
+hurry. Come back when you can."
+
+He runs across the grass to his hostess; and Monica, leaning back in her
+chair, gives herself up to thought. Everything is strange, and she is
+feeling a little lonely, a little _distraite_, and (but this she will
+not allow even to herself) distinctly disappointed. She is trying very
+hard to prevent her mind from dwelling upon a certain face that should
+be naught to her, when she suddenly becomes conscious of the fact that
+some one has come to a standstill close beside her chair. She turns.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+  How Monica listens to strange words and suffers herself to be led
+  away.--How Cupid plants a shaft in Mars, and how Miss Priscilla
+  finds herself face to face with the enemy.
+
+
+"You see I failed," says Brian Desmond.
+
+A quick warm blush has dyed Monica's cheeks crimson.
+
+"Ah! it is you," she said. "I thought you had not come."
+
+This betrays the fact that she has been thinking of him, but he is far
+too wise a young man in his own generation to take count of it.
+
+"Yes, I came. Three days ago I thought I should have been in London now,
+and then I heard _you_ were to be here to-day."
+
+"In what have you failed?" asks she, abruptly, alluding to his opening
+sentence.
+
+"Can't you guess? Have you forgotten the last cruel injunction you laid
+upon me? 'When next we meet,' you said, 'you are to look straight over
+my head and pass on.' Will you believe that twice to-day I obeyed that
+mandate? The third time was the charm: it conquered me; I broke my sword
+in two and came to you."
+
+"I wish you hadn't," says Monica, sincerely, if impolitely. "I wish you
+would go away now, and promise me never to speak to me again. You _know_
+I am afraid of you," looking nervously around.
+
+"I don't, indeed; I can't conceive such a situation. You do me a great
+injustice, I think. I verily believe if I tried my very hardest I
+couldn't instil terror into the smallest child in the village."
+
+"You know what I mean. Of course," scornfully, "I should never be afraid
+of a _man_: it is Aunt Priscilla I am afraid of. And see, see _there_!"
+in an agony, "she is standing quite close to us, talking to somebody."
+
+"If that is your aunt Priscilla, she is safe for an hour at least. The
+old lady with her is Lady Rossmoyne, and she never lets any one
+(unfortunate enough to get into her clutches) go free under a generous
+sixty minutes. She is great on manures, and stock, and turnips, and so
+forth. And your aunt, I hear, is a kindred spirit."
+
+"But then there is Aunt Penelope," says Monica, timidly.
+
+"She, too, is arranged. Half an hour ago I met her so deep in a
+disgraceful flirtation with the vicar that I felt it my duty to look the
+other way. Depend upon it, she is not thinking of you."
+
+"But some one may tell them I have been talking to you."
+
+"I always thought I had a proper amount of pride until I met you," says
+Mr. Desmond. "You have dispelled the belief of years. 'Is thy servant a
+dog,' that you should be ostracized for speaking to him? Never mind; I
+submit even to that thought if it gives me five minutes more of your
+society. But listen to me. No one can tell tales of us, because we are
+both strangers in the land. No one knows me from Adam, and just as few
+know you from--let us say _Eve_, for euphony's sake."
+
+She laughs. Encouraged by her merriment to believe that at least she
+bears him no ill will, Brian says, hurriedly,--
+
+"Come with me to the rose-garden. It is stupid sitting here alone, and
+the garden is beyond praise. Do come."
+
+"Why?" lifting her heavy lashes.
+
+"For one thing, we shall be free from observation, and you know you
+dislike being seen with me. For another----" He pauses.
+
+"Well?" rather nervously.
+
+"It is just this, that I _must_ speak to you," says the young man, his
+gay manner changing to one of extreme earnestness. "You were unkind to
+me that day we parted. I want you to tell me why. I understand quite
+that I have no right to demand even the smallest favor of you, yet I do
+entreat you to come with me."
+
+For another moment she hesitates, then--
+
+"Yes, I will come with you," she says, raising her soft eyes to his. In
+her whole manner, voice, and bearing there is something so sweet and
+childish and trusting as to render Desmond her slave upon the spot.
+
+The path to the rose-garden leads away from Miss Priscilla, so they
+avoid detection as they go.
+
+But they are singularly silent and grave; when the garden is reached
+they pass between the rows of growing blossoms mute, if rich in thought.
+At last, when silence is becoming too eloquent to be borne, her
+companion turns to her.
+
+"It wasn't _true_ what you said to me that last day, was it?" he asks,
+with far more anxiety than the occasion seems to demand. "Not _really_,
+I mean. You said it for fun, perhaps--or----It has been with me ever
+since. I can't forget it. You said you disliked sudden friendships, and
+the way you said it made me think you disliked _me_. Tell me I thought
+wrong."
+
+"Quite wrong," in a low tone. She is plucking a rose to pieces, and
+keeps her eyes downcast. "When I said that, I was angry about
+something."
+
+"About something I _said_?"
+
+"No. Nothing you said."
+
+"Something I did, then?" growing more and more anxious.
+
+"Ye-es."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"It doesn't matter now; not in the least now; and I can not tell you,
+_indeed_."
+
+"But I wish very much you would. Perhaps, being in wretched ignorance, I
+shall be so unhappy as to do it again some day, and so make you hate me
+a second time."
+
+"I didn't _hate_ you."
+
+"No? Yet there was a look in your eyes I wouldn't like to see there
+again. Do tell me, lest I once more fall into error."
+
+"Oh, no," coloring deeply, as though at some unpleasant recollection.
+"That would be impossible. It could never happen again. I shall take
+care of that. I shall never as long as I live get into a--that is--I
+mean--I----Really I have forgiven it all now, so let us forget it too."
+
+Though still greatly mystified, Mr. Desmond wisely forbears to press the
+point, something in her pretty distressed face and heightened color
+forbidding him.
+
+"Very good," he says, pleasantly. "But there is another thing I have
+not forgotten. Have you ever cleared up that mystery about my uncle and
+your aunts?"
+
+"Oh! _that_. It cannot be cleared, I am afraid it is too muddy a tale
+for any help; but I have at least found out all about it."
+
+"Would it be indiscreet if I said I would give anything to be as wise as
+you on this subject? In other words, will you divulge the secret?"
+
+"It is a story that doesn't redound to the honor and glory of _your_
+house," says Miss Beresford, stepping back from him with a gay little
+laugh, and glancing at him mischievously from under her big "Patience"
+hat. "If I were you I should shrink from hearing it."
+
+"I decline to shrink," with unparalleled bravery. "I prefer to rush upon
+my fate. Life has no longer any flavor for me until I hear what the old
+reprobate at Coole has done."
+
+"Well, if you _will_ insist upon the sorry tale, 'tis this. Once there
+lived a wicked knight, who wooed a maiden fair. But when that her heart
+was all his own, his love grew cold, and, turning from her, he refused
+to fulfil his plighted troth and lead her to the hymeneal altar. In
+fact, he loved and he rode away, leaving her as dismally disconsolate as
+the original maid forlorn."
+
+"Alas for the golden age of chivalrie!" says Mr. Desmond.
+
+"Alas, indeed! That wicked knight was your uncle; the maid forlorn my
+mother!"
+
+"You have been giving me a summary of a fairytale, haven't you?" asks
+he, in an unbelieving tone.
+
+"No, indeed; it is all quite true. From what I have heard, your uncle
+must have treated my mother very badly. Now, aren't you thoroughly
+ashamed of yourself and your family?"
+
+"One swallow makes no summer," says Mr. Desmond, hardily. "Because my
+uncle refused to succor a distressed damosel is no reason why I should
+so far forget myself. Besides, the whole thing seems incredible. Report
+says, and," with an expressive glance at her, "I can well believe it,
+your mother was the most beautiful woman of her time in all the
+countryside; while my uncle, bless him, is one of the very ugliest men I
+ever met in my life. He might take a prize in that line. Just fancy the
+Beast refusing to wed with Beauty!"
+
+"To be ugly, so far as a _man_ is concerned, is nothing," says Monica
+with a knowledge beyond her years. "Many singularly plain men have been
+much beloved. Though"--with an unconscious study of her companion's
+features, who is decidedly well favored--"I confess I should myself
+prefer a man whose nose was straight, and whose eyes were--had no
+inclination to look round the corner, I mean."
+
+"A straight nose is to be preferred, of course," says Mr. Desmond,
+absently stroking his own, which is all that can be desired. "But I
+never since I was born heard such an extraordinary story as yours. I
+give you my word,"--earnestly,--"my uncle is just the sort of man who,
+if _any_ girl, no matter how hideous, were to walk up to him and say, 'I
+consent to marry you,' ought to be devoutly grateful to her. Why,
+talking of noses, you should just see his: it's--it's _anyhow_," with
+growing excitement. "It's all up hill and down dale. I never before or
+since saw such a nose; and I'd back his mouth to _beat that_!"
+
+"He must be a very distinguished-looking person," says Miss Beresford,
+demurely.
+
+"I know very little about him, of course, having been always so much
+abroad; but he _looks_ like a man who could be painfully faithful to an
+attachment of that kind."
+
+"He was not faithful to her, at all events. I daresay he fell in love
+with some other girl about that time, and slighted my mother for her."
+
+"Well," says Mr. Desmond, drawing a deep breath, "he _is_ 'a grand
+man!'"
+
+"I think he must be a very _horrid_ old man," replies Monica, severely.
+
+"You have proofs of his iniquity, of course," says Brian, presently, who
+evidently finds a difficulty in believing in his uncle's guilt.
+
+"Yes. He wrote her a letter, stating in distinct terms that"--and here
+she alters her voice until it is highly suggestive of Miss Blake's fine
+contralto--"'he deemed it expedient for both parties that the present
+engagement existing between them should be annulled.' Those are Aunt
+Priscilla's words; what he really meant, I suppose, was that he was
+tired of her."
+
+"Your mother, I should imagine, was hardly a woman to be tired of
+readily."
+
+"That is a matter of opinion. We--that is, Terry and Kit and I--thought
+her a very tiresome woman indeed," says Miss Beresford, calmly. She does
+not look at him as she makes this startling speech, but looks beyond
+him into, possibly, a past where the "tiresome woman" held a part.
+
+Brian Desmond, gazing at her pale, pure, spiritual face, sustains a
+faint shock, as the meaning of her words reaches him. Is she heartless,
+emotionless? Could not even a mother's love touch her and wake her into
+life and feeling?
+
+"You weren't very fond of your mother, then?" he asks, gently. The bare
+memory of his own mother is adored by him.
+
+"Fond?" says Monica, as though the idea is a new one to her. "Fond? Yes,
+I suppose so; but we were all much fonder of my father. Not that either
+he or mamma took very much notice of us."
+
+"Were they so much wrapt up in each other, then?"
+
+"No, certainly not," quickly. Then with an amount of bitterness in her
+tone that contrasts strangely with its usual softness, "I wonder why I
+called my mother 'mamma' to you just now. I never dared do so to _her_.
+Once when she was going away somewhere I threw my arms around her and
+called her by that pet name; but she put me from her, and told me I was
+not to make a noise like a sheep."
+
+She seems more annoyed than distressed as she says this. Desmond is
+silent. Perhaps his silence frightens her, because she turns to him with
+a rather pale, nervous face.
+
+"I suppose I should not say such things as these to you," she says,
+unsteadily. "I forgot, it did not occur to me, that we are only
+strangers."
+
+"Say what you will to me," says Desmond, slowly, "and be sure of this,
+that what you _do_ say will be heard by you and me alone."
+
+"I believe you," she answers, with a little sigh.
+
+"And, besides, we are not altogether strangers," he goes on, lightly;
+"that day on the river is a link between us, isn't it?"
+
+"Oh, yes, the river," she says, smiling.
+
+"_Our_ river. I have brought myself to believe it is our joint property:
+no one else seems to know anything about it."
+
+"I have never been near it since," says Monica.
+
+"I _know that_," returns he, meaningly.
+
+"How?" is almost framed upon her lips; but a single glance at him
+renders her dumb. Something in his expression suggests the possibility
+that he has spent pretty nearly all his time since last they met, and
+_certainly_ all his afternoons, upon that shady river just below the
+pollard willows, in the vain hope of seeing her arrive.
+
+She blushes deeply, and then, in spite of herself, laughs out loud, a
+low but ringing laugh, full of music and mischief.
+
+This most uncalled-for burst of merriment has the effect of making Mr.
+Desmond preternaturally grave.
+
+"May I ask what you are laughing at?" he says, with painful politeness;
+whereupon Miss Beresford checks her mirth abruptly, and has the grace to
+blush again even harder than before. Her confusion is, indeed, the
+prettiest thing possible.
+
+"I don't know," she says, in an evasive tone.
+
+"People generally _do_ know what they are laughing at," contends he,
+seriously.
+
+"Well, _I_ don't," returns she, with great spirit.
+
+"Of course not, if you _say_ so; but," with suppressed wrath, "I don't
+myself think there is anything provocative of mirth in the thought of a
+fellow wasting hour after hour upon a lonely stream in the insane but
+honest hope of seeing somebody who _wouldn't_ come. Of course in your
+eyes the fellow was a fool to do it; but--but if I were the girl I
+wouldn't laugh at him for it."
+
+Silence.
+
+Monica's eyes are bent upon the ground; her face is averted; but there
+is something about her attitude that compels Mr. Desmond to believe she
+is sorry for her untimely laughter; and thinking this breeds hatred
+towards himself for having caused this sorrow and makes him accuse
+himself of basest ill temper.
+
+"I beg your pardon!" he says, in a contrite tone; "I shouldn't have
+spoken to you like that. I lost my temper most absurdly and must
+apologize to you for it now. It was ridiculous of me to suppose you
+would ever come again to the river; but one hopes against hope. Yet, as
+Feltham tells us, 'he that hopes too much shall deceive himself at
+last:' that was my fate, you see. And you never once thought of coming,
+did you? You were quite right."
+
+"No, I was quite wrong; but--but--_you_ are quite wrong too in _one_
+way," still with her eyes downturned.
+
+"By what right did I expect you? I was a presumptuous fool and got just
+what I deserved."
+
+"You were not a fool," exclaims she, quickly; and then, with a little
+impulsive gesture, she draws herself up and looks him fair in the eyes.
+"If I had known you were there," she says, bravely, though evidently
+frightened at her own temerity, "I--I--am almost sure _I_ should have
+been there too!"
+
+"No! would you really?" says Desmond, eagerly.
+
+Then follows a rather prolonged silence. Not an awkward one, but
+certainly a silence fraught with danger to both. There is no greater
+friend to Cupid than an unsought silence such as this. At last it is
+broken.
+
+"What lovely roses there are in this garden!" says Desmond, pointing to
+a bush of glowing beauty near him.
+
+"Are there not?" She has taken off a long white glove, so that one hand
+and arm are bare. The hand is particularly small and finely shaped, the
+nails on it are a picture in themselves; the arm is slight and childish,
+but rounded and very fair.
+
+Breaking a rose from the tree indicated, she examines it lovingly, and
+then, lifting it to his face, as though desirous of sympathy, says,--
+
+"Is it not sweet?"
+
+"It is indeed!" He is staring at her. Very gently he takes the little
+hand that holds the flower and keeps it in his own. He detains it so
+lightly that she might withdraw it if she pleases, but she does not.
+Perhaps she doesn't please, or perhaps she sees nothing remarkable in
+his action. At all events, she, who is so prone to blush on all
+occasions, does not change color now, but chatters to him gayly, in an
+unconcerned manner, about the scented blossoms round her, and afterwards
+about the people yonder, behind the tall flowering shrubs that surround
+the tennis-ground.
+
+And still her little slender fingers lie passively in his. Glancing at
+them, he strokes them lightly with his other hand, and counts her rings.
+
+"Four--five," he says; "quite a burden for such a little hand to carry."
+
+"I like them," says Monica: "brooches and earrings and bracelets I don't
+care for, but rings I love. I never really feel dressed until they are
+on. To slip them on my fingers is the last thing I do every morning
+before running downstairs. At least nearly the last."
+
+"And what is the last?"
+
+"I say my prayers," says Monica, smiling. "That is what every one does,
+isn't it?"
+
+"I don't know," says Mr. Desmond, not looking at her. It seems to him a
+long, long time now since last he said _his_ prayers. And then he
+suddenly decides within himself that he will say them to-morrow morning,
+"the last thing before going downstairs;" he cannot have quite forgotten
+_yet_.
+
+He is examining her rings as he thinks all this, and now a little pale
+turquoise thing attracts his notice.
+
+"Who gave you that?" he asks, suddenly. It is to a jealous eye rather a
+lovable little ring.
+
+"Papa, when I was fourteen," says Monica. "It is very pretty, isn't it?
+I have felt quite grown up ever since he gave me that."
+
+"Monica," says Brian Desmond suddenly, tightening his hold on her hand,
+"had you ever a lover before?"
+
+"Before?"
+
+"Yes," slowly, and as if determined to make his meaning clear, and yet,
+too, with a certain surprise at his own question. "Had you?"
+
+"Before?" as if bewildered, she repeats the word again. "Why, I never
+had a lover _at all_!"
+
+"Do not say that again," says Brian, moving a step nearer to her and
+growing pale: "I am your lover now--and _forever_!"
+
+"Oh! no, _no,_" says Monica, shrinking from him. "Do not say that."
+
+"I won't, if you forbid me, but," quietly, "I am, and shall be, all the
+same. I think my very soul--belongs to you."
+
+A crunching of gravel, a sound of coming footsteps, the murmur of
+approaching voices.
+
+Monica, pallid as an early snowdrop, looks up to see her Aunt Priscilla
+coming towards her, accompanied by a young man, a very tall and very
+stout young man, with a rather drilled air.
+
+"Ah! here is Aunt Priscilla," says Monica, breathlessly. "Who is that
+with her?"
+
+"Ryde, one of the marines stationed at Clonbree," says Mr. Desmond,
+cursing the marine most honestly in his heart of hearts. Clonbree is a
+small town about seven miles from Rossmoyne, where a company of marines
+has been sent to quell the Land League disturbances.
+
+Miss Priscilla is looking quite pleased with herself, and greets Monica
+with a fond smile.
+
+"I knew I should find you here," she says; "flowers have such a
+fascination for you. You will let me introduce you to Mr. Ryde, dear
+child!"
+
+And then the introduction is gone through, and Monica says something
+unworthy of note to this big young man, who is staring at her in a more
+earnest manner than is strictly within the rules of etiquette. Somehow,
+too, she presently discovers she has fallen into line with her new
+friend, and is moving towards the lawn again with Aunt Priscilla
+following in her train with _Mr. Desmond_.
+
+Quaking inwardly, Monica at first cannot take her mind off the twain
+behind her, and all the consequences that must ensue if Miss Priscilla
+once discovers a Desmond is being addressed by her with common civility.
+
+She is, therefore, but poor company for the tall marine, who seems,
+however, quite satisfied with the portion allotted him and maunders on
+inanely about the surroundings generally. When the weather and the
+landscape have been exhausted, it must be confessed, however, that he
+comes to a standstill.
+
+Miss Priscilla, pleased with her day and the satisfactory knowledge that
+every one has been raving about Monica, is making herself specially
+agreeable to her companion, who, nothing loath, draws her out and grows
+almost sycophantic in his attentions. She becomes genial with him, not
+knowing who he is, while he becomes even more than genial with her,
+knowing right well who she is. Indeed, so merrily does he make the time
+fly that Miss Priscilla is fain to confess to herself that seldom has
+she passed so pleasant a five minutes.
+
+In the meantime, Monica, strolling on in front with Mr. Ryde, is feeling
+both nervous and depressed. This chance meeting between her aunt and Mr.
+Desmond, and the memory of all the strange exciting things the latter
+has said to her, renders her mute and unequal to conversation, and her
+present companion is not one likely to enchain her attention by any
+brilliant flashes of intellect.
+
+He is, in truth, a very ordinary young man, of the heavy, stupid type
+too often met with to require either introduction or description. He had
+arrived in Queenstown about a fortnight before, with nothing much to
+guide his conduct in a strange country beyond the belief that Hibernia,
+as he elects to call it, is like Africa, a "land benighted," fit only to
+furnish food for jests. He has a fatal idea that he himself can supply
+these jests at times, and that, in fact, there are moments when he can
+be irresistibly funny over the Paddies: like many others devoid of
+brain, and without the power to create wholesome converse, he mistakes
+impertinence for wit, and of late has become rude at the expense of
+Ireland whenever he found anybody kind enough, or (as in Monica's case
+now) obliged, to listen to him.
+
+Just now, there being a distinct and rather embarrassing pause, he says
+amiably,--
+
+"Awfully jolly gown you've got on!"
+
+"So glad you like it!" says Monica, absently.
+
+"Got it from town, I suppose?"
+
+"From Dublin--yes."
+
+"Oh! by Jove, you call Dublin town, do you?" says Mr. Ryde, with a heavy
+laugh that suggests danger of choking, he being slightly plethoric by
+nature.
+
+"Yes: what do you call it?" says Monica, regarding him steadily. She has
+hardly looked at him till now, and tells herself instantly that young
+men with fat faces are not in _her_ line.
+
+"Always thought it was a village, or something of that sort, you know,"
+replies he, with a continuation of the suicidal merriment.
+
+Monica stares, and her color rises, ever so little, but unmistakably.
+
+"You ought to read something, papers and articles on Ireland, now and
+then," she says, deep but suspicious pity for him in her tone.
+"Considering what education costs nowadays, it is shameful the way yours
+has been neglected. Your college, or wherever you were, ought to be
+ashamed of itself. Why, I don't believe you know what a capital means."
+
+"A capital?--in writing, do you mean?" asks he, puzzled.
+
+"N--o; I wasn't thinking of that. You can write, I suppose," with
+malicious hesitation that betrays doubt. "I was speaking of the capitals
+of Europe. Dublin is one of them."
+
+Unable to grasp the fact that she is mildly snubbing him, Mr. Ryde
+smiles gayly, and says, "Oh, really?" with an amused air that incenses
+her still more highly. "Was there ever," she asks herself, angrily, "so
+hateful a man, or so long a gravel walk!"
+
+Having racked his brain to find something further wherewith to beguile
+the monotony of the way, and finding it barren, Mr. Ryde falls back upon
+the original subject.
+
+"I like a white gown on a woman better than any," he says. "And so they
+really _can_ make gowns in Ireland? I've been awfully disappointed, do
+you know?--reg'lar sold. I came over here in the full hope of seeing
+everybody going about in goatskins and with beads round their
+necks--and--er--that."
+
+"And why are you disappointed?" asks Monica, mildly, with a provoking
+want of appreciation of this brilliant sally. "Are you fond of goatskins
+and beads? Do _you_ wear them when 'your foot is on your native heath'?"
+
+"Eh?--Oh, you don't understand," says this dense young man, fatally
+bent on explanation. "I meant to imply that the general belief with us
+over there"--pointing to the horizon, which would have led him to
+America rather than to England--"is that everybody here is half
+savage--d'ye see--eh?"
+
+"Oh, yes, it's quite plain," says Miss Beresford, her eyes immovably
+fixed on the horizon. "'Over _there_' must be a most enlightened spot."
+
+"So of course I thought the goatskins, etc., would be the order of the
+day," goes on Mr. Ryde, with another chuckle.
+
+"You do think sometimes, then?" says Monica, innocently.
+
+"I have been thinking of _you_ ever since I first saw you this
+afternoon," returns he, promptly, if unwisely.
+
+There is an almost imperceptible pause, and then--
+
+"Don't trouble yourself to do that again," says Monica _very_ sweetly,
+but with a telltale flash in her blue eyes; "I am sure it must fatigue
+you dreadfully. Remember what a warm day it is. Another thing: don't for
+the future, please, say rude things about Ireland, because I don't like
+that _either_."
+
+The "_either_" is the cruellest cut of all: it distinctly forbids him
+even to think of her.
+
+"I am afraid I have been unlucky enough to offend you," says young Mars,
+stiffly, awaking at last to a sense of the situation, and glancing down
+uneasily at the demure little figure marching beside him with her pretty
+head erect. "I didn't mean it, I assure you. What I said was said in
+fun."
+
+"Are you always like that when you are funny?" asks she, looking
+straight before her. "Then I think, if I were you, I wouldn't do it."
+
+Then she is a little ashamed of her severity, and, changing her tone,
+makes herself so charming to him that he quite recovers his spirits
+before they come up with all the others on the lawn.
+
+Yet perhaps her smiles have wrought him more harm than her frowns.
+
+Madam O'Connor, going up to Miss Priscilla, engages her in some
+discussion, so that presently Monica finds Brian beside her again.
+
+"You will let me see you again soon," he says, in a low tone, seeing
+Ryde is talking to Miss Fitzgerald.
+
+"But how can I?"
+
+"You can if you will. Meet me somewhere, as I may not call; bring your
+brother, your sister, _any one_, with you; only meet me."
+
+"If I did that, how could I look at Aunt Priscilla afterwards?" says
+Monica, growing greatly distressed. "It would be shameful; I should feel
+like a traitor. I feel like it already."
+
+"Then do nothing. Take a passive part, if you will, and leave all to
+me," says Desmond, with a sudden determination in his eyes. "I would not
+have you vexed or made unhappy in any way. But that I shall see you
+again--and _soon_--be sure."
+
+"But----"
+
+"I will listen to no 'buts:' it is too late for them. Though all the
+world, though even you yourself, should forbid me your presence, I
+should still contrive to meet you."
+
+Here somebody addresses him, and he is obliged to turn and smile, and
+put off his face the touch of earnest passion that has just illumined
+it; while Monica stands silent, spellbound, trying to understand it all.
+
+"Is it thus that all my countrymen make love?" she asks herself,
+bewildered. At the very second meeting (she always, even to herself,
+ignores that ignominious first) to declare in this masterful manner that
+he _must_ and _will_ see her again!
+
+It is rapid, rather violent wooing; but I do not think the girl
+altogether dislikes it. She is a little frightened, perhaps, and
+uncertain, but there is a sense of power about him that fascinates her
+and tells her vaguely that faith and trust in him will never be
+misplaced. She feels strangely nervous, yet she lifts her eyes to his,
+and gazes at him long and bravely, and then the very faintest glimmer of
+a smile, that is surely full of friendliness and confidence, if nothing
+more, lights up her eyes and plays around her pensive mouth. A moment,
+and the smile has vanished, but the remembrance of it lives with him
+forever.
+
+Yes, the wooing is rapid, and she is not won; but "she likes me," thinks
+Desmond, with a touch of rapture he has never known before. "Certainly,
+she _likes_ me; and--there are always time and hope."
+
+"My dear Monica, it grows late," says Miss Priscilla at this moment.
+"Say good-by to Madame O'Connor, and let us go."
+
+"Oh, not a bit of it, now," says Madam O'Connor, hospitably in her rich,
+broad brogue, inherited in all its purity, no doubt, from her kingly
+ancestor. "You mustn't take her away yet: sure the day is young. Mr.
+Ryde, why don't you get Miss Beresford to play a game with you? In my
+time, a young fellow like you wouldn't wait to be told to make himself
+agreeable to a pretty girl. There, go now, do! Have you brought your own
+racket with you?"
+
+"I left it at home," says Mr. Ryde. "Fact is," affectedly, "I didn't
+think tennis was known over here. Didn't fancy you had a court in the
+land."
+
+This speech fires the blood of the O'Toole's last descendant.
+
+Madam O'Connor uprears a haughty crest, and fixes the luckless
+lieutenant with an eagle eye, beneath which he quails.
+
+"There is no doubt we lack much," she says, taking his measure with
+lofty scorn; "but we have at least our _manners_."
+
+With this she turns her back upon him, and commences a most affable
+discussion with Miss Penelope, leaving her victim speechless with
+fright.
+
+"Have a brandy-and-soda, Ryde?" says Mr. Kelly, who is always
+everywhere, regarding the wretched marine through his eyeglass with a
+gaze of ineffable sadness. "Nothing like it, after an engagement of this
+sort."
+
+"I thought Ireland was the land for jokes," says the injured Ryde,
+indignantly,--"stock in trade sort of thing over here; and yet when I
+give 'em one of mine they turn upon me as if I was the worst in the
+world. I don't believe any one understands 'em over here."
+
+"You see, your jokes are too fine for us," says Mr. Kelly, mournfully.
+"We miss the point of them."
+
+"You are all the most uncomfortable people I ever met," says the
+wrathful marine.
+
+"We are, we are," acquiesces Kelly. "We are really a very stupid people.
+Anything, delicate or refined is lost upon us, or is met in an
+unfriendly spirit. I give you my word, I have known a fellow's head
+smashed for less than half what you said to Madam O'Connor just now.
+Prejudice runs high in this land. You have, perhaps," in a friendly
+tone, "heard of a shillelagh?"
+
+"No, I haven't," sulkily.
+
+"No? _really_? It is quite an institution here. It's a sort of a big
+stick, a very unpleasant stick, and is used freely upon the smallest
+difference of opinion. You'll meet them round every corner when you get
+more used to us: you'd like to see them, wouldn't you?"
+
+"No, I shouldn't," still more sulkily.
+
+"Oh, but you ought, you know. If you are going to live for any time in
+the country, you should study its institutions. The best way to see
+_this_ one is to make cutting remarks about Ireland in a loud voice when
+two or three of the peasants are near you. They don't like cutting
+remarks, they are so stupid, and jokes such as yours annoy them
+fearfully. Still, you mustn't mind that; you must smother your natural
+kindliness of disposition and annoy them, if you want to see the
+shillelagh."
+
+"I said nothing to annoy Mrs. O'Connor, at any rate," says Mr. Ryde.
+"She needn't have taken a simple word or two like that."
+
+"You see, we are all so terribly thin-skinned," says Mr. Kelly,
+regretfully, "I quite blush for my country-people. Of course there are
+noble exceptions to every rule. I am the noble exception here. I don't
+feel in the least annoyed with you. Now do try some brandy, my dear
+fellow: it will do you all the good in the world."
+
+"I don't know this moment whether _you_ are laughing at me or not," says
+the marine, eying him doubtfully.
+
+"I _never_ laugh," says Mr. Kelly, reproachfully. "I thought _even you_
+could see that. Well, will you have that B. and S.?"
+
+But Mars is huffed, and declines to accept consolation in any shape. He
+strolls away with an injured air to where his brother officer, Captain
+Cobbett, is standing near the hall door, and pours his griefs into his
+ears. Captain Cobbett being a very spare little man, with a half starved
+appearance and a dismal expression, it is doubtful whether poor Ryde
+receives from him the amount of sympathy required.
+
+"Well," says Madam O'Connor, turning round as she sees him disappear,
+and addressing the three or four people round her generally, "'pon me
+conscience, that's the silliest young man I ever met in my life!" When
+disturbed, elated, or distressed, Madam O'Connor always says, "'Pon me
+conscience!"
+
+"Don't be hard upon him," says Mr. Kelly, kindly. "Though very mad, he
+is _quite_ harmless!"
+
+"He plays tennis very well," says Miss Fitzgerald, the tall girl. "So
+nice, isn't it? to have these ancient games reproduced!" This with the
+learned air of one who could say more if she would.
+
+"_Ancient?_" says Madam O'Connor. "Faith, I thought it was a game of
+yesterday."
+
+"Oh, dear, no!" says the erudite Bella, with a lenient smile. "Tennis
+was first brought from France to England in the reign of Charles the
+Second."
+
+"There now, Miss Beresford, don't forget that," says Madam O'Connor,
+turning to Monica with an amused smile: "it is essential you should
+remember it, as it is part of one's education." After which she moves
+away towards some other guests, having said all she has to say to those
+near her.
+
+"May I see you to your carriage, Miss Blake?" says Desmond, finding she
+and Miss Penelope are bent on going; and Aunt Priscilla, who has taken
+quite a fancy to this strange young man, gives her gracious permission
+that he shall accompany them to the fossilized chariot awaiting them.
+
+"Who is he, my dear Priscilla?" asks Miss Penelope, in a stage whisper,
+as they go.
+
+"Don't know, my dear, but a vastly agreeable young man, very superior to
+those of his own age of the present day. He is marvellously polite, and
+has, I think, quite a superior air."
+
+"Quite," says Penelope, "and a very sweet expression besides,--so open,
+so ingenuous. I wish _all_ were like him." This with a sigh, Terence
+having proved himself open to suspicion with regard to plain dealing
+during the past few days.
+
+Now, it so happens that at this instant they turn a corner leading from
+the shrubbery walk on to the gravel sweep before the hall door; as they
+turn this corner, so does some one else, only _he_ is coming from the
+gravel sweep to the walk, so that consequently he is face to face with
+the Misses Blake without any hope of retreat.
+
+The walk is narrow at the entrance to it, and as the newcomer essays to
+pass hurriedly by Miss Priscilla he finds himself fatally entangled with
+her, she having gone to the right as he went to the left, and afterwards
+having gone to the left as he went to the right, and so on.
+
+Finally a passage is cleared, and the stranger--who is an amazingly ugly
+old man, with a rather benign though choleric countenance--speeds past
+the Misses Blake like a flash of lightning, and with a haste creditable
+to his years, but suggestive rather of fear than elasticity.
+
+"My uncle?" says Brian Desmond, in an awestruck tone, to Monica, who
+literally goes down before the terrible annunciation, and trembles
+visibly.
+
+It is a rencontre fraught with mortal horror to the Misses Blake. For
+years they have not so much as looked upon their enemy's face, and now
+their skirts have actually brushed him as he passed.
+
+"Come, come quickly, Monica," says Miss Penelope, on this occasion being
+the one to take the initiative. "Do not linger, child. Do you not see?
+It was _our enemy_ that passed by."
+
+If she had said "it was the arch fiend," her voice could not have been
+more tragic.
+
+"I am coming, Aunt Penny," says Monica, nervously.
+
+Now, it is at this inauspicious moment that Mr. Kelly (who, as I have
+said before, is always everywhere) chooses to rush up to Brian Desmond
+and address him in a loud tone.
+
+"My dear boy, you are not going yet, are you?" he says reproachfully. "I
+say, Desmond, you can't, you know, because Miss Fitzgerald says you
+promised to play in the next match with her."
+
+The fatal name had been uttered clearly and distinctly. As though
+petrified the two old ladies, stand quite still and stare at Brian; then
+Miss Priscilla, with a stately movement, gets between him and Monica,
+and, in tones that tremble perceptibly, says to him,--
+
+"I thank you for the courtesy already received sir; but we will no
+longer trouble you for your escort: we prefer to seek our carriage
+_alone_."
+
+She sweeps him a terribly stiff little salute, and sails off, still
+trembling and very pale, Miss Penelope, scarcely less pale, following in
+her wake.
+
+Desmond has barely time to grasp Monica's hand, and whisper, "Remember,"
+in as mysterious a tone as the hapless Stuart, when she too is swept
+away, and carried from his sight.
+
+Not until the gates of Aghyohillbeg are well behind them do the Misses
+Blake sufficiently recover themselves for speech. Terence, who has been
+a silent witness of the whole transaction, creating a diversion by
+making some remark about the day generally, breaks the spell that binds
+them. His remark is passed over in silence, but still the spell is
+broken.
+
+"Whoever introduced you to that young man," begins Miss Priscilla,
+solemnly, "did a wrong thing. Let us hope it was done in ignorance."
+
+At this Monica shivers inwardly and turns cold, as she remembers that no
+introduction has ever been gone through between her and "that young
+man." What if her Aunt Priscilla persists, and asks the name of the
+offending medium? Fortunately, Miss Blake loses sight of this idea,
+being so much engrossed with a greater.
+
+"For the future you must forget you ever spoke to this Mr. Desmond," she
+says, her face very stern. "Happily he is an utter stranger to you, so
+there will be no difficulty about it. You will remember this, Monica?"
+
+"Yes, I will remember," says the girl, slowly, and with a visible
+effort.
+
+Then Moyne is reached in solemn silence so far as the Misses Blake are
+concerned; in solemn silence, too, the two old ladies mount the oaken
+staircase that leads to their rooms. Outside, on the corridor, they
+pause and contemplate each other for a moment earnestly.
+
+"He--he is very good-looking," says Miss Penelope at last, as though
+compelled to make the admission even against her will.
+
+"He is abominably handsome," says Miss Priscilla fiercely: after which
+she darts into her room and closes the door with a subdued bang behind
+her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  How Brian, having instituted inquiries, condemns his Uncle
+  secretly--How Terry throws light upon a dark subject, and how, for
+  the third time, Love "finds out his way."
+
+
+It is the evening of the next day, and dinner at Coole has just come to
+an end. Mr. Kelly, who has been Brian's guest for the last fortnight,
+and who is to remain as long as suits him or as long after the
+grouse-shooting in August as he wills, has taken himself into the garden
+to smoke a cigar. This he does at a hint from Brian.
+
+Now, finding himself alone with his uncle, Brian says, in the casual
+tone of one making an indifferent remark,--
+
+"By the bye, I can see you are not on good terms with those old ladies
+at Moyne."
+
+As he speaks he helps himself leisurely to some strawberries, and so
+refrains from looking at his uncle.
+
+"No," says The Desmond, shortly.
+
+"Some old quarrel I have been given to understand."
+
+"I should prefer not speaking about it," says the squire.
+
+"Twinges of conscience even at this remote period," thinks Brian, and is
+rather tickled at the idea, as he lifts his head to regard his uncle in
+a new light,--that is, as a regular Don Juan.
+
+"Well, of course, I dare say I should not have mentioned the subject,"
+he says, apologetically; "but I had no idea it was a sore point. It was
+not so much bad taste on my part as ignorance. I beg your pardon!"
+
+"It was a very unhappy affair altogether," says Don Juan.
+
+"Very unfortunate indeed, from what I have heard."
+
+"_More_ than unfortunate!--right down disgraceful!" says the squire,
+with such unlooked-for energy as raises astonishment in the breast of
+his nephew. ("By Jove, one would think the old chap had only now
+awakened to a sense of his misconduct," he thinks, irreverently.)
+
+"Oh, well," he says, leniently, "hardly _that_, you know."
+
+"_Quite_ that," emphatically.
+
+"It has been often done before: yours is not a solitary case."
+
+"Solitary or not, there were elements about it inexcusable," says the
+old squire, beating his hand upon the table as though to emphasize his
+words.
+
+"I wouldn't take it so much to heart if I were you," says Brian, who is
+really beginning to pity him.
+
+"It has lain on my heart for twenty years. I can't take it off now,"
+says the squire.
+
+"You have evidently suffered," returns Brian, who is getting more and
+more amazed at the volcano he has roused. "Of course I can quite
+understand that if you were once more to find yourself in similar
+circumstances you would act very differently."
+
+"I should indeed!--_very_ differently. A man seldom makes a fool of
+himself twice in a lifetime."
+
+("He's regretting her now," thinks Brian.)
+
+But out loud he says,--
+
+"You didn't show much wisdom, I daresay."
+
+"No, none; and as for _her_,--to fling away such a love as that----"
+Here he pauses, and looks dreamily at the silver tankard before him.
+
+This last speech rather annoys Brian; to gloat over the remembrance of a
+love that had been callously cast aside to suit the exigences of the
+moment, seems to the younger man a caddish sort of thing not to be
+endured.
+
+("Though what the mischief any pretty girl of nineteen could have seen
+in _him_," he muses, gazing with ill-concealed amazement at his uncle's
+ugly countenance, "is more than I can fathom.")
+
+"Perhaps it wasn't so deep a love as _you_ imagine," he cannot refrain
+from saying _a propos_ to his uncle's last remark, with a view to taking
+him down a peg.
+
+"It was, sir," says the Squire, sternly. "It was the love of a lifetime.
+People may doubt as they will, but I know _no_ love has superseded it."
+
+"Oh, he is in his dotage!" thinks Brian, disgustedly; and, rising from
+the table, he makes a few more trivial remarks, and then walks from the
+dining-room on to the balcony and so to the garden beneath.
+
+Finding his friend Kelly in an ivied bower, lost in a cigar, and
+possibly, though improbably, in improving meditation, he is careful not
+to disturb him, but, making a successful detour, escapes his notice, and
+turns his face towards that part of Coole that is connected with Moyne
+by means of the river.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Moyne, too, dinner has come to an end, and, tempted by the beauty of
+the quiet evening, the two old ladies and the children have strolled
+into the twilit garden.
+
+There is a strange and sweet hush in the air--a stillness full of
+life--but slumberous life. The music of streams can be heard, and a
+distant murmur from the ocean; but the birds have got their heads
+beneath their wings, and the rising night-wind wooes them all in vain.
+
+Shadows numberless are lying in misty corners; the daylight lingers yet,
+as though loath to quit us and sink into eternal night. It is an eve of
+"holiest mood," full of tranquillity and absolute calm.
+
+    "It is that hour of quiet ecstasy,
+      When every rustling wind that passes by
+      The sleeping leaf makes busiest minstrelsy."
+
+"You are silent, Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, glancing at her.
+
+"I am thinking. Such an eve as this always recalls Katherine; and
+yesterday _that meeting_,--all has helped to bring the past most vividly
+before me."
+
+"Ah, dear, yes," says Miss Penelope, regarding her with a furtive but
+tender glance. "How must _he_ have felt, when he thought what grief he
+brought to her young life!"
+
+"You are talking of mother?" asks Kit, suddenly, letting her large dark
+eyes rest on Miss Penelope's face, as though searching for latent
+madness there.
+
+"Yes, my dear, of course."
+
+"He would not have dared so to treat her had her father been alive or
+had we been blessed with a brother," says Miss Priscilla, sternly. "He
+proved himself a dastard and a coward."
+
+"Perhaps there was some mistake," says Monica, timidly, plucking a pale
+blossom and pretending to admire it.
+
+"No, no. We believe he contracted an affection for some other girl, and
+for her sake jilted your mother. If so, retribution fit and proper
+followed on his perfidy, because he brought no wife later on to grace
+his home. Doubtless he was betrayed in his turn. That was only just."
+
+"There seems to be reason in that conjecture," says Miss Penelope,
+"because he went abroad almost immediately. I saw him shortly before he
+left the country, and he was then quite a broken-down man. He must have
+taken his _own_ misfortune greatly to heart."
+
+"Served him right!" says Miss Priscilla, uncompromisingly. "He deserved
+no greater luck. Your mother suffered so much at his hands that she
+almost lost her health. I don't believe she ever got over it."
+
+"Oh, yes, she did," says Terry, suddenly; "she got over it uncommonly
+well. We didn't know who Mr. Desmond was then, of course; but I know she
+used to make quite a joke of him."
+
+"A joke!" says Miss Priscilla, in an awful tone.
+
+"Yes, regular fun, you know," goes on Terence, undaunted. "One day she
+was telling father some old story about Mr. Desmond, a 'good thing'
+_she_ called it, and she was laughing heartily; but he wasn't, and when
+she had finished, I remember, he said something to her about want of
+'delicacy of feeling,' or something like that."
+
+"I was there," says Kit, in her high treble. "He said, too, she ought to
+be ashamed of herself."
+
+"Oh, that was nothing," says Mr. Beresford, airily. "Father and mother
+never agreed for a moment; they were always squabbling from the time
+they got up till they went to bed again."
+
+The Misses Blake have turned quite pale.
+
+"Terence how can you speak so of your sainted mother?" says Miss
+Penelope. "I'm sure, from her letters to us, she was a most _devoted_
+mother and wife, and, indeed, sacrificed her every wish and pleasure to
+yours."
+
+"I never knew it cost her so much to _keep away_ from us," says Terence.
+"If she was dying for our society, she must indeed have sacrificed
+herself, because she made it the business of her life to avoid us from
+morn to dewy eve."
+
+"Doubtless she had her duties," says Miss Penelope, in a voice of
+suppressed fear. What is she going to hear next? what are these dreadful
+children going to say?
+
+"Perhaps she had," said Terence. "If so, they didn't agree with her, as
+she was always in a bad temper. She used to give it to papa right and
+left, until he didn't dare to call his soul his own. When I marry, I
+shall take very good care my wife doesn't lead me the life my mother led
+my father."
+
+"_Your_ wife! who'd marry _you_?" says Kit, scornfully, which interlude
+gives the discussion a rest for a little time. But soon they return to
+the charge.
+
+"Your mother when here had an angelic temper," says Miss Penelope. Miss
+Priscilla all this time seems incapable of speech.
+
+"Well, she hadn't when _there_," says Terence; and then he says a
+dreadful thing, as vulgar as it is dreadful, that fills his aunt's heart
+with dismay. "She and my father fought like cat and dog," he says; and
+the Misses Blake feel their cup is indeed full.
+
+"And she never would take Monica anywhere," says Kit; "so selfish!"
+
+It is growing _too_ terrible. Is their idol to be shattered thus before
+their eyes?
+
+"Monica, was your mother _unkind_ to you?" says Miss Penelope, in a
+voice full of anguish. After all these years, is the Katherine of their
+affections to be dragged in the dust?
+
+Monica hesitates. She can see the grief in her aunt's face, and cannot
+bear to add to it. The truth is that the late Mrs. Beresford had _not_
+been beloved by her children, for reasons which it will be possible to
+conceive, but which would be tiresome to enumerate here. Perhaps there
+seldom had been a more careless or disagreeable mother.
+
+So Monica pauses, flushes, glances nervously from right to left, and
+then back again, and finally rests her loving, regretful eyes full upon
+Miss Penelope's agitated face.
+
+Something she sees there decides her. Sinking to her knees, she flings
+her arms around the old lady's neck, and lays her cheek to hers.
+
+"I will say nothing, but that I am happy _here_," she says, in a low
+whisper.
+
+Miss Penelope's arms close round her. The worst has come to her; yet
+there is solace in this clinging embrace, and in the dewy lips that
+seek hers. If she has lost one idol, who can say she has not gained
+another, and perhaps a worthier one?
+
+Yet beyond doubt the two old ladies have sustained a severe shock: they
+hold down their heads, and for a long time avoid each other's eyes, as
+though fearing what may there be seen.
+
+"Let us walk round the garden, Aunt Priscilla," says Monica, feeling
+very sorry for them. "The evening is lovely, and the roses so sweet."
+
+"Come then," says Miss Priscilla, who is perhaps glad to escape from her
+own thoughts. And so they all wander to and fro in the pretty garden,
+bending over this flower and lingering over that in a soft, idle sort of
+enjoyment that belongs alone to the country.
+
+Terence had disappeared, but, as he is not great on flowers, his
+presence is not indispensable, and no one takes any notice of his
+defection.
+
+Presently they come upon the old gardener, who is also the old coachman,
+upon his bended knees beside a bed. The whole garden is scrupulously
+raked and scrupulously weeded till not a fault can be found. But Miss
+Priscilla is one of those who deem it necessary always to keep a servant
+up to his trumps.
+
+Stooping over the bed, therefore, she carefully adjusts her glasses upon
+her nose, and proceeds to examine with much minuteness the earth beneath
+her. A tiny green leaf attracts her notice.
+
+"Corney, is that a _weed_?" she asks, severely. "I certainly remember
+sowing some seeds in this place; but _that_ has a weedy look."
+
+"It's seeds, miss," says Corney, "Ye'd know it by the curl of it."
+
+"I hope so, I _hope_ so," says Miss Priscilla, doubtfully, "but there's
+a common cast about it. It reminds me of groundsel. Corney, whatever you
+do, don't grow careless."
+
+"Faix, I'm too ould a hand for that, miss," says Corney. "But, to tell
+the truth, I think myself, now, not to desaive ye, that the leaf ye
+mentioned is uncommon like the groundsel. You ought to be proud of yer
+eyes, Miss Priscilla; they're as clear as they were twinty years ago."
+
+Greatly mollified by this compliment, Miss Priscilla declines to scold
+any more, and, the groundsel forgotten, moves onward to a smooth piece
+of sward on which a cartload of large white stones from the seashore has
+been ruthlessly thrown.
+
+"What is this?" she says, indignantly, eying the stones with much
+disfavor. "Corney, come here! Who flung those stones down on my green
+grass?"
+
+"The rector, miss. He sent his man wid a load of 'em, and 'tis there
+they left 'em."
+
+"A most unwarrantable proceeding!" says Miss Priscilla, who is in her
+managing mood. "What did Mr. Warren mean by that?"
+
+"Don't you think it was kind of him to draw them for our rookery, my
+dear Priscilla?" says Miss Penelope, suggestively.
+
+"No, I don't," says Miss Priscilla. "To bring cartloads of nasty large
+stones and fling them down upon my velvet grass on which I pride myself
+(though _you_ may think nothing of it, Penelope) is _not_ kind. I must
+say it was anything but nice,--anything but gentlemanly."
+
+"My dear, he is quite a gentleman, and a very good man."
+
+"That may be. I suppose I am not so uncharitable as to be rebuked for
+every little word; but to go about the country destroying people's good
+grass, for which I paid a shilling a pound, is _not_ gentlemanly.
+Katherine, what are you laughing at?"
+
+"At the stones," says Kit.
+
+"There is nothing to laugh at in a stone. Don't be silly, Katherine. I
+wonder, Monica, you don't make it the business of your life to instil
+some sense into that child. The idea of standing still to laugh at a
+_stone_."
+
+"Better do that than stand still to _cry_ at it," says the younger Miss
+Beresford, rebelliously. Providentially, the remark is unheard; and
+Monica, scenting battle in the breeze, says, hastily,--
+
+"Do you remember the roses at Aghyohillbeg, auntie? Well, I don't think
+any of them were as fine as this," pointing to a magnificent blossom
+near her. It is the truth, and it pleases Miss Priscilla mightily, she
+having a passion for her roses. And so peace is once more restored.
+
+"It grows chilly," says Miss Penelope, presently.
+
+"Yes; let us all go in," says Miss Priscilla.
+
+"Oh, not yet, auntie; it is quite lovely yet," says Monica, earnestly.
+She cannot go in yet, not _yet_; the evening is still young, and--and
+she would like _so_ much to go down to the river, if only for a moment.
+All this she says guiltily to herself.
+
+"Well we old women will go in at least," says Miss Penelope. "You two
+children can coquet with the dew for a little while; but don't stay too
+long, or sore throats will be the result."
+
+"Yes, yes," says Miss Priscilla, following her sister. As she passes
+Monica, she looks anxiously at the girl's little slight fragile figure
+and her slender throat and half-bared arms.
+
+"That dress is thin. Do not stay out too long. Take care of yourself, my
+darling." She kisses her pretty niece, and then hurries on, as though
+ashamed of this show of affection.
+
+A little troubled by the caress, Monica moves mechanically down the path
+that leads towards the meadows and the river, followed by Kit. By this
+time the latter is in full possession of all that happened
+yesterday,--at least so much of it as relates to Monica's acquaintance
+with Mr. Desmond (minus the tender passages), his uncle's encounter with
+her aunts, and Brian's subsequent dismissal. Indeed, so much has
+transpired in the telling of all this that Kit, who is a shrewd child,
+has come to the just conclusion that the young Mr. Desmond is in love
+with her Monica!
+
+Strange to say, she is not annoyed at his presumption, but rather
+pleased at it,--he being the first live lover she has ever come in
+contact with, and therefore interesting in no small degree.
+
+Now, as she follows her sister down the flowery pathway, her mind is
+full of romance, pure and sweet and great with chivalry, as a child's
+would be. But Monica is sad and taciturn. Her mind misgives her,
+conscience pricks her, her soul is disquieted within her.
+
+What was it she had promised Aunt Priscilla yesterday? Aunt Priscilla
+had said, "For the future you will remember this?" and she had answered,
+"Yes."
+
+But how can she forget? It was a foolish promise, for who has got a
+memory under control?
+
+Of course, Aunt Priscilla had meant her to understand that she was never
+to speak to Mr. Desmond again, and she had given her promise in the
+spirit. And of course she would be obedient; she would at least so far
+obey that she would not be the first to speak to him, nor would she seek
+him--nor----But why, then, is she going to the river? Is it because the
+evening is so fine, or is there no lurking hope of----
+
+And, after all, what certainty is there that--that--any one will be at
+the river at this hour? And even if they should be, why need she speak
+to him? she can be silent; but if he speaks to her, what then? Can she
+refuse to answer?
+
+Her mind is as a boat upon a troubled sea, tossed here and there; but
+by and by the wind goes down, and the staunch boat is righted, and turns
+its bow toward home.
+
+"Kit, do not let us go to the river to-night," she says, turning to face
+her sister in the narrow path.
+
+"But why? It is so warm and light, and such a little way!"
+
+"You have been often there. Let us turn down this side of the meadow,
+and see where it will lead to."
+
+That it leads directly away from Coole there cannot be the least doubt;
+and the little martyr treading the ground she would not, feels with an
+additional pang of disappointment that the fulfilment of her duty does
+not carry with it the thrill of rapture that ought to suffuse her soul.
+No, not the faintest touch of satisfaction at her own heroism comes to
+lighten the bitter regret she is enduring as she turns her back
+deliberately on the river and its chances. She feels only sorrow, and
+the fear that _some one_ will think her hard-hearted, and she could cry
+a little, but for Kit and shame's sake.
+
+"Monica, who is that?" exclaims Kit, suddenly, staring over the high
+bank, beside which they are walking, into the field beyond. Following
+her glance, Monica sees a crouching figure on the other side of this
+bank, but lower down, stealing cautiously, noiselessly, towards them, as
+though bent on secret murder. A second glance betrays the fact that it
+is Terence, with--yes, most positively with a _gun_!
+
+"Where on earth did he get it?" says Kit; and, unable to contain her
+curiosity any longer, she scrambles up the bank, and calls out, "Terry,
+here we are! Come here! Where did you get it?" at the top of her fresh
+young lungs.
+
+As she does so, a little gray object, hitherto unseen by her, springs
+from among some green stuffs, and, scudding across the field into the
+woods of Coole beyond, is in a moment lost to view.
+
+"Oh, _bother_!" cries Terry, literally dancing with rage; "I wouldn't
+_doubt_ you to make that row just when I was going to fire. I wish to
+goodness you girls would stay at home, and not come interfering with a
+fellow's sport. You are always turning up at the wrong moment, and just
+when you're not wanted!--indeed you _ever are_!"
+
+These elegant and complimentary remarks he hurls at their heads, as
+though with the wish to annihilate them. But they haven't the faintest
+effect: the Misses Beresford are too well accustomed to his eloquence to
+be dismayed by it. They treat it, indeed, as a matter of course, and so
+continue their inquiries uncrushed.
+
+"Terry, where _did_ you get this gun?" asks Monica, as breathless with
+surprise as Kit. "Is it"--fearfully--"_loaded_? Oh! don't!--don't point
+it this way! It will surely go off and kill somebody."
+
+Here she misses her footing and slips off the high bank, disappearing
+entirely from view, only to reappear again presently, flushed but
+uninjured.
+
+"What a lovely gun!" says Kit, admiringly.
+
+"Isn't it?" says Terence, forgetting his bad temper in his anxiety to
+exhibit his treasure. "It's a breech-loader, too; none of your
+old-fashioned things, mind you, but a reg'lar good one. I'll tell you
+who lent it to me, if you'll promise not to peach."
+
+"We won't," says Kit, who is burning with curiosity.
+
+"Guess, then."
+
+"Bob Warren?" says Monica. Bob Warren is the rector's son, and is much
+at Moyne.
+
+"Not likely! Pegs above _him_. Well, I'll tell you. It's that fellow
+that's spoons on you,"--with all a brother's perspicacity,--"the fellow
+who saw us on the hay-cart,"--Monica writhes inwardly,--"Desmond, you
+know!"
+
+"The enemy's nephew?" asks Kit, in a thrilling tone, that bespeaks
+delight and a malicious expectation of breakers ahead.
+
+"Yes. I was talking to him yesterday, early in the day, at Madam
+O'Connor's; and he asked me was I your brother, Monica, to which I
+pleaded guilty, though," with a grin, "I'd have got out of it if I
+could; and then he began to talk about shooting, and said I might knock
+over any rabbits I liked in Coole. I told him I had no gun, so he
+offered to lend me one. I thought it was awfully jolly of him,
+considering I was an utter stranger, and that; but he looks a real good
+sort. He sent over the gun this morning by a boy, and I have had it
+hidden in the stable until now. I thought I'd never get out of that
+beastly garden this evening."
+
+"Oh, Terence, you shouldn't have taken the gun from him," says Monica,
+flushing. "Just think what Aunt Priscilla would say if she heard of it.
+You know how determined she is that we shall have no intercourse with
+the Desmonds."
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!" says Mr. Beresford. "I never heard such a row as
+they are forever making about simply _nothing_. Why, it's quite a
+common thing to jilt a girl, nowadays. I'd do it myself in a minute."
+
+"You won't have time," says Kit, contemptuously. "She--whoever she may
+be--will be sure to jilt _you_ first."
+
+"Look here," says Terence, eyeing his younger sister with much disfavor;
+"you're getting so precious sharp, you know, that I should think
+there'll be a conflagration on the Liffey before long; and I should
+think, too, that an outraged nation would be sure to fling the cause of
+it into the flames. So take care."
+
+"Terence, you ought to send that gun back _at once_," says Monica.
+
+"Perhaps I ought, but certainly I shan't," says Terence, genially. "And
+if I were you," politely, "I wouldn't make an ass of myself. There is
+quite enough of that sort of thing going on up there," indicating, by a
+wave of his hand, the drawing-room at Moyne, where the Misses Blake are
+at present dozing.
+
+"You shouldn't speak of them like that," says Monica; "it is very
+ungrateful of you, when you know how kind they are, and how fond of
+you."
+
+"Well, I'm fond of them, too," says Terence, remorsefully but gloomily;
+"and I'd be even fonder if they would only leave me alone. But they keep
+such a look-out on a fellow that sometimes I feel like cutting the whole
+thing and making a clean bolt of it."
+
+"If you ran away you would soon be wishing yourself back again," says
+Monica, scornfully. "You know you will have no money until you are
+twenty-one. People pretend to be discontented, at times, with their
+lives; but in the long run they generally acknowledge 'there is no place
+like home.'"
+
+"No, thank goodness, there isn't," says Terence, with moody fervor.
+"I'll acknowledge it at once, without the run. To have frequent
+repetitions of it would be more than human nature could endure. I have
+known two homes already; I should think a third would be my death."
+
+So saying, he shoulders the forbidden gun and marches off.
+
+Monica and Kit, getting down from their elevated position, also pursue
+their path, which leads in a contrary direction.
+
+"Monica," says Kit, presently, slipping her slender brown fingers
+through her sister's arm, "what did Terry mean just now, when he spoke
+about some one being 'spoons' on you? Does that mean being in love with
+you?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Is Mr. Desmond, then, in love with you?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"_Is_ he?"
+
+"Oh, Kit, how can I answer such a question as that?"
+
+"In words, I suppose. _Is_ he in love with you?"
+
+"I don't know," says Monica, in a troubled tone. "If I ever had a lover
+before, I should _know_; but----"
+
+"That means he is," says the astute Kit. "And I'm sure," with a little
+loving squeeze of her arm, "I don't wonder at it."
+
+"You must not say that," says Monica, earnestly. "Indeed, he said a few
+_things_ to me, but that is nothing; and----"
+
+"You think he _likes_ you?"
+
+"Yes," reluctantly.
+
+"I believe he adores the very ground you walk on."
+
+"Oh, no, indeed."
+
+"If you say that, he _isn't_ a real lover. A real one, to my mind, ought
+to be ready and willing to kiss the impressions your heels may make in
+the earth."
+
+"That would be the act of a fool; and Mr. Desmond is not a fool."
+
+"Ergo, not a lover. And yet I think he is _yours_. Monica," coaxingly,
+"did he say any pretty things to you?"
+
+"What should he say? I only met him twice."
+
+"You are prevaricating," gazing at her severely. "Why don't you answer
+me honestly?"
+
+"I don't know what _you_ call 'pretty things.'"
+
+"Yes, you do. Did he tell you your eyes were _deep, deep_ wells of love,
+and that your face was full of soul?"
+
+"No, he did not," says Monica, somewhat indignantly; "_certainly_ not.
+The idea!"
+
+"Well, that is what Percival said to the girl _he_ loved in the book I
+was reading yesterday," says Kit, rather cast down.
+
+"Then I'm very glad Mr. Desmond isn't like Percival."
+
+"I daresay he is nicer," says Kit, artfully. Then she tucks her arm into
+her sister's, and looks fondly in her face. "He must have said
+_something_ to you," she says. "Darling love, why won't you tell your
+own Kitten all about it?"
+
+A little smile quivers round Monica's lips.
+
+"Well, I will, then," she says. In her heart I believe she is glad to
+confide in somebody, and why not in Kit the sympathetic? "First, he made
+me feel he was delighted to meet me again. Then he asked me to go for a
+walk _alone_ with him; then he said he was--my lover!"
+
+"Oh!" says Kit, screwing up her small face with delight.
+
+"And then he asked me to meet him again to-day with _you_."
+
+"With _me_! I think that was very delicate of him." She is evidently
+flattered by this notice of her existence. Plainly, if not _the_ rose in
+his estimation, she is to be treated with the respect due to the rose's
+sister. It is all charming! she feels wafted upwards, and incorporated,
+as it were, in a real love affair. Yes, she will be the guardian angel
+of these thwarted lovers.
+
+"And what did you say?" she asks, with a gravity that befits the
+occasion.
+
+"I refused," in a low tone.
+
+"To meet him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"With _me_?" says this dragon of propriety.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because of Aunt Priscilla." And then she tells her all about Aunt
+Priscilla's speech in the carriage, and her reply to it.
+
+"I never heard such a rubbishy request in my life!" says the younger
+Miss Beresford, disdainfully. "It is really beneath notice. And when all
+is told it means nothing. As _I_ read it, it seems you have only
+promised to forget you ever spoke to Mr. Desmond: you haven't promised
+never to speak to him again." Thus the little Jesuit.
+
+"That was not what Aunt Priscilla meant."
+
+"If she meant anything, it was folly. And, after all, what is this
+dreadful quarrel between us and the Desmonds all about? It lives in Aunt
+Priscilla's brain. I'll tell you what I think, Monica. I think Aunt
+Priscilla was once in love with old Mr. Desmond, and mother cut her out;
+and now, just because she has been disappointed in her own love-affair,
+she wants to thwart you in yours."
+
+"She doesn't, indeed. Any one but Mr. Desmond might show me attention,
+and she would be pleased. She was quite glad when Mr. Ryde--well--when
+he made himself agreeable to me."
+
+"From all you told me of him, he must have made himself _dis_-agreeable.
+I'm perfectly certain I should hate Mr. Ryde, and I'm equally sure I
+should like Mr. Desmond. What did he say to you, darling, when you
+refused to meet him even with _me_?" She lays great stress on this
+allusion to herself.
+
+"He said I might do as I chose, but that he would meet me again, whether
+I liked it or not, and _soon_!"
+
+"Now, that's the lover for _me_!" says Kit, enthusiastically. "No giving
+in, no shilly-shallying, but downright determination. He's an honest
+man, and we all know what an honest man is,--'the noblest work of God.'
+I'm certain he will keep his word, and I do hope I shall be with you
+when next you meet him, as I should like to make friends with him."
+
+At this moment it occurs to Monica that she never before knew how very,
+_very_ fond she is of Kit.
+
+"Oh, well, I don't suppose I _can_ see him again for ever so long," she
+says. But even as the words pass her lips she knows she does not mean
+them, and remembers with a little throb of pleasure that he had said he
+would see her again _soon_. _Soon!_ why, that might mean this
+evening,--now,--_any_ moment! Instinctively she lifts her head and looks
+around her, and there, just a little way off, is a young man coming
+quickly towards her, bareheaded and in evening dress.
+
+"I told you how it would be," says Kit, in a nervous whisper, taking
+almost a bit out of poor Monica's arm in her excitement. "Oh, when I
+have a lover I hope he will be like _he_."
+
+Her grammar has gone after her nerve.
+
+Monica is silent: some color has gone from her cheeks, and her heart is
+beating faster. It is her very first _affaire_, so we must forgive her:
+a little frightened shadow has fallen into her eyes, and altogether she
+looks a shade younger than usual: she is troubled in spirit, and
+inclined to find fault with the general management of things.
+
+After all, she might as well have gone to the river this evening for
+what good her abstinence has done her: the poverty of our strength to
+conquer faith and the immutability of its decrees fills her with
+consternation and a fretful desire for freedom. Yet above and beyond all
+these vain imaginings is a gladness and a pride that her power is strong
+enough to draw her lover to her side in spite of all difficulties.
+
+The bareheaded young man has come up to her by this time, and is
+holding out his hand: silently she lays her own in it, and colors
+treacherously as his fingers close on hers in a close, tender, and
+possessive fashion.
+
+"I found the river too chilly," he says, smiling, "so I came on here.
+Having been unsuccessful all the afternoon and morning, I _knew_ I
+should find you _now_."
+
+This might be hieroglyphics to others, but is certainly English to her,
+however she may pretend otherwise; she doesn't pretend much, to do her
+justice.
+
+"This is your sister?" goes on Desmond, looking at Kit, who is regarding
+him with an eye that is quite a "piercer."
+
+"Yes," says Monica. "Kit, this is Mr. Desmond."
+
+"I know that," says this _enfant terrible_, still fixing him with a
+glance of calm and searching scrutiny that is well calculated to
+disconcert even a bolder man. Then all at once her mind seems made up,
+and, coming forward, she holds out her hand, and says, "How d'ye do?" to
+him, with a sudden, rare sweet smile that convinces him at once of her
+sisterhood to Monica.
+
+"We are friends?" he says, being attracted to the child for her own
+grace alone, as well as for the charm of her relationship to the pale
+snowdrop of a girl beside her.
+
+"Yes. If you prove true to my Monica."
+
+"Oh, Kit!" says Monica, deeply shocked; but Kit pays no heed, her eyes
+being fastened gravely upon the man before her. He is quite as grave as
+she is.
+
+"If our friendship depends upon that, it will be a lasting one," he
+says, quietly. "My whole life is at your sister's service."
+
+Something in his tones touches Monica: slowly she lifts her eyes until
+they reach his.
+
+"I wish, I _wish_ you would not persist in this," she says, sadly.
+
+"But why? To think of you is my chiefest joy. Do you forbid me to be
+happy?"
+
+"No--but--"
+
+"In the morning and the afternoon I went to the river, to look for
+you--in vain; after dinner I went too, still hoping against hope; and
+now at last that I _have_ found you, you are unkind to me!" He speaks
+lightly, but his eyes are earnest. "Miss Katherine," he says appealingly
+to Kit, "of your grace, I pray you to befriend me."
+
+"Monica would not go to the river this evening because she remembered an
+absurd promise she made to Aunt Priscilla, and because she feared to
+meet you there. It is the most absurd promise in the world: wait till
+you hear it." Whereupon Kit, who is in her element, proceeds to tell him
+all about Miss Priscilla's words to Monica, and Monica's answer, and her
+(Kit's) interpretation thereof. "She certainly didn't promise never to
+speak to you again," concludes she, with a nod Solomon might have
+envied.
+
+Need it be said that Mr. Desmond agrees with her on all points?
+
+"There is no use in continuing the discussion," says Monica, turning
+aside a little coldly. "I should not have gone to the river, _anyway_."
+
+This chilling remark produces a blank indescribable, and conversation
+languishes: Monica betrays an interest in the horizon never before
+developed; Mr. Desmond regards with a moody glance the ripening harvest;
+and Kit, looking inward, surveys her mental resources and wonders what
+it is her duty to do next.
+
+    "For aught that ever I could read,
+    Could ever hear by tale or history,
+    The course of true love never did run smooth."
+
+_This_ much she knows; and to any one blessed with a vision sharp as
+hers it is very apparent now that there is a roughness somewhere. She
+knows too, through many works of fiction, that those in attendance on
+loving couples should at certain seasons see cause to absent themselves
+from their duty, and search for a supposititious handkerchief or sprain
+an unoffending ankle, or hunt diligently in hedgerows for undiscoverable
+flowers. Three paths therefore lie open to her; which to adopt is the
+question. To return to the house for a handkerchief would be a decidedly
+risky affair, calculated to lead up to stiff and damning
+cross-examination from the aunts, which might prove painful; to sprain
+an ankle might prove even painfuller; but to dive into the innocent
+hedgerow for the extraction of summer flowers, what can be more
+effectual and reasonable? she will do it at once.
+
+"Oh, what lovely dog-roses!" she says, effusively, in a tone that
+wouldn't have deceived a baby; "I really _must_ get some."
+
+"Let me get them for you," says Desmond, gloomily, which she at once
+decides is excessively stupid of him, and she doing all she can for him
+too! She tries to wither him with a glance, but he is too miserable to
+be lightly crushed.
+
+"No, thank you," she says; "I prefer getting them myself. Flowers are
+like fruit, much more enjoyable when you pick them with your own hands."
+
+So saying, this accomplished gooseberry skips round the corner, leaving
+Monica and Mr. Desmond _tete-a-tete_.
+
+That they enjoy their sudden isolation just at first is questionable:
+Monica discovers blots on the perfect horizon; and Mr. Desmond, after a
+full minute's pause, says, reproachfully,--
+
+"You didn't _really_ mean that, did you?"
+
+"Mean what?" uncompromisingly, and without changing position.
+
+"That even if matters had been quite--quite comfortable with us, you
+would not have gone to meet me at the river?"
+
+"I don't know," in a low tone.
+
+"_Say_ you didn't mean it."
+
+"I--suppose I didn't," even lower.
+
+"Look at me, then," says Mr. Desmond.
+
+Kit, in her high, sweet voice, is warbling that little, pretty thing
+about a "lover and his lass," in the next field. The words of her song,
+and its silly refrain of
+
+    "A hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,"
+
+come to them across the corn and scented meadow. Monica, with her hand
+in his, smiles faintly.
+
+"You hear what she sings,--'that life is but a flower:' is it wise,
+then, to set your heart upon----"
+
+"You?"
+
+"I meant, an impossibility."
+
+"Which you are _not_. You shall not be. I don't believe in
+impossibilities, to begin with; and, even if it were so, I should still
+prefer to be unwise."
+
+"You are defiant," she says, lightly; but her smile is still very sad.
+
+"I have hope. 'Affection's ground is beyond time, place, and all
+mortality,' as we read. I shall conquer yet; yes, even _your_
+prejudices. In the mean time, give me fair play; do not harden your
+heart against me."
+
+"I wish mine was the only hard heart you had to contend against,"
+returns she, with a faint sigh. But this remark seems to drop so
+carelessly from her lips that, though elated by it, he is afraid to take
+any open notice of it.
+
+"I hope your aunts were not cross to you last evening on my account?" he
+says, anxiously.
+
+"No. Nothing was said, more than Kit told you, except that Aunt
+Priscilla touched upon the point of introduction. Oh, what a fright I
+got then! If she had persisted in her inquiries, what _would_ have
+become of me?"
+
+"Couldn't you have----" began Mr. Desmond, and then stops abruptly. A
+glance at the face uplifted to his checks his half-uttered speech
+effectually, and renders him, besides, thoroughly ashamed of himself.
+
+"If I had to confess there had been _no_ introduction," goes on Monica,
+laughingly, "I don't know what would have been the result."
+
+"The deluge, I suppose," returns her companion thoughtfully.
+
+"What a pity you have an uncle at all!" says Monica, presently. "It
+would be all right only for him." She omits to say _what_ would be all
+right, but the translation is simple.
+
+"Oh, don't say that," entreats Desmond, who has a wholesome affection
+for the old gentleman above at Coole. "He is the kindest old fellow in
+the world. I think, if you knew him, you would be very fond of him; and
+I know he would adore _you_. In fact, he is so kind-hearted that I
+cannot think how all that unfortunate story about your mother ever came
+about. He looks to me as if he couldn't say 'Bo to a goose' where a
+woman was concerned and yet his manner to-night confirmed everything I
+heard."
+
+"He confessed?" in a deeply interested tone.
+
+"Well just the same thing. He seemed distressed about his own conduct in
+the affair, too. But his manner was odd, I thought: and he seems as much
+at daggers drawn with your aunts as they with him."
+
+"That is because he is ashamed of himself. One is always hardest on
+those one has injured."
+
+"But that is just it," says Mr. Desmond, in a puzzled tone. "I don't
+believe, honestly, he is a bit ashamed of himself. He _said_ a good deal
+about his regret, but I could see he quite gloried in his crime. And, in
+fact, I couldn't discover the smallest trace of remorse about him."
+
+"He must really be a very bad old man," says Monica, severely. "I am
+perfectly certain if he were _my_ uncle I should not love him at all."
+
+"Don't say that. When he _is_ your uncle you will see that I am right,
+and that he is a very lovable old man, in spite of all his faults."
+
+At this Monica blushes a little, and twirls her rings round her slender
+fingers in an excess of shyness, and finally, in spite of a stern
+pressure laid upon herself, gives way to mirth.
+
+"What are you laughing at now?" asks he laughing too.
+
+"At you," casting a swift but charming glance at him from under her long
+lashes. "You _do_ say such funny things!"
+
+"Did you hear there is to be an afternoon dance at the Barracks next
+week?" asks he presently. "I was at Clonbree on Thursday, and Cobbett
+told me about it."
+
+"Who is Cobbett?"
+
+"The captain there, you know. He was at Aghyohillbeg yesterday. Didn't
+you see him,--a little, half-starved looking man, with a skin the color
+of his hair, and both gray?"
+
+"Oh, of course--now I remember him," says Monica, this fetching
+description having cleared her memory. "I thought to myself how odd he
+and the other man, Mr. Ryde, looked together, one as big as the other
+was little."
+
+"I think there is more matter than brains about Ryde," says Desmond,
+contemptuously. "Do you think your aunt will let you go to this dance at
+Clonbree?"
+
+"Oh, no; I am _sure_ not. My aunts would be certain to look upon a dance
+in the Barracks as something too awfully dissipated."
+
+"For one reason I should be glad you didn't go."
+
+"Glad?" opening her eyes.
+
+"Yes. That fellow Ryde never took his eyes off you yesterday."
+
+"Is _that_ a crime?"
+
+"In my eyes, _yes_."
+
+"And you would wish me to be kept a prisoner at home just because one
+man looked at me?"
+
+"I don't want any one to look at you but me!" Then he comes a little
+closer to her and compels her, by the very strength of his regard, to
+let her eyes meet his. "Do you like Ryde?" he asks, somewhat
+imperiously. "Monica, answer me."
+
+It is the second time he has called her by her Christian name, and a
+startled expression passes over her face.
+
+"Well, he was nice to me," she says, with a studied hesitation that
+belongs to the first bit of coquetry she has ever practised in her life.
+She has tasted the sweetness of power, and, fresh as her knowledge is
+she estimates the advantage of it to a nicety.
+
+"I believe a man has only to be six feet one to have every woman in the
+world in love with him," says Desmond, wrathfully, who is only five feet
+eleven.
+
+"I am not exactly in _love_ with Mr. Ryde," says Monica, sweetly, with
+averted face and a coy air, assumed for her companion's discomfiture;
+"but----"
+
+"But _what_?"
+
+"But, I was going to say, there is nothing remarkable in that, as I am
+not in love with _any one_, and hope I never shall be. I wonder where
+Kit can have gone to: will you get up there, Mr. Desmond, and look?"
+Breaking off a tiny blade of grass from the bank near her, she puts it
+between her pretty teeth, and slowly nibbles it with an air of utter
+indifference to all the world that drives Mr. Desmond nearly out of his
+wits.
+
+Disdaining to take any heed of her "notice to quit," and quite
+determined to know the worst, he says, defiantly,--
+
+"If you _do_ go to this dance, may I consider myself engaged to you for
+the first waltz?" There is quite a frown upon his face as he says this;
+but it hasn't the faintest effect upon Monica. She is not at all
+impressed, and is, in fact enjoying herself immensely.
+
+"If I go, which is more than improbable, I shall certainly not dance
+with you at all," she says, calmly, "because Aunt Priscilla will be
+there too, and she would not hear of my doing even a mild quadrille with
+a Desmond."
+
+"I see," with a melancholy assumption of composure. "All your dances,
+then, are to be reserved for Ryde."
+
+"If Mr. Ryde asks me to dance, of course I shall not refuse."
+
+"You mean to tell me"--even the poor assumption is now gone--"that you
+are going to give him _all_ and me _none_?"
+
+"I shall not give any one _all_: how can you talk like that? But I
+cannot defy Aunt Priscilla. It is very unkind of you to desire it. I
+suppose you think I should enjoy being tormented from morning till night
+all about you?"
+
+"Certainly not. I don't want you to be tormented on any account, and,
+above all on mine," very stiffly. "To prevent anything of the kind, I
+shall not go to Cobbett's dance."
+
+"If you choose to get into a bad temper I can't help you."
+
+"I am _not_ in a bad temper, and even if I were I have cause. But it is
+not temper will prevent my going to the Barracks."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Why should I go there to be made miserable? _You_ can go and dance with
+Ryde to your heart's content, but I shall spare myself the pain of
+seeing you. Did you say you wanted your sister? Shall I call her now? I
+am sure you must want to go home."
+
+"I don't," she says, unexpectedly; and then a little smile of conscious
+triumph wreathes her lips as she looks at him, standing moody and
+dejected before her. A word from her will transform him; and now, the
+day being all her own, she can afford to be generous. Even the very best
+of women can be cruel to their lovers.
+
+"I don't," she says, "not _yet_. There is something I want to ask you
+first," she pauses in a tantalizing fashion, and glances from the grass
+she is still holding to him, and from him back to the grass again,
+before she speaks. "It is a question," she says then, as though
+reluctantly, "but you look so angry with me that I am afraid to ask it."
+This is the rankest hypocrisy, as he is as wax in her hands at this
+moment; but, though he knows it, he gives in to the sweetness of her
+manner, and lets his face clear.
+
+"Ask me anything you like," he says, turning upon her now a countenance
+"more in sorrow than in anger."
+
+"It isn't much," said Miss Beresford, sweetly, "only--what _is_ your
+Christian name? I have been so _longing_ to know. It is very unpleasant
+to be obliged to _think_ of people by their surnames, is it not? so
+unfriendly!"
+
+He is quite staggered by the excess of her geniality.
+
+"My name is Brian," he says, devoutly hoping she will not think it
+hideous and so see cause to pass judgment upon it.
+
+"Brian!" going nearer to him with half-shy eyes, and a little _riante_
+mouth that with difficulty suppresses its laughter. "How _pretty_!
+Brian," purposely lingering over it, "with an 'i' of course?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm so glad I know yours now!" says this disgraceful little coquette,
+with a sigh of pretended relief. "You knew mine, and that wasn't fair,
+you know. Besides,"--with a rapid glance that might have melted an
+anchorite and delivered him from the error of his ways,--"besides, I may
+want to call you by it _some_ day, and then I should be at a loss."
+
+Though by no means proof against so much friendliness, Mr. Desmond still
+continues to maintain an injured demeanor. Monica lays one little hand
+lightly on his arm.
+
+"Won't you ask me to call you by it?" she says, with the prettiest
+reproach.
+
+"Oh, Monica," says the young man, seizing her hand and pressing it
+against his heart, "you know your power; be merciful. Darling," drawing
+her still nearer to him, "I don't think you quite understand how it is
+with me; but, indeed, I love you with all my heart and soul."
+
+"But in such a little time, how can it be true?" says Monica, all her
+gayety turning into serious wonderment.
+
+"'Love is a thing as any spirit free,'" quotes he, tenderly. "How shall
+one know when the god may come? It has nothing to do with time. I have
+seen you,--it little matters how often,--and now I love you. Dear heart,
+_try_ to love me."
+
+There is something in his manner both gentle and earnest. Impressed by
+it, she whispers softly,--
+
+"I _will_ try."
+
+"And you will call me Brian?"
+
+"Oh, no!--no, indeed!--not yet," entreats she, stepping back from him as
+far as he will allow her.
+
+"Very well, not yet."
+
+"And you will go to the Barracks for this dance?"
+
+"I will do anything on earth you ask me. You know that too well, I fear,
+for my peace of mind."
+
+"And you won't be angry with me if I don't dance with you there?"
+
+"No. I promise that, too. Ah! here is Miss Kit coming,--and without the
+roses,--after all."
+
+It is true she has no roses; she has, indeed, forgotten she even
+pretended to want them, and has been happy while away with her song and
+her own thoughts.
+
+"I think, Monica, we ought, perhaps, to be thinking of coming home," she
+says, apologetically, yet with quite a motherly air. Has she not been
+mounting guard over and humoring these two giddy young people before
+her?
+
+"Yes, I think so too;" and the goodness of Kit, and something else,
+strike her.
+
+"If we are asked to this dance at Clonbree, and if we go, I should like
+Kit to go too," she says in a soft aside to Desmond, who says, "That is
+all right: I settled it with Cobbett yesterday," in the same tone; and
+then a little more energetically, as he sees the moments flying, he goes
+on, "Before you go, say one thing after me. It will be a small
+consolation until I see you again. Say, 'Brian, good-by.'"
+
+"Good-by, Brian," she whispers, shyly, and then she draws her hand out
+of his, and, turning to the studiously inattentive Kit, passes her arm
+through hers.
+
+"Good-by, Mr. Desmond! I trust we may soon meet again," says the
+younger Miss Beresford, with rather a grand air, smiling upon him
+patronizingly.
+
+"I hope so too," says Desmond, gravely, "and that next time you will
+graciously accord me a little more of your society."
+
+Quite pleased with this delicate protest against her lengthened absence,
+Kit bows politely, and she and Monica take their homeward way.
+
+Once Monica turns, to wave him a friendly adieu, and he can see again
+her soft, bare arms, her pretty baby-neck in her white dinner-gown, and
+her lovely, earnest eyes. Then she is gone, and her passing seems to him
+"like the ceasing of exquisite music," and nothing is left to him but
+the wailing of the rising night-wind, and the memory of a perfect
+girl-face that he knows will haunt him till he dies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+  How Terry is put in the Dock--And how the two Misses Blake baffle
+  expectation, and show themselves in their true colors.
+
+
+Monica and Kit reach the house in breathless haste. It is far later than
+they imagined when lingering in happy dalliance in the flower-crowned
+field below, and yet not really late for a sultry summer evening. But
+the Misses Blake are fearful of colds, and expect all the household to
+be in at stated hours; and the Misses Beresford are fearful of
+scoldings, carrying, as they do, guilty hearts within their bosoms.
+
+"Conscience makes cowards of us all;" and the late secret interview with
+Brian Desmond has lowered the tone of their courage to such an extent
+that they scarcely dare to breathe as they creep into their aunts'
+presence.
+
+The lamps are lighting in the drawing-room as they enter, though the
+windows are open, and _Dies pater_, the all-great, is still victorious
+over _Nox_. The Misses Blake both start and look up as they come in, and
+show general symptoms of relief which is not reciprocated by the
+culprits. Mrs. Mitchell, the nurse, who has followed almost on their
+heels, stands in the doorway, with bayonets fixed, so to speak, seeing
+there is every chance of an engagement. It may be as well to remark
+here that Mitchell has not "got on" with the Misses Blake, having
+rooted opinions of her own not to be lightly laid aside. The Misses
+Blake's opinions have also a home in very deep soil, so that the
+"give-and-take" principle is not in force between them and the foreign
+nurse, as they term Jane Mitchell, though she was bred and born on
+Devonshire soil.
+
+"Mitchell," say the Misses Blake in confidence to each other, "is not
+altogether what one would desire in a servant assigned to the care of
+children. She is not _nice_ in many ways; there is far too much of the
+fine lady about her," etc.
+
+"H'elderly ladies as 'asn't been to the h'altar," says Mrs. Mitchell in
+confidence to cook, "can't be supposed to know what is right and proper
+for motherless lambs." And so the war rages.
+
+Just now Mrs. Mitchell is plainly on the defensive, and eyes her
+baby--as she still calls Kit (having nursed her)--with all the air of
+one prepared to rush in and rescue her by bodily force, should the worst
+come to the worst.
+
+"My dear Monica, what a late hour to be abroad!" says Miss Priscilla,
+reproachfully. "The dew falling, too, which is most unwholesome. For
+you, Kit, a mere child, it is really destruction. Nurse, as you are
+_there_," regarding the bony Mitchell with distrust and disfavor, "I
+think it as well to let you know I do not think this is a proper time
+for Miss Katherine to be in the open air. It is far too late."
+
+"It isn't late, miss. It is only nine o'clock."
+
+"Nine o'clock! What is the woman thinking about? Nine! why, that means
+night?"
+
+"Not at this time of the year, miss."
+
+"At _any_ time of year. With all the experience you _say_ you have had,
+I wonder you do not consider it a most injurious hour for a child of
+Miss Katherine's age to be out of doors."
+
+"I don't hold with making a child puny, miss. Coddling up, and that
+sort, only leads to consumptions and assmas, in my humble opingion."
+
+"I must request that for the future you will show deference to _our_
+opinion, nurse; which is directly opposed to yours," says Miss
+Priscilla, straightening herself.
+
+"I suppose I can manage my own young lady, miss," says Mitchell,
+undaunted, and now, indeed, thoroughly braced for conflict.
+
+"I have grave doubts about that, Mitchell, and at least you should not
+answer me in this wise."
+
+"If I brought my young lady safely all the way from Jerusalem, miss, I
+suppose I can take care of her 'ere."
+
+"Her ear?" questions Miss Priscilla, not meaning to be rude at all.
+
+"She means _here_," says Miss Penelope, in a stage whisper.
+
+"Oh!" says Miss Priscilla, rather shocked at her mistake, which has been
+accepted by Mitchell as a deliberate insult. "Katherine, go upstairs
+with Mitchell, and change your shoes and stockings; they _must_ be
+damp."
+
+"I don't consider Mitchell at all a nice person," says Miss Priscilla,
+when the door had closed upon that veteran; "but still I hope I did not
+offend her with that last thoughtless slip of mine. But really, over
+here in Ireland, we are not accustomed to the extraordinary language in
+which Mitchell indulges at times. She seems to me to be saving up her
+aspirates for a hypothetical dearth of that article in the future."
+
+Miss Priscilla is so pleased with this long word that she quite recovers
+her temper.
+
+"Certainly, from Jerusalem _is_ a long way to bring a child," says Miss
+Penelope, thoughtfully; and, indeed, this journey from Palestine has
+been, and probably always will be, Mrs. Mitchell's trump card when
+disputing with the mistresses of Moyne.
+
+Miss Priscilla has walked to the window, and is now gazing in thoughtful
+fashion over the fast darkening landscape. Perhaps her mind is
+travelling that long journey to Palestine, perhaps it is still occupied
+with the inimical Mitchell; be that as it may, she keeps her senses well
+about her, and a keen eye behind her spectacles, because presently she
+says aloud, in a tone calculated to attract attention,--
+
+"_What_ is that in the meadow, creeping along beneath the ha-ha,
+Katherine?"--Kit has returned with dry shoes and stockings;--"come here,
+your eyes are sharper than mine!" which is a distinct libel upon her own
+orbs.
+
+"Where?" says Kit, recognizing the crouching form of Terry with a pang
+of terror. Is she to be compelled to inform upon her own brother? Perish
+the thought!
+
+"Over _there_," says Miss Priscilla, in an awful tone, pointing to where
+the luckless Terence is crawling home in the fond belief that he is
+defying all detection; whereupon Kit, with much presence of mind, looks
+scrutinizingly in just the opposite direction. "It is somebody carrying
+a gun. Good gracious! it is remarkably like Terence!"
+
+At this Monica starts perceptibly, and lets the book she is holding fall
+heavily to the ground.
+
+"Perhaps it is a poacher," says Kit, brightly, her general reading being
+deeply imbued with those characters.
+
+"Perhaps," says Miss Priscilla, grimly. "Yet I feel sure it is your
+brother!" Then she throws wide the sash, and calls aloud to the
+culprit,--
+
+"Terence! Terence, come here!"
+
+At this, Mr. Beresford loses his presence of mind, and stands bolt
+upright, gun in hand: the words have come to him distinctly across the
+soft green grass, and fallen upon his ears with dismal distinctness.
+Throwing up the sponge, he shoulders the offending weapon and marches
+upon the foe with head erect and banners flying. Even if death is before
+him (meaning the confiscation of the gun), he vows to himself he will
+still die game.
+
+"Really, it _is_ Terence," says Miss Penelope, as he approaches; "but
+where _can_ he have got the gun?"
+
+"I _know_!" says Miss Priscilla, whereupon Monica feels positively
+faint.
+
+Feeling she is growing very pale, she rises hurriedly from her seat,
+and, going to the lower window, so stands that her face cannot be seen.
+
+If Terence is cross-examined, will he tell a lie about the obtaining of
+the gun? And if he does _not_, what will happen? what dreadful things
+will not be said and done by Aunt Priscilla? Her breath comes quickly,
+and with horror she finds herself devoutly hoping that Terence on this
+occasion _will_ tell a lie.
+
+By this time Terence has mounted the balcony, and is standing in a
+somewhat defiant attitude before his inquisitors.
+
+"Where have you been, Terence?" began Miss Priscilla.
+
+"Shooting, aunt."
+
+"And where did you get the gun, Terence?"
+
+Silence.
+
+"You certainly had no gun yesterday, and none this morning, as far as I
+can judge. Now we want the truth from you, Terence, but we do not wish
+to coerce you. Take time, and give us an answer your heart can approve."
+
+Such an answer is evidently difficult to be procured at a moment's
+notice, because Terence is still dumb.
+
+"I am afraid your nature is not wholly free from deceit, Terence," says
+Miss Priscilla, sadly. "This hesitation on your part speaks volumes; and
+such unnecessary deceit, too. Neither your aunt Penelope nor I have any
+objection to your borrowing a gun if you find such a dangerous weapon
+needful to your happiness. But why not confide in us?"
+
+"Is it possible she would not be really angry if she knew?" thinks
+Monica, breathlessly. I regret to say that both Kit and Terence take
+another view of Miss Blake's speech, and believe it an artful dodge to
+extract confession.
+
+"I--" says Terence, to gain time, and because speech of some kind at
+this moment is absolutely necessary--"I didn't think----"
+
+"Of _course_ you didn't think, Terence, or you would not have recorded
+your poor aunts, in your secret thoughts, as hard-hearted and
+ungenerous. If you had told us openly that Mitson, the coast-guard, had
+lent you a gun (as I strongly suspect, and indeed felt sure from the
+first moment was the case), we should not have been at all angry, only
+naturally anxious that you should use an instrument of death with
+caution. But you have no confidence in us, Terence."
+
+Intense relief fills the breasts of the three Beresfords. Remorse that
+the trusting nature of the old ladies should be so abused touches Monica
+keenly, but of the other two I must again declare with grief that they
+feel nothing but a sense of delivery from peril, and no contrition at
+all for their past suspicions.
+
+"I thought you might be angry, aunt," says Terence. He is looking very
+dirty indeed, and his hands are grimy, and altogether even Monica cannot
+bring herself to feel proud of him. There is, too, a covert desire for
+laughter about him that exasperates her terribly.
+
+"Not angry, my dear; only nervous. I hope you know how to load, and
+that. I remember a cousin of ours blowing off his first finger and thumb
+with a powder-horn."
+
+"This is a breech-loader, auntie," says Monica, softly.
+
+"Eh? One of those new-fangled things I have read of. Oh, well, my dear
+boy, I daresay there is more need for circumspection. Let me look at it.
+Ah! very handsome, indeed! I had no idea coast-guards were so well
+supplied; and yet I cling to the old guns that your grandfather used to
+use."
+
+"Did you shoot anything?" asks Miss Penelope, who has grown quite
+interested, and regards Terence with a glance of pride.
+
+"Only one thrush," says Terence, drawing the dilapidated corpse from his
+pocket, "and a sparrow, and one rabbit I fired at and wounded mortally,
+I know, but it got away into its hole and I lost it."
+
+"Rabbits!" says Miss Priscilla. "Am I to understand--nay, I hope I am
+_not_ to understand--that you crossed the stile into Coole?"
+
+"There are plenty of rabbits in our own wood," says Terence; "more than
+I could shoot. I am glad you don't object to my having the gun, auntie."
+
+"I don't, my dear; but I wish you had been more ingenuous with us. Why
+now, Terence, _why_ do you steal along a field with your back bent as
+though desirous of avoiding our observation, and with your gun _under_
+your coat, as if there was a policeman or a bailiff after you?"
+
+"I was only trying to steal upon a crow, aunt."
+
+"Well, that _may be_, my dear, but there are ways of doing things. And
+why put your gun _under_ your coat? I can't think such a fraudulent
+proceeding necessary even with a crow. Now look here, Terence,"
+illustrating his walk and surreptitious manner of concealing his gun
+beneath his coat, "_does_ this look nice?"
+
+"If I do it like _you_, auntie, it looks _very_ nice," says Terence,
+innocently, but with a malevolent intention.
+
+"What a pity you missed the rabbit, Terry!" says Monica, hurriedly.
+
+"Oh, he is dead _now_, I'm certain; but I should have liked to bring him
+home. His leg was broken, and I chased him right through the rushes down
+below in the furze brake at Coole."
+
+Sensation!
+
+It is too late to redeem his error. "Murder wol out, that see we day by
+day," says Chaucer, and now, indeed, all the fat is in the fire. The two
+old ladies draw back from him and turn mute eyes of grief upon each
+other, while Kit and Monica stare with heavy reproach upon their guilty
+brother.
+
+The guilty brother returns their glance with interest, and then Miss
+Priscilla speaks.
+
+"So you went into Coole, after all," she says. "Oh, Terence!"
+
+"I couldn't help it," says Terence, wrathfully. "I wasn't going to let
+the rabbit go for the sake of a mere whim."
+
+"_A mere whim!_" Words fail me to convey Miss Priscilla's indignation.
+"Are you destitute of heart, boy, that you talk thus lightly of a family
+insult? Oh! shame, shame!"
+
+"I'm very sorry if I have made you unhappy," says Terence, who is really
+a very good boy and fond. "I didn't mean it, _indeed_."
+
+But Miss Priscilla appears quite broken-hearted.
+
+"To dream of bringing a rabbit of Coole into this house!" she says, with
+quite a catch in her voice that brings Miss Penelope into prominent
+play.
+
+"If, when you came to the stile that leads into Moyne," she says, "you
+had said to yourself, 'My good aunt, who loves me so dearly, would not
+wish me to enter this forbidden land,' you would, I _hope_, have paused,
+and come back here. But you did not. You went recklessly on, and trod
+upon ground where your foot is _unwelcome_."
+
+"Dear Aunt Penelope, do not talk like that," says Monica, entreatingly,
+slipping her arm around her.
+
+"And this to his poor old aunts who love him so fondly!" says Miss
+Penelope, in so dismal a voice that the two Misses Blake break into
+sobs.
+
+"It wouldn't seem so bad if he hadn't equivocated about it," says Miss
+Priscilla, presently. "But he purposely led us to believe that he had
+not set his foot on that detested land."
+
+"He has indeed been much to blame," says Miss Penelope. "Terence, what
+was it it said about _lying_ in the Bible this morning? I am afraid your
+chapter to-day--that awful chapter about Ananias and Sapphira--did you
+little good."
+
+A growl from Terence.
+
+"He will be more careful for the future, auntie," says Monica,
+interpreting the growl after her own gentle fashion. "And now you will
+forgive him, won't you? After all, any one, even _you_, might forget
+about forbidden lands, if you were racing after a rabbit."
+
+The idea of the Misses Blake racing through rushes and gorse after a
+rabbit strikes Kit as so comical that she forgets everything, and laughs
+aloud. And then the Misses Blake, who are not altogether without a sense
+of fun, catching "the humor of it," laugh too, and, drying their eyes,
+give Terence to understand that he is forgiven.
+
+Just at this moment the door is opened, and Timothy enters, bearing not
+only an air of mystery with him, but a large envelope.
+
+"Why, what is this at this time of night?" says Miss Priscilla, who is
+plainly under the impression that, once the lamps are lighted, it is
+verging on midnight. She takes the envelope from Timothy, and gazes at
+the huge regimental crest upon it with a judicial expression.
+
+"A sojer brought it, miss. Yes, indeed, ma'am. A-hossback he come, all
+the way from the Barracks at Clonbree."
+
+Redcoats at Rossmoyne are a novelty, and are regarded by the peasantry
+with mixed feelings of admiration and contempt. I think the contempt is
+stronger with Timothy than the admiration.
+
+"From the Barracks?" says Miss Priscilla, slowly, turning and twisting
+the letter between her fingers, while Monica's heart beats rapidly. It
+is, it _must_ be the invitation; and what will be the result of it?
+
+"Yes, indeed, miss. I asked him what brought him at this hour, ma'am;
+but he took me mighty short wid his answer, so I give up me questions."
+
+Never having been able during fifty years to make up his mind whether
+his mistresses should be addressed as maidens or matrons, Timothy has
+compromised matters by putting a "miss" and a "ma'am" into every
+sentence he dedicates to them.
+
+"Ah, an invitation from Captain Cobbett for Friday next--um--um--four to
+seven--um--um. All of us invited, even Kit," says Miss Priscilla, in a
+decidedly lively tone.
+
+"Me! am I asked?" cries Kit, excitedly.
+
+"Yes, indeed, you are specially mentioned. Very nice and attentive, I
+must say, of those young men, particularly when we have not shown them
+any kindness _as yet_. I thought that Mr. Ryde a very superior young
+fellow, with none of the discourteous antipathy to _age_ that disfigures
+the manners of the youth of the present day. Penelope, my dear, perhaps
+you had better indite the answer to this. Yours is the pen of a ready
+writer."
+
+"Very well," says Miss Penelope, rising slowly--Oh! _so_ slowly! thinks
+Monica--and going towards the davenport.
+
+"Is the soldier outside, Timothy?" asks Miss Priscilla.
+
+"Yes, miss. He said he wanted a bit of writing from ye for the captain."
+
+"It is a long ride. Take him downstairs, Timothy, and give him some
+beer, while Miss Penelope prepares a reply."
+
+"Begging your pardon, miss, and with due respect to ye, ma'am, but he's
+that stiff in his manners, an' tight in his clothes, I doubt if he'd
+condescend to enter the kitchen."
+
+"Timothy," says Miss Priscilla, with much displeasure, "you have been
+having hot words with this stranger. What is it all about?"
+
+"There's times, miss, as we all knows, when a worm will turn, and though
+I'm not a worm, ma'am, no more am I a coward, an' a red coat don't cover
+more flesh than a black; an' I'm an ould man, Miss Priscilla, to be
+called a buffer!"
+
+It is apparent to every one that Timothy is nearly in tears.
+
+"A buffer?" repeats Miss Priscilla, with dignity blended with disgust:
+she treats the word cautiously, as one might something noxious. "What is
+a buffer?"
+
+Nobody enlightens her: though perhaps Terence might, were he not busily
+engaged trying to suppress his laughter behind a huge Japanese fan.
+
+"Perhaps, Timothy," says Miss Priscilla, gravely, "as we all seem in
+ignorance about the real meaning of this extraordinary word, you are
+wrong in condemning it as an insult. It _may_ be--er--a term of
+_endearment_."
+
+At this Terence chokes, then coughs solemnly, and finally, lowering the
+fan, shows himself preternaturally grave, as a set-off against all
+suspicions.
+
+"I wouldn't pin my faith to that, miss, if I was you," says Ryan,
+respectfully, but with a touch of the fine irony which is bred and born
+with his class in Ireland.
+
+"Well, but as we cannot explain this word, Timothy, and you cannot,
+perhaps the best thing for you to do will be to go to the originator of
+it and ask _him_ what he meant by it," says Miss Penelope, with quite
+astonishing perspicacity for _her_.
+
+"Shure I did that same, miss. 'Twas the first thing I said to him,
+ma'am. 'What do ye mane, ye spalpeen, ye thief o' the world,' says I,
+'by miscalling a dacent man out of his name like that?' says I. I gave
+him all that, miss, and a dale more, though I've forgotten it be now,
+for the Ryans was always famous for the gift o' the gab!"
+
+"If you said all that to the poor marine, I think you gave him
+considerably more than you got," says Miss Penelope, "and so you may cry
+peace. Go down now, Timothy, and make it up with him over your beer."
+
+Timothy, though still grumbling in an undertone death and destruction
+upon the hated Sassenach, retires duteously, closing the door behind
+him.
+
+"Now, Penelope," says Miss Priscilla, with an air of relief, glancing at
+the pens and ink, at which Monica's heart fails her. She has no doubt
+whatever about the answer being a refusal, but a sad feeling that she
+dare make no protest renders her doubly sorrowful.
+
+"Dear me!" says Miss Penelope, leaning back in her chair with pen well
+poised between her fingers, and a general air of pleased recollection
+full upon her, "it sounds quite like old times--doesn't it?--to be
+invited to the Barracks at Clonbree."
+
+"Quite," says Miss Priscilla, with an amused smile.
+
+"You remember when the Whiteboys were so troublesome, in our dear
+father's time, what life the officers stationed here then, threw into
+the country round. Such routs! such dances! such kettle-drums! You can
+still recollect Mr. Browne--can you not, Priscilla?--that fashionable
+young man!"
+
+"_You_ have the best right to remember him," returns Miss Priscilla, in
+a meaning tone. "It would be too ungrateful of you if you did not,
+considering what a life you led him."
+
+And at this the two old ladies break into hearty laughter and shake
+their heads reproachfully at each other.
+
+"You _know_ you broke his heart," says Miss Priscilla.
+
+"Tell us about it, auntie," says Kit, eagerly, who is always sympathetic
+where romance is concerned; but the old ladies only laugh the more at
+this, and Aunt Priscilla tells her how her Aunt Penelope was a very
+naughty girl in her time, and created havoc in the affections of all the
+young men that came within her reach.
+
+All this delights Aunt Penelope, who laughs consumedly and makes feeble
+protest with her hands against this testimony.
+
+"Poor fellow!" she says, sobering down presently, and looking quite
+remorseful. "It is unkind to laugh when his name is mentioned. He was
+killed in the Indian Mutiny, long afterwards, in a most gallant charge."
+
+"Yes, indeed," says Miss Priscilla. "Well, well, things _will_ happen.
+Go on with the answer now, Penelope, as the man is waiting and it is
+woefully late."
+
+Monica trembles. But Kit starts into life.
+
+"Oh, _don't_ refuse, Aunt Priscilla!" she cries, darting from her seat
+and throwing her arms round Miss Blake's neck. "_Don't_, now! I do so
+_want_ to go, when I have got my invitation, and all."
+
+"But----" begins Miss Priscilla; whereupon Kit, tightening her hold on
+her neck, with a view to staying further objection, nearly strangles
+her.
+
+"No 'buts,'" she says, entreatingly; "Remember how disappointed I was
+about Madam O'Connor's, and be good to me now."
+
+"Bless the child!" breaks out Miss Priscilla, having rescued her
+windpipe and so saved herself from instant suffocation by loosening
+Kit's arms, and then drawing the child down upon her knee. "What is she
+talking about? who is going to refuse anything? Penelope, accept at
+once,--_at once_, or I shall be squeezed to death!"
+
+"Then you _will_ go?" exclaims Monica, joining the group near the
+davenport, and turning brilliant eyes upon her aunts. "Oh, I am so
+glad!"
+
+"Why, we are dying to see the inside of the Barracks again, your aunt
+Penelope and I, especially your aunt Penelope," says Miss Blake, with a
+sly glance at her sister, who is plainly expecting it, "because she has
+tender recollections about her last visit there."
+
+"Oh, now, Priscilla!" says Miss Penelope, modestly, but with keen
+enjoyment of the joke. After which an acceptance of his kind invitation
+is written to Captain Cobbett, and borne to him by the destroyer of
+Timothy's peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+  How Monica falls a prey to the green-eyed monster--How Mr. Kelly
+  improves the shining hours--And how Brian Desmond suffers many
+  things at the hands of his lady-love.
+
+
+For the next few days the sun is conspicuous by its absence, and Jupiter
+Tonans, with all his noisy train, is abroad. There is nothing but rain
+everywhere and at all hours, and a certain chill accompanying it, that
+makes one believe (with "Elia," is it not?) that "a bad summer is but
+winter painted green."
+
+The light is dimmed, the winds sigh heavily, all through these days, and
+on the hills around, "the hooded clouds, like friars, tell their beads
+in drops of rain."
+
+But on Thursday evening it clears a little,--not sufficiently to allow
+one to wander happily through shrubbery or garden, but enough to augur
+well for the morrow, when the much longed for dance at the Barracks is
+due.
+
+And, indeed, when Friday dawns all nature is glorious. O'er sea and land
+there floats a brightness indescribable, with no fleck or flaw upon its
+beauty. In every nook and glade and hollow is glad sunshine, and a soft
+rushing breeze that bids the heart rejoice, and uplift itself in joyous
+praise to the Great Power who calls the heavens His Throne.
+
+Birds are singing upon every bough, to give the day "good-morrow," and
+the small streamlets, swollen by past rains, are chanting loud but soft
+harmonies to the water-pixies, as they dash headlong towards the river
+down below.
+
+                        "No tears
+    Dim the sweet look that Nature wears."
+
+but rather a smile is on leaf, and flower, and waving bracken. And on
+Monica, too, as, with glad eyes and parted lips, she steps lightly into
+the shadow of the old porch at Moyne. No sweeter presence ever honored
+it. Leaning against one of the pillars, she steps forward, and gazes
+almost gratefully at the merry sunbeams, as they creep up in homage to
+her feet and then go swiftly back again.
+
+She is dressed to-day in a pale blue batiste gown, that rivals in hue
+the delicate azure of the skies above her. Her large black hat is a mass
+of Spanish lace, her long gloves are of the same sombre shade, and so
+are her shoes, though relieved by buckles. With that smile upon her
+lips, and the subdued expectation in her eyes, she looks the
+personification of all that is tender, pure, and lovable.
+
+"Are you ready?" asks Kit, joining her. "The carriage is coming round."
+
+"Quite."
+
+"All but your fan: where is that?"
+
+"Ah! true; I forgot it. It must be on my table. I----"
+
+"No, do not stir. I will get it for you. It would be a shame to send you
+on any errand that might destroy your present pose, you look so like a
+cloud, or a thing out of one of Kate Greenaway's books."
+
+"It is very rude to call me a thing; it is disheartening, when I
+believed I was looking my best," says Monica, laughing. Somehow Kit's
+praises always please her.
+
+Then the carriage does come round, and they all get into it, and start
+for their seven-miles drive, a very slow seven miles, at the end of
+which they find themselves in the small town of Clonbree, mounting the
+steep hill that leads to the Barracks, which are placed on almost
+unsavory eminence,--all the narrow streets leading up to them being
+lined with close cabins and tiny cabins that are anything but "sweets to
+the sweet."
+
+Entering the small barrack-yard and finding a door hospitably open, the
+Misses Blake go up a wooden staircase, and presently find themselves on
+the landing-place above, where they are welcomed effusively by Mr. Ryde,
+who is looking bigger and hotter and stouter than usual.
+
+Captain Cobbett in the largest room--there are but two available in
+these rustic barracks--is trying vainly to find a comfortable corner for
+old Lady Rossmoyne, who is both deaf and stupid, but who, feeling it her
+duty to support on all occasions (both festive and otherwise) the
+emissaries of her queen, has accepted this invitation and is now
+heartily sorry for her loyalty.
+
+She is sitting in durance vile upon a low chair, with a carpet seat and
+a treacherous nature, that threatens to turn upon her and double her up
+at any moment if she dare to give way to even the smallest amount of
+natural animation: so perforce the poor old woman sits still, like
+"patience on a monument smiling at grief," and that her own grief, too,
+which, of course, is harder to bear!
+
+"_So_ glad you've come! We were quite in despair about you; but better
+late than never, eh?" says Mr. Ryde to Monica, with a fat smile. There
+is rather much of "too solid flesh" about his face.
+
+"I daresay," says Monica, very vaguely: she is looking anxiously round
+her, hoping, yet dreading to see Desmond.
+
+In the next room can be heard the sound of music. "My Queen" is being
+played very prettily upon a piano by somebody. Dancing is evidently
+going on, and Monica, who adores it, feels her toes trembling in her
+shoes.
+
+"May I have the pleasure of this?" says Mr. Ryde. "I've kept it for you
+all along, you know. If you tell me you have already given it away, I
+shall feel myself aggrieved indeed."
+
+"Was there ever so silly a young man?" thinks Monica, and then she says
+aloud, "No, it is not promised," and lets him place his arm round her,
+and reluctantly mingles with the other dancers. To do him justice, he
+waltzed very well, this fat young marine, so it cannot be said that she
+has altogether a bad time, and she certainly feels a little glow of
+pleasure as she pauses presently to recover her breath.
+
+As she does so, her eyes rest on Desmond. He, too, is dancing, and with
+Olga Bohun. He is whispering to his partner, who is whispering back to
+him in a somewhat pronounced fashion, and altogether he is looking
+radiantly happy, and anything but the disconsolate swain Monica has been
+picturing him to herself. He is smiling down at Olga, and is apparently
+murmuring all sorts of pretty things into her still prettier ear,
+because they both look quite at peace with each other and all the world.
+
+A pang shoots through Monica's heart. He can be as happy, then, with one
+pretty woman as with another! She by no means, you will see, depreciates
+her own charms. All he wants is to have "t'other dear charmer away."
+
+At this moment she encounters his eyes, and answers his glad stare of
+surprise with a little scornful lowering of her lids. After which, being
+fully aware that he is still watching her in hurt amazement, she turns a
+small, pale, but very encouraging face up to Ryde, and says, prettily,--
+
+"You said I was late, just now. Was I?"
+
+"Very. At least it seemed so to me," says Ryde with heavy adoration in
+his glance.
+
+Feeling, rather than seeing, that Mr. Desmond has brought his fair
+companion to an anchor close behind her, Monica says, in a soft sweet
+voice,--
+
+"I didn't _mean_ to be late. No, indeed! I hurried all I could; but my
+aunts are slow to move. I was _longing_ to be here, but they would make
+no haste."
+
+"You _really_ longed to be here?" asks he, eagerly. "Well, that _was_
+good of you! And now you have come you will be kind to me, won't you?
+You will give me all the dances you can spare?"
+
+"That would be a great many," says she, laughing a little. "You might
+tire of me if I said yes to that. The fact is, I know nobody here, and
+_certainly_ there is no one I care to dance with."
+
+"You will have another tale to tell later on," returns he, gazing with
+unrepressed admiration at her charming face. "Before the avalanche of
+worshippers descends, promise me all the waltzes."
+
+"Are my dances, then, so necessary to you?" with a swift upward glance.
+
+"They are, at all events, the only ones I care for," returns he,
+clumsily, but heartily. "All the others will lie in the scale with
+duty."
+
+"'Every subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's soul is his
+own,'" quotes Monica, lightly. "Why dance unless you wish it?"
+
+"Because my soul is _not_ my own," responds he, with a sigh. "I am bound
+to dance with every undanceable woman here to-day, or they will go home
+and revile me. You _ought_ to be sorry for me if you aren't."
+
+"Well, I am," says Monica; "and so you shall have every waltz on the
+programme."
+
+With this she lets him take her in his arms again, and float away with
+her to the strains of the waltz then playing, and far away from
+Desmond's jealous ears.
+
+"Well, I had no idea it was in her," says Mrs. Bohun, in a breathless
+sort of manner, when Monica has quite vanished. "All that was meant for
+you, you know; and how _well_ she did it!"
+
+"But _why_ should it be meant for me? What have I done that she should
+so ill use me?" says Desmond, also breathless. "And you speak of her as
+if you admired her and she ought to be praised for her conduct when you
+have just heard from my own lips how devotedly I am attached to her!"
+
+"I cannot help admiring genius when I see it," says Olga, with a gay
+laugh. "She made up her mind--naughty little thing!--to make you
+miserable a minute ago, and--she succeeded. What can compare with
+success! But in very truth, Brian," tapping his arm familiarly with her
+fan (an action Monica notes from the other side of the room), "I would
+see you a victor too, and in this cause. She is as worthy of you as you
+of her, and a fig for one's cousins and sisters and aunts, when Cupid
+leads the way."
+
+She has thrown up her head, and is looking full of spirit, when young
+Ronayne, approaching her, says, smiling,--
+
+"This is our dance, I think, Mrs. Bohun?"
+
+"Is it? So far so good!" She turns again to Brian:
+
+"'Faint heart never won fair lady,'" she says, warningly.
+
+"I cannot accuse myself of any feebleness of that sort," says Desmond,
+gloomily. "As you see, it all rests with her."
+
+"Perhaps she is afraid of the family feud," says Olga, laughing. "One
+hears such a lot about this Blake-Desmond affair that I feel I could
+take the gold medal if examined about it. There!--what nonsense! Go and
+speak to her, and defy those dear old ladies at Moyne."
+
+"You were talking about that pretty Miss Beresford?" says Ronayne, as
+Brian moves away.
+
+"Yes. But, sir," archly, "dare you see beauty in any woman when I am
+by?"
+
+"Oh that I could see you really jealous, and of _me_!" returns he, half
+sadly, looking at her with longing eyes. "If I thought I could make
+your heart ache for even one short minute, I should be the happiest man
+alive."
+
+"_Boy_, you mean! Oh, traitor! And would you have me miserable for your
+own gratification?"
+
+"It would be for yours later on. For that one moment you would gain a
+slave forever."
+
+"And unless I am wretched for that one moment, I cannot gain my slave?"
+
+"You know the answer to that only too well," returns he, with so much
+fervor that she refuses to continue the discussion.
+
+"Talking of jealousy," she says, lightly, with a glance at him, "it is
+the dream of my life to make Rossmoyne jealous,--to reduce him to
+absolute submission. He is so cold, so precise, so English, that it
+would be quite a triumph to drag him at one's chariot-wheels. Shall I be
+able to do it?" she turns up her charming face to his, as though in
+question. She is looking her very sweetest, and is tenderly aware of the
+fact; and, indeed, so is he.
+
+"I suppose so," he says, in answer to her, but slowly and reproachfully.
+
+"But I must have help," says Olga. "_Some_ one must help me. You?--is it
+not?"
+
+"I?" with strong emphasis. "What should I have to do with it?"
+
+"Not much, yet I count upon you. Why, who do you think I am going to
+make him jealous about? Eh?"
+
+"How should I know?"
+
+"How shouldn't you? Why it is of you,--_you_!" with quite a delicious
+little laugh. "So you will have to dance round after me all day for the
+future until your mission is fulfilled, and try to look as if you
+_really_ loved me."
+
+"You have mistaken your man," says Ronayne, quietly: "you must get some
+one else to help you in this matter. It is not for me, even if I did not
+love you; I should scorn so low a task."
+
+"Love is an idle word," she says, her eyes flashing.
+
+"It may be--to some. But I tell you no man's heart is of so poor value
+that it can be flung hither and thither at any one's pleasure,--no, not
+even at the pleasure of the woman he adores. You will seek some more
+complaisant lover to be your dupe on this occasion. I decline the
+office."
+
+"You forget how you speak, sir!" she says, proudly; yet even as she
+gives way to this angry speech a gleam of deepest admiration so lights
+her eyes that she is obliged to let her lids fall over them to cover the
+tell-tales beneath; her breath comes and goes quickly.
+
+Something like relief comes to her when Lord Rossmoyne, stretching his
+long neck round the curtain that half shields the cushioned recess of
+the window where they are sitting, says, with considerable animation,
+for him,--
+
+"Ah! so I have found you, Mrs. Bohun."
+
+"You have indeed, and in good time. I am pining in prison, but you have
+come to deliver me."
+
+"If I may."
+
+"Such a dreary little spot, is it not? I don't know what could have
+induced me to enter it."
+
+"Ronayne possibly," says Rossmoyne, with an unpleasant smile.
+
+"Oh, dear, no!" contemptuously: "I came here of my own free will. We all
+do foolish things at times, I have not danced this last because Mr.
+Ronayne prefers pleasant converse. I don't. I thought you would never
+come to seek me. What were you doing?"
+
+"Hunting for you, and thinking every minute an hour. These
+curtains"--touching them--"were jealous of you, and sought to hide you."
+
+"Well, don't be so long next time," she says, looking up at him with a
+smile that a little more pressure would make tender and laying her hand
+on his arm.
+
+She moves away. Ronayne, drawing his breath somewhat savagely, sits down
+on the sill of the window and gazes blankly into the barrack-yard below.
+He has still her programme in his hand, and is crumpling it
+unconscionably, hardly knowing what he does. But, if disturbed in mind,
+it is always _such_ a comfort to smash something, be it a piece of
+pasteboard or one's most intimate friend.
+
+She had forgotten her card, probably, and now it is almost useless.
+Ronayne's heart is full of bitterness, and he tries to swear to himself
+that for the future he will cleanse his heart of this coquette, who
+cares no more for him--nay, far less--than she does for her little toy
+terrier. Yet, even as these stern resolves seek vainly to root
+themselves in his breast, his eyes turn again to the room beyond, and
+make search for the siren who is his undoing. She is still, of course,
+with Rossmoyne, and is all smiles and pretty blushes, and is evidently
+both content and happy.
+
+"I am a fool!--a madman!" he says to himself; and even as he says it
+his eyes light on Owen Kelly, who by chance is looking at him too.
+
+Crossing the room, the latter (as though drawn by the melancholy eyes
+that have met his) soon reaches the window where Ronayne stands
+disconsolate.
+
+"Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" he says gayly, but with so kindly an
+intonation that even the most pugnacious could not take umbrage at it.
+
+Now, Mr. Kelly's knowledge on all matters is so clear and precise that
+Ronayne does not dream of deceiving him in this matter.
+
+"Of course you will laugh at me," he says, "but somehow I don't mind
+_your_ ridicule much. It means only this, that I have just found out
+that she cares nothing at all for me."
+
+"_She_, being Mrs. Bohun? Well, my dear lad, if an elderly gentleman's
+experience is of any use to you, you may have it cheap. _I_ believe she
+cares a great deal for you. Lookers-on see most of the game, and I would
+back you against Rossmoyne any day."
+
+"You are a very good fellow," says Ulic Ronayne, "the best I know; but I
+understand you. You are only saying that to console me."
+
+"I am not, in faith: I say it because I think it."
+
+"I wish I could think it."
+
+"Try. 'If at first you don't succeed,' you know follow out the
+inestimable Watts's advice, and 'try again.' There's nothing like it: it
+gets to be quite a game in the long run. I thank my stars," laughing, "I
+have never been a slave to the 'pathetic fallacy' called love; yet it
+has its good points, I suppose."
+
+"It hasn't," says Ronayne, gloomily.
+
+"You terrify me," says Mr. Kelly, "because I feel positive my day is yet
+to come, and with all this misery before me I feel suicidal. Don't my
+dear fellow! don't look like that! Give her up; go and fall in love with
+some little girl of your own age or even younger."
+
+The "even" is offensive, but Ulic is too far gone in melancholy to
+perceive it.
+
+"It is too late for that kind of advice," he says: "I want her, and her
+only. I don't know how to describe it, but----"
+
+"There are chords," quotes his friend gravely.
+
+"Just so," says the miserable Ronayne, quite as gravely; which so upsets
+the gravity of his companion that it is with difficulty he conceals his
+ill-timed mirth.
+
+"What is that mutilated article in your hand?" he asks at length, when
+he has conquered his muscles.
+
+"This--eh!--oh, her card, I suppose," says Ronayne, viciously. Yet even
+as he speaks he smooths out the crumpled card, and regards it with a
+dismal tenderness as being in part _her_.
+
+"You're engaged to her for the next," says Mr. Kelly, looking over his
+shoulder: "what an unfortunate thing! If I were you," mournfully, "I
+should go home. Get ill. Do _something_."
+
+"And so let her think I'm wasting in despair because she prefers
+another? No, I shan't," says Ronayne, with sudden animation. "I shall
+see it out with her. If she chooses to cancel this dance well and good,
+but I shall certainly remind her she promised it to me."
+
+"Rash boy!" says Kelly, with a sigh. "As you refuse to hearken to the
+voice of common sense, and afflict yourself with a megrim, I leave you
+to your fate."
+
+So saying, he turns aside, and, having gone a step or two, finds himself
+face to face with Miss Beresford.
+
+"This dance is ours," he says, mendaciously, knowing well this is the
+first time they have met this evening.
+
+Monica laughs: to be angry with so sad a visaged man as Owen Kelly would
+be a cruelty.
+
+"I am glad of it," she says, "because I do not want to dance at all; and
+I think you will not mind sitting with me and talking to me for a little
+while."
+
+"You remember me then?" he says, shifting his glass from one eye to the
+other, and telling himself she is as pretty as she is wise.
+
+"I think so," shyly, yet with a merry glance; "you are that Master
+O'Kelly, of Kelly Grove, county Antrim, who is the bright and shining
+light of the Junior Bar."
+
+"You do indeed know me," returns he, mildly.
+
+"'Thy modesty's a candle to thy merit,'" quotes she, wickedly, in a low
+tone.
+
+At this he smiles sadly (a luxury he rarely permits himself), and,
+taking up her hand, lays it on his arm.
+
+"Come," he says, "I will sit with you, and talk with you, when, and
+where, and for as long as you like. The longer the greater bliss for me.
+The spaciousness of these halls, fair madam, as doubtless you have
+perceived, gives wide scope for choice of seats. In which secluded bower
+will it please you to efface yourself?"
+
+Monica glances from one small room to the landing-place, and from the
+landing-place to the other small room beyond, and naturally hesitates.
+
+"There is another stairs besides the one we ascended," says Mr. Kelly.
+"I saw it when first I came: would _you_ like to see it too?"
+
+"I should indeed," says Monica, grateful for the hint, and, going with
+him, suddenly becomes aware of a staircase, leading goodness knows
+whither, upon the third step of which she seats herself, after a rapid
+glance around and upwards that tells her nothing, so mysterious are the
+workings of a barracks.
+
+Mr. Kelly seats himself beside her.
+
+"I suppose it is my mission to amuse you," he says, calmly, "as I dare
+not make love to you."
+
+"Why not?" says Monica, quite as calmly.
+
+"For one thing, you would not listen to me; and for another, I don't
+want my head broken."
+
+Monica smiles, more because it is her duty to than for any other reason,
+because after the smile comes a sigh.
+
+"I know few knights would tilt a lance for me," she says; and Kelly,
+glancing at her, feels a quick desire rise within him to restore
+sunshine to her perfect face.
+
+"One knight should be enough for any one, even the fairest ladye in the
+land," he says.
+
+"True; but what is to be for her who has none?" asks she, pathos in her
+eyes, but a smile upon her lips.
+
+"She must be a very perverse maiden who has _that_ story to tell,"
+returns he; and then, seeing she has turned her face away from him, he
+goes on quietly,--
+
+"You know every one here, of course."
+
+"Indeed, no. The very names of most are unknown to me. Tell me about
+them, if you will."
+
+"About that girl over there, for instance?" pointing to a dingy-looking
+girl in the distance, whose face is as like a button as it well can be,
+and whose general appearance may be expressed by the word "unclean."
+
+"That is Miss Luker," says Kelly. "Filthy Lucre is, I believe, the name
+she usually goes by, on account of her obvious unpalatableness (my own
+word, you will notice), and her overwhelming affection for coin small
+and great."
+
+"She looks very untidy," says Monica.
+
+"She does, indeed. She is, too, an inveterate chatterbox. She might give
+any fellow odds and beat him; I don't believe myself there is so much
+as one comma in her composition."
+
+"Poor girl! What an exertion it must be to her!"
+
+"Musn't it? Especially nowadays, when one _never_ goes for much, real
+hard work of any kind being such a bore. That's her mother beside her.
+She is always beside her. Fat little woman, d'ye see?"
+
+"Yes, a nice motherly-looking little woman she seems to be."
+
+"Horribly motherly! She has a birthday for every month in the year!"
+
+"How?" says Monica, opening her eyes.
+
+"I don't so much allude to her own natal day (which by this time I
+should say is obscure) as to her children's. They came to her at all
+seasons, from January to December. There are fourteen of them."
+
+"Oh, it _can't_ be possible! Poor, _poor_ soul!" says Monica, feeling
+quite depressed.
+
+"She isn't poor; she is very well off," says Mr. Kelly, obtusely. "Much
+better than she deserves. So don't grieve for her. She glories in her
+crime. Well, it's 'a poor heart that never rejoices,' you know: so I
+suppose she is right. There's Miss Fitzgerald: do you admire her?"
+
+"I am sure I _ought_," says Monica, simply; "but I _don't_."
+
+"You have the courage of your opinions. Every one down here admires her
+tremendously. I agree with you, you know, but then," softly, "_I_ am
+nobody!"
+
+"Perhaps you think I am jealous," says Monica. "But indeed I am not."
+
+"What a baby you are!" says Mr. Kelly. "_Who_ could suppose you jealous
+of Bella Fitzgerald? 'Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere,'
+and I shouldn't think the fair Bella would have _much_ motion if put in
+comparison with you. She always calls 'a spade a spade, and Branson's
+Essence of Coffee,' etc. In fact, she is material."
+
+"That means she has common sense. Why call her 'material'?"
+
+"Never mind. It is quite _immaterial_," says Mr. Kelly, tranquilly,
+after which silence reigns triumphantly for a moment or two, until a new
+figure presents itself on a small platform below them.
+
+"Ah! there is Desmond," says Kelly. "He looks," innocently, "as if he
+was looking for somebody."
+
+"I hope he will find her," remarks Miss Beresford, with some acerbity
+and a most unnecessary amount of color.
+
+"Perhaps he is looking for _me_," says Mr. Kelly, naively.
+
+"Perhaps so," dryly.
+
+"At all events, whoever it is, she, or he, or it, seems difficult of
+discovery. Did you ever see so woebegone a countenance as his?"
+
+"I think he looks quite happy enough," says Monica, without sympathy.
+
+Kelly lets his languid gaze rest on her for a moment.
+
+"What has Desmond done to you?" he says at last, slowly.
+
+"Done?" haughtily. "Nothing. What _could_ he do?"
+
+"Nothing, I suppose,--as you say. By the bye, I have not seen you
+dancing with him this afternoon."
+
+"No."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+It is an indisputable fact that some people may say with impunity what
+other people dare not say under pain of excommunication. Owen Kelly, as
+a rule, says what he likes to women without rebuke, and, what is more,
+without incurring their displeasure.
+
+"How is what?"
+
+"I thought that day at Aghyohillbeg that you and Desmond were great
+friends."
+
+"Friends! when we have only seen each other two or three times. Is
+friendship the growth of an hour?"
+
+"No. But something else is." He looks at her _almost_ cheerfully as he
+says this. "But neither you nor I, Miss Beresford, have anything to do
+with that flimsy passion."
+
+"You mean----"
+
+"Love!"
+
+"_Is_ there such a thing?" says Monica, wistfully, whereupon Mr. Kelly
+says to himself, "Now, what on earth has that fellow been doing to her?"
+but aloud he says, in his usual subdued tones,--
+
+"I don't know, I'm sure, but they say so, and perhaps they, whoever they
+may be, are right. If so, I think it is a dangerous subject to discuss
+with _you_. Let us skip it, and go on. You haven't told me why you are
+not dancing with Desmond."
+
+"_Why_ should I dance with Mr. Desmond?"
+
+"Because it is not always easy to have a refusal ready, perhaps,
+or----He has asked you?"
+
+She would have given a good deal at this instant to be able to answer
+"No;" but the remembrance of how he pleaded with her for one waltz that
+evening at the end of the Moyne meadow comes between her and her desire.
+So she says, "Yes," instead.
+
+"And you would none of him?"
+
+"_No._"
+
+"It isn't my part to ask why," says Kelly, with quite a miserable air;
+"but still I cannot help wondering how _any one_ can dislike Desmond."
+
+No answer. Miss Beresford is looking straight before her, but her color
+is distinctly higher, and there is a determination about her not to be
+cajoled into speech, that is unmistakable. Having studied her for a
+little, Mr. Kelly goes on,--
+
+"I never know whether it is Desmond's expression or manner that is so
+charming, therefore I conclude it is both. Have you noticed what a
+peculiarly lovable way he has with him? But of course not, as, somehow
+he has the misfortune to jar upon you. Yet very few hate him. You see,
+you are that excellent thing, an exception."
+
+"I do not hate him," says Monica; and, having thus unlocked her lips
+against her inclination, she feels Owen Kelly of Kelly's Grove has won
+the game; but she bears him no ill will for all that. "It is the cause,
+it is the cause, my soul!"
+
+"No! well, hate is a bitter word, and an unmannerly. I am sorry, then,
+that you dislike him."
+
+"Not even that."
+
+"You mean, you regard him with indifference!"
+
+"Yes, exactly that," says Monica, with slow deliberation.
+
+"I am sorry for it. He is a man upon whom both men and women smile,--a
+rare thing,--a very favorite of Fortune."
+
+"She is fickle."
+
+"She may well be dubbed so, indeed, if she deserts him at his sorest
+need. But as yet she is faithful, as she ought to be, to the kindest,
+the sincerest fellow upon earth."
+
+"Sincerest?"
+
+As this repetition, and the fine sneer that accompanies it, escape her,
+she becomes aware that Desmond himself has come to the foot of the
+stairs, and is gazing at her reproachfully.
+
+"Here is fickle Fortune's favorite literally at our feet," says Owen
+Kelly; and, before Monica can say anything, Brian has mounted the two
+steps that lie between him and her, and is at her side.
+
+"If I may not dance with you, may I at least talk to you for a moment or
+two?" he says, hurriedly.
+
+"Certainly," with cold surprise.
+
+"I don't think three of us could sit together comfortably on this one
+step," says Mr. Kelly, with a thoughtful glance at its dimensions,--"not
+even if we squeezed up to each other ever so much; and I am afraid,"
+mournfully, "Miss Beresford might not like that, either. Would you, Miss
+Beresford?"
+
+"Not much," says Monica. "But why need you stir? Mr. Desmond has asked
+at the most for two moments; they will go quickly by: in fact,"
+unkindly, "I should think they are already gone."
+
+"And yet he has not begun his '_talk_.' Make haste Desmond. Time, tide,
+and Miss Beresford wait for no man. Hurry! we are all on the tiptoe of
+expectation." As Mr. Kelly says all this in a breath, he encourages
+Desmond generously to "come on" by a wave of his hand; whereupon Brian,
+who is not in his sweetest mood, directs a glance at him that ought to
+annihilate any ordinary man, but is thrown away upon Kelly, who is
+fire-proof.
+
+"Some other time, then, as I disturb you now," says Brian, haughtily,
+addressing himself pointedly to Monica.
+
+"By no means," says his whilom friend, rising. "Take my place for your
+two moments,--not a second longer, remember! I feel with grief that Miss
+Beresford will probably hail the exchange of partners with rapture.
+'Talk,' says Bacon, 'is but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love;'
+and as she would not let me discourse on any topics tenderer than the
+solar system and the Channel Tunnel, I have no doubt she has found it
+very slow. Now, _you_ will be the--er--other thing quite!"
+
+With this speech, so full of embarrassing possibilities, he bows to
+Monica, smiles at the gloomy Desmond, and finally withdraws himself
+gracefully from their view. Not without achieving his end, however: they
+both heartily wish him back again even while he is going.
+
+"What have I done?" asks Desmond, abruptly, turning to Monica, who is
+gazing in a rapt fashion at her large black fan.
+
+"Done?"
+
+"Don't answer me like that, Monica. I have offended you. I can see that.
+But how? Every moment of this wretched afternoon, until you came, I
+spent wondering when you would arrive. And yet when at last I _did_ see
+you, you would vouchsafe me neither smile nor glance. In fact, you
+looked as if you _hated_ me!"
+
+"_Every_ moment?" sardonically.
+
+"Every one."
+
+"Even those spent with Mrs. Bohun?" To save her life she could not call
+her "Olga" now.
+
+"With _her_?" staring in some surprise at his inquisitor. "Well, it
+certainly wasn't quite so bad--the waiting, I mean--then. Though still,
+with my mind full of you, I was----"
+
+"You were indeed!" interrupting him hastily, with a contemptuous smile.
+
+"Certainly I was," the surprise growing deeper.
+
+"I wonder you are not ashamed to sit there and confess it," says Miss
+Beresford, suddenly, with a wrathful flash in her eyes. "I shall know
+how to believe you again. To say one thing to me one day, and another
+thing to another person another day, and----" Here she finds a
+difficulty in winding up this extraordinary speech, so she says,
+hurriedly, "It is _horrible_!"
+
+"What is horrible?" bewildered.
+
+But she pays no heed to his question, thinking it doubtless beneath her.
+
+"At least," she says, with fine scorn, "you needn't be untruthful."
+
+"Do you know," says Mr. Desmond, desperately, "you are making the most
+wonderful remarks I ever heard in my life? There is no beginning to
+them, and I'm dreadfully afraid there will be no ending."
+
+"No doubt," scornfully, "you are afraid."
+
+"If I allow I am," says Desmond, humbly, "will it induce you to
+explain?"
+
+"You want no explanation," indignantly. "You know very well what you
+confessed a while ago,--that--that--'_you were_'! _There!_"
+
+"_Where?_"
+
+"Flirting with Olga Bohun!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"You did. You know you did. Oh, what perfidy! Only a moment since you
+declared it openly, shamelessly; and now you deny it! Why I wouldn't
+have believed it, even of _you_. How _can_ you pretend to forget it?"
+
+But that there are tears born of real emotion in her great eyes, Mr.
+Desmond would assuredly believe she is making a vast joke at his
+expense, so innocent is he of any offence.
+
+"If by some unfortunate method," he says, calmly, "you have
+metamorphosed any speech of mine into a declaration relative to a
+flirtation with Mrs. Bohun, you have done an uncommonly clever thing.
+You have turned a lie into truth. I never said even one spoony word to
+Olga Bohun in all my life."
+
+"Then why," in a still much-aggrieved tone, but with strong symptoms of
+relenting, "did you say you were?"
+
+"I don't remember saying it at all," says poor Mr. Desmond, who has
+forgotten all about his interrupted remark.
+
+"Then what were you saying to Olga just as I came in?"
+
+"Oh! _that!_"--brightening into a remembrance of the past by the
+greatest good luck, or the quarrel might have proved a final one (which
+would have been a sad pity, as so many right good ones followed it).
+"You stopped me just now when I was going to tell you about it. When you
+came this evening I was dancing with Olga, and talking to her of _you_.
+It was some small consolation."
+
+"But you were smiling at her," says Monica, faltering, "and whispering
+to her--_whispering!_"
+
+"Of you. You believe me? Monica, look at me. Do you know I really think
+that----"
+
+But this valuable thought is forever lost. Glancing at his companion, he
+sees a change come over the spirit of her face. Her eyes brighten, but
+not with pleasurable anticipation. Quite the reverse. She lays her hand
+suddenly upon his arm, and gazes into the landing-place beneath.
+
+"There is Aunt Priscilla!" she says, in an awestruck tone. "She has just
+come out of that room. She is, I _know_,"--a guilty conscience making a
+coward of her,--"looking for me. She may come here! Go, Go!"
+
+"But I can't leave you here alone."
+
+"Yes, you can; you can, indeed. Only try it. Mr. Desmond, _please_ go."
+This she says so anxiously that he at once decides (though with
+reluctance) there is nothing left him but to obey.
+
+And, after all, Aunt Priscilla never looks up those stairs, but passes
+by them, dimly lit as they are, as though they had never been built; and
+Desmond, unknowing of this, goes sadly into the dancing-room, ostensibly
+in search of Kelly, but with his mind so full of his cross little love
+that he does not see him, although he is within a yard of him at one
+time.
+
+Now, Mr. Kelly, when he quitted the fateful staircase, had turned to his
+right, with a view to getting some friend to lounge against a doorway
+with him, but, failing in this quest, had entered the dancing-room, and
+edged round it by degree,--not so much from a desire for motion as
+because he was elbowed ever onwards by tired dancers who sought the
+friendly support of the walls.
+
+Reaching at length a certain corner, he determines to make his own of it
+and defend it against all assailants, be they men or Amazons.
+
+It is a charming corner, and almost impregnable; it is for this very
+reason also almost unescapable, as he learns to his cost later on.
+However, he comes to anchor here, and looks around him.
+
+He is quite enjoying himself, and is making private comments on his
+friends that I have no doubt would be rapturously received by them could
+they only hear them, when he wakes to the fact that two people have come
+to a standstill just before him. They are engaged in not only an
+animated but an amicable discussion, and are laughing gayly: as laughter
+is even more distinguishable in a crowd than the voice when in repose,
+Mr. Kelly is attracted by theirs, and to his astonishment discovers that
+his near neighbors are the deadly enemies of an hour agone,--_i. e._,
+Mrs. Bohun and Ulic Ronayne.
+
+No faintest trace of spleen is to be discovered in their tones. All is
+once more sunshine. Past storms are forgotten. They have evidently been
+carrying on their discussion for a considerable time whilst dancing,
+because it is only the very end of it that is reserved for Mr. Kelly's
+delectation. He, poor man, is hemmed in on every side, and finds to his
+horror he cannot make his escape. This being so, he resigns himself with
+a grim sense of irony to the position allotted him by fate, and being a
+careful man, makes up his mind, too, to derive what amusement from it
+that he can.
+
+"So you see everything depends upon judgment," says the fair widow,
+fanning herself languidly, but smiling archly.
+
+"A good deal, certainly."
+
+"_Everything_, _I_ say. Determination to succeed, and the power to do
+it, are strong in themselves; but judgment tempers all things. And how
+few possess all three!"
+
+"I, at least, am grateful for that. If every one was endowed with those
+three irresistible forces, I should have a bad chance. I should be but
+one among so many. Then it could only be decided by brute force."
+
+"What could?" asks she, turning a fair but amazed face up to his.
+
+"Oh, nothing!" returns he, with some confusion. "Only some silly thought
+of my own private brain,--not the part I was devoting to your argument.
+Forgive me. You were saying----"
+
+"That there is a tremendous amount of feebleness in most natures. The
+real clever thing is to be able to see when an opportunity for good
+arises, and then to grasp it. Most people can't see it, you know."
+
+"Others _can_!" says Mr. Ronayne. As he speaks he passes his arm round
+her pretty waist and smiles saucily into her eyes.
+
+"What!" exclaims she, smiling in turn, "am I an opportunity, then?"
+
+"The sweetest one I know, and so I seize it," says the audacious youth;
+while Mr. Kelly, behind, feels as if he was going to sink into the
+ground.
+
+"You don't understand what the word means, you silly boy," says the
+widow, laughing gayly.
+
+"Don't I! I only wish I might parse and _spell_ it with you," says
+Ronayne, his spirits rising; at which answer, I regret to say, pretty
+Mrs. Bohun laughs again merrily, and suffers him to lead her away into
+the dancing-circle without a rebuke, leaving Mr. Kelly limp with fear of
+discovery.
+
+Now, his imprisonment being at an end, he leaves his corner, and,
+braving the anger of the dancing people, walks straight through their
+midst to the door beyond, ready to endure anything rather than the
+eavesdropping, however innocent, of a moment past.
+
+Filled therefore with courage, he sallies forth, and on the landing
+outside encounters the two Misses Blake clothed for departure, with
+Monica and Kit beside them. Terence is still bidding adieu to Miss
+Fitzgerald whose tall charms have worked a way into his youthful
+affections.
+
+Desmond is standing at a little distance from this group; Mr. Ryde is in
+the midst of it. He is expostulating with Monica about the cruelty of
+her early departure, in a tone that savors of tenderness and rouses in
+Mr. Desmond's breast a hearty desire to kick him. Then Mr. Ryde carries
+on his expostulations to where Aunt Priscilla is standing; and Brian
+tries vainly to gain a last glance from Monica, if only to see whether
+the treaty of peace between them--interrupted a while ago--has been
+really signed or not.
+
+But Monica, either through wilfulness or ignorance of his near locality,
+or perhaps fear of Miss Priscilla, refuses to meet his longing eyes. For
+my part, I believe in the wilfulness.
+
+Kit, who is always like the cockles of ancient fame, "_alive O_," sees
+his disconsolate face, his earnest, unrequited glance, and Monica's
+assumed or real indifference, and feels sad at heart for him.
+Deliberately, and with a sweet, grave smile, she holds out to him her
+small hand, and, regardless of consequences, gives his a hearty squeeze.
+Most thankfully he acknowledges this courtesy; whereupon, of her still
+further charity, she bestows upon him a glance from her dark eyes that
+speaks volumes and assures him he has in her a friend at court.
+
+Then all is over. The two Misses Blake go slowly and with caution down
+the steep staircase, Monica and Mr. Ryde (who grows more devoted every
+minute) following, Terence and Kit bringing up the rear.
+
+During the drive home the Misses Blake (who have thoroughly enjoyed
+themselves) are both pleasant and talkative. As the old horses jog
+steadily along the twilit road, they converse in quite a lively fashion
+of all they have heard and noticed, and laugh demurely over many a small
+joke.
+
+Kit of course, is in raptures. Her _first_ party and _such_ a success!
+She had danced one set of quadrilles and one polka! _two_ whole dances!
+Ye gods, was there ever so happy a child! She chatters, and laughs, and
+rallies everybody so gayly that the old aunts are fain to die of
+merriment.
+
+Yet Monica, who might--an' she chose--have had two partners for every
+dance, is strangely silent and depressed. No word escapes her: she leans
+back with her pretty tired head pressed close against the cushions.
+Perchance little Kit notices all this; because when any one addresses
+Monica she makes answer for her in the most careless manner possible,
+and by her sharp wit turns the attention of all from the sister she
+adores; yet in her heart she is angry with Monica.
+
+Once only during this homeward drive something occurs to disturb the
+serenity of the Misses Blake. Kit, in one of her merry sallies, has
+touched upon Miss Fitzgerald; whereupon Aunt Priscilla, mindful of that
+late and lingering adieu of Terence, says, suddenly,--
+
+"And how do _you_ like Miss Fitzgerald, Terence?"
+
+"She's delightful, aunt!" says the stricken Terence, enthusiastically.
+"Perfectly enchanting! You never met so nice a girl!"
+
+"Oh, yes! I think I have, Terence," says Miss Priscilla, freezingly. "I
+am, indeed, _sure_ I have."
+
+"There's something about her right down fetching," says Mr. Beresford,
+giving himself airs. "Something--er--_there_, but difficult to
+describe."
+
+"A 'je ne sais quoi young man,'" quotes the younger Miss Beresford, with
+a sneer. "She's tall enough to be one, at any rate. She is a horrid girl
+I think."
+
+"You're jealous," says Terence, contemptuously. "Because you know you
+will never be half as good to look at."
+
+"If I thought that," says Kit, growing very red, "I'd commit suicide."
+
+"Tut! You are too silly a child to be argued with," says Terence, in a
+tone that is not to be borne.
+
+Kit, rising in her seat, prepares for battle, and is indeed about to
+hurl a scathing rebuke upon him, when Miss Priscilla interrupts her.
+
+"What is this great charm you see in Miss Fitzgerald, Terence?" she asks
+slowly.
+
+"That is just what I cannot describe, aunt."
+
+"I should think you couldn't, indeed!" puts in Kit, wrathfully.
+
+"But, as I said before, she is delightful."
+
+"She _may_ be," says Priscilla, the most damning doubt in her tone. "She
+_may_ be, my dear. Forbid that I should deny it! But there are some
+delightful people, Terence, that are not good for us."
+
+Somehow, after this, conversation dwindles until it is gone. Terence
+sulks; Monica moons; Kit ponders; the Miss Blake snooze: and so at last
+home is reached.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+  How Kit sees a Vision, and being exhorted thereto by it, pleads a
+  certain cause with great success.
+
+
+It is ten o'clock, and as lovely a night as ever overhung the earth. The
+moon is at its fullest, the wind has fallen, all is calm as heaven
+itself, through which Dictynna's unclouded grandeur rolls.
+
+The Misses Blake, fatigued by their unusual dissipation, ordered an
+early rout an hour agone, whereby bedroom candlesticks were in demand at
+nine or half-past nine o'clock.
+
+Now, in Monica's room Kit is standing by the open window gazing in rapt
+admiration at the dew spangled garden beneath. Like diamonds glitter the
+grass and the flowers beneath the kiss of the grass and the queen of
+night.
+
+Moonbeams are playing in the roses, and nestling in the lilies, and
+rocking to and fro upon the bosom of the stream.
+
+There is a peace unspeakable on all around. One holds one's breath and
+feels a longing painful in its intensity as one drinks in the beauty of
+the earth and sky. 'Twere _heaven_ to be assured of love on such a night
+as this.
+
+Stars make the vault above so fine that all the world, me-thinks, should
+be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun. There is a
+rush of feeling in the air,--a promise of better things to come,--of
+hope, of glad desire, of sweet love perfected!
+
+"How lovely a night it is!" says Kit, leaning far out of the window, and
+gazing westward. She is at heart a born artist, with a mind, indeed, too
+full of strange, weird thoughts at times to augur well for the happiness
+of her future. Like many of her Irish race, she is dreamy,
+poetical,--intense at one moment, gay, wild impulsive the next.
+
+"See what a flood of light there is on everything!" she says. "'_Bathed_
+in moonlight,' what a good thought was that. Monica, when I am as old as
+you, in a very few short years I shall be a poet."
+
+"No, you won't, darling: you will be a musician. See what fairies lie
+beneath your fingers even now when you touch the piano or violin; be
+content, then, with your great gift, which most surely _is_ yours. And
+to me, indeed, it seems a grander thing to thrill and enchain and draw
+to your feet all hearts by the power of harmony that dwells within you,
+than by the divine gift of song that poets have."
+
+"But their songs _are_ harmony," says the child, turning quickly to her.
+
+"Ay, the interpretation of it, but you have its very breath. No; search
+the world over, and you will find nothing so powerful to affect the
+souls of all as music."
+
+"Well some day I shall want to do something," says Kit, vaguely; and
+then she turns to the window again, and lets her mind wander and lose
+itself in a mute sonata to the fair Isis throned above.
+
+"It draws me," she says, presently, rising slowly and addressing Monica,
+but always with her gaze fixed upon the sleeping garden down below. "It
+is so bright,--so clear."
+
+"What, Kit?"
+
+"The moonlight. I must," restlessly, "go down into it for a little
+moment, or I shall not sleep through longing for it."
+
+"But the doors are closed, my dearest, and Aunt Priscilla is in bed, and
+so are the servants."
+
+"So much the better. I can draw the bolts myself without being
+questioned. You said just now," gayly, "I have a fairy beneath my
+fingers. I think I have a moon-fairy in my heart, because I love it so."
+
+"Stay here with me, then, and worship it sensibly from my window."
+
+"What! do you look for sense in 'moon-struck madness'? No; I shall go
+down to my scented garden. I have a fancy I cannot conquer to walk into
+that tiny flame-white path of moonlight over there near the hedge. Do
+you see it?"
+
+"Yes. Well, go, if Titania calls you, but soon return, and bring me a
+lily,--I, too, have a fancy, you see,--a tall lily, fresh with dew and
+moonshine."
+
+"You shall have the tallest, the prettiest I can find," says Kit from
+the doorway, where she stands framed unknowingly, looking such a
+slender, ethereal creature, with eyes too large for her small face, that
+Monica, with a sudden pang of fear, goes swiftly up to her, and,
+pressing her to her heart, holds her so for a moment.
+
+"I know what you are thinking now," says Kit, with another laugh,--"that
+I shall die early."
+
+"Kit! Kit!"
+
+"Yes. Isn't it strange? I can read most people's thoughts. But be happy
+about me. I look fragile, I know, but I shall not die until I am quite a
+respectable age. Not a hideous age, you will understand, but with my
+hair and my teeth intact. One keeps one's hair until forty, doesn't
+one?"
+
+"I don't know. I'm not forty," says Monica. "But hurry, hurry out of the
+garden, because the dew is falling."
+
+Down the dark staircase, through the darker halls, into the brilliant
+moonlight, goes Kit. The wind, soft as satin, plays about her pretty
+brows and nestles through her hair, rewarding itself thus for its
+enforced quiet of an hour ago. Revelling in the freedom she has gained,
+Kit enters the garden and looks lovingly around upon her
+companions,--the flowers.
+
+Who would sleep when beauty such as this is flung broadcast upon the
+earth, waiting for man to feast his slothful eyes upon it?
+
+Lingeringly, tenderly, Kit passes by each slumbering blossom, or gazes
+into each drowsy bell, until the moonlit patch of grass she had pointed
+out to Monica is at last reached. Here she stands in shadow, glancing
+with coy delight at the fairyland beyond. Then she plunges into it, and
+looks a veritable fairy herself, slim, and tall, and beautiful, and more
+than worthy of the wand she lacks.
+
+Walking straight up her silver path, she goes to where the lilies grow,
+in a bed close by the hedge. But, before she comes to them, she notes in
+the hedge itself a wild convolvulus, and just a little beyond it a wild
+dog-rose, parent of all roses. She stays to pluck them, and then--
+
+"Kit," says a voice subdued and low, but so distinct as to sound almost
+in her ear.
+
+She starts, and then looks eagerly around her, but nothing can she see.
+Was it a human voice, or a call from that old land that held great Zeus
+for its king? A message from Olympus it well might be, on such a night
+as this, when all things breathe of old enchantment and of mystic lore.
+Almost she fears yet hopes to see a sylvan deity peep out at her from
+the escalonia yonder, or from the white-flowered, sweetly-perfumed
+syringa in that distant corner,--Pan the musical, perhaps, with his
+sweet pipes, or a yet more stately god, the beautiful Apollo, with his
+golden lyre. Oh for the chance of hearing such godlike music, with only
+she herself and the pale Diana for an audience!
+
+Perchance the gods have, indeed, been good to her, and sent her a
+special messenger on this yellow night. Fear forgotten, in the ecstasy
+of this hope, the strange child stands erect, and waits with eager
+longing for a second summons.
+
+And it comes, but alas! in a fatally earthly tone that ruins her fond
+hope forever.
+
+"Kit, it is I. Listen to me," says some one, and then a hole in the
+hedge is cleared, and Mr. Desmond, stepping through it, enters the
+moonlit patch, flushed but shamelessly unembarrassed.
+
+Kit, pale with disappointment, regards him silently with no gentle
+glance.
+
+"And to think," she says, at length, with slow scorn, looking him up and
+down with measureless contempt,--"to think I was mad enough to believe
+for one long moment that you might be Apollo, and that your voice was a
+cry from Parnassus!"
+
+At which, I regret to say, Mr. Desmond gives way to most unseemly
+mirth. "I never dreamed I should attain to such glory," he says. "I feel
+like 'the rapt one of the godlike forehead.'"
+
+"You _may_," says the younger Miss Beresford, who has awakened from the
+dim dusk of "faerie lands forlorn" to the clearer light of earth. "You
+may," witheringly, "_feel_ like it, but you certainly don't _look_ like
+it."
+
+"I am not complete, I know that," says Mr. Desmond still full of unholy
+enjoyment. "I lack 'bright Apollo's lute strung with his hair;' but if
+you will wait a moment I will run back to Coole and get the nearest
+thing to it."
+
+He turns as if to fulfil his words, but Kit stops him.
+
+"Don't go," she says, laughing gayly, now herself. "Even the very
+original lute would not transform you into a god. Stay if you want to.
+After all, now I am again in my senses, I daresay you are as good to
+talk to as a heathen deity."
+
+"Oh, no," says Mr. Desmond, humbly. "They always thundered when they
+spoke: so think how imposing and convincing their arguments must have
+been!"
+
+"Horrid, _I_ should think," says Kit. "And now tell me what brought you
+here?"
+
+This is abrupt, but, taking her in her own mood, Desmond answers,
+bluntly,--
+
+"Monica."
+
+"She _told_ you to come?"
+
+"No. But I want to see her."
+
+"She has gone to her room."
+
+"Make her leave it again. Tell her I cannot rest until I see her; tell
+her anything; only bring her to me for even one short moment."
+
+"But it is some time since I left her: perhaps she is in bed."
+
+"But not asleep yet, surely. She loves _you_, Kit: induce her, then, to
+come to her window, that I may even catch a glimpse of her, if I may not
+speak with her. But she cannot be in bed; it is so early," says Mr.
+Desmond, desperately.
+
+"Well," says Kit, relenting, and striving to forget the blank occasioned
+by the substitution of an ordinary Desmond for an extraordinary deity,
+"I'll see what can be done."
+
+"You will," eagerly, "really?"
+
+"Yes, really. I will stand your friend," say Kit, solemnly, feeling now
+that, even if the old gods have denied her an intimate acquaintance with
+them, still they have devoted her to the service of Cupid, and have
+secretly commanded her to help on the machinations of his naughty little
+highness.
+
+"Then will you tell her I want to see her--_here, now_--for only a bare
+second if she so wills it? Will you tell her this from me? Dear Kit,
+_sweet_ Kit, I entreat you to do this."
+
+"Oh! how sweet I am when you want me to do something for you!" says she,
+with a little smile. "There! I can see through you as clearly as though
+you were crystal; but I like you all the same. You must have some good
+in you to fall in love with my Monica."
+
+"Others can fall in love with her, too," returns he, with moody
+jealousy.
+
+"Ah, yes! I saw that," says Kit, lifting her hands excitedly.
+
+"Who could fail to see it? Who could fail to love her?" says Desmond,
+sadly. Then, being in such very poor case, and looking sorrowfully for
+comfort from any source, however small, he says, nervously,--
+
+"Kit, answer me truthfully--you have sworn to be my friend: tell me,
+then, which do _you_ count the better man,--him, or me?"
+
+But that a sense of honor forbids him to pry into his love's secret
+thoughts, he would have asked whom _she_ counted the better man.
+
+"You," says Kit, calmly. "I have no doubt about it. I _hate_ fat men,
+and--and so does Monica. I have heard her say so, over and over again."
+
+"Oh, Kit! what a dear little girl you are!" says Mr. Desmond, with
+grateful fervor.
+
+"Well, I'm glad you like me," says Kit, "because"--frankly--"I like you.
+It was very good of you to lend that gun to Terry; I haven't forgotten
+that, though, goodness knows, I only hope he won't do himself to death
+with it" (she delights in old-world phrases such as this); "and I like
+you, too, for loving Monica. Isn't she--" laying her hand upon his arm,
+and looking trustfully into his eyes,--"_isn't_ she pretty?"
+
+"She is like an angel," says Desmond, feeling all his heart go out to
+the fragile, ethereal-looking child before him, as he listens to her
+praises of her sister.
+
+"Or a saint, perhaps. Monica is a saintly name. Was she not the mother
+of St. Augustine?" says Kit, quickly. After the old gods, passion for
+the saints, and their lilies and roses and fiery trials, animates her
+childish bosom. "Oh! and that reminded me," she says: "she told me to
+bring her in a lily, fresh with dew,--one of those lilies over there in
+that dark corner. Do you see them,--tall and white?"
+
+"I see. Let me pick one for her. Here, take it to her, and," laying his
+lips upon it, "_this_ with it."
+
+"I will. And now let me run in and try my utmost to persuade her to come
+out here. But," doubtfully, as she remembers how Monica refused with
+studied coldness to meet his parting glance at the Barracks a few hours
+ago, "do not be too sure of her coming. She _may_ refuse, you know. She
+is peculiar in many ways, and she thinks herself bound in honor to Aunt
+Priscilla not to look at you. But stay here, just in this spot, and
+think all the time that I am doing my very best for you."
+
+Her little face is so earnest as she says all this, so fearful that he
+may have to endure disappointment, that he is greatly touched. Pushing
+back her hair from her forehead with both hands, he lays a light but
+loving kiss upon her brow.
+
+"Go, my best friend. I trust all to you," he says, after which the
+slender sprite springs away from him, and, entering the shadows beyond,
+is soon lost to him.
+
+Reaching the house, she mounts the stairs with swift but silent
+footsteps, and, after a nervous hesitation before the door of her aunt
+Priscilla's room, finds herself once again face to face with Monica.
+
+That pretty cause of all this plotting is not in bed, as Kit had
+predicted might be the case. She is not even undressed. She has only
+exchanged her azure gown for a loose white morning robe, long and
+trailing, and lavishly trimmed at the throat and wrists with some rare
+old Mechlin lace that Aunt Penelope had given her a week ago, glad in
+the thought that it may perchance add another charm to the beauty of her
+darling.
+
+Her hair is rolled up in a small, soft knot behind; her face is a little
+pale; her eyes, large and luminous, have great heavy shadows lying
+beneath them, suggestive of fatigue and tiring thought. Altogether, she
+is looking as lovely as any heart can desire.
+
+"Ah, you have returned!" she says, as Kit enters. "How long you have
+been! I gave you up. I thought some pixy had become enamoured of you and
+had carried you off to his kingdom."
+
+"I was in danger of nothing so insignificant as a pixy. It was the great
+Apollo's self I feared," says Kit, with a sly humorous smile. "And here
+is your lily: _he_ sent it to you with his love and a kiss."
+
+"Apollo?" smiling.
+
+"Why, yes. Who else could it be at this hour?"
+
+"Yet there is something strange in your manner."
+
+"That is as it should be. On such a night as this, how could one escape
+a little touch of that 'moonstruck madness' I spoke of a while since? Go
+out yourself, walk through that moonlit garden just where I walked, to
+where in that corner over the rays melt into shadow, and try if there be
+nothing in it to make your heart beat faster."
+
+"I could do it, and return calm as I am now."
+
+"Then you are no true woman."
+
+"What! must a woman be so foolishly romantic as to tremble in the
+moonlight, to be true?"
+
+"Moonlights differ. There is a witchery abroad to-night. Go, and judge
+for yourself if there be not truth in my words."
+
+"I can see enough of it from this," says Monica, leaning her bare snowy
+arms--from which her loose sleeves have fallen--upon the window-ledge,
+and turning her eyes to the pale sky studded with bright stars, "to
+bewitch me, if indeed it has the power you ascribe to it."
+
+Foiled in her first effort to send her to Desmond's arms, Kit flings
+herself upon the ground beside her, and lays her arms upon her lap and
+looks lovingly but reproachfully into her eyes.
+
+"I think you were a little unkind to that dear Brian this evening," she
+says.
+
+"That dear Brian will recover from my cruel treatment, I make no doubt,"
+says Monica, with affected lightness, though, in truth, remorse is
+gnawing at her heartstrings.
+
+"If he does, he will show his very good sense. He loves you: why, then,
+do you _flout_ and scorn him?"
+
+In the ancient library below, the young ladies in the novels always
+_flouted_ their lovers. Not having the faintest idea how they perform
+this arduous task, Kit still adopts the word as having a sonorous sound,
+and uses it now with--as she hopes--great effect.
+
+"I do _not_ flout him," says Monica, indignantly. "But what am I to do?
+am I to make Aunt Priscilla wretched, then, because of him, and break
+her poor heart perhaps?"
+
+"Oh, bother her heart!" says the younger Miss Beresford, with more
+candor than decency: "think of _his_ poor heart, if you like, wasting
+and wearing away because of your unkindness. If _I_ had a lover, that
+is not how I should treat him. I should do anything in the world he
+asked me. I should defy everybody in the world for him, and think them
+well lost. I should run away with him at a moment's notice if he asked
+me. _Now!_"
+
+"Oh, Kit!" says Monica, aghast at all this energy.
+
+"I should indeed," nothing daunted; "I shouldn't hesitate. And, at all
+events, I should be civil to him at all times. Why, the way you treated
+that wretched young man to-day at Clonbree Barracks was, I consider,
+shameful! And you call yourself, I dare say, soft-hearted. To _look_ at
+you, one would think you couldn't be unkind if you tried; and yet the
+_barbarity_ of your conduct to-day, to a person who literally worships
+the ground you walk on, was----"
+
+"But what did I do?" interrupts poor Monica, trembling before this
+whirlwind.
+
+"What _didn't_ you do? you mean. You would not even grant him one kind
+parting glance. I could have _cried_ for him, he looked so sad and
+forlorn. I think he looked like suicide,--I do, indeed,--and I shouldn't
+wonder a bit if in the morning we heard----"
+
+"Oh, Kit, don't! _don't!_" says Monica, in an agony, as this awful
+insinuation gains force with her.
+
+"Well, I won't then," says the advocate, pretending to surrender her
+point by adroitly changing her front. A very Jesuit at soul is this
+small Kit. "After all, I daresay he will grow tired of your incivility,
+and so--forget you. Some one else will see how dear a fellow he is, and
+smile upon him, and then he will give you up."
+
+This picture, being in Monica's eyes even _more_ awful than the former,
+makes great havoc in her face, rendering her eyes large and sorrowful,
+and, indeed, so suffused with the heart's water that she seems upon the
+very verge of tears. She turns these wet but lovely orbs upon her
+tormentor.
+
+"That would be the best thing he could do for _himself_," she says, so
+sadly that Kit insensibly creeps closer to her; "and as for me, it
+doesn't matter about me, of course."
+
+"Monica, you like him, then," says Kit, suddenly, rising on her knees
+and looking into her sister's averted eyes. "I am sure of it: I know it
+now. Why did you not confide in me before?"
+
+"Because it seems all so hopeless; even--if I loved him enough to marry
+him--_they_ would never give in" (meaning, presumably, her aunts): "so
+why should he or I waste time over so impossible a theory?"
+
+"Why should it be impossible? Why should you not be married?"
+
+"Because the fates are against us. Not," quickly, "that _that_ so much
+matters: I don't want to marry _anybody_! But--but," lowering her lids,
+"I do want him to _love_ me."
+
+"My dear child, talk sense if you talk at all," says the material Kit.
+"There never yet was a heroine in any novel ever read by me (and I have
+had a large experience) who didn't want to marry the man of her heart.
+Now just look at that girl of Rhoda Broughton's, in 'Good-by,
+Sweetheart!' We can all see she didn't die of any disease, but simply
+because she couldn't be wedded to the man she loved. _There's_ a girl
+for you! give _me_ a girl like that. If ever I fall in love with a man,
+and I find I can't marry him, I shall make a point of dying of grief. It
+is so graceful; just like what I have heard of Irving and Ellen Terry--I
+mean, Romeo and Juliet!"
+
+"But I can't bear to deceive Aunt Priscilla," says Monica. "She is so
+kind, so good."
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!" says Kit promptly. "Do you suppose, when Aunt
+Priscilla was young, she would have deserted--let us say--Mr. Desmond
+the elder, at the beck and call of any one? She has too much spirit, to
+do her credit. Though I must say her spirit is rather out of place now,
+at times."
+
+"What would you have me do, then?" asks Monica, desperately.
+
+"Oh, nothing," says Kit, airily,--"really _nothing_. I am too young, of
+course, to give advice," with a little vicious toss of her small head.
+"And of course, too, I know nothing of the world's ways," with another
+toss, that conveys to her auditor the idea that she believes herself
+thoroughly versed and skilled in society's lore, but that as yet she is
+misunderstood. "And it is not my place, of course, to dictate to an
+elder sister." This severely, and evidently intended as a slap at Monica
+because of some little rebuke delivered by her, the other day, on the
+subject of age. "But," with concentrated energy, "I would not be
+_brutal_, if I were you."
+
+"Brutal?" faintly.
+
+"Yes, _brutal_, to keep him waiting for you all this time in the shadow
+near the ivy wall!"
+
+Having discharged this shell, she waits in stony silence for a reply.
+She waits some time. Then--
+
+"Are you speaking of--of Mr. Desmond?" asks Monica, in a trembling
+voice.
+
+"Yes. He is standing there now, and has been, for--oh, for hours,--on
+the bare chance of gaining one word from you."
+
+"Now?" starting.
+
+"Yes. He said he would wait until I had persuaded you to go out. If I
+had such a lover, I know I should not keep him waiting for me all the
+evening _shivering_ with cold."
+
+(It is the balmiest of summer nights.)
+
+"Oh! what shall I do?" says Monica, torn in two between her desire to be
+true to her aunt and yet not unkind to her lover.
+
+"As I said before," says the resolute Kit, turning her small pale face
+up to her sister, "I know I am not entitled to dictate to any one, but
+this I know, too, that if I were you, and _twenty_ Aunt Priscillas were
+at my side, I should still--go to him! There!"
+
+She conquers. Monica rises slowly, and as a first move in the desired
+direction goes--need I say it?--to the looking-glass. Need I say, also,
+that she feels dissatisfied with her appearance?
+
+"Then I suppose I had better dress myself all over again," she says,
+glancing with much discontent at the charming vision the glass returns
+to her.
+
+"No, no!" says Kit, decidedly. She has now arranged herself as Mistress
+of the Ceremonies, and quite gives herself airs. "Do not add even a
+touch to your toilet. You are quite too sweet as you are, and 'time
+presses'" (another quotation from one of her mouldy volumes).
+
+"But _this_," says Monica, plucking at her pretty loose gown, that hangs
+in limp artistic folds round her slight figure and is pranked out with
+costly laces.
+
+"It is perfect! Have you no eyes for the beautiful? There, go, you silly
+child; Nature has been so good to you, you now deride her prodigality,
+and make little of the gifts she has bestowed upon you. Go to----"
+
+"Good gracious!" says Monica, pausing to stare at her aghast. "Where did
+you learn all that?"
+
+"It is in a book below; I learned it by heart, to say it to you some
+day, and now I have done it. There, be quick! He will be _gone_ if you
+don't make haste. His patience by this time must be exhausted. Think
+what he has been enduring; I only hope he hasn't fainted from sheer
+fatigue, that's all!"
+
+"Will you stay here till I come back," says Monica, nervously, "or will
+you come with me?"
+
+"I shall stay here; and don't hurry on my account. I shall be quite
+happy with this lamp and your Chaucer. There, go now; and tell him I
+sent you. And," mischievously, "don't be civil to him, you know, but
+rate him soundly for presuming to disturb your worship at this hour."
+
+"Oh! if any one sees me!" says Monica, quaking.
+
+"You will never get hanged for a big crime," returns Kit, laughing; and
+then Monica steps out lightly, fearfully, upon the corridor outside, and
+so, with her heart dying within her, creeps past her aunt's doors, and
+down the wide staircase, and through the hall, and at last into the
+silver moonlight!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+  How Monica with faltering footsteps enters the mysterious moonlight,
+  and how she fares therein.
+
+
+What a noise the tiny gravel makes beneath her feet, as she hurries
+rapidly towards the garden! How her heart beats! Oh that she were back
+again in her pretty safe room, with the naughty Kit to scold! Oh, if
+Aunt Priscilla were to rise, and, looking out of her bedroom window,
+catch a glimpse of her, as she hastes to meet the man she has been
+forbidden to know! A thousand terrors possess her. The soft beauty of
+the night is unseen, the rushing of sweet brooks in the distance is
+unheard. She hurries on, a little, lithe, frightened figure, with wide
+eyes and parted lips, to the rendezvous she has not sought. And what a
+little way it had seemed in the glad daylight, yet what a journey in the
+silent, fearsome night! There are real tears, born of sheer nervousness,
+in her beautiful eyes, as she runs along the garden path, and at
+last--_at last_--finds herself face to face with Desmond.
+
+"Ah, you have come!" cries he, gladly, going to meet her while yet she
+is a long way off.
+
+"Yes." She can say no more, but her fear has departed at sight of him,
+and once more she grows calm, collected, and mistress of herself. She
+keeps well away from him, however, and holds out to him--that "white
+wonder"--her hand, from a very great distance, as it seems to him. Does
+she distrust him, then? Thinking of this, Brian takes the extended hand,
+and holds it in a clasp that though tender is light, and refrains with
+much forbearance from pressing his lips to it.
+
+"To come _here_, and at this hour! It is madness!" says Monica, hastily.
+
+"A very blessed madness, then, and with method in it: it has enabled me
+to see _you_."
+
+"Oh, do not talk like that. You ought not to see me at all. And, now,
+what is it? Kit said you wanted me sadly."
+
+"And so I do, and not only now but always."
+
+"If," reproachfully, "it is nothing pressing, would not to-morrow have
+done?"
+
+"To-morrow never comes. There is nothing like to-day; and how could I
+have lived till to-morrow? I could not sleep, I could not rest, until I
+had seen you. My heart seemed on fire. Monica, how could you have
+treated me as you did to-day?"
+
+She is silent. The very fact of her not answering convinces him her
+coldness at the Barracks was intentional, and his tone takes an
+additional sadness as he speaks again.
+
+"You meant it then?" he says. "You would not throw me even one poor
+glance. If you could only look into my heart, and read how cruelly I
+felt your unkindness, you might----"
+
+"I don't know what you mean," says Monica. "Why should you talk of
+unkindness? Why should I be kinder to you than to another?"
+
+"Of your grace alone; I know that," says the young man, humbly. He has
+paid court to many a town-bred damsel before this, and gained their
+smiles too, and their sighs; yet now he sues to this cold child as he
+never sued before, and knows his very soul is set on her good will.
+
+"Why must you choose me to love,--_me_, of all the world?" says Monica,
+tremulously: "it is wide, there are others--and----"
+
+"Because I must. It is my fate, and I am glad of it. Whom worthier could
+I love?" says the lover, with fond, passionate reverence.
+
+"Many, no doubt. And why love at all? Let us be friends, then, if it is
+indeed decreed that our lives meet----"
+
+"There could never be mere friendship between you and me. If your heart
+sleeps, at least your sense must tell you that."
+
+"Then I could wish myself without sense. I want to know nothing about
+it. Alas! how sad a thing is love!"
+
+"And how joyous! It is the one emotion to be fed and fostered. 'All
+others are but vanity.' I will persist in loving you until I die."
+
+"That is a foolish saying; and, even if you do, what will come of it
+all?" says Monica, with a sigh.
+
+"Marriage, I trust," returns he, right cheerily. "Because, to give you
+another example of love's endurance, and to quote old Southey to you, I
+will tell you that he says,--
+
+            "'It is indestructable;
+      Its holy flame forever burneth:
+    From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.'
+
+but not yet awhile, I hope."
+
+"You are a special pleader," says she, with a sudden smile.
+
+"For the cause that I plead I would that I were a more eloquent
+advocate."
+
+"You are eloquent enough," glancing at him for a moment, and then again
+turning away from him; "too eloquent," she says, with a little sigh.
+
+He is still holding her hands, but now he does not speak or answer her
+in any wise. A silence falls upon them, calm as the night. In "full
+orbed glory" the moon above sails through the skies.
+
+    "A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
+    No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,
+    Breaks the serene of heaven."
+
+"There is one thing I must say, Monica," says the young man at last,
+lifting her face gently with one hand until her eyes look into his own:
+"remember, my life is in your hands."
+
+"Do not overburden me," she answers, but in so low a voice that it can
+scarce be heard. Yet _he_ hears.
+
+"My darling, must I be a burden to you?" he says. "Monica, if this my
+courtship is hateful to you, or more than you can bear, dismiss me now,
+and I will go from you, no matter what it costs me."
+
+"You are no true lover, to talk like that," she says, with a shadowy
+smile.
+
+"I am lover enough to wish you no pain or weariness of spirit."
+
+"I doubt you are too good for me," she answers with a little burst of
+feeling.
+
+"I must be a paragon indeed if that be so," returns he. "Oh, Monica, if
+you could only love me!"
+
+"I _dare_ not." Then, as though sorry for these words, she holds out her
+hands to him, and says, with a quick smile, "Oh, Romeo, Romeo! wherefore
+art thou Romeo?"
+
+"I wish I knew," returns he sadly. "Yet if I were sure of one thing I
+should not despair. Monica, tell me you don't like Ryde."
+
+"I can't," says Monica. "He is very kind to me always. I am sure I ought
+to like him."
+
+"How has he been kind to you?"
+
+"Oh, in many ways."
+
+"He has brought you a cup of somebody else's tea, I suppose, and has
+probably trotted after you with a camp-stool; is that kindness?"
+
+"If one is hot or tired, yes."
+
+"You are one of the most grateful specimen of your sex. I wish there was
+anything for which you might be grateful to me. But I am not great at
+the _petits soins_ business."
+
+"I shouldn't have thought so this afternoon," says Monica, maliciously,
+"when you were happy with Olga Bohun. But see, the moon has risen quite
+above the elms. I must go."
+
+"Not yet. There is something else. When am I to see you again?--when?"
+
+"That is as fate wills it."
+
+"_You_ are my fate. Will it, then, and say to-morrow."
+
+"No, no!" exclaims she, releasing her hands from his, "I cannot indeed.
+I _must_ not. In being here with you now I am doing wrong, and am
+betraying the two people in the world who are most kind to me. How shall
+I look into their eyes to-morrow? No; I will not promise to meet you
+anywhere--_ever_."
+
+"How tender you are with them, and with me how cruel!"
+
+"You have many joys in your life, but they how few!"
+
+"You are wrong there. The world has grown useless to me since I met you.
+You are my one joy, and you elude me; therefore pity me too."
+
+"Who made you so gracious a courtier?" asks she, with a little shrug of
+her rounded shoulders.
+
+"Now you cast scorn upon me," says Desmond, half angrily, and as he says
+it the thought of Kit's word _flout_ comes to her, and she smiles. It is
+an idle thought, yet it is with difficulty she cleaves to the less
+offensive smiles and keeps herself from laughing aloud.
+
+"Why should I do that?" she says, a little saucily. Indeed, she knows
+this young man to be so utterly in her power--and power is so sweet when
+first acquired, and so prone to breed tyranny--that she hardly turns
+aside to meditate upon the pain she may be causing him.
+
+"I don't know," a little sadly; then, "Monica, you like me?"
+
+"Yes, I like you," says Miss Beresford, as she might have answered had
+she been questioned as to her opinion of an aromatic russet.
+
+Repressing a gesture of impatience, Desmond goes on calmly,--
+
+"Better than Ryde?"
+
+"Than Mr. Ryde?" She stops and glances at the gravel at her feet in a
+would-be thoughtful fashion, and pushes it to and fro with her pretty
+Louis Quinze shoe. She pauses purposely, and makes quite an affair of
+her hesitation.
+
+"Yes, Ryde," says he, impatiently.
+
+"How can I answer that?" she says, at length, with studied deliberation,
+"when I know so little of either him--or you?"
+
+His indignation increases.
+
+"Knowing us both at _least_ equally well, you must have formed by this
+time some opinion of us."
+
+"I should indeed," says the young girl, slowly, always with her eyes
+upon the gravel; "but unfortunately it never occurred to me,--the vital
+necessity of doing so, I mean."
+
+Though her head is still bent, he can detect the little amused smile
+that is curving her mobile lips. There can be small doubt but that she
+is enjoying his discomfiture immensely.
+
+"Certainly there is no reason why _you_ should waste a thought on either
+him or me," he returns, stiffly.
+
+"No; and yet I do waste one on--_you_--sometimes," says she, with a
+gleam of tenderness, and a swift glance from under her long lashes that
+somehow angers him intensely.
+
+"You are a coquette," he says, quietly. There is contempt both in his
+look and tone. As she hears it, she suddenly lifts her head, and,
+without betraying chagrin, regards him steadfastly.
+
+"Is that so?" she says. "Sometimes I have _thought_ it, but----"
+
+The unmistakable hope her pause contains angers him afresh.
+
+"If you covet the unenviable title," he says, bitterly, "be happy. You
+can lay just claim to it. You are more than worthy of it."
+
+"You flatter me," she says, letting a glance so light rest upon him that
+it seems but the mere quiver of her eyelids.
+
+"I meant no flattery, believe me."
+
+"I do believe you: I quite understand."
+
+"Not quite, I think," exclaims he, the sudden coldness of her manner
+frightening him into better behavior. "If--if I have said anything to
+offend you, I ask your forgiveness."
+
+"There is nothing to forgive, indeed, and you have failed to offend me.
+But," slowly, "you have made me very sorry for you."
+
+"_Sorry?_"
+
+"Yes, for your most unhappy temper. It is quite the worst, I think, I
+have ever met with. _Good_-night Mr. Desmond: pray be careful when going
+through that hedge again; there are some rose-trees growing in it, and
+thorns do hurt so dreadfully."
+
+So saying, she gathers up her white skirts, and, without a touch of her
+hand, or even a last glance, flits like a lissome ghost across the
+moonlit paths of the garden, and so is gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  How Kit reads between the lines--How the Misses Blake show
+  themselves determined to pursue a dissipated course, and how Monica
+  is led astray by an apt pupil of Machiavelli.
+
+
+Early next morning Bridget, Monica's maid, enters Kit's room in a
+somewhat mysterious fashion. Glancing all round the room furtively, as
+though expecting an enemy lying in ambush behind every chair and table,
+she says, in a low, cautious tone,--
+
+"A letter for you, miss."
+
+As she says this, she draws a note from beneath her apron, where, in her
+right hand, it has been carefully hidden,--_so_ carefully, indeed, that
+she could not have failed to create suspicion in the breast of a babe.
+
+"For me," says Kit, off her guard for once.
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+"Who brought it?"
+
+"A bit of a gossoon, miss, out there in the yard beyant. An' he wouldn't
+give me his name; but sure I know him well for a boy of the Maddens',
+an' one of the Coole people. His father, an' his gran'father before him,
+were laborers with the ould Squire."
+
+"Ah, indeed!" says Kit. By this time she has recovered her surprise and
+her composure. "Thank you, Bridget," she says, with quite a
+grandiloquent air: "put it there, on that table. It is of no
+consequence, I dare say: you can go."
+
+Bridget--who, like all her countrywomen, dearly likes a love-affair, and
+is quite aware of young Mr. Desmond's passion for her mistress--is
+disappointed.
+
+"The gossoon said he was to wait for an answer, miss," she says,
+insinuatingly. "An' faix," waxing confidential, "I think I caught sight
+of the coat-tails of Misther Desmond's man outside the yard gate."
+
+"You should never think on such occasions, Bridget; and coat-tails are
+decidedly _low_," says the younger Miss Beresford, with scathing
+reproof.
+
+"They weren't very low, miss. He wore one o' them cutaway coats," says
+Bridget, in an injured tone.
+
+"You fail to grasp my meaning," says Kit, gravely. "However, let it
+pass. If this note requires an answer, you can wait in the next room
+until I write it."
+
+"Very well, miss," says the discomfited Bridget; and Kit, finding
+herself in another moment alone, approaches the table, and with a
+beating heart takes up the note. "It is--it _must_ be from Brian!"
+
+The plot thickens; and _she_ has been selected to act a foremost part in
+it! She is to be the confidante,--the tried and trusted friend; without
+her aid all the fair edifice Cupid is erecting would crumble into dust.
+
+And is there no danger, too, to be encountered,--perhaps to be met and
+overcome? If perchance all be discovered,--if Aunt Priscilla should
+suddenly be apprised of what is now going on beneath her very
+spectacles,--will not she,--Kit,--in her character of "guide,
+philosopher, and friend" to the culprits, come in for a double share of
+censure? Yes, truly there are breakers ahead, and difficulties to be
+overcome. There is joy and a sense of heroism in this thought; and she
+throws up her small head defiantly, and puts out one foot with quite a
+martial air, as it comes to her.
+
+Then she tears open the envelope, and reads as follows:--
+
+"DEAR LITTLE KIT,--Owing you all the love and allegiance in the world
+for having helped me once, I come to you again. How am I to pass this
+long day without a glimpse of _her_? It is a love-sick swain who doth
+entreat your mercy. Does any happy thought run through your pretty head?
+If so, my man is waiting for it somewhere; befriend me a second time.
+
+      "Ever yours,
+          "BRIAN."
+
+Prompt action is as the breath of her nostrils to Kit. Drawing pen and
+ink towards her, without a moment's hesitation, she scribbles an answer
+to Desmond:--
+
+"We are going towards Ballyvoureen this afternoon, to take a pudding to
+old Biddy Daly: any one _chancing_ to walk there also might meet us.
+Count upon me always.
+
+          "KIT."
+
+This Machiavellian epistle, which she fondly believes to be without its
+equal in the matter of depth, she folds carefully, and, enclosing it in
+an envelope void of address or anything (mark the astuteness of
+_that_!), calls to Bridget to return to her.
+
+"You will find the boy you mentioned as being by birth a Madden," she
+says, austerely, "and give him this; and you will refrain from gossiping
+and idle talking with him, which is not convenient."
+
+It would be impossible to describe the tone in which she says this.
+Bridget, much disgusted, takes the note silently, and with sufficient
+nervousness to make itself known. Indeed, she is so plainly impressed by
+Kit's eloquence that the latter's heart sings aloud for joy.
+
+"Yes, miss," she says, in a very subdued voice, and goes away with
+indignant haste, to tell cook, as she passes through the kitchen, that
+"Faix, Miss Kit might be her own gran'mother,--she is so ould an' quare
+in her ways."
+
+Kit meantime goes in search of Monica, with a mind stored with crafty
+arguments for the beguiling of that unconscious maiden. Hearing voices
+in the morning-room, she turns in there, and finds the whole family in
+conclave.
+
+Miss Priscilla is speaking.
+
+"Yes, I certainly think hospitality of some sort should be shown them,"
+she is saying, with quite an excited flush on her dear old ugly face.
+"We cannot, of course, do much; but afternoon tea, now, and some
+pleasant people to meet them,--and strawberries,--and a little stroll
+round the gardens--eh? And, Penelope, you used to be a great hand at
+claret-cup in our dear father's time; and then there is tennis. I really
+think, you know, it might be done."
+
+She quite bridles with pleasure at the bare anticipation. To entertain
+once more,--again to welcome guests beneath the old roof! For many years
+a nightly game of patience has been the sole dissipation the Misses
+Blake have known, and here of late days they have been going hither and
+thither to dances and garden-parties, and have acknowledged to
+themselves secretly that the change is sweet. And now they are actually
+discussing the idea of indulging in wild festivities on their own part!
+Surely these children from Jerusalem have much to answer for!
+
+"Is there going to be a party _here_, Aunt Priscilla?" asks Kit with
+enlarged eyes.
+
+"Well, my dear, we are debating the possibilities of it,--just the pros
+and cons," says Miss Priscilla, precisely. "Your aunt Penelope agrees
+with me that some attention is due to those young men in Clonbree
+Barracks."
+
+"You are going to ask Captain Cobbett and Mr. Ryde here! Oh, what fun!"
+cries Kit, seating herself, minus invitation, on Miss Priscilla's knee,
+and twining her arms round her neck. "Do you know, when with mother we
+didn't dare call our souls our own; but with you we are having real good
+old times! Aren't we, now?"
+
+"Oh, Kit!--my _dear_ Kit!--you must not speak so of your lost mother,"
+cry the old ladies in a breath, both greatly distressed.
+
+"Well, I shan't if you don't wish it; but it is true, for all that. And
+so you are really going to ask that big young man and his little captain
+to come here?"
+
+"Your Aunt Penelope and I both feel that some hospitality should be
+shown to Her Majesty," says Miss Priscilla, pompously.
+
+"The Queen!" says Kit aghast. "You aren't going to ask _her_ to Moyne
+are you? Windsor is a long way off, and she is pretty well on now, you
+know, and I don't believe she'd come."
+
+"Not personally. But we shall pay her the compliment through her trusty
+servants the marines. Not that we owe her much," says Miss Priscilla,
+shaking her head. "I cannot think she has behaved quite fairly towards
+us in many ways. Never coming to see us, I mean, or sending the prince,
+or having a residence here, or that----"
+
+"Still," breaks in Miss Penelope, coming to Her Majesty's relief, with
+the evident and kindly desire of showing her up in a more favorable
+light, "I have always understood that in private life she is a most
+exemplary woman,--a blameless wife so long as she was allowed to be so,
+and a most excellent mother."
+
+"And grandmother," chimes in Miss Priscilla, gracefully, as though
+ashamed of her former acrimonious remarks. "From what I can glean from
+the papers, she seems quite devoted to those poor little motherless
+girls of Hesse."
+
+It is quite plain that the Misses Blake regard their sovereign more as
+Victoria and sister than queen and mistress.
+
+"She has sent these men to Clonbree to protect our lives and properties
+in these perilous times," goes on Miss Priscilla, in her clear, soft
+voice, "and so I think we are bound to show them any civility in our
+power."
+
+"More especially the life and property of old Desmond," says Terry, at
+this moment, with a noble disregard of consequences. He is sitting at a
+distant window, tying flies, and makes this unfortunate remark without
+the faintest appearance of malice prepense. "They say he is running a
+regular rig with his tenants,--playing old Harry with 'em, in fact," he
+goes on, debonairly; "but they'll stop his little game for him with a
+bullet before long, I shouldn't wonder."
+
+As the forbidden name is thus cavalierly thrown into their midst, like a
+bomb, Monica flushes first a warm crimson and then turns cold with
+fright.
+
+The old ladies stiffen in their chairs, but never a word say they; they
+are too much overcome for ordinary rebuke. Kit, however, to whom any
+excitement is welcome, betrays an open admiration for the bold Terence
+and waits hopefully for what may come next.
+
+It is even worse than might be expected. Terence, either unaware or
+careless of the sensation he has produced, closes one eye to examine
+with pleased scrutiny the gaudy fly he has just completed, after which
+he says, with a suggestion of jocoseness that under the circumstances is
+perfectly abominable,--
+
+"I say, Aunt Priscilla, as Cobbett has been sent to look after old
+Desmond in particular, don't you think, if you entertain him, it will be
+to old Desmond, and _not_ Her Majesty, you will be paying attention,
+after all?"
+
+He stops and smiles blandly. If, indeed, I said a _grin_ illuminates his
+countenance, I might be nearer the truth. It is apparent to everybody
+that he is _jesting_ on this sacred subject.
+
+"Terry!" says Monica, with a little gasp.
+
+"Well?" says Mr. Beresford, amiably, purposely misunderstanding the
+horror of her tone, and looking up as though thirsting for the remainder
+of her speech. It doesn't come. Monica, fearful of provoking him to
+further monstrosities, forbears from answer of any kind.
+
+"Terence," says Miss Priscilla, with slow solemnity, "I have frequently
+told you that we object to hearing that detested name mentioned in our
+presence. It offends both your aunt Penelope and me. I must again beg
+that for the future we may be spared a repetition of it."
+
+"When I was going to give Tim Daly a sound thrashing for his
+impertinence yesterday, you stopped me and bade me forgive my enemies,"
+says Terence, calmly, questioningly. "Why don't you forgive old
+Desmond?"
+
+"Because----That is quite another thing altogether. I mean----I----it
+seems to me----No matter _what_ it seems now; we can't discuss it," says
+Miss Priscilla, making a desperate effort to catch the horns of her
+dilemma and to escape from it.
+
+"Let us discuss our party instead," says Kit, cheerfully, who is really
+of the greatest use at times. "When is it to be, Aunt Pris?"
+
+"Next week, I suppose," says Miss Penelope, promptly, seeing that Miss
+Priscilla is still too agitated to reply. "And I think it would be
+rather nice to have tea in the orchard."
+
+"Oh! how quite too lovely!" says Kit, clasping her hands.
+
+"Quite too utterly consummately, preciously intense?" mutters Terence,
+_sotto voce_, regarding Kit sideways, who returns his rapturous glance
+with one full of ineffable disdain.
+
+"I hope Michael won't object," says Miss Penelope, nervously. Michael is
+the gardener, and they are all, without exception, afraid of him.
+
+"Nonsense, my dear! why should he?" says Miss Priscilla. "It isn't
+because he has been here for years that he is to forbid us the use of
+our own grounds, and of late I consider there is great fault to be found
+with him. Long service should not generate neglect, and of late there
+has not been a good lettuce or a respectable dish of asparagus in the
+garden."
+
+"There wasn't even any thyme last week," says Kit, who maintains an
+undying feud with Michael. "He had to get some fresh plants from
+Cahirmore."
+
+"Time was made for slaves," says Terence, meditatively. "_You_ aren't a
+slave, are you?"
+
+"I should hope not," says Kit, icily.
+
+"Then you can't want time: so don't worry that poor old man in the
+garden about it. He hasn't a scythe, or a bald head, or a dismal
+forelock: so he _can't_ know anything about it."
+
+"You are so clever," says the younger Miss Beresford, with unmixed
+scorn, "that I wonder something dreadful doesn't happen to you."
+
+"So do I," says Terence.
+
+"Well, auntie, and whom shall we ask to meet these men of war?" says
+Kit, ignoring him,--publicly, to his great delight.
+
+"I suppose Madam O'Connor and all her party, and the Frenches, and Lord
+Rossmoyne,--who I hear is still in the country,--and----Penelope, my
+dear, will you sit down and write the invitations now for Friday next,
+as I must get ready to go to the coast-guard station? That girl of
+Mitson's is ill, and wants to see me."
+
+Monica rising at this moment to leave the room, Kit follows her.
+
+"It is really _too_ amazing," she says, when they find themselves in the
+hall. "To think of their blossoming into a real live party! I feel quite
+overcome."
+
+"So do I," says Monica, laughing.
+
+"There is only one drawback to it," says Kit, softly: "I am _so_ sorry
+Brian can't be asked."
+
+Monica flushes furiously, and swerves away from her somewhat
+impatiently; but reply she makes none.
+
+"There are cobwebs in my brain," says Kit, raising her hands languidly
+to her head, with the oppressed air of one who is bravely struggling
+with a bad headache. "I think I shall go for a walk to Biddy Daly's to
+try and rout them. I promised her old mother a pudding the last day I
+was there, and to-day cook has it ready for me. Will you come with me,
+Monica? _Do._"
+
+"Not to-day, I think," says Monica, lazily.
+
+"I wish you would! I do so _hate_ going anywhere by myself. And,
+somehow, I am half afraid to go alone to-day, I feel--so--so faint.
+However," with a resigned sigh, "never mind; I dare say if I _do_ drop
+in a deadly swoon, somebody will pick me up."
+
+"My dear Kit, if you feel like that, don't go," says Monica, naturally
+alarmed.
+
+"I have promised old Mrs. Daly; I must go," replies Kit, with the
+determination of a Brutus. "If I am not back in time for dinner, you
+will understand what has happened."
+
+This is awful! Monica turns quite pale.
+
+"Of course I shall go with you," she says, hurriedly. "Is your head so
+very bad, darling? How bravely you carried it off in there!" pointing
+towards the morning-room they have just left. "However, it would be only
+like you to hide your worries from us, lest they should make us
+unhappy."
+
+At this, it must be allowed to her credit, Kit feels some strong twinges
+of remorse,--not enough, however, to compel confession.
+
+"It is really hardly worth talking about," she says, alluding to the
+headache; and this, at all events, is the strict truth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+  How Kit's plot is betrayed, and how a walk that begins gayly ends in
+  gloom.
+
+
+The road to Mrs. Daly's is full of beauty. On one side of it runs Coole,
+its trees rich with leafy branches; upon the other stretches a common,
+green and soft, with a grand glimpse of the ocean far down below it.
+
+"Why walk on the dusty road when those fields are green in there?" says
+Kit, pointing to Coole; and, after a faint hesitation, Monica follows
+her over the wall and into the dark recesses of the woods. The grass is
+knee deep in ferns and trailing verdure; great clumps of honeysuckle,
+falling from giant limbs of elm, make the air sweet. Some little way to
+their right--but where they cannot see because of the prodigality of
+moss and alder and bracken--a little hidden brook runs merrily, making
+
+    "Sweet music with th' enamell'd stones,
+    Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
+    He overtaketh in his pilgrimage."
+
+Some thought belonging to the past night coming to Kit, she turns to
+Monica with a little laugh.
+
+"How silent you have been about last night's adventure!" she says. "I
+watched you from your own window until the shadows caught you. You
+looked like a flitting spirit,--a--a bhoot."
+
+"A _boot_!" says Monica, very justly surprised.
+
+"Yes," loftily. Kit's educational course, as directed by herself, has
+been of the erratic order, and has embraced many topics unknown to
+Monica. From the political economy of the Faroe Isles, it has reached
+even to the hidden mysteries of Hindostan.
+
+"I must have struck you then as being in my liveliest mood," says
+Monica, still laughing. "Terry told us yesterday he was as gay as old
+boots. As I looked like _one_, I suppose I was at least half as gay as
+he was. After all, there is nothing like leather, no matter how
+ancient."
+
+"There's an _h_ in my bhoot," says Kit, with some disgust. "Really, the
+ignorance of some people--even the _nicest_--is, surprising."
+
+"Then why don't you take it out?" says Monica, frivolously. "Not that I
+know in the very least what harm a poor innocent letter could do there."
+
+"You don't understand," says Kit, pitifully.
+
+"I don't indeed," says Monica, unabashed.
+
+"A bhoot is an Indian ghost."
+
+"And you thought I looked like an Indian ghost! with a turban! and an
+Afghan! and a scimitar! Oh, Kit! Did I really look like the mahogany
+table beneath the silver moonbeams? and did my eyes glitter?"
+
+"What a goose you are!" says Kit, roaring with laughter. "No, you looked
+lovely; but I was reading an Indian story yesterday, and it came into my
+head."
+
+"You read too much," says Monica. "'Much learning will make you mad,' if
+you don't take care. Remember what Lord Bacon says, 'Reading maketh a
+full man.' How would _you_ like to be a full woman,--like Madam
+O'Connor, for example?"
+
+"Francis Bacon never meant it in that sense," says Kit, indignantly. "I
+really _wonder_ at you Monica." And, having so scolded her idol, she
+relapses into silence for a considerable time.
+
+"Oh! what lovely dog-roses!" says Monica, presently, pointing to a
+hanging spray of pink blossoms, satisfying as a happy dream. "I _must_
+get them."
+
+She springs up a mossy bank as she speaks, regardless of the blackberry
+branches that cross her path, barring her way, and catching viciously
+at her skirts, as though to hinder her progress.
+
+"Oh, take care!" cries Kit, forgetting all about Lord Bacon in her
+terror lest her pretty sister shall not show to the best advantage in
+her lover's eyes. "Your gown will be torn. Wait, wait, until I set you
+free from these dreadful thorns."
+
+"'Alas! how full of briers is this working-day-world,'" quotes Monica,
+gayly. "There, now I am all right, and I have got my pretty roses into
+the bargain. Are they not sweet?--_sweet?_" holding them right under
+Kit's nose.
+
+"They are, indeed. And, by the by, here we are," pointing to a low
+farmhouse in the distance.
+
+Reaching it, and finding the door as usual open, they enter what might
+be the hall in another house, but is here the kitchen. There is no
+leading up to it. From the moment you cross the threshold the kitchen
+lies before you.
+
+It is a large room, if it may so be called, with a huge fireplace in
+which a dozen fires might be stowed away and forgotten. Just now there
+is a flame somewhere in its blackmost depths that cannot possibly annoy
+these June visitors, as one has to search for it to find it.
+
+An old woman, infirm and toothless, yet with all the remains of great
+beauty, sits cowering over this hidden turf fire, mumbling to herself,
+it may be, of golden days now past and gone, when she had been the
+fairest colleen at mass or pattern, and had counted her lovers by the
+score. Yea, those were good old times, when the sky was ever blue and
+all the earth was young.
+
+Two young women, sitting near her, but farther from the chimney-nook,
+are gossiping idly, but persistently, in the soft, mellifluous brogue
+that distinguishes the county Cork.
+
+As the Beresford girls enter, these two latter women rise simultaneously
+and courtesy with deep respect. The youngest of them, who is so like the
+handsome old woman in the corner of the fireplace as to be unmistakably
+of kin to her, comes quickly forward to greet her visitors with the
+kindly grace and the absence of consciousness that distinguish the Irish
+peasantry when doing the honors of their own homes. This lack of
+_mauvaise honte_ arises perhaps from the fact that they are so honestly
+glad to welcome a guest beneath their roof that they forget to be shy or
+backward.
+
+She makes a slight effort to pull down her tucked-up sleeves, and then
+desists, for which any one with a mind artistic should be devoutly
+grateful, as her arms, brown as they are from exposure to the sun, are
+at least shaped to perfection. She is dressed in a maroon-colored skirt
+and body, the skirt so turned up in fishwife fashion (as _we_ wore it
+some seasons ago) that a dark-blue petticoat beneath, of some coarse
+description, can be distinctly seen.
+
+Her throat is a little bare, arms, as I have said, quite so, far up
+above the elbows. She is stout and comely, with a beautiful laughing
+mouth, and eyes of deepest gray, merry as her lips. Outside, lying
+about, half naked in the warm sunshine, are three or four boys with the
+same eyes and mouth, undeniably her children.
+
+"Wisha! 'tis meself's glad to see ye," she says, with a beaming smile.
+"Good luck to yer faces. 'Tis a long time now, Miss Beresford, since ye
+came, or Miss Kit there."
+
+"I promised your mother a pudding, and I have brought it," says Kit.
+
+"Look at that, now! 'Tis a trouble we are to ye entirely. Mother, wake
+up a bit, an' thank Miss Kit for what she's brought ye."
+
+"Ye're too kind, asthore, too kind," mumbles the old woman in the
+corner, turning eyes that are still full of light upon the child, "to
+think of an ould 'ooman now in the grave as it might be. Ay, faix! An'
+the bells a-ringin' too. I can hear 'em sometimes, when the wind's
+down----"
+
+"Nonsense, mother! the yard (churchyard) will be lonely for ye yet
+awhile," says Mrs. Daly, junior, cheerfully. "See, now! taste this:
+'twill do ye good. An' you'll sit down, Miss Monica, I hope. Take care,
+honey, till I dust the chair for ye." This is dexterously done with the
+corner of her apron. "An' ye'll take a dhrop o' tay too, may be; oh, ye
+will now, if only to plase me, afther yer long walk, an' all to honor
+the ould woman."
+
+"Ah, there is Mrs. Moloney!" says Kit, addressing the second younger
+woman, who is a thin little peasant with a somewhat discontented
+expression. "The sun blinded my eyes so that I could not see you at
+first. Have you heard from your boy at sea?"
+
+"Yes, miss. Praises be above! He's doin' well, he says; but it's belike
+I'll never see a sight of his handsome face again."
+
+"Oh, nonsense, now, Mrs. Moloney, me dear! What are ye talkin' like that
+for?" says young Mrs. Daly, who seems to be the parish consoler. "Sure
+it's back he'll be wid ye before the new year."
+
+"Oh, yes, I _hope_ so," says Monica, softly.
+
+"'Tis hard to hope, miss, wid the rowling wind o' nights, an' the waves
+dashin' up on the beach."
+
+"Ye're an ould croaker," says Mrs. Daly, giving her a good-humored
+shake, "An' now sit down, Miss Monica an' Miss Kit, do, till I get ye
+the sup o' tay. Mrs. Moloney, me dear, jist give the fire a poke, an'
+make the kittle sing us a song. 'Tis the music we want most now."
+
+It would have been considered not only a rudeness, but an act _hauteur_,
+to refuse this simple hospitality: so the girls seat themselves, and,
+indeed, to tell the truth, are rather glad than otherwise of this chance
+of securing their afternoon tea.
+
+"An' how are the old ladies up above?" says Mrs. Daly, meaning the
+Misses Blake.
+
+"Quite well, thank you," says Monica. "It was only yesterday Aunt
+Priscilla was saying she should come down and see old Mrs. Daly."
+
+"She's as welcome as the flowers in May whenever she comes," says the
+daughter-in-law. "D'ye hear that, mother? Miss Priscilla's comin' to see
+ye, some day soon. Ay, 'tis a good friend she always was to the poor,
+summer an' winter; an' isn't it wondherful now, Miss Monica, how she's
+kept her figure all through? Why," raising her hands with an expressive
+gesture of astonishment, "'twas Friday week I saw her, an' I said to
+meself, says I, she's the figure o' a young girl, I says. Ye'll take a
+taste o' this home-made cake, alanna."
+
+She is made happy forever by Kit's unmistakable enjoyment of this
+last-named luxury.
+
+"Ay, she's an iligant figure even now," says Mrs. Moloney, in her
+depressing voice. "But time an' throuble is cruel hard on some of us. I
+had a figure meself when I was young," with a heartrending sigh.
+
+"Ye were always slight, me dear, an' ye're slight now too," says Mrs.
+Daly, tenderly. "I niver see the like o'ye for keepin' off the flesh.
+Why, I remember ye well as a slip o' a girl, before yer blessed babby
+was born, an' ye were a screed, me dear,--a screed."
+
+"Yes, I was always ginteel," says Mrs. Moloney, openly consoled. Still
+she sighs, and sips her tea with a mournful air. Mrs. Daly is drinking
+hers with much appreciation out of her saucer, it being considered
+discourteous to offer anything to a guest without partaking of the same
+one's self.
+
+At this moment a little cooing sound coming from the other corner of the
+fireplace makes itself heard. Instantly the old woman stooping over the
+turf embers rouses herself, and, turning, puts out her withered hand
+lovingly towards what looks like a box covered with colored stuff of
+some sort. Young Mrs. Daly rises too, precipitately and, hurrying across
+the kitchen, bends over the box.
+
+"Ay, she's awake sure enough!" says the old woman, who has quite
+brightened into life. "See how she looks at ye, Molly! The colleen of
+the world, she was! asthore machree-sthig."
+
+Many another fond name is muttered, such as "pulse o' my heart," and
+such like, before Mrs. Daly junior emerges from the supposed box, but
+_not_ empty-handed.
+
+"Oh! it is the baby!" cry Monica and Kit, in a breath. "Oh! what a
+darling baby! and what red, red cheeks, just like a June rose!"
+
+It is the only daughter of the house, so the mother is of course
+inordinately proud of it. She places it, with quite a little flourish of
+triumph, in Monica's arms, to Kit's terrible but unspoken
+disappointment.
+
+"She grows prettier every day. She is really the sweetest baby I ever
+saw in my life!" says Monica, enthusiastically, to whom babies are an
+endless joy.
+
+The mother is pleased beyond doubt at these compliments, yet a shade of
+anxiety crosses her brow. To praise a child _too_ much in the
+superstition of these simple folks, is to "overlook" it; and when a
+child is "overlooked" it dies. The smiles fades from Mrs. Daly's bonny
+face, and her mouth grows anxious.
+
+"You should say, 'God bless her,' miss, when ye give her the good word,"
+says Mrs. Moloney, timidly, who is also bending over the beloved bundle,
+and notes the distress in her neighbor's eyes.
+
+"God bless her!" says Monica with pretty solemnity, after which the
+mother's face clears, and sunshine is again restored to it.
+
+"I think she knows ye," she says to Monica. "See how she blinks at ye!
+Arrah! look, now, how she clutches at yer hand! Will ye come to yer
+mother now, darlin',--will ye? Sure 'tis starvin' ye must be, by this."
+
+"Oh! don't take her yet," says Monica, entreatingly.
+
+A little figure with naked legs and feet, creeping into the doorway at
+this moment, draws near the baby as if fascinated. It is Paudheen, the
+eldest son of the house, and baby's _nurse_,--save the mark!
+
+"Come nearer, Paddy," says Monica, smiling at him with sweet
+encouragement; but Paddy stops short and regards her doubtfully.
+
+"Come, then, and kiss your little sister," continues Monica, gently; but
+Paddy is still obdurate, and declines to hearken to the charmer, charm
+she never so wisely. There is, indeed, a sad lack both of sweetness and
+light about Paddy.
+
+"An' what d'ye mane be standin' there, an' niver a word out o' ye in
+answer to the lady, ye ill-mannered caubogue?" cries his mother, deeply
+incensed. The laughter is all gone from her face, and her eyes are
+aflame. "What brought ye in at all, ye ugly spalpeen, if ye came without
+a civil tongue in yer head?"
+
+"I came to see the baby an' to get me dinner," says the boy, with
+hanging head, his silence arising more from shyness than sullenness. The
+potatoes have just been lifted from the fire by Mrs. Moloney, and are
+steaming in a distant corner. Paudheen looks wistfully towards them.
+
+"Dickens a sign or taste ye'll get, then, if only to tache ye better
+manners. Be off, now, an' don't let me see ye agin."
+
+"I'm hungry," says the boy, tears coming into his eyes.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Daly!" says Monica, in a distressed tone.
+
+"A deal o' harm it will do him to be hungry, thin!" says the culprit's
+mother, with an angry voice, but with visible signs of relenting in her
+handsome eyes. "Be off wid ye now, I tell ye." This is the last burst of
+the storm. As the urchin creeps crestfallen towards the doorway her rage
+dies, its death being as sudden as its birth. "Come back here!" she
+cries, inconsistently. "What d'ye mane be takin' me at me word like
+that? Come back, I tell ye, an' go an' ate something, ye crathur. How
+dare ye behave as if I was a bad mother to ye?"
+
+The boy comes back, and, raising his bonny head, smiles at her fondly
+but audaciously.
+
+"Look at him, now, the blackguard," says the mother, returning the smile
+in kind. "Was there ever the like of him? Go an' ate yer praties now,
+and thank yer stars Miss Monica was here to say a good word for ye."
+
+Paddy, glad of his rescue, casts a shy glance at Monica, and then, going
+over to where his grandmother and the pot of potatoes rest side by side,
+sits down (close cuddled up to the old dame) to fill his little empty
+stomach with as many of those esculent roots as he can manage, which, in
+truth, is the poor child's only dinner from year's end to year's end.
+And yet it is a remarkable fact that, in spite of this scanty fare, the
+Irish peasant, when come to man's estate, is ever strong and vigorous
+and well grown. And who shall say he hasn't done his queen good service,
+too, on many a battle-field? and even in these latter days, when sad
+rebellion racks our land, has not his name been worthy of honorable
+mention on the plains of Tel-el-Kebir?
+
+"I don't think he _looks_ like a bad boy, Mrs. Daly," says Monica,
+reflectively, gazing at the liberated Paddy.
+
+"Bad, miss, is it?" says the mother, who, having made her eldest born
+out a villain, is now prepared to maintain he is a veritable saint. "You
+don't know him, faix. Sure there niver was the like of him yet. He is a
+raal jewel, that gossoon o' mine, an' the light of his father's eyes.
+Signs on it, he'd die for Daly! There niver was sich a love betwixt
+father an' son. He's the joy o' my life, an' the greatest help to me.
+'Tis he minds the pig, an' the baby, an' ould granny there, an'
+everything. I'd be widout my right hand if I lost him."
+
+"But I thought you said----" begins Monica, mystified by this change
+from righteous wrath to unbounded admiration.
+
+"Arrah, niver mind what I said, acushla," says the younger Mrs. Daly,
+with an emphatic wink. "Sure 'twas only to keep him in ordher a bit, I
+said it at all at all! But 'tis young he is yet, the crathur."
+
+"_Very_ young. Oh, Mrs. Daly, _look_ at baby! See how she is trying to
+get at my hair!" Monica is beginning in a delighted tone,--as though to
+have one's hair pulled out by the roots is the most enchanting sensation
+in the world,--when suddenly her voice dies away into silence, and she
+herself stares with great open violet eyes at something that darkens the
+doorway and throws a shadow upon the assembled group within.
+
+It is Desmond!
+
+Kit, feeling as guilty as though she were the leading character in some
+conspiracy, colors crimson, and retires behind Mrs. Moloney. She lowers
+her eyes, and is as mute as death. But Monica speaks.
+
+"Is it you?" she says. Which, of course, is quite the silliest thing she
+_can_ say, as he is standing there regarding her with eyes so full of
+light and love that the cleverest ghost could not copy them. But then
+she is not sillier than her fellows, for, as a rule, all people, if you
+remark, say, "Is that you?" or "Have you come?" when they are actually
+looking into your face and should be able to answer the question for
+themselves.
+
+"Yes, it is," says Desmond, with such an amount of diffidence (I hope it
+wasn't assumed) as should have melted the heart of the hardest woman
+upon earth. Monica is _not_ the hardest woman upon earth.
+
+Still, she makes him no further speech, and Desmond begins to wonder if
+he is yet forgiven. He is regarding her fixedly; but she, after that
+first swift glance, has turned her attention upon the baby on her knee,
+and is seemingly lost in admiration of its little snub nose. Why will
+she not look at him? What did he say to her last night that is so
+difficult to forgive? Can wrath be cherished for so long in that gentle
+bosom? Her face is as calm as an angel's; surely
+
+    "There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple."
+
+"Ah! come in, Misther Desmond," says Mrs. Daly, hospitably. "I'm glad
+'tis company I have before you the day. Maybe 'twill coax ye to come
+again. Where have you been this week an' more? Faix, ye were so long in
+comin', I thought 'twas angry wid me ye were."
+
+"Nobody is ever angry with a pretty woman like you," says Desmond,
+saucily.
+
+"Oh, now, hark to him!" says Mrs. Daly laughing heartily. "I wonder ye
+aren't ashamed of yourself. An' is the ould Squire hearty?"
+
+"He's as well as even _you_ could wish him. How d'ye do, Kit? Won't you
+come and speak to me?"
+
+He has been afraid to shake hands with Monica up to this, but now she
+turns suddenly towards him and holds out to him one slender fair hand,
+the other being twined round the baby. She does this musingly.
+
+He grasps the little snowy hand with almost senile delight, and holds it
+for--as long as he dares. During this undefined period he tells himself
+what a perfect picture she is, with her clear, pale, beautiful face, and
+her nut-brown hair, and the tender sweetness of her attitude, as she
+bends over the smiling baby. Could any vaunted Madonna be half as
+lovely? At this moment a growing contempt for all the greatest
+masterpieces of the greatest masters permeates his being and renders him
+weak in faith.
+
+"Won't ye sit down, thin?" says Mrs. Daly. Being a woman, she grasps the
+situation at a glance, and places a chair for him close to Monica.
+"What's the matther wid ye to-day, Misther Desmond, that ye haven't a
+word to give us?"
+
+"You ought to know what I'm thinking of," says Desmond, accepting the
+chair, and drawing it even a degree closer to Monica.
+
+"Faix, thin, I don't," says Mrs. Daly junior, her handsome face full of
+smiles. A love-affair is as good as a saint's day to an Irish peasant;
+and here she tells herself, with a glance at Monica, is one ready-made
+to her hand.
+
+"I'm thinking what a lucky man Daly is," says Desmond, promptly.
+
+"Oh, git along wid ye now, an' yer blarney!" says Mrs. Daly, roaring
+with laughter; whilst even Mrs. Moloney the dismal, and the old granny
+in the corner, chime in merrily.
+
+And then the visit comes to a close, and they all rise and bid Mrs. Daly
+and the others "good-by;" and Monica, mindful of his late affliction,
+bestows a soft parting word upon the subdued Paddy.
+
+And now they are all in the open air again, and, turning down the boreen
+that leads to the Daly's homestead, reach the road that leads to Moyne.
+It is Desmond's way as well as theirs, so he accompanies the girls
+without remark.
+
+"What brought you to see the Dalys, to-day?" asks Monica, suddenly,
+without any ulterior meaning beyond the desire of making conversation;
+but to Kit's guilty soul this question seems fraught with mischief.
+
+"Oh, I often go to see Daly. I want him to come fishing with me
+to-morrow: he's the best man about here for that, and trudges behind one
+for miles without complaining."
+
+"Poor Daly!"
+
+"Well, I hope you enjoyed your visit to-day," says Kit, blithely,
+glancing at him mischievously from beneath her broad hat.
+
+"There was a drawback," says Brian, unthinkingly. "I went there full of
+hope, and, after all, she never offered me any of your pudding!"
+
+Tableau!
+
+Kit's agonized glance and Monica's questioning eyes awake Mr. Desmond to
+a knowledge of what he has done.
+
+"How did _you_ hear of Kit's pudding?" asks Monica, looking keenly from
+Brian to Kit, and then back again.
+
+"Oh!--the pudding," stammers Desmond.
+
+"There! don't commit yourself," says Monica, in a tone that trembles.
+"Oh, Kit!"
+
+Both culprits are afraid to look at her. Does the tremble mean tears, or
+anger, or what? Perhaps horror at their duplicity, or contempt. Is she
+hopelessly angered?
+
+Then a suppressed sound reaches their ears, creating a fresh panic in
+their breasts. Is she positively _choking_ with indignation? Cautiously,
+anxiously, they glance at her, and find, to their everlasting relief,
+that she is convulsed with laughter.
+
+"When next you meditate forming a brilliant plot such as this," she says
+to Kit, "I think I should look out a more trustworthy accomplice if I
+were you."
+
+"Catch me having a secret with _him_ again," says Kit now her fears are
+appeased, turning wrathfully upon Desmond.
+
+"I quite forgot all about it, I did, indeed," exclaims he, penitently.
+"Forgive me this time, and I'll promise never to do it again."
+
+"And I'll promise you you shan't have the chance," says Kit, with
+fervor.
+
+"_Why_ was I to be deceived?" says Monica. "I think I have been very
+basely treated. If you, Kit, desired a clandestine meeting with Mr.
+Desmond, I don't see why _I_ was to be drawn into it. And it was a
+stupid arrangement, too: two is company, three trumpery. I know, if I
+had a lover, I should prefer----"
+
+"Monica!" says Kit, indignantly; but Monica only laughs the more.
+
+"It is _my_ turn now, you know," she says.
+
+"Kit had nothing to do with it: it was all my fault," says Desmond,
+laughing too. "If you must pour out the vials of your wrath on some one,
+let it be on me."
+
+"Yes, give him a good scolding, Monica," says Kit viciously, but with a
+lovely smile. "I am going to pick to some ferns for Aunt Pen; when I
+return I hope I shall find that recreant knight of yours--I mean
+_mine_--at the point of death!"
+
+At this she flits away from them, like the good little thing she is, up
+a sloping bank, and so into the fields beyond, until Desmond and Monica
+are as much alone as if a whole sphere divided them from their kind.
+Dear little Kit! When her own time comes may she be as kindly dealt
+with!
+
+"You are angry with me still,--about last night," says Desmond, softly,
+"and, I own, with cause. But I was miserable when I called you a
+coquette, and misery makes a man unjust. I wrote to Kit this morning,--I
+was afraid to write to you,--and she was very good to me."
+
+"How good?" plucking a leaf from a brier, as she goes slowly, _very_
+slowly--down the road.
+
+"She brought me _you_. Do you know, Monica, I have been as unhappy as a
+man can be since last I saw you,--a whole night and part of a day? Is it
+not punishment enough?"
+
+"Too much for your crime," whispers she, softly, turning suddenly
+towards him and letting her great luminous eyes rest with forgiveness
+upon his. She smiles sweetly, but with some timidity, because of the
+ardor of the glance that answers hers. Taking her hand with an impulsive
+movement impossible to restrain, Desmond presses it rapturously to his
+lips. Drawing it away from him with shy haste, Monica walks on in
+silence.
+
+"If I had written to you, and not to her, would you still have been here
+to-day?" asks he, presently.
+
+"I think not."
+
+"That is a cruel answer, is it not?"
+
+"Would you have me belie my nature?" asks she, with quick agitation;
+"would you have me grow false, secret, deceitful? My aunts trust me: am
+I to prove myself unworthy of their confidence?"
+
+"I am less to you, then, than your aunts' displeasure!"
+
+"You are less to me than my conscience; and yet----"
+
+With a violent effort, that betrays how far her thoughts have been
+travelling in company with his, she brings herself back to the present
+moment, and a recollection of the many reasons why she must not listen
+to his wooing. "Why should you believe yourself anything to me?" she
+asks, in a voice that quivers audibly.
+
+"Ah, why, indeed?" returns he, bitterly. There is such pain in his voice
+and face that her soul yearns towards him, and she repents of her last
+words.
+
+"I am wrong. You _are_ something to me," she says, in a tone so low that
+he can scarcely hear it. But lovers' ears are sharp.
+
+"You _mean_ that, Monica?"
+
+"Yes," still lower.
+
+"Then why cannot I be _more_ to you? Why am I to be denied a chance of
+forwarding the cause in which all my hopes are centred? Monica, say you
+will meet me somewhere--_soon_."
+
+"How can I?" she says, tremulously. Her voice is full of tears. She is
+altogether different from the coquettish, provoking child of last night.
+"You forget all I have just now said."
+
+"At least tell me," says he, sadly, "that if you could you would."
+
+There is a pathetic ring in his tone, and tears rise to her eyes. Can
+anything be so hopeless as this love-affair of hers?
+
+"Yes, I would," she says, almost desperately.
+
+"Oh, darling--_darling_!" says the young man with passion. He holds her
+hands closely, and looks into her troubled eyes, and wishes he might
+dare take her into his arms and, pressing her to his heart, ask her to
+repeat her words again. But there is something in the calm purity of her
+beautiful face that repels vehemence of any sort; and as yet--although
+the dawn is near--her love has not declared itself to her own soul in
+all its strength.
+
+"I have at least one consolation," he says, at last, calling to mind the
+quietude that surrounds Moyne and its inhabitants, and the withdrawal
+from society that has obtained there for many years. "As you are not
+allowed to see me,--except on such rare occasions as the present when
+the Fates are kind,--you cannot at least see _any one else_,--often,
+that is."
+
+"Meaning?----"
+
+"Ryde."
+
+She laughs a little, and then colors.
+
+"Aunt Priscilla has asked him to come to Moyne next Friday," she says,
+looking at the ground: "she is giving an At Home on that day, for him
+and Captain Cobbett. She says she feels it is a duty to her queen to
+show some attention to her servants."
+
+In her tone, as she says this, there is a spice of that mischief that is
+never very far from any pretty woman.
+
+"He is to be invited to Moyne,--to spend an entire day with you!" says
+Desmond, thunderstruck by this last piece of news.
+
+"Oh, no! only part of it," says Monica, meekly.
+
+"It is just as bad. It is disgraceful! Your aunts are purposely
+encouraging _him_ to keep you away from me. Oh, _why_," wretchedly,
+"should this unlucky quarrel have arisen between our house and yours?"
+
+"Well, that's your fault," says Monica.
+
+"Mine?"
+
+"Your uncle's, then. It is all the same," unjustly.
+
+"I really can't see _that_," says Mr. Desmond, very righteously
+aggrieved; "that is visiting the sins of the uncles upon the nephews
+with a vengeance! Monica, at least promise me you won't be civil to
+him."
+
+"To your uncle?"
+
+"Nonsense! You know I mean Ryde."
+
+"I can't be rude to him."
+
+"You can. Why not? It will keep him from calling again."
+
+No answer.
+
+"Oh, I daresay you _want_ him to call again," says Desmond, angrily.
+
+At this moment, the gates of Moyne being in sight, and those of Coole
+long passed, Kit suddenly appears on the top of a high stone wall, and
+calls gayly to Desmond to come and help her alight.
+
+"And now go away too," she says: "you are forbidden goods, you know, and
+we must not be seen talking to you, under pain of death."
+
+"Good-by," says Desmond, with alacrity, who is, in truth, sulky, and
+undesirous of further parley with his beloved. "Good-by, Miss
+Beresford."
+
+"Good-by," says Monica, shortly.
+
+"We shall see you again soon, no doubt," says Kit, kindly, in her clear,
+sweet treble.
+
+"I think it very improbable," returns he, raising his hat gravely and
+taking his departure.
+
+"Now, what _have_ you been saying to that wretched young man, Monica?"
+says Kit, severely, standing still in the middle of the road, the better
+to bring her sister beneath the majesty of her eye.
+
+"Nothing. Nothing that any reasonable being could object to," declares
+Monica, with such an amount of vigor as startles Kit. "But of all the
+ill-tempered, bearish, detestable men I ever met in my life, _he is the
+worst_."
+
+Which unlooked for explosion from the gentle Monica has the effect of
+silencing Kit for the remainder of the walk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+  How the Misses Blake discover a gigantic fraud--How Terence is again
+  arraigned, and brought before the Court on a charge of
+  duplicity--and how he is nearly committed for contempt.
+
+
+Reaching home, they find the atmosphere there decidedly clouded. Miss
+Priscilla, who has returned from her drive just a moment before, is
+standing in the hall, gazing with a stern countenance upon the
+old-fashioned eight-day clock, in which two or three people might be
+safely stowed away. The clock regards her not at all, but ticks on
+loudly with a sort of exasperating obstinacy, as though determined to
+remind every one of the flight of time.
+
+"Who has wound this clock?" demands Miss Priscilla, in an awful tone.
+With a thrill of thankfulness the girls feel they can answer truthfully,
+"Not I."
+
+"Dear me!" says Miss Penelope, timidly, advancing from the morning-room;
+"I did. You were so long out, Priscilla, and I feared--I mean, I thought
+it would save you the trouble."
+
+"Trouble in winding a clock! What trouble could there be in that? And it
+is _never_ wound until Saturday evening. For twenty years I have wound
+it on Saturday evening. A good eight-day clock nearly fifty years old
+can't bear being tampered with. Now, Penelope, why did you do that? You
+know that I can't endure old rules to be upset."
+
+"But, my dear Priscilla, I only thought as I was passing----"
+
+"You _thought_, Penelope; but I wish you _wouldn't_ think. There are
+other things you ought to think about that you often neglect; and----"
+
+"Now, Priscilla, is that just? I think--I _hope_ I seldom neglect my
+duty; and I must say I didn't expect this from _you_."
+
+Here Miss Penelope dissolves into tears, to Monica's grief and dismay.
+
+"Oh, Aunt Priscilla, I am sure Aunt Pen only meant to save you trouble,"
+she says, earnestly, putting her arms round Miss Penelope, who sobs
+audibly on her shoulder.
+
+"And who says I thought anything else?" says poor Miss Priscilla,
+fiercely, though her voice trembles with emotion: it is terrible to her
+to see her faithful friend and sister in tears of her causing.
+"Penelope, I meant nothing, but I have heard something that has grieved
+and disturbed me: so I must needs come home and avenge my ill-temper on
+the best creature in the world. Alas! I am a wicked woman."
+
+"Oh, no, no," cries Miss Penelope. "My dear Priscilla, you will break my
+heart if you talk thus. My good soul, come in here and tell me what has
+happened to distress you."
+
+In truth it is quite plain now that something has happened during her
+drive to take Miss Priscilla's well-balanced mind off its hinges.
+
+"Where is Terence?" she asks, looking from one to other of the group in
+the hall.
+
+"Here," says Terence himself, coming leisurely towards her from a
+side-passage.
+
+"Come in here with me," says Miss Priscilla; and they all follow her
+into the morning-room.
+
+Here she turns and faces the unconscious Terence with a pale,
+reproachful face.
+
+"When I tell you I have just come from Mitson the coast-guard, and that
+I thanked him for having lent you his gun, you will understand how I
+have been grieved and pained to-day," she says, a tremor in her voice.
+
+Terence is no longer unconscious; and Monica feels that her heart is
+beating like a lump of lead.
+
+"Oh! what is it, Priscilla?" asks Miss Penelope, greatly frightened.
+
+"A tale of craft and cunning," says Miss Priscilla in a hollow tone.
+"Mitson tells me he never lent him that gun. Terence has wilfully
+deceived us, his poor aunts, who love him and only desire his good. He
+has, I fear, basely mystified us to accomplish his own ends, and has
+indeed departed from the precious truth."
+
+"I never said Mitson did lend it to me," says Terence, sullenly: "you
+yourself suggested the idea, and I let it slide, that was all."
+
+"All! Is not prevarication only a _mean_ lie? Oh, Terence, I am so
+deeply grieved! I know not what to say to you."
+
+The scene is becoming positively tragical. Already a sense of crime of
+the blackest and deepest dye is overpowering Terence.
+
+"Whom _did_ you get that gun from, Terence?" asks Miss Priscilla,
+sternly.
+
+No answer.
+
+"Now, Terence, be calm," says Miss Penelope. "Sit down now, Terence, and
+collect yourself, and don't be untruthful again."
+
+"I have told no lie, aunt," says Terence, indignantly.
+
+"Then tell your good Aunt Priscilla who gave you the gun."
+
+Dead silence.
+
+"Are we to understand that you _won't_ tell us, Terence?" asks Miss
+Priscilla, faintly. She is now much the more nervous of the two old
+maids.
+
+Terence casts a hasty glance at Monica's white face, and then says,
+stoutly,--
+
+"I don't want to tell, and I _won't_!"
+
+"Terence!" exclaims the usually mild Miss Penelope, with great
+indignation, and is going to further relieve her mind, no doubt, when
+Miss Priscilla, throwing up her hands, checks her.
+
+"Let him alone, Penelope," she says, sadly. "Perhaps he has some good
+reason: let us not press him too far. Obduracy is better than falsehood.
+Let us go and pray that heaven may soften his heart and grant him a
+right understanding."
+
+With this the two old ladies walk slowly and with dignity from the room,
+leaving the criminal with his sisters.
+
+Monica bursts into tears and flings her arms round his neck. "You did it
+for _me_. I know it!--I saw it in your eyes," she says. "Oh, Terence, I
+feel as if it was all my fault."
+
+"Fiddlesticks!" says Mr. Beresford, who is in a boiling rage. "Did you
+ever hear anything like her? and all about a paltry thing like that! She
+couldn't behave worse if I had been convicted of murder. I'm
+convinced"--viciously--"it was all baffled curiosity that got up her
+temper. She was _dying_ to know about that gun, and so I was determined
+I wouldn't gratify her. A regular old cat, if ever there was one."
+
+"Oh, no! don't speak like that; I am sure they love you--and they were
+disappointed--and----"
+
+"They'll have to get through a good deal of disappointment," says
+Terence, still fuming. "What right have they to make me out a Sir
+Galahad in their imaginations? I'd perfectly _hate_ to be a Sir Galahad;
+and so I tell them." This is not strictly correct as the Misses Blake
+are out of hearing. "And as for their love, they may keep it, if it only
+means blowing a fellow up for nothing."
+
+"Aunt Penelope was just as bad," says Kit. "I really"--with dignified
+contempt--"felt quite _ashamed_ of her!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miss Priscilla keeps a diary, in which she most faithfully records all
+that happens in every one of the three hundred and sixty-five days of
+every year.
+
+About this time there may be seen in it an entry such as follows:
+
+"_Saturday, July 3._--I fear Terence told a LIE! He _certainly_
+equivocated! Penelope and I have done our best to discover the real
+owner of THE gun, but as yet have failed. The secret rests with Terence,
+and to force his confidence would be unchristian; but it _may_ transpire
+in _time_."
+
+After this come sundry other jottings, such as--
+
+"_Monday, July 5._--Past four. Fanny Stack called. Penelope in the
+garden, as usual. All the trouble of entertaining falling upon _my_
+hands. Still, I do not repine. Providence is good; and Penelope of
+course, dear soul, should be allowed the recreation that pertains to her
+garden. And, indeed, a sweet place she makes of it."
+
+After this again comes a third paragraph:
+
+"_Tuesday, July 6._--Terence again most wilful, and Kit somewhat saucy;
+yet my heart yearns over these children. God grant they be guided by a
+tender hand along the straight and narrow way!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is the next day, July 7, and the two Misses Blake, standing in the
+dining-room, are discussing Terence again. They have had a great shock,
+these two old ladies, in the discovery of a duplicity that they in their
+simplicity have magnified fourfold. How is it possible they should
+remember how _they_ felt thirty years ago?
+
+"I doubt we must keep a tight hand upon him, Penelope," says Miss
+Priscilla, sorrowfully. "The rector is very lax. He goes to him day by
+day, but beyond Greek and Latin seems to imbibe little else. And
+_morals_ are the groundwork of all, and surely superior to the languages
+spoken by those who believed in heathen gods. I wonder at the rector, I
+must say. But we must only make up for his deficiences by keeping a
+tight hand, as I said before, upon this unhappy boy."
+
+"Yes, but not _too_ tight, Priscilla; that might only create a
+rebellious feeling and destroy all our chances of success. And we are
+bent on leading this poor dear boy (poor Katherine's boy, Priscilla)
+into the way of truth."
+
+"Yes, yes; we must be cautious, _most_ cautious, in our treatment," says
+Miss Priscilla, nervously, "and very careful of his comings and goings,
+without _appearing_ to be so! Dear me! dear me! I wonder if the
+greatness of our cause justifies so much deceit. It sounds jesuitical,
+my dear Penelope, say what we can."
+
+"The end justifies the means," says Miss Penelope, as solemnly as if
+this speech emanated from her throat as an original remark.
+
+"Oh, don't! my dear Penelope!" says Miss Priscilla, with a shudder;
+"that is _their_ principal argument."
+
+"Whose? The children's?" asks Miss Penelope, startled.
+
+"No; the Jesuits,--the Inquisitors,--those dreadful people we read of in
+'Westward Ho,'" says Miss Priscilla, protestingly. "Still, I agree with
+you; secrecy is the part we have to play. We must keep one eye" (as if
+there was only one between them) "upon him without _seeming_ to do so.
+And there he is,"--pointing through the window to where Terence may be
+seen coming slowly towards the window in which they stand in a most
+unhappy frame of mind.
+
+"I wonder where he can have been for the past half-hour," says Miss
+Priscilla presently, in a nervous whisper, though Terence is so far off
+that if she spoke at the top of her lungs he could not have heard her.
+
+"Perhaps if we ask him he may tell us," says Miss Penelope, equally
+nervous and decidedly with great doubt as to the success of her
+suggestion.
+
+"Well, you ask him," says Miss Priscilla.
+
+"I am greatly wanting in _force_ on occasions such as these," says Miss
+Penelope, hurriedly. "No, no, my dear; you ask him. But be gentle with
+him, my dear Priscilla."
+
+"Why can't _you_ do it?" persists Miss Blake, plainly anxious to shift
+the obnoxious task from her own shoulders to another's. "You have great
+influence with the children, I have remarked many times."
+
+"Nothing to _yours_," says Miss Penelope, with an agitated wave of her
+hand. "I couldn't do it; indeed I _couldn't_, my dear Priscilla," openly
+quaking. "Don't ask me. See, here he comes! Now be firm,--be _firm_,
+Priscilla, but lenient, _very_ lenient: he is only a boy, remember, and
+even the great Luther was strangely wanting in principle when young."
+
+"It is my duty; I suppose I must go through with it," says poor Miss
+Priscilla, sighing; and then she throws wide the window and calls to
+Terence to come to her.
+
+"Where have you been, Terence?"
+
+"At the back gate, aunt."
+
+"But, my _dear_ Terence, _why_ at the back gate? Such a nice day for a
+good long wholesome walk! Why spend it at the back gate?"
+
+"Because--that is--I----"
+
+"My dear boy, be calm. Wait a moment now, Terence, and don't hurry
+yourself. There is no occasion for haste."
+
+"I was only going to say, aunt----"
+
+"Pause now, Terence: consider well before you speak. Though, indeed,
+there should be no need for consideration when only the simple but
+lovely truth is required. Truth is always lovely, Terence; it is a
+flower of great beauty. Collect yourself, now." (This is a favorite
+formula with the Misses Blake.) "Don't tell a lie, Terence!"
+
+"Why should I tell a lie?" says Terence, fiercely, feeling at this
+moment that death, when compared with nagging, would be sweet.
+
+"Oh, Terence, what a tone! and to your good aunt Penelope, who loves
+you! Such a tone as that, my dear, is unchristian. Now, we don't want to
+know what you were _doing_ at the back gate. Why should you be afraid of
+us? Are we not your greatest friends? But what could you have been doing
+for half an hour at the back gate, Terence?"
+
+"I went up there with Michael, aunt."
+
+"I didn't ask you that, dear. I am afraid you have no confidence in us,
+Terence. I didn't ask you who went with you. Can't you say yes or no,
+Terence? Were you _long_ at the gate?"
+
+"No, aunt."
+
+"Was any one but Michael with you?"
+
+"Yes, aunt."
+
+"Was it Adams?"
+
+"No, aunt."
+
+"Can't you say anything but yes or no, Terence? Have you no command of
+the Queen's English, after all the money, too, your poor father wasted
+on your education,--and now the rector? Speak up, my dear child, and
+tell us everything honestly and nobly."
+
+"But there is nothing to tell, aunt, except that----"
+
+"No, collect yourself, Terence; take time, my dear. _Now_, answer me:
+who was with you, besides Michael?"
+
+"Timothy, aunt."
+
+The hoary-headed butler being, like Cęsar's wife, above suspicion, the
+Misses Blake are pulled up pretty short,--so short, indeed, that they
+forget to ask if any one besides the respectable Timothy was at the
+obnoxious back gate. Perhaps had they known that the smith's son, and
+two or three other young men, had been there, and that all had been
+talking the most violent politics, their fears for Terence's morality
+would have increased rather than diminished.
+
+As it is, they are well pleased.
+
+"But why didn't you say that at once, my dear boy? We are so afraid of
+your mixing with evil companions."
+
+Terence thinks of the smith's son, and his unqualified opinion that all
+landlords and aristocrats and sovereigns should be "stamped out," and
+wonders if _he_ would come under the category of evil companions, but he
+wisely refrains from speech.
+
+"And," says Miss Penelope, softly, "why didn't you tell us before
+leaving the house where you were going? I am sure, if you had, both your
+aunt Priscilla and I would have been delighted _to go with you_, busy
+though we were."
+
+This is the climax. Again in Terence's fevered imagination the smith's
+son arises, wielding his brawny brown arm like a sledge-hammer, as he
+noisily lays down the laws of extermination: he can see himself, too,
+joining in the fray, and defying the smith's son's opinion with an
+eloquence of which he had been only proud. He feels he is deceiving
+these two old ladies, and is angry with himself for doing it, and still
+more angry with them for making him do it.
+
+"I am glad we have heard the truth at _last_, Terence," says Miss
+Priscilla. "There is nothing so mean or contemptible as a lie."
+
+"You are enough to make _any_ fellow tell a lie," bursts out Terence,
+with miserable rage, "with your questionings and pryings!"
+
+At this awful speech, the two Misses Blake burst into tears, and Terence
+dashes in a fury from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+  How the afternoon at Moyne proves a great success--How Olga Bohun is
+  led into a half confession, and how Monica, growing restless, seeks
+  a dubious solitude.
+
+
+"It is quite the loveliest old place in the world!" says Mrs. Bohun, in
+her soft plaintive voice, speaking very enthusiastically. "We ought to
+be more than grateful to you, dear Miss Blake, for letting us see it."
+
+Miss Priscilla reddens with suppressed satisfaction but says,--
+
+"Tut tut, my dear! It is only a funny old-fashioned spot, after all," in
+quite an off-hand manner.
+
+It is Friday,--_the_ Friday,--as the Misses Blake have been thinking of
+it for days, in fear and trembling, as being the date of their first
+hospitable venture for many years.
+
+All the Aghyohillbeg party, and the men from Clonbree Barracks, and some
+other neighbors, are strolling through the sweet antiquated gardens of
+Moyne, hedged with yews fantastically cut. The roses, white and red and
+yellow, are nodding their heads lazily, bowing and courtesying to the
+passing breeze. The stocks and mignonette are filling the air with
+perfume. Tall lilies are smiling from distant corners, and the little
+merry burn, tumbling over its gray boulders through the garden, is
+singing a loud and happy song, in which the birds in the trees above
+join heartily.
+
+The lazy hum of many insects makes one feel even more perceptibly how
+drowsy-sweet is all the summer air.
+
+Mrs. Bohun has now flitted away with Monica, who in her white gown looks
+the prettiest flower of all, in this "wilderness of sweets," with the
+tall, infatuated Ryde and handsome young Ronayne in their train. Mrs.
+Bohun, who is in one of her most mischievous moods to-day, has taken it
+into her head to snub Lord Rossmoyne and be all that is of the sweetest
+to Ulic Ronayne, a proceeding her cousin, Mrs. Herrick, regards with
+dismay.
+
+Not so, however, does Bella Fitzgerald regard it. She, tall, and with a
+would-be stately air, walks through the grounds at Lord Rossmoyne's
+side, to whom she has attached herself, and who, _faute de mieux_, makes
+himself as agreeable as he can to her, considering how he is inwardly
+raging at what he is pleased to term Olga's disgraceful behavior.
+
+Miss Priscilla has now been seized upon by Madam O'Connor and carried
+off for a private confab.
+
+"And you really _must_ let her come to us for a week, my dear," says
+Madam O'Connor, in her fine rich brogue. "Yes, now, really I want her.
+It will be quite a favor. I can't withstand a pretty face, as you well
+know 'tis a weakness of mine, my dear, and she is really a pearl. Olga
+Bohun is talking of getting up tableaux or some such nonsense, and she
+wants your pretty child to help us."
+
+"I should like her to go to you. It is very kind of you," says Miss
+Priscilla, but with unmistakable hesitation.
+
+"Now, what is it? Out with it, Priscilla!" says Madam O'Connor, bluntly.
+
+Miss Priscilla struggles with herself for yet another minute, and then
+says, quickly,--
+
+"That young man Desmond,--will _he_ be staying in your house?"
+
+"Not if you object, my dear," says Mrs. O'Connor, kindly; "though I do
+think it is a pity to thwart that affair. He is as nice and as pleasant
+a young fellow as I know, and would make a jewel of a husband; and
+money--say what you like, my dear Priscilla--is always something. It
+ranks higher than _revenge_."
+
+"There is no revenge. It is only a just resentment."
+
+"Well, I'll call it by any name you like, my dear, but I must say----"
+
+"I must beg, Gertrude, you will not discuss this unhappy subject," says
+Miss Priscilla, with some agitation.
+
+"Well, I won't, there. Then let it lie," says Madam O'Connor,
+good-humoredly. "And tell me, now, if I come over to fetch Monica on
+Monday, will she be ready for me?"
+
+"Quite ready. But we have not consulted her yet," says Miss Priscilla,
+clinging to a broken reed.
+
+"Olga is talking to her about it. And, if she's the girl she _looks_,
+she'll be glad of a change, and the chance of a sweetheart," says Madam
+O'Connor, gayly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What lovely lilies!" says Mrs. Bohun, standing before a tall white
+group.
+
+"Oh, don't!" says Owen Kelly, who has joined her and Monica. "Whenever I
+hear a lily mentioned I think of Oscar Wilde, and it hurts very much."
+
+"I like Oscar Wilde. He is quite nice, and _very_ amusing," says Olga.
+
+"I wonder if I could make my hair grow," says Mr. Kelly, meditatively.
+"He's been very clever about his; but I suppose somebody taught him."
+
+"Well, I think long hair is dirty," says Mrs. Bohun, with an abstracted
+glance at Ronayne's lightly-shaven head.
+
+Then, as though tired of her sweet _role_ and of its object (Ronayne)
+and everything, she turns capriciously aside, and, motioning away the
+men with her hand and a small frown, sits down at Hermia Herrick's feet
+and plucks idly at the grasses near her.
+
+"So we are dismissed," says Kelly, shrugging his shoulders. Monica has
+disappeared long ago with the devoted Ryde. "Your queen has her tempers,
+Ronayne."
+
+"There are few things so cloying as perfection," says Ronayne, loyally.
+
+"I entirely agree with you,--so much so that I hope Providence will send
+me an ugly wife. She--I beg your pardon--Mrs. Bohun does pretty much
+what she likes with you, doesn't she?"
+
+"Altogether what she likes. She's been doing it for so long now that I
+suppose she'll go on to the end of the chapter. I hope it will be a long
+one. Do you know," says the young man, with a rather sad little laugh,
+"it sounds of course rather a poor thing to say, but I really think it
+makes me _happy_, being done what she likes with?"
+
+"It is only to oblige a friend that I should seek to understand such a
+hopelessly involved sentence as that," says Mr. Kelly, wearily. "But I
+have managed it. You're as bad a case as ever I came across, Ronayne,
+and I pity you. But, 'pon my soul, I respect you too," with a flash of
+admiration: "there is nothing like being thoroughly in earnest. And so I
+wish you luck in your wooing."
+
+"You're a very good fellow, Kelly," says Ronayne gratefully.
+
+In the mean time, Olga, tiring of tearing her grasses to pieces, looks
+up at Hermia.
+
+"How silent you are!" she says.
+
+"I thought that was what you wanted,--silence. You have been talking all
+day. And, besides, if I speak at all, it will be only to condemn."
+
+"Nevertheless speak. Anything is better than this ghastly quiet; and,
+besides, frankly, I need not mind you, you know."
+
+"You are flirting disgracefully with that Ronayne boy."
+
+"What harm, if he _is_ a boy?"
+
+"He is not such a boy as all that comes to; and, if you don't _mean_ it,
+you are overkind to him."
+
+"He is my baby," says Olga, with a little laugh; "I often tell him so.
+Why should I _not_ be kind to him?"
+
+"Oh, if you are _bent_ on it."
+
+"I am bent on nothing. You do run away so with things!"
+
+"I think you might do better."
+
+"I'm not going to do anything," says the widow. She throws off her hat,
+and ruffles up all her pretty pale gold hair with impatient fingers.
+
+"Oh! if you can _assure_ me of that!"
+
+"I don't want to assure you of anything."
+
+"So I thought. That is why I say you might do better."
+
+"I might do worse, too."
+
+"Perhaps. But still I cannot forget there was Wolverhampton last year. A
+title is not to be despised; and he was devoted to you, and would, I
+think, have made a good husband."
+
+"I daresay. He was fool enough for anything. And I liked him, rather;
+but there was something in him--wasn't there, now, Hermia?--something
+positively enraging at times."
+
+"I suppose, then, your fancy for young Ronayne arises from the fact that
+there is _nothing_ in him," says Hermia, maliciously: "that's his charm,
+is it?"
+
+Mrs. Bohun laughs.
+
+"I don't suppose there is very much in him," she says: "that in itself
+is such a relief. Wolverhampton was so overpowering about those
+hydraulics. Ulic isn't a savant, certainly, and I don't think he will
+ever set the Liffey afire, but he is 'pleasant too to think on.' Now,
+mind you, I don't believe I care a pin about Ulic Ronayne,--he is
+younger than I am, for one thing,--but still I don't care to hear him
+abused."
+
+"I am not abusing him," says Hermia. "It was you said he was no savant,
+and would be unlikely to set the Liffey afire."
+
+"For which we should be devoutly grateful," says Olga, frivolously.
+"Consider, if he _could_, what the consequences would be, both to life
+and property. Poor young man! I really think Government ought to give
+him a pension because he _can't_."
+
+"And what about all the other young men?" asks Hermia. And then she
+yawns.
+
+Here Monica--who has been absent with Mr. Ryde for the best part of an
+hour--comes up to them, and presently Terence, with the Fitzgeralds, and
+Miss Priscilla and Lord Rossmoyne.
+
+"I heard a story yesterday I want to tell you," says Terence, gayly,
+singling out Miss Fitzgerald and Olga, and sinking upon the grass at the
+former's feet. He is such a handsome merry boy that he is a favorite
+with all the women. Miss Priscilla stands near him; the others are all
+conversing together about the coming plays at Aghyohillbeg.
+
+"It is about the curate," says Terence, gleefully. "You know, he is
+awful spoons on the ugliest French girl, and the other day he wanted to
+run up to Dublin to get her a ring, or something, but----"
+
+"Now, Terence, dear, surely that is not the way to pronounce that word,"
+says Miss Priscilla, anxiously; "such a vulgar pronounciation--'bu-ut.'
+How you drawled it! How ugly it sounds--'bu-ut!' Now put your lips
+together like mine, so, and say 'but,' _shortly_. Now begin your story
+again, and tell it nicely."
+
+Terence begins again,--_very_ good humoredly, thinks Olga,--and has
+almost reached the point, when Miss Priscilla breaks in again:
+
+"Now, not so fast, my dear Terence. I really cannot follow you at all. I
+don't even understand what you are at. Gently, my dear boy. Now begin it
+all over again, and be more explicit."
+
+But the fun is all out of Terence by this time, though Olga is so
+convulsed with laughter that it might have been the best story on
+record, which somewhat astonishes though it consoles Terence, as when
+his funny incident is related in a carefully modulated voice, and with a
+painful precision, it strikes even him as being hopelessly
+uninteresting. However, Mrs. Bohun certainly enjoys it,--or something
+else, perhaps: fortunately, it never occurs to Terry to ponder on the
+"something else."
+
+"Hermia, Olga, come now, my dears. You can't stay here for _ever_, you
+know," cries Madam O'Connor's loud but cheery voice. "It is nearly
+seven. Come, I tell you, or the Misses Blake, our good friends here,
+will think we mean to take up our residence at Moyne for good."
+
+"Oh, now, Gertrude!" says Miss Priscilla, much shocked. But Madam
+O'Connor only laughs heartily, and gives her a little smart blow on the
+shoulder with her fan. Olga laughs too, gayly, and Hermia lets her lips
+part with one of her rare but perfect smiles. If she likes any one
+besides Olga and her children, it is bluff and blunt old Gertrude
+O'Connor.
+
+One by one they all walk away, and presently Moyne is lying in the dying
+sunshine, in all its usual quietude, with never a sound to disturb the
+calm of coming eve but the light rustling of the rising breeze among the
+ivy-leaves that are clambering up its ancient walls.
+
+Kit and Terry are indoors, laughing merrily over the day, and
+congratulating themselves upon the success it has certainly been.
+
+"Yes. I do think, Penelope, they all enjoyed themselves," says Miss
+Priscilla, in high glee; "and your claret-cup, my dear, was superb."
+
+But Monica has stolen away from them all. The strange restlessness that
+has lain upon her all day is asserting itself with cruel vigor, and
+drives her forth into the shadows of the coming night.
+
+All day long she has struggled bravely against it; but, now that the
+enforced necessity for liveliness is at an end, she grows dreamy,
+_distraite_, and feels an intense longing for solitude and air.
+
+Again she walks through the now deserted garden, where the flowers,
+"earth's loveliest," are drooping their sweet heads to seek their happy
+slumbers. Past them she goes with lowered head and thoughts engrossed,
+and so over the lawn into the wood beyond.
+
+Here Coole and Moyne are connected by a high green bank, that in early
+spring is studded and diamonded with primroses and now is gay with
+ferns. Not until she has reached this boundary does she remember how far
+she has come.
+
+She climbs the bank, and gazes with an ever-growing longing at the cool
+shade in the forbidden land, at the tall, stately trees, and the
+foxgloves nodding drowsily.
+
+It is a perfect evening, and as yet the god of day--great Sol--is riding
+the heavens with triumphant mirth, as though reckless of the death that
+draweth nigh. Shall he not rise again to-morrow morn in all his awful
+majesty, and so defy grim Mars? It is, indeed, one of those hours when
+heaven seems nearest earth, "as when warm sunshine thrills wood-glooms
+to gold," and "righteousness and peace have kissed each other," and
+Nature, tender mother, smiles, and all the forest deeps are by "a tender
+whisper pierced."
+
+Conscience forbidding her, she abstains from entering those coveted
+woods, and, with a sigh, seats herself upon the top of the green bank.
+
+"Monica!" says a voice close to her, yet not close to
+her,--mysteriously, far up in mid-air, right over her head. She starts!
+Is the great wood peopled with satyrs, ouphs, or dryads?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+  The marvellous history of how Monica finds the green-eyed monster in
+  a beech-tree--and how, single-handed, she attacks and overcomes him.
+
+
+It is not a tender voice. It is not even a gentle or coldly friendly
+voice. It is, when all is told, a distinctly angry voice, full of
+possible reproaches and vehement upbraidings.
+
+Monica, raising her head with extreme nervousness, had just time to see
+Mr. Desmond in the huge fir-tree above her, before he drops at her feet.
+
+"What on earth were you doing up there?" asks she, thinking it wise to
+adopt the offensive style, so as to be first in the field, feeling
+instinctively that a scolding is coming and that she deserves it.
+
+"Watching _you_," returns he, sternly, nothing dismayed by her
+assumption of injured innocence, so her little ruse falls through.
+
+"A charming occupation, certainly!" says Miss Beresford, with fine
+disgust.
+
+"I climbed up into that tree," says Mr. Desmond, savagely, "and from it
+saw that you had spent your entire day with that idiot, Ryde."
+
+"Do you think," says Miss Beresford, with awful calm, "that it was a
+_gentlemanly_ thing to climb into that tree, like a horrid schoolboy,
+and spy upon a person?--_do you?_"
+
+"I don't," vehemently, "but I was driven to it. I don't care what is
+gentlemanly. I don't care," furiously, "what you think of me. I only
+know that my mind is now _satisfied_ about you, and that I know you are
+the most abominable flirt in the world, and that you ought to be ashamed
+of yourself."
+
+"Well, I'm not," with great self-possession.
+
+"The more to your discredit! That only means that you are bent on doing
+it again."
+
+"I shall certainly always talk to any man who talks to me. That is,"
+cuttingly, "any man who knows how to conduct himself with propriety."
+
+"Meaning--_I_ don't, I suppose?"
+
+"_Certainly_ you don't."
+
+"Oh, if it comes to that," says Desmond, in tones of the deepest
+desperation, and as if nothing is left to expect but the deluge in
+another moment.
+
+And, in effect, it comes. Not, as one has been taught to expect, in
+sudden storm, and wind, and lightning, but first in soft light drops,
+and then in a perfect downpour, that bursts upon them with passionate
+fury.
+
+As they are standing beneath a magnificent beech, they get but a taste
+of the shower in reality, though Desmond, seeing some huge drops lying
+on Monica's thin white gown, feels his heart smite him.
+
+"Here, take this," he says, roughly, taking off his coat and placing it
+round her shoulders.
+
+"No, thank you," says Miss Beresford, stiffly.
+
+"You must," returns he, and, to his surprise, she makes no further
+resistance. Perhaps she is cowed by the authority of his manner;
+_perhaps_ she doesn't like the raindrops.
+
+Encouraged, however, by her submission to a further daring of fortune,
+he says, presently,--
+
+"You might have given Cobbett a turn, I think, instead of devoting
+yourself all day to that egregious ass."
+
+"He prefers talking to Hermia. I suppose you don't want me to go up to
+people and ask them to be civil to me?"
+
+"Some other fellow, then."
+
+"You would be just as jealous of him, whoever he was."
+
+"I am not jealous at all," indignantly. "I only object to your saying
+one thing to _me_ and another to _him_."
+
+"What is the one thing I say to you?"
+
+This staggers him.
+
+"You must find me a very monotonous person if I say only one thing to
+you always."
+
+"I haven't found you so."
+
+"Then it--whatever it is--must be one of the most eloquent and
+remarkable speeches upon record. _Do_ tell it to me."
+
+"Look here, Monica," says Mr. Desmond, cautiously evading a reply: "what
+I want to know is--what you _see_ in Ryde. He is tall, certainly, but he
+is fat and effeminate, with 'a forehead villanous low.'"
+
+"Your own is very low," says Miss Beresford.
+
+"If I thought it was like _his_, I'd make away with myself. And you
+listen to all his stories, and believe them every one. I don't believe a
+single syllable he says: I never met such a bragger. To listen to him,
+one would think he had killed every tiger in Bengal. In my opinion, he
+never even saw one."
+
+"'Les absents ont toujours tort,'" quotes she, in a low, significant
+tone.
+
+This is the finishing stroke.
+
+"Oh! you _defend_ him," he says, as savagely almost as one of those wild
+beasts he has just mentioned. "In your eyes he is a hero, no doubt. I
+daresay all women see virtue in a man who 'talks as familiarly of
+roaring lions as maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs.'"
+
+"I don't think maids of thirteen, as a rule, talk much of puppy-dogs.
+I'm sure Kit doesn't," says Monica, provokingly. "And really, to do Mr.
+Ryde justice too, I never heard him mention a roaring lion. Perhaps you
+are thinking of Artemus Ward's lion that goes about 'seeking whom he may
+devour somebody.'" She smiles in a maddening fashion.
+
+"I am thinking of Ryde," says Desmond. "I am thinking, too, how mad I
+was when I thought you liked me better than him. I _did_ think it, you
+know; but now I am _desillusionnee_. It is plain to me you are
+infatuated about this fellow, who is 'perfumed like a milliner' and
+hasn't two ideas in his head."
+
+"I can't think where you find all your quotations," says Monica, who is
+now seriously annoyed; "but I must ask you not to worry me any further
+about Mr. Ryde."
+
+"You are madly in love with him," says Desmond, choking with rage. Upon
+which Miss Beresford loses the last remnant of her patience, and very
+properly turns her back on him.
+
+The rain has ceased, but during its reign has extinguished the dying
+sun, which has disappeared far below the horizon. A great hush and
+silence has followed the petulant burst of storm, and a peace
+unspeakable lies on all the land. There is a little glimpse of the ocean
+far away beyond the giant firs, and one can see that its waves are calm,
+and the fishing-boats upon its bosom scarcely rock.
+
+The grass is bending still with the weight of the past rain, and a
+plaintive dripping from the trees can be heard,--a refreshing sound that
+lessens the sense of heat. The small birds stir cosily in their nests,
+and now and then a drowsy note breaks from one or another; a faint mist,
+white and intangible, rises from the hills, spreading from field to sky,
+until
+
+    "The earth, with heaven mingled, in the shadowy twilight lay,
+      And the white sails seemed like spectres in a cloud-land far away."
+
+"Ah! you don't like me to say that," says Desmond, unappeased by the
+beauty of the growing night; "but----"
+
+"Do not say another word," says Monica, imperiously. The moon is rising
+slowly--slowly,--and so, by the by, is her temper. "I forbid you. Here,"
+throwing to him his coat; "I think I have before remarked that the rain
+is _quite_ over. I am sorry I ever touched anything belonging to you."
+
+Desmond having received the coat, and put himself into it once more,
+silence ensues. It does, perhaps, strike him as a hopeful sign that she
+shows no haste to return home and so rid herself of a presence she has
+inadvertently declared to be hateful to her, because presently he says,
+simply, if a little warmly,--
+
+"There is no use in our quarreling like this. I won't give you up
+without a further struggle, to _any_ man. So we may as well have it out
+now. Do you care for that--for Ryde?"
+
+"If you had asked me that before,--sensibly,--you might have avoided
+making an exhibition of yourself and saying many rude things. I don't in
+the least mind telling you," says Miss Beresford, coldly, "that I _can't
+bear_ him."
+
+"Oh, Monica! is this _true_?" asks he, in an agony of hope.
+
+"Quite true. But you don't deserve I should say it."
+
+"My darling! My 'one thing bright' in all this hateful world! Oh!"
+throwing up his head with an impatient gesture, "I have been so wretched
+all this evening! I have suffered the tortures of the----"
+
+"Now, you musn't say naughty words," interrupts she, with an adorable
+smile. "You are glad I have forgiven you?"
+
+This is how she puts it, and he is only too content to be friends with
+her on any terms, to show further fight.
+
+"_More_ than glad."
+
+"And you will promise me never to be jealous again?"
+
+This is a bitter pill, considering his former declaration that jealousy
+and he had nothing to do with each other; but he swallows it bravely.
+
+"Never. And you--you will never again give me cause, darling, will you?"
+
+"I gave you no cause now," says the darling, shaking her pretty head
+obstinately. And he doesn't dare contradict her. "You behaved really
+badly," she goes on, reproachfully, "and at such a time, too,--just when
+I was dying to tell you _such_ good news."
+
+"Good?--your aunts--" eagerly, "have relented--they----"
+
+"Oh, no! oh, _dear_, no!" says Miss Beresford. "They are harder than
+ever against you. Adamant is a _sponge_ in comparison with them. It
+isn't that; but Madam O'Connor has asked me to go and stay with her next
+Monday for a week!--there!"
+
+"And me too?"
+
+"N--o. Aunt Priscilla made it a condition with regard to my going that
+you shouldn't be there."
+
+"The----And Madam O'Connor gave in to such abominable tyranny?"
+
+"Without a murmur."
+
+"I thought she had a soul above that sort of thing," says Mr. Desmond,
+with disgust. "But they are all alike."
+
+"Who?--women?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You mean to tell me I am like Aunt Priscilla and Madam O'Connor?"
+
+"_Old_ women, I mean," with anxious haste, seeing a cloud descending
+upon the brow of his beloved.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"And, after all, it _is_ good news," says Brian, brightening, "because
+though I can't stop in the house for the week, still there is nothing to
+prevent my riding over there every one of the seven days."
+
+"That's just what I thought," says Monica, ingenuously, with a sweet
+little blush.
+
+"Ah! you wished for me, then?"
+
+She refuses to answer this in any more direct manner than her eyes
+afford, but says, quickly, doubtfully,--
+
+"It won't be deceiving Aunt Priscilla, your coming there to visit, will
+it? She must know she cannot compel Madam O'Connor to forbid you the
+house. And she knows perfectly you are an intimate friend of hers."
+
+"Of course she does. She is a regular old tyrant,--a Bluebeard in
+petticoats; but----"
+
+"No, no; you must not abuse her," says Monica: so he becomes silent.
+
+She is standing very close to the trunk of the old beech, half leaning
+against it upon one arm which is slightly raised. She has no gloves, but
+long white mittens that reach above her elbow to where the sleeves of
+her gown join them. Through the little holes in the pattern of these
+kindly mittens her white arms can be seen gleaming like snow beneath
+the faint rays of the early moon. With one hand she is playing some
+imaginary air upon the tree's bark.
+
+As she so plays, tiny sparkles from her rings attract his notice.
+
+"Those five little rings," says Desmond, idly, "always remind me of the
+five little pigs that went to market,--I don't know why."
+
+"They didn't all go to market," demurely. "One of them, I _know_, stayed
+at home."
+
+"So he did. I remember now. Somehow it makes me feel like a boy again."
+
+"Then, according to Hood, you must be nearer heaven than you were a
+moment ago."
+
+"I couldn't," says Desmond, turning, and looking into her beautiful
+eyes. "My heaven has been near me for the last half-hour." If he had
+said _hour_ he would have been closer to the truth.
+
+A soft, lovely crimson creeps into her cheeks, and her eyes fall before
+his for a moment. Then she laughs,--a gay, mirthful laugh, that somehow
+puts sentiment to flight.
+
+"Go on about your little pigs," she says, glancing at him with
+coquettish mirth.
+
+"About your rings, you mean. I never look at them that I don't begin
+this sort of thing." Here, seeing an excellent opportunity for it,
+he takes her hand in his. "This little turquoise went to market,
+this little pearl stayed at home, this little emerald got
+some--er--cheese----"
+
+"No, it wasn't," hastily. "It was roast beef."
+
+"So it was. Better than cheese, any day. How stupid of me! I might have
+known an emerald--I mean a pig--wouldn't like cheese."
+
+"I don't suppose it would like roast beef a bit better," says Monica;
+and then her lips part and she bursts into a merry laugh at the
+absurdity of the thing. She is such a child still that she finds the
+keenest enjoyment in it.
+
+"Never mind," with dignity, "and permit me to tell you, Miss Beresford,
+that open ridicule is rude. To continue: _this_ little pearl got none,
+and this little plain gold ring got--he got--what on earth did the
+little plain gold pig--I mean, ring--get?"
+
+"_Nothing._ Just what _you_ ought to get for such a badly-told story. He
+only cried, 'Wee.'"
+
+"Oh, no, indeed. He shan't cry at all. I won't have tears connected with
+you in any way."
+
+She glances up at him with eyes half shy, half pleased, and with the
+prettiest dawning smile upon her lips.
+
+He clasps the slender fingers closer, as though loath to part with them,
+and yet his tale has come to a climax.
+
+"If I have told my story so badly, perhaps I had better tell it all over
+again," he says, with a base assumption of virtuous regret.
+
+"No. I would not give you that trouble for the world," she says,
+mischievously, and then the dawning smile widens, brightens into
+something indescribable, but perfect.
+
+"Oh, Monica, I do think you are the sweetest thing on earth," says the
+young man, with sudden fervid passion; and then all at once, and for the
+first time, he puts out his arms impulsively and draws her to him. She
+colors,--still smiling, however,--and after a brief hesitation, moves
+slowly but decidedly back from him.
+
+"You don't _hate_ me to touch you, do you?" asks he, rather hurt.
+
+"Oh, no, indeed!" hurriedly. "Only----"
+
+"Only what, darling?"
+
+"I hardly know what," she answers, looking bewildered. "Perhaps because
+it is all so strange. Why should you love _me_ better than any one?--and
+yet you do," anxiously, "don't you?"
+
+The innocently-expressed anxiety makes his heart glad.
+
+"I adore you," he says, fervently; and then, "Did no one ever place his
+arm round you _before_, Monica?"
+
+He finds a difficulty in even asking this.
+
+"No, no," with intense surprise at the question, and a soft, quick
+glance that is almost shamed. "I never had a lover in my life until I
+met you. No one except you ever told me I was pretty. The first time
+_you_ said it I went home (when I was out of your sight," reddening, "I
+ran all the rest of the way) and looked at myself in the glass. Then,"
+naively, "I knew you were right. Still I had my doubts; so I called Kit
+and told her about it; and she," laughing, "said you were evidently a
+person of great discrimination, so I suppose she agreed with you."
+
+"She could hardly do otherwise."
+
+"Yet sometimes," says Monica, with hesitation and a downcast face, "I
+have thought it was all mere fancy with you, and that you don't love me
+_really_."
+
+"My sweetheart, what a cruel thing to say to me!"
+
+"But see how you scold me! Only now," nervously plucking little bits of
+bark from the trunk of the tree, "you accused me of dreadful things.
+Yes, sometimes I doubt you."
+
+"I wonder where I leave room for doubt? Yet I must convince you. What
+shall I swear by, then?" he asks, half laughing: "the chaste Diana up
+above--the lovers' friend--is in full glory to-night; shall I swear by
+her?"
+
+"'Oh, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, lest that thy love
+prove likewise variable,'" quotes she archly; "and yet," with a sudden
+change of mood, and a certain sweet gravity, "I do not mistrust you."
+
+She leans slightly towards him, and unasked, gives her hand into his
+keeping once again. She is full of pretty tender ways and womanly
+tricks, and as for the best time for displaying them, for this she has a
+natural talent.
+
+Desmond, clasping her hand, looks at her keenly. His whole heart is in
+his eyes.
+
+"Tell me that you love me," he says, in a low unsteady voice.
+
+"How can I? I don't know. I am not sure," she says, falteringly; "and,"
+shrinking a little from him, "it is growing very late. See how the moon
+has risen above the firs. I must go home."
+
+"Tell me you love me first."
+
+"I _must_ not love you; you know that."
+
+"But if you might, you could?"
+
+"Ye--es."
+
+"Then I defy all difficulties,--aunts, and friends, and lovers. I shall
+win you in the teeth of all barriers, and in spite of all opposition.
+And now go home, my heart's delight, my best beloved. I have this
+assurance from you, that your own lips have given me, and it makes me
+confident of victory."
+
+"But if you fail," she begins, nervously; but he will not listen to her.
+
+"There is no such word," he says, gayly. "Or, if there is, I never
+learnt it. Good-night, my love."
+
+"Good-night." A little frightened by his happy vehemence she stands well
+away from him, and holds out her hands in farewell. Taking them, he
+opens them gently and presses an impassioned kiss on each little
+pink-tinged palm. With a courteous reverence for her evident shyness, he
+then releases her, and, raising his hat, stands motionless until she has
+sprung down the bank and so reached the Moyne fields again.
+
+Then she turns and waves him a second and last good night. Returning the
+salute, he replaces his hat on his head, and thrusting his hands deep in
+his pockets, turns towards Coole--and dinner. He is somewhat late for
+the latter, but this troubles him little, so set is his mind upon the
+girl who has just left him.
+
+Surely she is hard to win, and therefore--_how_ desirable! "The women of
+Ireland," says an ancient chronicler, "are the coyest, the most
+coquettish, yet withal the coldest and virtuousest women upon earth."
+Yet, allowing all this, given time and opportunity, they may be safely
+wooed. What Mr. Desmond complains of bitterly, in his homeward musings
+to-night, is the fact that to him neither time nor opportunity is
+afforded.
+
+"She is a woman therefore to be won;" but how is his courtship to be
+sped, if thorns are to beset his path on every side, and if persistent
+malice blocks his way to the feet of her whom he adores?
+
+He reaches home in an unenviable frame of mind, and is thoroughly
+unsociable to Owen Kelly and the old squire all the evening.
+
+Next morning sees him in the same mood; and, indeed, it is about this
+time he takes to imagining his little love as being a hapless prisoner
+in the hands of two cruel ogres (I am afraid he really does apply the
+term "ogres" to the two old ladies of Moyne), and finds a special
+melancholy pleasure in depicting her as a lonely captive condemned to
+solitary confinement and dieted upon bread and water.
+
+To regard the Misses Blake in the light either of ogres or witches
+required some talent; but Mr. Desmond, at this period of his
+love-affair, managed it.
+
+He would go about, too, singing,--
+
+    "Oh, who will o'er the downs so free,"
+
+taking immense comfort out of, and repeating over and over again, such
+lines as--
+
+    "I sought her bower at break of day,
+        'Twas guarded safe and sure;"
+
+    "Her father he has locked the door,
+      Her mother keeps the key;
+    But neither bolt nor bar shall keep
+      My own true love from me,"--
+
+until bars, and bolts, and locks, and keys seemed all real.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+  How, after much discussion, the devoted, if mistaken, adherents of
+  Thalia gain the day--and how, for once in his life, Owen Kelly feels
+  melancholy that is not assumed.
+
+
+"I wish you would all attend," says Olga Bohun, just a little
+impatiently, looking round upon the assembled group, with brows uplifted
+and the point of a pencil thrust between her rose-red lips.
+
+"Thrice-blessed pencil!" murmurs Mr. Kelly, in a _very_ stage whisper.
+"Man is the superior being, yet he would not be permitted to occupy so
+exalted a position. Are you a stone, Ronayne, that you can regard the
+situation with such an insensate face?" Mr. Ronayne is at this moment
+gazing at Mrs. Bohun with all his heart in his eyes. He starts and
+colors. "I cannot help thinking of that dear little song about the
+innocent daisy," goes on Mr. Kelly, with a rapt expression. "But I'd
+'choose to be a _pencil_, if I might be a flower.'"
+
+"Now _do_ let us decide upon something," says Olga, taking no heed of
+this sally, and frowning down the smile that is fighting for mastery.
+
+"Yes; now you are all to decide upon something at once," says Mr. Kelly,
+gloomily. "There is a difficulty about the right way to begin it, but it
+must be done; Mrs. Bohun says so. There is to be no deception. I shall
+say one, two, three, and away, and then every one must have decided: the
+defaulter will be spurned from the gates. Now, one, two----Desmond,"
+sternly "you are not deciding!"
+
+"I am, indeed," says Desmond, most untruthfully. He is lying on the
+grass at Monica's feet, and is playing idly with her huge white fan.
+
+"You are not doing it properly. I daresay Miss Beresford is making you
+uncomfortable; and I am sure you are trying to break her fan. Come over
+here and sit by me, and you will be much happier."
+
+"Penance is good for the soul. I shall stay here," says Desmond.
+
+"If we mean to get up tableaux, we certainly ought to set about them at
+once," says Herrick, indolently.
+
+"There doesn't seem to be any work in anybody," says Olga, in despair.
+
+"Try me," says Lord Rossmoyne, bending over her chair. He has only just
+come, and his arrival has been unannounced.
+
+"Ah! _thank_ you!"--with a brilliant smile. "Now you _do_ look like
+business."
+
+It is Monday, and four o'clock. Aghyohillbeg lying basking in the
+sunshine is looking its loveliest,--which is saying a great deal. The
+heat is so intense on this sweet July day that every one has deserted
+the house and come out to find some air,--a difficulty. They have tried
+the grass terraces, in vain, and now have congregated beneath a giant
+fir, and are, comparatively speaking, cool.
+
+Just before luncheon Madam O'Connor brought Monica home in triumph with
+her from Moyne, to find Desmond, handsome and happy, on her doorstep,
+waiting with calm certainty an invitation to that meal. He got it, and
+to dinner likewise.
+
+"We have set our hearts on tableaux, but it is _so_ difficult to think
+of any scene fresh and unhackneyed," says Olga, gazing plaintively into
+Lord Rossmoyne's sympathetic face.
+
+"Don't give way," says Mr. Kelly, tenderly. "It must be a poor intellect
+that couldn't rise superior to such a demand as that. Given one minute,
+I believe even I could produce an idea as novel as it would be
+brilliant."
+
+"You shall have your minute," says Olga, pulling out her watch.
+"Now--begin----"
+
+"Time's up," she says, presently, when sixty seconds have honestly
+expired.
+
+"You might have said that thirty seconds ago, and I should not have
+objected," says Mr. Kelly, with an assured smile.
+
+"And your idea."
+
+"_The Huguenots!_"
+
+Need I say that every one is exceedingly angry?
+
+"Ever heard it before?" asks Mr. Kelly, with aggressive insolence; which
+question, being considered as adding insult to injury, is treated with
+silent contempt.
+
+"I told you it was not to be done," says Olga, petulantly addressing
+everybody generally.
+
+"I can't agree with you. I see no reason why it should fall to the
+ground," says Miss Fitzgerald, warmly, who is determined to show herself
+off in a gown that has done duty for "Madame Favart," and the "Bohemian
+Girl," and "Maritana," many a time and oft.
+
+"I have another idea," says Mr. Kelly, at this opportune moment.
+
+"If it is as useful as your first, you may keep it," says Olga, with
+pardonable indignation.
+
+"I am misunderstood," says Mr. Kelly, mournfully, but with dignity. "I
+shall write to Miss Montgomery and ask her to make another pathetic tale
+about me. As you are bent on trampling upon an unknown genius,--poor but
+proud--I shall _not_ make you acquainted with this last beautiful
+thought which I have evolved from my inner consciousness."
+
+"Don't say that! _do_ tell it to us," says Monica, eagerly, and in
+perfect good faith. She knows less of him than the others, and may
+therefore be excused for still believing in him.
+
+"Thank you, Miss Beresford. _You_ can soar above a mean desire to crush
+a rising power. You have read, of course, that popular poem by our
+poet-laureate, called 'Enid.'"
+
+"Yes," says Monica, staring at him.
+
+"I mean the poem in which he has so faithfully depicted the way in which
+two escaped lunatics would be sure to behave if left to their own
+devices. Considered as a warning to us to keep bolts and bars on Colney
+Hatch and Hanwell, it may be regarded as a delicate attention. Dear
+Tennyson! he certainly is a public benefactor. There is a scene in that
+remarkable poem which I think might suit us. You remember where, after
+much wild careering in the foreground, the principal idiots decide upon
+riding home together, pillion fashion?"
+
+"I--I think so," says Monica, who plainly doesn't, being much confused.
+
+"'Then on his foot she sat her own and climbed,'--and then she threw her
+arms round him in a most unmaidenly fashion, if I recollect aright; but
+of course mad people _will_ be vehement, poor souls; they can't help it.
+Now, supposing we adopted that scene, wouldn't it be effective? One of
+Madam O'Connor's big carriage-horses, if brought forward,--I mean the
+one that kicked over the traces, yesterday,--would, I firmly believe,
+create quite a sensation, and in all probability bring down the house."
+
+"The stage, certainly," says Desmond.
+
+"Ah! you approve of it," says Kelly, with suspicious gratitude. "Then
+let us arrange it at once. Miss Beresford might throw her arms round
+Ryde, for example: that would be charming."
+
+Desmond looking at this moment as if he would willingly murder him, Mr.
+Kelly is apparently satisfied, and sinks to rest with his head upon his
+arm once more. No one else has heard the suggestion.
+
+"I think you might help me, instead of giving voice to insane
+propositions," says Olga, reproachfully, turning her eyes upon Mr.
+Kelly's bowed form,--he is lying prostrate on the grass,--which is
+shaking in a palsied fashion. "I really _did_ believe in _you_," she
+says, whereupon the young man, springing to his feet, flings his arms
+wide, and appeals in an impassioned manner to an unprejudiced public as
+to whether he has not been racking his brain in her service for the last
+half-hour.
+
+"Then I wish you would go and rack it in somebody else's service," says
+Mrs. Bohun, ungratefully.
+
+"Hear her!" says Mr. Kelly, gazing slowly round him. "She still persists
+in the unseemly abuse. She is bent on breaking my heart and driving
+sleep from mine eyelids. It is ungenerous, the more so that she knows I
+have not the courage to tear myself from her beloved presence. You,
+Ronayne, and you, Rossmoyne, can sympathize with me:
+
+    "'In durance vile here must I wake and weep,
+    And all my frowzy couch in sorrow steep.'
+
+Fancy a frowzy couch saturated with tears! you know," reproachfully to
+Olga, "_you_ wouldn't like to have to lie on it."
+
+"Oh, do come and sit down here near me, and be silent," says Olga, in
+desperation.
+
+"Why not have a play?" says Captain Cobbett, who with Mr. Ryde has
+driven over from Clonbree.
+
+"'The play's the thing,'" says Brian Desmond, lazily; "but when you are
+about it, make it a farce."
+
+"Oh, _no_!" says Miss Fitzgerald, with a horrified gesture; "_anything_
+but that! Why not let us try one of the good old comedies?--'The School
+for Scandal,' for example?"
+
+"_What!_" says Mr. Kelly, very weakly. He is plainly quite overcome by
+this suggestion.
+
+"Well, why not?" demands the fair Bella, with just a _soupcon_ of
+asperity in her tone,--as much as she ever allows herself when in the
+society of men. She makes up for this abstinence by bestowing a liberal
+share of it upon her maid and her mother.
+
+"It's--it's such a naughty, naughty piece," says Mr. Kelly, bashfully,
+beating an honorable retreat from his first meaning.
+
+"Nonsense! One can strike out anything distasteful."
+
+"Shades of Farren--and----Who would be Lady Teazle?" says Olga.
+
+"I would," says Bella, modestly.
+
+"That is more than good of you," says Olga, casting a curious glance at
+her from under her long lashes. "But I thought, perhaps----You, Hermia,
+would you not undertake it? You know, last season, they said you
+were----"
+
+"No, dear, thanks. No, _indeed_," with emphasis.
+
+"Cobbett does Joseph Surface to perfection," breaks in Mr. Ryde,
+enthusiastically.
+
+"Oh, I say now, Ryde! Come, you know, this is hardly fair," says the
+little captain, coyly, who is looking particularly pinched and dried
+to-day, in spite of the hot sun. There is a satisfied smirk upon his
+pale lips, and a poor attempt at self-depreciation about his whole
+manner.
+
+"You know you took 'em by storm at Portsmouth, last year,--made 'em
+laugh like fun. You should see him," persists Ryde, addressing everybody
+generally.
+
+"Perhaps you mean the part of Charles Surface," says Ronayne, in some
+surprise.
+
+"No. Joseph: the sly one you know," says Ryde chuckling over some
+recollection.
+
+"Well, it never occurred to me that Joseph's part might be termed a
+_funny_ one," says Mr. Kelly, mildly; "but that shows how ignorant all
+we Irish are. It will be very kind of you, Cobbett, to enlighten us,--to
+show us something _good_, in fact."
+
+"Really, you know, you flatter me absurdly," says Cobbett, the
+self-depreciation fainter, the smirk broader.
+
+Lord Rossmoyne, whose good temper is not his strong point, glances
+angrily at him, smothers an explosive speech, and walks away with a
+sneer.
+
+"And Sir Peter,--who will kindly undertake Sir Peter?" asks Olga, with a
+smile that is faintly sarcastic. "Will you, Owen?" to Mr. Kelly.
+
+"Don't ask me. I could not act with Cobbett and Miss Fitzgerald. I mean,
+I should only disgrace them," says Kelly, who is a member of a famous
+dramatic club in Dublin, and who has had two offers from London managers
+to tread the boards. "I feel I'm not up to it, indeed."
+
+"I suspect you are not," says Hermia Herrick, with a sudden smile that
+lights up all her cold impassive face. Kelly, catching it, crawls lazily
+over to her, along the grass, Indian fashion, and finding a fold of her
+gown lays his arm on it, and his head on his arm, and relapses into
+silence.
+
+"Ryde has done it," says Captain Cobbett.
+
+"Indeed!" says Olga, raising questioning eyes to the big marine standing
+behind Monica's chair.
+
+"Ye--es. We--er--do a good deal of that sort of thing in _our_ country,"
+says Ryde, with conscious worth. "I have done Sir Peter once or twice;
+and people have been good enough not to--" with a little laugh--"_hiss_
+me. I have a style of my own; but--er----" with an encouraging glance at
+the other men, "I daresay there are many here who could do it as I do
+it."
+
+"Not _one_, I am convinced," says Desmond, promptly; and Monica laughs
+softly.
+
+"We must think it over. I don't believe anything so important could be
+got up without deep deliberation----" Olga is beginning, when Kelly, by
+a movement of the hand, stops her.
+
+"Do let it go on to its bitter end," he says, in a whisper, with most
+unusual animation for him. "Mrs. Herrick, help me."
+
+"Why not, Olga?" says Hermia, in a low tone. "The principal characters
+are willing; we have not had a real laugh for some time: why throw away
+such a _perfect_ chance?"
+
+"Oh! _that_----" says Olga.
+
+Here a slight diversion is caused by the appearance of a footman, tea
+tray, a boy, a gypsy table, a maid, a good deal of fruit, maraschino,
+brandy, soda, _and_ Madam O'Connor. The latter, to tell the truth, has
+been having a siesta in the privacy of her own room, and has now come
+down, like a giant refreshed, to see how her guests are getting on.
+
+"Well, I hope you're all happy," she says, jovially.
+
+"We are mad with perplexity," says Olga.
+
+"What's the matter, then, darling?" says Madam. "Hermia, like a good
+child, go and pour out the tea."
+
+"I'll tell you all about it," says Brian, who is a special favorite of
+Madam O'Connor's, coming over to her and stopping behind her chair to
+whisper into her ear.
+
+Whatever he says makes her laugh immoderately. It is easy to bring
+smiles to her lips at any time,--her heart having kept at a standstill
+whilst her body grew old,--but now she seems particularly fetched.
+
+"Yes, yes, my dear Olga, let them have their own way," she says merrily.
+
+"Very good. Let us consider it settled," says Mrs. Bohun. "But I
+_should_ like some tableaux afterwards, as a wind-up."
+
+"Yes, certainly," says Ronayne. "What do you think, Madam?"
+
+"I have set my mind on them," says his old hostess, gayly. "You are
+such a handsome boy, Ulic, that I'm bent on seeing you in fancy clothes;
+and so is somebody else, I daresay. Look at the children, how they steal
+towards us; were there ever such demure little mice? Come here, Georgie,
+my son, I have peaches and pretty things for you."
+
+The kind old soul holds out her arms to two beautiful children, a boy
+and a girl, who are coming slowly, shyly towards her. They are so like
+Hermia Herrick as to be unmistakably hers. The boy, coming straight to
+Madame O'Connor, climbs up on her lap and lays his bonny cheek against
+hers; but the girl, running to her mother, who is busy over the
+tea-tray, nestles close to her.
+
+"Gently, my soul," say Hermia, in a soft whisper. Though she still
+calmly pours out the tea, with Kelly beside her, she lets the unoccupied
+hand fall, to mingle with the golden tresses of the child. As her hand
+meets the little sunny head, a marvellous sweetness creeps into her face
+and transfixes it to a heavenly beauty. Kelly, watching her, marks the
+change.
+
+Going round to the child, he would have taken her in his arms,--as is
+his habit with most children, being a special favorite in every nursery;
+but this little dame, drawing back from him, repels him coldly. Then, as
+though fearing herself ungracious, she slowly extends to him a tiny,
+friendly hand, which he accepts. The likeness between this grave baby
+and her graver mother is so remarkable as to be almost ludicrous.
+
+"I think you haven't given Mr. Kelly even one kiss to-day," says her
+mother, smiling faintly, and pressing the child closer to her. "She is a
+cold little thing, is she not?"
+
+"I suppose she inherits it," says Owen Kelly, without lifting his eyes
+from the child's fair face.
+
+Mrs. Herrick colors slightly.
+
+"Will you let me get you some tea, Fay?" says Mr. Kelly, addressing the
+child almost anxiously.
+
+"No, thank you," says the fairy, sweetly but decidedly. "My mammy will
+give me half hers. I do not like any other tea."
+
+"I am not in favor to-day," says Kelly, drawing back and shrugging his
+shoulders slightly, but looking distinctly disappointed. It may be the
+child sees this, because she comes impulsively forward, and, standing on
+tiptoe before him, holds her arms upwards towards his neck.
+
+"I want to kiss you now," she says, solemnly, when he has taken her into
+his embrace. "But no one else. I only want to kiss _you_ sometimes--and
+_always_ mamma."
+
+"I am content to be second where mamma is first. I am glad you place me
+with her in your mind. I should like to be always with mamma," says
+Kelly. He laughs a little, and kisses the child again, and places her
+gently upon the ground, and then he glances at Hermia. But her face is
+impassive as usual. No faintest tinge deepens the ordinary pallor of her
+cheeks. She has the sugar tongs poised in the air, and is apparently
+sunk in abstruse meditation.
+
+"Now, I wonder who takes sugar and who doesn't," she says, wrinkling up
+her pretty brows in profound thought. "I have been here a month, yet
+cannot yet be sure. Mr. Kelly, you must call some one else to our
+assistance to take round the sugar, as you can't do everything."
+
+"I can do _nothing_," says Kelly, in a low tone, after which he turns
+away and calls Brian Desmond to come to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+  How Desmond asserts himself, and shows himself a better man than his
+  rival--And how a bunch of red roses causes a breach, and how a ring
+  heals it.
+
+
+"Then it is decided," says Olga. "'The School for Scandal' first, and
+tableaux to follow. Now for _them_. I suppose four altogether will be
+quite sufficient. We must not try the patience of our poor audience past
+endurance."
+
+"It will be past that long before our tableaux begin," says Ulic
+Ronayne, in a low tone. He is dressed in a tennis suit of white flannel,
+and is looking particularly handsome.
+
+Olga makes a pretty little _moue_, but no audible response.
+
+"I have two arranged," she says, "but am distracted about three and
+four. Will anybody except Mr. Kelly come to my assistance?"
+
+"Oh, you're jealous because you didn't think of 'Enid' and the
+carriage-horse yourself," returns that young man, with ineffable
+disdain,--"or that Dolly Varden affair."
+
+"Well, that last might do,--modified a little," says Olga, brightening.
+"Mr. Ryde is enormous enough for anything. Quite an ideal Hugh."
+
+"Quite," says Ronayne, with a smile.
+
+"Then it has arranged itself; that is, if you agree, dear?" says Olga,
+turning to Monica.
+
+"It shall be as you wish. I mean, I know nothing about it," gently; "but
+I shall like to help you if I can."
+
+"I mean you don't object to the subject,--or Mr. Ryde?" says Olga,
+kindly, unaware that Mr. Ryde has come away from the tea-table and is
+now close behind her. Monica, however, sees him, and smiles courteously.
+
+"Oh, no," she says, as in duty bound.
+
+And then the fourth is found and grasped, and all trouble is at an end.
+
+"_So_ glad I can now take my tea in peace," says Olga, with a sigh of
+profound relief. "_Who_ would be stage-manager?"
+
+"Ah! you don't do much of this kind of thing in Ireland, I daresay,"
+says Mr. Ryde.
+
+"What kind of thing?" asks Olga, sweetly, who doesn't like him.
+"Tea-drinking?"
+
+"No--acting--er--and that."
+
+"I'm afraid I'm quite at sea about the '_that_,'" says Olga, shaking her
+blonde head. "Perhaps we do a good deal of it, perhaps we don't. Explain
+it to me."
+
+("Awful stoopid people!--not a word of truth about their ready wit,"
+says Mr. Ryde to himself at this juncture.)
+
+"Oh, well--er--let us confine ourselves to the acting," he says, feeling
+somehow at a loss. "It is new to you here, it seems."
+
+"I certainly have never acted in my life," begins Monica; "but----"
+
+Mrs. Bohun interrupts her.
+
+"We are a hopelessly benighted lot," she says, making Ryde a present of
+a beautiful smile. "We are sadly behind the world,--_rococo_"--shrugging
+her shoulders pathetically--"to the last degree. You, Mr. Ryde, have
+opened up to us possibilities never dreamt of before; touches of
+civilization hitherto unknown."
+
+"I should think in your case a very little tuition would be sufficient,"
+says Ryde, with such kindly encouragement in his tone that Ronayne, who
+is at Olga's feet, collapses, and from being abnormally grave breaks
+into riotous laughter.
+
+"You must teach us stage effects,--is that the proper term?--and correct
+us when we betray too crass an ignorance, and--above all things, Mr.
+Ryde," with an arch glance, "you must promise not to lose your temper
+over the _gaucheries_ of your Dolly Varden."
+
+"Whose Dolly Varden?" asks Desmond, coming up at this instant laden with
+cups of tea.
+
+"Mr. Ryde's."
+
+"He is to be Hugh to Miss Beresford's Dolly," says Ronayne.
+
+"Yes, isn't it good of Monica? she has consented to take the part," says
+Olga, who is really grateful to her for having helped her out of her
+difficulty.
+
+"_Have_ you?" says Desmond, turning upon Monica with dilated eyes.
+
+"Yes. Is that tea for me?" returns she, calmly, with great
+self-possession, seeing that sundry eyes are upon her.
+
+"For you, or any one," replies he. Tone can convey far more meaning than
+words. The words just now are correct enough, but the tone is uncivil to
+the last degree. Monica, flushing slightly, takes a cup from him, and
+Olga takes the second.
+
+There is a short silence whilst they stir their tea, during which Madam
+O'Connor's voice can be distinctly heard,--it generally _can_ above
+every tumult. She is discoursing enthusiastically about some wonderful
+tree in her orchard, literally borne down by fruit.
+
+"You never saw such a sight!" she is saying,--"laden down to the ground.
+The finest show of pears in the country. I was telling Williams he would
+do well to prop it. But I suppose it will ruin the tree for the next two
+years to come."
+
+"What, the propping?" says Rossmoyne.
+
+"No, the enormous produce, you silly boy!" says his hostess, with a
+laugh.
+
+Monica, who is growing restless beneath Desmond's angry regard, turns to
+her nervously.
+
+"I think I should like to see it," she says, softly.
+
+"Allow me to take you to it," says Ryde, quickly, coming to her side.
+
+"Miss Beresford is coming with _me_," interposes Desmond. His face is
+pale, and his eyes flash ominously.
+
+"That is for Miss Beresford to decide."
+
+"She _has_ decided," says Desmond, growing even paler, but never
+removing his eyes from his rival's. He is playing a dangerous game, but
+even in the danger is ecstasy. And, as Monica continues silent, a great
+joy fills his soul.
+
+"But until"--begins the Englishman, doggedly--"I hear----"
+
+"Mrs. Bohun's cup is causing her embarrassment. See to it," interrupts
+Desmond, unemotionally. And then, turning to Monica, he says, "Come,"
+coldly, but with such passionate entreaty in his eyes that she is borne
+away by it, and goes with him submissively across the lawn, until she
+has so far withdrawn herself from her companions that a return would be
+undignified.
+
+They go as far as the entrance to the orchard, a good quarter of a mile,
+in silence, and then the storm breaks.
+
+"I won't have that fellow holding you in his arms," says Desmond, pale
+with grief and rage, standing still and confronting her.
+
+"I thought you said you would never be jealous again," says Monica, who
+has had time to recover herself, and time, too, to grow angry.
+
+"I also said I hoped you would never give me cause."
+
+"Mrs. Bohun has arranged this tableau."
+
+"Then disarrange it."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Say you won't act with Ryde."
+
+"You can't expect me to make myself laughable in that way."
+
+"Then _I'll_ do it."
+
+"And so make me laughable in another way. I can't see what right you
+have to interfere," she breaks out suddenly, standing before him, wilful
+but lovely. "What are you to me, or I to you, that you should order me
+about like this?"
+
+"You are all the world to me,--you are _my wife_," says the young man,
+in a solemn tone, but with passionately angry eyes. "You can refuse me
+if you like, but I shall go to my grave with your image only in my
+heart. As to what I am to _you_, that is quite another thing,--less than
+nothing, I should say."
+
+"And no wonder, too, considering your _awful_ temper," says Monica,
+viciously; but her tone trembles.
+
+At this he seems to lose heart. A very sad look creeps into his dark
+eyes and lingers there.
+
+"Well, do what you like about these wretched tableaux," he says, so
+wearily that Monica, though victorious, feels inclined to cry. "If they
+give you a moment's pleasure, why should I rebel? As you say, I am
+nothing to you. Come, let us go and look at this famous pear-tree."
+
+But she does not stir. They are inside the orchard, standing in a very
+secluded spot, with only some green apples and an ivied wall to see
+them. Her eyes are downcast, and her slender fingers are playing
+nervously with a ribbon on her gown. Her lips have taken a remorseful
+curve. Now, as though unable to restrain the impulse, she raises her
+eyes to his for a brief second, but, brief as it is, he can see that
+they are full of tears.
+
+"Brian," she says, nervously.
+
+It is the first time she has ever called him by his Christian name, and
+he turns to her a face still sad indeed, but altogether surprised and
+pleased.
+
+"Now, that is good of you," he says.
+
+"There is nothing good about me," says Monica, tearfully. "I am as
+horrid as I well can be, and you are----Brian, I will give up that
+tableau. I will not be Dolly Varden; no, not if Mr. Ryde went on his
+_knees_ to me."
+
+"My dear, _dear_ love!" says Mr. Desmond.
+
+"Do you indeed love me," says Monica, softly, "in spite of all I do?"
+
+"I love you _because_ of all you do. What is there not commendable in
+every action of yours? I love you; I live always in the hope that some
+day you will be more to me than you are to-day. A presumptuous hope
+perhaps," with a rather forced smile, "but one I _will_ not stifle. I
+suppose every one lives in a visionary world at times, where some 'not
+impossible she' reigns as queen. I dare say you think my queen _is_
+impossible, yet you little know what dreams have been my playmates,
+night and day."
+
+"Am I your queen?" sweetly.
+
+"Yes, darling."
+
+"And you are glad I have given up this tableau?"
+
+"I don't know what I should have done if you hadn't."
+
+"Then, now you will do something for me," says Miss Beresford, promptly.
+
+"Anything," with enthusiasm.
+
+"Then to-morrow you are to come here _without_ the roses I heard you
+promising Miss Fitzgerald this afternoon."
+
+Her tone is quite composed, but two little brilliant flecks of color
+have risen hurriedly and are now flaunting themselves on either pretty
+cheek. She is evidently very seriously in earnest.
+
+"She asked me for them: she will think it so ungenerous, so rude," says
+Desmond.
+
+"Not ungenerous. She will never think you that, or rude either," says
+Monica, gauging the truth to a nicety. "_Careless_ if you will, but no
+more; and--I _want_ you to seem careless where she is concerned."
+
+"But why, my dearest?"
+
+"Because I don't like her; she always treats me as though I were some
+insignificant little girl still in short petticoats," says Miss
+Beresford, with rising indignation. "And because--because, too----"
+
+She pauses in some confusion.
+
+"Go on: because what?" with gentle encouragement.
+
+"Well, then, because I know she wants to _marry_ you," says Monica,
+vehemently, but in a choked voice.
+
+"What an extraordinary idea to come into your head!" says Desmond, in a
+choked tone also, but from a different emotion.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" severely. "At me?"
+
+"My darling, it seems so absurd, and----"
+
+"I _forbid_ you to laugh," in a tone replete with anger but highly
+suggestive of tears. "Don't do it."
+
+"I'll never laugh again, my pet, if it offends you so dreadfully."
+
+"But your eyes are laughing; I can see them. I can see a great deal more
+than you think, and I know that hateful girl has made up her mind to
+marry you as soon as ever she can."
+
+"That will be never."
+
+"Not if you go on bringing her roses and things."
+
+"What harm can a simple rose do?"
+
+"If you are going to look at it in that light, I shall say no more. But
+in a very little time you will find she has married you, and _then_
+where will you be?"
+
+Her jealousy is too childishly open to be misunderstood. Mr. Desmond's
+spirits are rising with marvellous rapidity; indeed, for the past two
+minutes he feels as if he is treading on air.
+
+"As you won't have me, I don't much care _where_ I shall be," he says
+with the mean hope of reducing her to submission by a threat. In this
+hope he is doomed to be disappointed, as she meets his base insinuation
+with an unlowered front.
+
+"Very good, _go_ and marry her," she says, calmly, as if church, parson,
+and Miss Fitzgerald are all waiting for him, in anxious expectation,
+round the corner.
+
+"No, I shan't," says Desmond, changing his tactics without a blush.
+"Catch me at it! As you persist in refusing me, I shall never marry, but
+remain a bachelor forever, for your sweet sake."
+
+"Then say you will not bring those roses to-morrow. Or, better still,
+say you will bring them, and"--all women, even the best are cruel--"give
+them to me _before_ her."
+
+"My darling! what an unreasonable thing to ask me!"
+
+"Oh! I daresay! when people don't _love_ people they always think
+everything they do unreasonable."
+
+This rather involved sentence seems to cut Mr. Desmond to the heart.
+
+"Of course, if you say that, I must do it," he says.
+
+"Don't do it on my account," with a wilful air.
+
+"No, on my own, of course."
+
+"Well, remember I don't ask you to do it," with the most disgraceful
+ingratitude. "Do as you wish about it."
+
+"Your wishes are mine," he says, tenderly. "I have had no divided
+existence since that first day I saw you,--how long ago it seems
+now----"
+
+"Very long. Only a few weeks in reality, but it seems to myself that I
+have known and--liked you all my life."
+
+"Yet that day when I saw you on the hay-cart is hardly two months old,"
+says Desmond, dreamily.
+
+As a breath of half-forgotten perfume, or a long-lost chord fresh
+sounded, brings back the memories of a lifetime, so does this chance
+remark of his now recall to her a scene almost gone out of mind, yet
+still fraught with recollections terrible to her self-love.
+
+"Two months,--only two?--oh, it must be more," she says, with a pang.
+Surely time ought to lessen the feeling of shame that overpowers her
+whenever she thinks of that fatal day.
+
+"So wearisome a time, my own?" asks he, reproachfully.
+
+"No, it is not that. It is only----. Oh, Brian, that day you speak of,
+when I was on that horrid hay-cart, did you--I mean--did I--that is--did
+I look very ungraceful?"
+
+The word she is dying to say is _dis_graceful, but she dares not.
+
+"Ungraceful?"
+
+"Yes. Terry says that when we were passing you that day I was--was,"
+with a desperate rush, "kicking up my heels?"
+
+She is trembling with shame and confusion. Crimson has sprung to her
+cheeks, tears to her eyes.
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," says Mr. Desmond, comprehending the
+situation at last. "But, even supposing you were,--and, after all, that
+is the sort of thing _every one_ does on a bundle of hay,"--as though
+it is quite the customary thing for people generally to go round the
+world seated on hay-carts,--"I didn't see you--that is, your heels, I
+mean; I saw only your face,--the prettiest face in the world. How could
+I look at anything else when I had once seen that?"
+
+"Brian!" turning to him impetuously, and laying both her hands upon his
+shoulders, "I do think you are the dearest fellow on earth."
+
+"Oh, Monica! am I the dearest to you?" He has twined his arms round her
+lissome figure, and is gazing anxiously into her eyes.
+
+"Yes,--yes, _certainly_." And then, with a _naivete_ indescribable, and
+with the utmost composure, she says,--
+
+"I think I should like to give you a kiss!"
+
+Is the blue dome still over his head, or has the sky fallen? The thing
+he has been longing for, with an intensity not to be portrayed, ever
+since their first meeting, but has not dared to even _hint_ at, is now
+freely offered him, as though it were a thing of naught.
+
+"Monica!" says her lover, the blood rushing to his face, "do you _mean_
+it?" He tightens his clasp round her, yet still refrains from touching
+the sweet lips so near his own. A feeling of honest manliness makes him
+hesitate about accepting this great happiness, lest, indeed, he may have
+misunderstood her. To him it is so great a boon she grants that he
+hardly dares believe in its reality.
+
+"Of course I do," says Miss Beresford, distinctly offended. "I--at
+least, I _did_. I don't now. I always want to kiss people when I feel
+fond of them; but you don't, evidently, or else, perhaps, you aren't
+really fond of me at all, in spite of all you have said. Never mind.
+Don't put yourself out. It was merely a passing fancy on my part."
+
+"Oh, don't let it pass," exclaims her lover, anxiously. "Darling _life_,
+don't you know I have been longing, _longing_ to kiss you for weeks
+past, yet dared not, because something in your eyes forbade me? And now,
+to have you of your own accord really willing to give my dear desire
+seems too much."
+
+"Are you sure that it is that, or----"
+
+"My angel, what a question!"
+
+"Yet perhaps you think----Don't kiss me just to oblige me, you know. I
+don't care so much about it as all _that_, but----"
+
+She finds it impossible to finish the sentence, because----
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dexterously, but gently, she draws herself away from him, and stands a
+little apart. Looking at her, he can see she is troubled. He has opened
+his lips to speak, but by a gesture she restrains him.
+
+"I know it now," she says. This oracular speech is accompanied by a
+blush, vivid as it is angry, and there are large tears in her eyes. "I
+should not have asked _you_ to kiss _me_. That was your part, and you
+have taught me that I usurped it. Yet I thought only that I was fond of
+you, that you were my friend, or like Terry, or--" here the grievance
+gains sound, "you _should_ not have kissed me like that."
+
+"You didn't suppose I was going to kiss you as Terry might?" asks he,
+with just indignation. "He is your brother; I am--not."
+
+"I don't know anything about it, except this, that it will be a very
+long time before you have the chance of doing it again. I can't bear
+being _hugged_."
+
+"I am very sorry," says Mr. Desmond, stiffly. "Let me assure you,
+however, that I shall never cause you such offence again until you wish
+it."
+
+"Then say never at once," says Monica, with a pout.
+
+"Very good," says Desmond. It may now be reasonably supposed that he has
+met all her requirements, and that she has no further complaints to
+bring forward; but such is not the case.
+
+"I don't like you when you talk to me like that," she says,
+aggressively, and with a spoiled-child air, glancing at him from under
+her sweeping lashes.
+
+"How am I to talk to you, then?" asks he, in despair.
+
+"You know very well how to talk to Miss Fitzgerald," retorts she,
+provokingly, and with a bold attempt at a frown. Yet there is something
+about her naughty little face, a hidden, mocking, mischievous, yet
+withal friendly smile as it were, that disarms her speech of its sting
+and gives Brian renewed hope and courage.
+
+He takes her hand deliberately and draws it unrepulsed through his arm.
+
+"Let us go up this walk," he says, "and leave all angry words and
+thoughts behind us."
+
+He makes a movement in the direction indicated, and finds that she moves
+with him. He finds, too, that her slender fingers have closed
+involuntarily upon his arm. Plainly, she is as glad to be at peace with
+him as he with her.
+
+Coming to a turn in the path, shaded by two rugged old apple-trees now
+growing heavy with their green burden, Desmond stands still, and,
+putting his right hand in his pocket, draws out something from it. As he
+does this he colors slightly.
+
+"You wear all your rings on your right hand," he says, with loving
+awkwardness, "and it seems to me the other poor little fingers always
+look neglected. I--I wish you would take this and make it a present to
+your left hand."
+
+"_This_" is a thick gold band, set with three large diamonds of great
+brilliancy in gypsy fashion.
+
+"Oh! not for me!" says Monica, recoiling, and clasping her hands behind
+her back, yet with her eyes firmly fastened upon the beautiful ring.
+
+"Why not for you? Some day I shall give you all I possess; now I can
+give you only such things as this."
+
+"Indeed I must not take it," says Monica; but even as she utters the
+half-hearted refusal she creeps unconsciously closer to him, and, laying
+her hand upon his wrist, looks with childish delight and longing at the
+glittering stones lying in his palm.
+
+"But I say you must," says Desmond, taking a very superior tone. "It is
+yours, not mine. I have nothing to do with it. It was never meant for
+me. See," taking up her hand and slipping the ring on her engaged
+finger, "how pretty your little white hand makes it look!"
+
+It is always a difficult thing to a woman to bring herself to refuse
+diamonds, but doubly difficult once she has seen them positively
+adorning her own person.
+
+Monica looks at the ring, then sighs, then turns it round and round
+mechanically, and finally glances at Desmond. He returns the glance by
+passing his arm round her shoulders, after which there is never another
+word said about the ownership of the ring.
+
+"But it will put my poor little pigs in the shade, won't it?" says
+Monica, looking at her other hand, and then at him archly. "Oh! it is
+lovely--_lovely_!"
+
+"I think I might have chosen you a prettier one, had I run up to Dublin
+and gone to Waterhouse myself," says Desmond; "but I knew if I went I
+could not possibly get back until to-morrow evening, and that would mean
+losing two whole days of our precious seven."
+
+This speech pleases Monica, I think, even more than the ring.
+
+"I am glad you did not go," she says, softly.
+
+"So am I--especially as----" Here he pauses, and then goes on again
+hurriedly. "If I had gone, Monica, you would not have forgotten me?"
+
+"How could I forget you in two little days?"
+
+"They would have been two very big days to me. But tell me, if I were to
+go away from you for a far longer time--say for a whole month--would you
+still be faithful? Should I find you as I left you,--indifferent to
+others at least, if not wholly mine?"
+
+"Why should I change?"
+
+"Darling, there are so many reasons." He draws his breath quickly,
+impatiently. "Some day, you may meet some one else--more suited to you,
+perhaps, and----"
+
+"I shall never do that." She interrupts him slowly, but decidedly.
+
+"You are sure?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The answer in words perhaps is meagre; but he, looking into the depths
+of her soft eyes, sees a surer answer there, and is satisfied.
+
+The shadows are growing longer and slower. They do not dance and quiver
+now in mad glee, as they did an hour agone.
+
+"I think we must go back," says Monica, with unconcealed regret.
+
+"What! you will throw me again into temptation? into the very arms of
+the fair Bella?" says Desmond, laughing.
+
+"Reflect, I beg of you, before it is too late."
+
+"After all," says Monica, "I don't think I have behaved very nicely
+about her. I don't think now it would be a--a pretty thing to make you
+give me the roses before her. No, you must not do that; and you must not
+manage to forget them, either. You shall bring the handsomest you can
+find and give them to her,--but _publicly_ Brian, just as if there was
+nothing in it, you know."
+
+"There is nothing like adhering to the strict truth," says Brian. "There
+shall be nothing in my roses, I promise you,--except perfume."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+  How gossip grows rife at Aghyohillbeg--How Hermia parries the
+  question, and how Olga proves unkind.
+
+
+"She's _disgracefully_ ugly!--I saw her quite close," says Mr. Kelly, in
+an injured tone. "I wonder what on earth Madam O'Connor means by asking
+her here, where she can be nothing but a blot upon a perfect landscape;
+all the rest of us are so lovely."
+
+It is four o'clock, and hopelessly wet. The soft rain patters on the
+leaves outside, the grass and all the gardens are drowned in Nature's
+tears. There can be no lounging on sunny terraces, no delicious dreaming
+under shady beech-trees, this lost afternoon.
+
+Giving in to the inevitable with a cheerful resignation worthy of
+record, they have all congregated in the grand old hall, one of the
+chief glories of Aghyohillbeg.
+
+Through a vague but mistaken notion that it will add to their comfort
+and make them cosier and more forgetful of--or at least more indifferent
+to--the sunshine of yesterday, they have had an enormous fire of pine
+logs kindled upon the hearth. When too late, they discover it to be a
+discomfort; but, with a stoicism worthy a better cause, they decline to
+acknowledge their error, and stand in groups round the aggressive logs,
+pretending to enjoy them, but in reality dying of heat.
+
+Meanwhile, the fragrant pieces of pine roar and crackle merrily,
+throwing shadows up the huge chimney, and casting bright gleams of light
+upon the exquisite oaken carving of the ancient chimney-piece that
+reaches almost to the lofty ceiling and is now blackened by age and
+beautiful beyond description.
+
+Olga, in a sage-green gown, is lying back listlessly in a deep
+arm-chair; she has placed an elbow on either arm of it, and has brought
+her fingers so far towards each other that their tips touch. Hermia
+Herrick, in a gown of copper-red, is knitting languidly a little silk
+sock for the child nestling silently at her knee.
+
+Monica, in plain white India muslin, is doing nothing, unless smiling
+now and then at Brian Desmond be anything, who is lying on a bear-skin
+rug, looking supremely happy and full of life and spirits. He has come
+over from Coole very early, being generously urged so to do by Madam
+O'Connor when parting with him last night. Ryde is not on the field, so
+the day is his own.
+
+Miss Fitzgerald is looking rather handsome, in a dress of the very
+tiniest check, that is meant for a small woman only, or a child, and so
+makes her appear several sizes larger than she really is. Ulic Ronayne,
+standing leaning against the chimney-piece as close to Olga as
+circumstances will permit, is silent to a fault; and, indeed, every one
+but Mr. Kelly has succumbed to the damp depression of the air.
+
+They have had only one distraction all day,--the arrival of another
+guest, a distant cousin of their hostess, who has been lauding her for a
+week or so. On inspection she proves to be a girl of nineteen, decidedly
+unprepossessing in appearance,--in fact, as Mr. Murphy, the butler, says
+to Mrs. Collins, the housekeeper, "as ugly as if she was bespoke."
+
+A tall girl oppressed by freckles and with hair of a deep--well, let us
+emulate our polite French neighbors and call it _blond ardent_.
+
+"Who is she?" asks Lord Rossmoyne, who arrived about an hour ago, to
+Ulic Ronayne's discomfiture.
+
+"She's a fraud!" says Mr. Kelly, indignantly,--"a swindle! Madam assured
+us, last night, a charming girl was coming, to turn all heads and storm
+all hearts; and to-day, when we rushed in a body to the window and
+flattened our noses against the panes to see her, lo! a creature with
+red hair and pimples----"
+
+"No, no; freckled, my dear Owen," interrupts Olga, indolently.
+
+"It is all the same at a distance! general effect fatal in both cases,"
+says Mr. Kelly, airily. "It makes one positively uncomfortable to look
+at her. I consider her being thrust upon us like this a deliberate
+insult. I think if she continues I shall leave."
+
+"Oh, _don't_," says Desmond, in a tone of agonized entreaty. "How
+_should_ we manage to get on without you?"
+
+"Badly, badly, I know that," regretfully. "But it is a question of
+breaking either your hearts or mine. Some of us must go to the wall; it
+would be unfair to the world to make it me."
+
+"I don't believe you will go far," says Mrs. Herrick, slowly. Kelly
+glances at her quickly, but she does not lift her eyes from the little
+sock, and her fingers move rapidly, easily as ever.
+
+"London or Paris," he says,--"the city of fogs or the city of frogs. I
+don't know which I prefer."
+
+"Better stay where you are," says Brian.
+
+"Well, I really didn't think her so very plain," says Bella Fitzgerald,
+who thinks it pretty to say the kind thing always. "A large mouth _is_
+an affliction, certainly; and as for her complexion--but really, after
+all, it is better to see it as it is than painted and powdered, as one
+sees other people."
+
+This is a faint cut at Olga, who is fond of powder, and who has not
+scrupled to add to her charms by a little touch of rouge now and then
+when she felt pallor demanded it.
+
+"I think a little artificial aid might improve poor Miss Browne," says
+Hermia Herrick. Miss Browne is the new arrival.
+
+"I don't. I think it is an abominable thing to cheat the public like
+that," says Miss Fitzgerald, doggedly: "nobody respectable would do it.
+The _demi-monde_ paint and powder."
+
+"_Do_ they? how do you know, dear?" asks Olga Bohun, sweetly.
+
+Miss Fitzgerald, feeling she has made a _faux-pas_, colors violently,
+tries to get herself out of it, and flounders helplessly. Lord Rossmoyne
+is looking surprised, Ulic Ronayne and Desmond amused.
+
+"Every one says so," says the fair Bella, at last, in a voice that
+trembles with anger: "you know very well they do."
+
+"I don't, indeed, my dear Bella. My acquaintance with--er--that sort of
+person has been limited: I quite envy you your superior knowledge."
+
+Here Olga laughs a little, low, rippling laugh that completes her
+enemy's defeat. After the laugh there is a dead silence.
+
+"I think somebody ought to remove the poor little child," says Mr.
+Kelly, in a low, impressive tone, pointing to Mrs. Herrick's little
+girl. At which everybody laughs heartily, and awkwardness is banished.
+
+"Browne?--I knew an Archibald Browne once: anything to this girl?" asks
+Lord Rossmoyne, hurriedly, unwilling to let silence settle down on them
+again.
+
+"Big man with a loose tie?" asks Ulic.
+
+"Ye-es. There was something odd about his neck, now I remember," says
+Rossmoyne.
+
+"That was her father. He had an idea he was like Lord Byron, and always
+wore his necktie flying in the wind."
+
+"He couldn't manage it, though," says Mr. Kelly, with as near an attempt
+at mirth as he ever permits himself. "It always flew the wrong way.
+Byron's, if you call to mind his many portraits, always flew over his
+left shoulder; old Browne's wouldn't. By the bye," thoughtfully, "Byron
+must have had a wind of his own, mustn't he? our ordinary winds don't
+always blow in the same direction, do they?"
+
+"I would that a wind could arise to blow you in some direction, when you
+are in such an idle mood as now," says Mrs. Herrick, in a low tone.
+
+"If it would blow me in _your_ direction, I should say amen to that," in
+a voice as subdued as her own.
+
+"May the Fates avert from me a calamity so great!"
+
+"You will have to entreat them very diligently, if you hope to escape
+it."
+
+"Are you so very determined, then?"
+
+"Yes. Although I feel I am mocked by the hope within me, still I shall
+persist."
+
+"You waste your time."
+
+"I am content to waste it in such a cause. Yet I am sorry I am so
+distasteful to you."
+
+"That is not your fault. I forgive you that."
+
+"What is it, then, you can't forgive in me?"
+
+"Not more than I can't forgive in another. 'God made you all, therefore
+let you all pass for men.' I don't deal more hardly with you than with
+the rest, you see. You are only one of many."
+
+"That is the unkindest thing you ever said to me. And that is saying
+much. Yet I, too, will beseech the Fates in my turn."
+
+"To grant you what?"
+
+"The finding of you in a gentler mind."
+
+The faintest flicker of a smile crosses her lips. She lays her knitting
+on her knee for an instant, that she may the more readily let her
+tapered fingers droop until they touch the pale brow of the child at her
+feet; then she resumes it again, with a face calm and emotionless as
+usual.
+
+"Old Browne's girl can't owe her father much," Desmond is saying
+_apropos_ of something both lost and gone before, so far as Kelly and
+Mrs. Herrick are concerned.
+
+"About a hundred thousand pounds," says Ronayne. "She is quite a catch,
+you know. No end of money. The old fellow died a year ago."
+
+"No, he didn't; he demised," says Kelly, emerging from obscurity into
+the light of conversation once more. "At least, so the papers said.
+There is a tremendous difference, you know. A poor man dies, a rich man
+demises. One should always bear in mind that important social
+distinction."
+
+"And the good man! What of him?" says Desmond, looking at his friend.
+"What does Montgomery say?"
+
+"Yes, that is very mysterious," says Kelly, with bated breath.
+"According to Montgomery, 'the good man _never_ dies.' Think of that!
+_Never_ dies. He walks the earth forever, like a superannuated ghost,
+only awfuller."
+
+"Have you ever seen one?" asks Olga, leaning forward.
+
+"What? a man that never died? Yes, lots of 'em. Here's one," laying his
+hand upon his breast.
+
+"No. A man that never will die?"
+
+"How can I answer such a question as that? Perhaps Ronayne, there, may
+be such a one."
+
+"How stupid you are! I mean, did you ever meet a man who _couldn't_
+die?"
+
+"Never,--if he went the right way about it."
+
+"Then, according to your showing, you have never seen a good man." She
+leans back again in her chair, fatigued but satisfied.
+
+"I'm afraid they are few and far between," says Hermia.
+
+"Now and again they _have_ appeared," says Mr. Kelly, with a modest
+glance. "Perhaps I shall never die."
+
+"Don't make us more unhappy than we need be," says Mrs. Herrick,
+plaintively.
+
+"How sad that good men should be so scarce!" says Miss Fitzgerald, with
+a glance she means to be funny, but which is only dull.
+
+"Don't make trite remarks, Bella," says Mrs. Bohun, languidly. "You know
+if you did meet one he would bore you to death. The orthodox good man,
+the oppressive being we read about, but never see, is unknown to me or
+you, for which I, at least, am devoutly grateful."
+
+"To return to old Browne," says Ulic: "he wasn't good, if you like. He
+was a horrid ill-tempered, common old fellow, thoroughly without
+education of any kind."
+
+"He went through college, however, as he was fond of boasting whenever
+he got the chance."
+
+"And when he didn't get it he made it."
+
+"In at one door and out at the other, that's how he went through
+Trinity," says Mr. Kelly. "Oh, how I hated that dear old man, and _how_
+he hated me!"
+
+"You admit, then, the possibility of your being hated?" says Mrs.
+Herrick.
+
+"I have admitted that ever since--I met--_you_! But old Browne bore me a
+special grudge."
+
+"And your sin against him?"
+
+"I never fathomed it. 'The atrocious crime of being a young man,'
+principally, I think. Once, I certainly locked him up in his own
+wine-cellar, and left him there for six hours, under the pretence that I
+believed him to be a burglar, but nothing more. He quite disliked being
+locked in the cellar, I think. It was very dark, I must admit. But I'm
+not afraid of the dark."
+
+"That's a good thing," says Madam O'Connor, entering, "because it will
+soon envelop you. Did any one ever see so dark an evening for the time
+of year? Well, I do think that fire looks cheerful, though it _is_ warm.
+Has Mary Browne come down yet?"
+
+"No. Come here, Madam; here's a cosey seat I have been keeping sacred
+for you for the past hour. Why have you denied us the light of your
+countenance all this weary time?"
+
+"Get out with you now, and your fine compliments to an old woman!" says
+Madam, laughing. "If I were _your_ sweetheart, Owen, I'd never believe a
+word out of your lips."
+
+Mrs. Herrick, laying down her knitting, raises her head, and looks full
+into Kelly's eyes. As she does so, a smile, lovely as it is unexpected,
+warms all her statuesque face into perfect beauty.
+
+"And this to me!" says Kelly, addressing his hostess, and pretending to
+be blind to Mrs. Herrick's glance. "All the afternoon I have been
+treated by your sex with the most consummate cruelty. With their tongues
+they have been stabbing me as with so many knives. But yours is the
+unkindest cut of all. It is, in fact, the--er--carving-knife!"
+
+"Oh! here's the tea," says Olga, in a pleased tone. "Madam, _please_ let
+me pour it out to-night?"
+
+"Of course, my love, and thank you too."
+
+"And may I to-morrow evening?" asks Monica, with childish eagerness and
+a quick warm blush.
+
+"You may, indeed, my pretty one; and I hope it won't be long before you
+pour me out my tea in your own house."
+
+Monica laughs, and kisses her, and Desmond, who is standing near them,
+stoops over Madam O'Connor and tells her he would like to kiss her
+too,--first, for her own sake, and secondly, for that sweet hope of hers
+just uttered.
+
+"Not a bit of it," says she, in return, in a tone as sprightly as it was
+twenty years ago, though too low for Monica to hear. "Your first and
+second reasons are all humbug. Say at once you want to kiss me because
+you think this child's caress still lingers on my lips. Ah ha!--you see
+I know more than you think, my lad. And hark you, Brian, come here till
+I whisper a word in your ear; I'm your friend, boy, in the matter, and I
+wish you luck, though Priscilla Blake kill me for it; that's what I want
+to say."
+
+"I couldn't desire a better friend," says Brian gratefully.
+
+"And where on earth _is_ Mary Browne?" says Madam O'Connor. "She is such
+a nice girl, though hardly a Venus. Owen, my dear, I want you to take
+her down to dinner, and to make yourself charming to her."
+
+"I shall be only too pleased," says Mr. Kelly, faintly; and then he
+sinks back in his chair and covers his face with his hands.
+
+"We were talking about Miss Browne's father; he was quite a millionaire,
+wasn't he?" says Lord Rossmoyne, who is standing at the tea-table beside
+Olga. He is a very rich man himself, and has, therefore, a due regard
+for riches in others.
+
+"He was,--and the most unpleasant person I ever met in my life, into the
+bargain," says Madam O'Connor. "I'm sure the life he led that poor
+Mary!--I never felt more relieved at anything than at the news of his
+death."
+
+"I feel as if I could weep for Mary," says Mr. Kelly, in an aside to
+Mrs. Herrick, who takes no notice of him. "I wonder if she has got a
+little lamb," he goes on, unrebuked.
+
+"What about the lamb?" says Madam, whose ears are young as ever.
+
+"I was only conjecturing as to whether your cousin Mary had a little
+lamb," says Mr. Kelly, genially. "The old Mary had, you know. A dear
+little animal with its
+
+      'Fleece as white as snow;
+    And everywhere that Mary went
+      The lamb was sure to go.'
+
+You recollect, don't you? What does Miss Browne do with hers? Has she
+got it upstairs in her room, now? After all,--though the idea is sweetly
+pretty,--I think there might be certain places into which it would be
+awkward to have even the whitest lamb trotting after one. Eh?"
+
+"I suppose Miss Browne is rich enough to indulge in any vagaries that
+may occur to her," says Bella Fitzgerald.
+
+"There's nothing like money," says Olga, with a sigh; at which Lord
+Rossmoyne looks hopeful, and young Ronayne despondent.
+
+"Like leather, you mean," says Owen Kelly: "that's the real thing to get
+hold of."
+
+"Some people would do _anything_ for money," says Miss Fitzgerald, with
+a spiteful glance in Olga's direction. "They would sell themselves for
+it." Here she turns her cold eyes upon Ronayne, who is standing erect,
+handsome, but unmistakably miserable.
+
+"They could hardly sell themselves for a more profitable article," says
+Olga, with a fine shrug of her soft shoulders.
+
+"So _they_ think. Croesus, we know, was, and is, allpowerful."
+
+"Oh, no," says Olga, with a little silvery laugh; "you forget my dear
+Bella. Read it up again, and you will see that Croesus was once
+conquered by Cyrus. What became of his power then?"
+
+Her lashes cover her eyes for a moment, and when she lifts them again
+they are fixed on Ronayne. By some coquettish art she gives him to
+understand in this single glance that he is Cyrus, Lord Rossmoyne
+Croesus. He can conquer the rich lord if he will.
+
+"How idle you are, Mr. Ronayne!" she says aloud. "Come here directly and
+help me. You know I cannot do without _your_ help." There is the most
+delicate emphasis possible upon the pronoun. Obedient to her command, he
+comes, as Rossmoyne, armed with the cups, crosses the hall to Hermia and
+Miss Fitzgerald.
+
+"Did your eyes speak true just now?" he asks, bending over her under
+pretext of helping her with the cups.
+
+"What is truth?" asks she, in turn, with a swift upward glance. "Who
+knows aught of her? She lies buried in a deep well, does she not? Who
+shall drag her forth?"
+
+She smiles, yet in a somewhat constrained fashion, that assorts ill with
+the inborn self-possession that as a rule characterizes her. She glances
+at him hurriedly. How young and handsome and earnest he looks! How full
+of tenderest entreaty! There is, too, a touch of melancholy in his dark
+eyes that never came to the birth (she is fain to acknowledge to herself
+with a pang of remorse) until that day when first they look on her.
+
+He loves her,--that she knows; but Rossmoyne loves her too; and though
+Ronayne's rent-roll is by no means to be despised, still it counts but
+as a small one beside that of Rossmoyne's.
+
+And Hermia is right! a title _is_ of use in the world; and nothing is so
+lasting or so satisfactory as a respectable book at one's banker's. A
+good match (Hermia again) is the one thing to be desired; it covers all
+sins. Advice such as this coming from Mrs. Herrick is thoroughly
+disinterested, as the late lamented Mr. Herrick, having behaved to her
+like a brute during their mercifully short married life, had died in the
+odor of sanctity, leaving her complete mistress of all his enormous
+wealth, and quite free to make a second marriage of her _own_ choosing.
+
+With her (Olga), however, the case is widely different; she is indeed
+without encumbrances so far as children may so be termed, and she has
+sufficient means to enable her to get her gowns and things from Paris,
+but there her independence ends.
+
+As she runs over all this hurriedly in her mind, the desire for riches
+grows upon her. Yes, there is certainly a great deal of good in
+Rossmoyne, besides his income; and perhaps a solid sternness is
+preferable to an airy gayety of manner (this with an irrepressible
+leaning towards the "airy gayety"); and--and--what a _pity_ it is that
+Rossmoyne is not Ulic!----
+
+"I will," says Ronayne, alluding to her last remark, in a low but
+determined tone. "Olga, tell me I am more to you than Rossmoyne."
+
+"The boy you are!" says Olga, with an adorable smile that reaches him
+through the flickering flashes of the firelight. "The baby!" He is
+bending over her, and with a light caressing touch she brushes back the
+hair from his temples. "In a year, nay, in a month, once we are
+separated, you will see some other face, newer, more desirable, and
+forget you ever cared for mine."
+
+"If I could believe that, I might find peace. Yet, for all that peace
+could give me, I would not so believe it. I am yours forever, boy though
+you deem me; and, yet, is one ever a boy again when one has once truly
+loved?"
+
+"How often have you truly loved?" with an attempt at lightness that is
+down-trodden by the intensity of her regard.
+
+"As often as I have seen you. Nay, more than that, every moment since I
+first saw you; because night and day, whether absent or present, I have
+been yours in heart and soul."
+
+"You have fatigued yourself!--A long two months!" laughingly.
+
+"A short two months."
+
+"There has been no time for fickleness."
+
+"There never will be, so far as I am concerned. So sure am I of that,
+that I do not mind praying that Cupid's curse may light upon me if ever
+I prove unfaithful. You know it?"
+
+"I have but small acquaintance with cursing of any sort."
+
+"Then learn this one,--
+
+    'They that do change old love for new,
+    Pray gods they change for worse!'
+
+Will you repeat that after me?"
+
+"Wait until I finish my tea; and--unkind as you are--you will give me a
+little bit of cake, won't you?"
+
+"I would give you everything I possess, if I could."
+
+"You don't possess this cake, you know: it is Madam O'Connor's."
+
+"Oh, Olga, why will you always press me backwards? Am I never to be
+nearer to you than I am now?"
+
+"I don't see how you could conveniently be very much nearer," says Mrs.
+Bohun, with a soft laugh.
+
+"After all, I suppose I come under the head of either madman or fool,"
+says Ronayne, sadly. "You are everything to me; I am less than nothing
+to you."
+
+"Is Lord Rossmoyne to come under the head of 'nothing'? How rude!" says
+Olga.
+
+"I never thought of him. I was thinking only of how hopelessly I love
+you."
+
+"Love! How should such a baby as you grasp even the meaning of that
+word?" says Olga, letting her white lids droop until their long lashes
+lie upon her cheeks like shadows, while she raises her cup with indolent
+care to her lips. "Do you really think you know what it means?"
+
+    "'The dredeful joy, alway that flit so yerne,
+    All this mene I by Love,'"
+
+quotes he, very gently; after which he turns away, and, going over to
+the fireplace again, flings himself down dejectedly at Monica's feet.
+
+"Are you tired, Mr. Ronayne?" says Monica, very gently. Something in his
+beautiful face tells her that matters are not going well with him.
+
+"Tired? no," lifting his eyes to her with a smile that belies his words.
+"It is good of you to ask, though. I wish," earnestly, "you would not
+call me 'Mr. Ronayne.' I can't bear it from any one I like. Desmond tell
+her to call me Ulic."
+
+It strikes both Monica and Brian as peculiar that he should appeal to
+the latter as to one possessed of a certain influence over the former.
+It strikes Miss Fitzgerald in the same light too, who has been listening
+to his impetuous entreaty.
+
+Seeing there is something wrong with him, something that might be termed
+excitement in his manner, Desmond whispers to Monica to do as he
+desires.
+
+"He is unhappy about something; let him feel you are his friend," he
+says, in a low tone.
+
+"Come a little farther from the fire, Ulic,--a little nearer to me,"
+says Monica, in a tone of shy friendliness, "and I think you will be
+more comfortable."
+
+He is more than grateful, I think, though he says nothing only he moves
+a good deal closer to her, and lays his head against her knee in a
+brotherly fashion,--need I say unrebuked?
+
+Something in this little scene sends the blood rushing with impatient
+fervor through Olga's veins. But that she knows Monica well, and that
+the girl is dear to her, she could have hated her heartily at this
+moment, without waiting to analyze the motive for her dislike. As it is,
+she gives the reins to her angry spirit, and lets it drive her where it
+will. She laughs quite merrily, and says some pretty playful thing to
+Lord Rossmoyne that all the world can hear,--and Ronayne, be assured,
+the first of all.
+
+Desmond, with a subdued touch of surprise in his eyes, turns to look at
+her. But the night has darkened with sullen haste--tired, perhaps, of
+the day's ill temper--and standing as he does within the magic circle of
+the firelight, he finds a difficulty in conquering the gloom beyond.
+This makes his gaze in her direction the more concentrated; and, indeed,
+when he has separated her features from the mist of the falling night,
+he still finds it impossible to pierce the impenetrable veil of
+indifference that covers her every feature.
+
+His gaze thus necessarily prolonged is distasteful to her.
+
+"Brian, don't keep staring at the teapot in that mean fashion," she
+says, playfully, yet with a latent sense of impatience in her tone. "It
+is unworthy of you. Go up to Madam O'Connor _nobly_, cup in hand, and I
+daresay--if you ask her prettily--she will grant me permission to give
+you a cup of tea."
+
+Desmond, recovering from his revery with a start accepts the situation
+literally.
+
+"Will you, Madam?" he says, meekly. "_Do._" His tone is of the most
+abject. There is a perceptible trembling about his knee-joints. "Is
+_this_ the 'air noble'?" he says to Olga, in an undertone. "Have I
+caught it?"
+
+"You'll catch it in a minute in real earnest, if you don't mend your
+manners," says Madam, with a laugh. "Give him his tea, Olga, my dear,
+though he doesn't deserve it."
+
+"Sugar?" says Olga, laconically.
+
+"Yes, please," mendaciously.
+
+"Then you shan't have even one lump, if only to punish you for all your
+misconduct."
+
+"I thought as much," says Brian, taking his cup thankfully. "Fact is, I
+can't bear sugar but I knew you would drop it in, in an unlimited
+degree, if I said the other thing. Not that I have the vaguest notion as
+to how I have misconducted myself. If I knew, I might set a watch upon
+my lips."
+
+"Set it on your _eyes_," says Olga, with meaning.
+
+At this moment a light footfall is heard, and somebody comes slowly
+across the hall. A merry tongue of fire, flaming upwards, declares it to
+be the plain Miss Browne.
+
+Mrs. O'Connor has just passed into an adjoining room. Olga is busy with
+her tray and with her thoughts. Mrs. Herrick, partly turned aside, and
+oblivious of the approaching guest, is conversing in low tones with Lord
+Rossmoyne.
+
+No one, therefore, is ready to give the stranger welcome and put her
+through the ceremony of introduction. Awkwardness is impending, when
+Monica comes to the rescue. Her innate sense of kindly courtesy
+conquering her shyness, she rises from her seat, and going up to Miss
+Browne, who has come to a standstill, lays her hand softly upon hers.
+
+"Come over here and sit by me," she says, nervously, yet with such a
+gracious sweetness that the stranger's heart goes out to her on the
+spot, and Brian Desmond, if it be possible, falls more in love with her
+than ever.
+
+"Thank you," says Miss Browne, pressing gratefully the little hand that
+lies on hers; and then every one wakes into life and says something
+civil to her.
+
+Five minutes later the dressing-bell rings, and the scene is at an end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+  How Mrs. Herrick grows worldly-wise and Olga frivolous--How Mr.
+  Kelly tells a little story; and how, beneath the moonlight, many
+  things are made clear.
+
+
+Dinner has come to an end. The men are still dallying with their wine.
+The women are assembled in the drawing-room.
+
+Olga, having drawn back the curtains from the central window, is
+standing in its embrasure, looking out silently upon the glories of the
+night. For the storm has died away; the wind is gone to sleep; the rain
+has sobbed itself to death; and now a lovely moon is rising
+slowly--slowly--from behind a rippled mass of grayest cloud. From out
+the dark spaces in the vault above a few stars are shining,--the more
+brilliantly because of the blackness that surrounds them. The air is
+sultry almost to oppressiveness, and the breath of the roses that have
+twined themselves around the railings of the balcony renders the calm
+night full of sweetest fragrance.
+
+Even as she gazes, spellbound, the clouds roll backward, and stars grow
+and multiply exceedingly, until all
+
+                    "the floor of heaven
+    Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold."
+
+Madam O'Connor is talking to Miss Browne of certain family matters
+interesting to both. Miss Fitzgerald has gone upstairs, either to put on
+another coating of powder, or else to scold her long-suffering maid. Her
+mother has fallen into a gentle, somewhat noisy snooze.
+
+A sudden similar thought striking both Monica and Mrs. Herrick at the
+same moment, they rise, and make a step towards the window where Olga is
+standing all alone.
+
+Hermia, laying her hand on Monica's arm, entreats her by a gesture to
+change her purpose; whereon Monica falls back again, and Hermia, going
+on, parts the curtains, and, stepping in to where Olga is, joins her
+uninvited.
+
+"Dreaming?" she says, lightly.
+
+"Who would not dream on such a night as this? the more beautiful because
+of the miserable day to which it is a glorious termination. See, Hermia,
+how those planets gleam and glitter, as though in mockery of us poor
+foolish mortals down below."
+
+"I don't feel a bit more foolish than I did this morning," says Hermia.
+"Do you, dear? You were giving yourself a great deal of credit for your
+common sense then."
+
+"'Common sense,'--worldly wisdom,--how I hate the sound of all that
+jargon!" says Olga, petulantly. "Let us forget we _must_ be wise, if
+only for one night. The beauty of that silent world of flowers beyond
+has somehow entered into me. Let me enjoy it. 'How sweet the moonlight
+sleeps upon that bank' down there! Watch it. Can you see how the roses
+quiver beneath its touch, as though stirred by some happy dream?"
+
+"It is indeed a perfect night!" says Hermia, looking at her in some
+surprise. There is a suspicion of excitement in Olga's manner--arising,
+as it were, from the desire to hide one emotion by the betrayal of
+another--that strikes her listener as strange.
+
+"How softly the air beats upon one's face!" says Mrs. Bohun, leaning a
+little forward. "The night is, as you say, perfect. Yet I don't know
+what is the matter with me: the more I feel the loveliness of all
+around, the sadder my heart seems to grow."
+
+"What!" says Hermia, lifting her brows, "am I to learn now that you--the
+gayest of all mortals--have at last succumbed to the insufferable
+dreariness of this merry world?"
+
+"You run too fast. I am a little perplexed, perhaps; but I have not
+succumbed to anything."
+
+"Or any _one_, I hope, unless it be to your advantage. You are playing a
+silly game, Olga."
+
+"The world would be lost unless it had a fool to sport with now and
+then."
+
+"But why should _you_ be the one to pander to its pleasures?"
+
+"Who more fitting? I am tired of hearing you apply that word 'silly' to
+me, morning, noon, and night."
+
+"It is too late to believe it possible that you and I should quarrel,"
+says Mrs. Herrick, in a perfectly even tone: "so don't try to get up an
+imaginary grievance. You know you are dearer to me than anything on
+earth, after the children."
+
+"Well, don't scold me any more," says Olga, coaxingly.
+
+"I never scold; I only reason."
+
+"Oh! but that is so much worse," says Olga. "It means the scolding, and
+a lot more besides. Do anything but reason with me, my dear Hermia."
+
+"I _will_ say that I think you are throwing yourself away."
+
+"Where? Over the balcony?"--wilfully. "I assure you, you misjudge me: I
+am far too great a coward."
+
+"You are not too great a coward to contemplate the committing of a much
+more serious _betise_. To-night his attentions were specially marked,
+and you allowed them."
+
+"I can't think what you mean."
+
+"Will you deny that Mr. Ronayne paid you very marked attention
+to-night?"
+
+"Marked! Where did he make his impression, then? He didn't _pinch_ me,
+if you mean that."
+
+"Of course you can follow your own wishes, dearest, and I shall neither
+gain nor lose; but it does seem a pity, when you might be a countess and
+have the world at your feet. I know few so altogether fitted to fill the
+position, and still you reject it. You are pretty, clever,
+charming,--everything of the most desirable."
+
+"Am I?" She steps into the drawing-room, and brings herself by a swift
+step or two opposite a huge mirror let into one of the walls. Standing
+before it, she surveys herself leisurely from head to foot, and then she
+smiles.
+
+"I don't know about the 'clever,'" she says; "but I am _sure_ I am
+pretty. In town last season--do you remember?--my hair created quite a
+furore, it is so peculiarly light. Ever so many people wanted to paint
+me. Yes, it was all very pleasant."
+
+"Do you think it will be as pleasant to live _here_ all your days, and
+find no higher ambition than the hope that your ponies may be prettier
+than Mrs. So-and-so's?"
+
+"Do you remember that fancy ball, and how the prince asked who I was,
+and all the rest of it? He said one or two very pretty things to me. He,
+like you, said I was charming. Do you know," naively, "I have never got
+over the feeling of being _obliged_ to any one who pays me a compliment?
+I am obliged to _you_ now."
+
+"And to the prince _then_. But you won't see many princes if you stay in
+Ireland, I fancy: they don't hanker after the soil."
+
+"Poor Ireland!" says Mrs. Bohun.
+
+"And compliments, I should say, will be almost as scarce."
+
+"Ah! now, _there_ you are wrong: _they_ fly beneath these murky skies.
+We absolutely revel in them. What true Irishman but has one ripping
+freely from his mouth on the very smallest chance? And then, my dear
+Hermia, consider, are we not the proud possessors of the
+blarney-stone?"
+
+"I wish, dearest, you would bring yourself to think seriously of
+Rossmoyne."
+
+"I do think seriously of him. It would be impossible to think of him in
+any other way, he is so dull and pompous."
+
+"He would make an excellent husband!"
+
+"I have had enough of husbands. They are very unsatisfactory people. And
+besides----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Rossmoyne has a temper."
+
+"And forty thousand a year."
+
+"Not good enough."
+
+"If you are waiting for an angel, you will wait forever. All men
+are----"
+
+"Oh, Hermia! really, I _can't_ listen to such naughty words, you know. I
+really wonder at you!"
+
+"I wasn't going to say anything of the kind," says Hermia, with great
+haste, not seeing the laughter lurking in Olga's dark eyes. "I merely
+meant that----"
+
+"Don't explain!--_don't!_" says Olga; "I couldn't endure any more of
+it." And she laughs aloud.
+
+"Rossmoyne is very devoted to you. Is there anything against him, except
+his temper?"
+
+"Yes, his beard. _Nothing_ would induce me to marry a man with hair all
+over his face. It isn't _clean_."
+
+"Give him five minutes and a razor, and he might do away with it."
+
+"Give him five minutes and a razor, and he might do away with himself
+too," says Olga, provokingly. "Really. I think one thing would please me
+just as much as the other."
+
+"Oh, then, you are bent on refusing him?" says Hermia, calmly. With very
+few people does she ever lose her temper; with Olga--never.
+
+"I am not so sure of that, at all," says Olga, airily. "It is quite
+within the possibilities that I may marry him some time or
+other,--sooner or later. There is a delightful vagueness about those two
+dates that gives me the warmest encouragement."
+
+"It is a pity you cannot be serious _sometimes_," says Mrs. Herrick,
+mildly.
+
+A little hand upon her gown saves further expostulation. A little face
+looking up with a certainty of welcome into hers brings again that
+wonderful softness into Hermia's eyes.
+
+"Is it you, my sweetest?" she says, fondly. "And where have you been? I
+have watched in vain for you for the last half-hour, my Fay."
+
+"I was in the dining-room. But nurse called me; and now I have come to
+say good-night," says the child.
+
+"Good-night, then, and God bless you, my chick. But where is my
+Georgie?"
+
+"I'm here," says Georgie, gleefully, springing upon her in a violent
+fashion, that one would have believed hateful to the calm Hermia, yet
+that is evidently most grateful to her. She embraces the boy warmly, and
+lets her eyes follow him until he is out of sight. Then she turns again
+to the little maiden at her side.
+
+"I must go with Georgie," says the child.
+
+"So you shall. But first tell me, what have you got in your hand?"
+
+"Something to go to bed with. See, mammy! It is a pretty red plum,"
+opening her delicate pink fist, for her mother's admiration.
+
+"Where did you get it, darling?"
+
+"In the dining-room."
+
+"From Lord Rossmoyne?"
+
+"No. From Mr. Kelly. I would not have the one Lord Rossmoyne gave me."
+
+Olga laughs mischievously, and Mrs. Herrick colors.
+
+"Why?" she says.
+
+"Because I like Mr. Kelly best."
+
+"And what did you give him?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Not even a kiss?" says Olga.
+
+"No," somewhat shamefacedly.
+
+"Her mother's own daughter!" says Olga, caressing the child tenderly,
+but laughing still. "A chilly mortal."
+
+"Good-night, my own," says Hermia, and the child, having kissed them
+both again, runs away.
+
+Olga follows her with wistful eyes.
+
+"I almost wish I had a baby!" she says.
+
+"_You?_ Why, you can't take care of yourself! You are the least fitted
+to have a child of any woman that I know. Leave all such charges to
+staid people like me. Why, you are a baby at heart, yourself, this
+moment."
+
+"That would be no drawback. It would only have created sympathy between
+me and my baby. I would have understood all her bad moods and condoned
+all her crimes."
+
+"If you had been a mother, you would have had a very naughty child."
+
+"I should have had a very happy child, at least." Then she laughs.
+"Fancy me with a dear little baby!" she says,--"a thing all my own, that
+would rub its soft cheek against mine and love me better than anything!"
+
+"And rumple all your choicest Parisian gowns, and pull your hair to
+pieces. I couldn't fancy it at all."
+
+Here the door opens to admit the men, the celestial half-hour after
+dinner having come to an end. With one consent they all converge towards
+the window, where Olga and Hermia are standing with Monica, who had
+joined them to bid good-night to little Fay. Miss Fitzgerald, who had
+returned to the drawing-room freshly powdered, seeing how the tide runs,
+crosses the room too, and mingles with the group in the window.
+
+"How long you have been! We feared you dead and buried," she says to
+Kelly, with elephantine playfulness.
+
+"We have, indeed. I thought the other men would never stir. Why did you
+not give me the chance of leaving them? The faintest suggestion that
+_you_ wanted me would have brought me here _hours_ ago."
+
+"If I had been sure of that, I should have sent you a message; it would
+have saved me a lecture," says Olga, flashing a smile at Hermia.
+
+"I should disdain to send a message," says the proud Bella, "I would not
+_compel_ any man's presence. 'Come if you will; stay away if you won't,'
+is _my_ motto; and I cannot help thinking I am right."
+
+"You are, indeed, quite right. Coercion is of small avail in _some_
+cases," says Olga, regarding her with the calm dignity of one who
+plainly considers the person addressed of very inferior quality indeed.
+
+"A woman can scarcely be too jealous of her rights nowadays," says Miss
+Fitzgerald. "If she has a proper knowledge of her position, she ought to
+guard it carefully."
+
+"A fine idea finely expressed!" says Kelly, as though smitten into
+reverence by the grandeur of her manner.
+
+"I wonder what is a man's proper position?" says Olga lazily.
+
+"He will always find it at a woman's feet," says Miss Fitzgerald,
+grandly, elated by Kelly's apparent subjection.
+
+That young man looks blankly round him. Under tables and chairs and
+lounges his eyes penetrate, but without the desired result.
+
+"So sorry I can't see a footstool anywhere!" he says, lifting regretful
+eyes to Miss Fitzgerald; "but for that I should be at your feet from
+this until you bid me rise."
+
+"Hypocrite!" says Olga in his ear; after which conversation becomes more
+general; and presently Miss Fitzgerald goes back to the fire under the
+mistaken impression that probably one of the men will follow her there.
+
+The _one_--whoever he is--_doesn't_.
+
+"Do you know," says Mr. Kelly, in a low tone, to the others, "the ugly
+girl's awfully nice! She is a pleasant deceit. 'She has no winsome
+looks, no pretty frowning,' I grant you; but she can hold her own, and
+is _so_ good-humored."
+
+"What a lovely night!" says Monica, gazing wistfully into the misty
+depths of the illuminated darkness beyond. "I want to step into it,
+and--we have not been out all day."
+
+"Then why not go now?" says Hermia, answering her glance in a kindly
+spirit.
+
+"Ah! _will_ you come?" says Monica, brightening into glad excitement.
+
+"Let us go as far as the fountain in the lower garden," says Olga: "it
+is always beautiful there when the moon is up."
+
+"Avoid the grass, however; wet feet are dangerous," says Lord Rossmoyne,
+carefully.
+
+"You will die an old bachelor," retorts Olga, saucily, "if you take so
+much 'thought for the morrow.'"
+
+"It will certainly not be my fault if I do," returns Rossmoyne, calmly,
+but with evident meaning.
+
+"Mrs. Bohun, bring your guitar," says Desmond, "and we will make Ronayne
+sing to it, and so imagine ourselves presently in the land of the olive
+and the palm."
+
+"Shall we ask the others to come with us?" says Monica, kindly, glancing
+back into the drawing-room.
+
+"Miss Browne, for example," suggests Owen Kelly. If he hopes by this
+speech to arouse jealousy in anybody present, he finds himself, later
+on, mightily mistaken.
+
+"If she is as good a sort as you say, I daresay she would like it," says
+Olga. "And, besides, if we leave her to Bella's tender mercies she will
+undoubtedly be done to death by the time we return."
+
+"Oh, do go and rescue her," says Mrs. Herrick, turning to Kelly. Her
+tone is almost appealing.
+
+"Perhaps Miss Fitzgerald will come too," says Monica, somewhat
+fearfully.
+
+"Don't be afraid," says Olga. "_Fancy_ Bella running the risk of having
+a bad eye or a pink nose in the morning! She knows much better than
+that."
+
+"Tell Miss Browne to make haste," says Mrs. Herrick, turning to Kelly.
+"Because we are impatient,--we are longing to precipitate ourselves into
+the moonlight. Come, Olga; come, Monica; they can follow."
+
+Miss Browne, however, on being appealed to, shows so honest a disregard
+for covering of any sort, beyond what decency had already clothed her
+with, that she and Kelly catch up with the others even before the
+fountain is reached.
+
+It is, indeed, a fairy dell to which they have been summoned,--a magic
+circle, closed in by evergreens with glistening leaves. "Dark with
+excessive light" appears the scene; the marble basin of the fountain,
+standing out from the deep background, gleams snow-white beneath Diana's
+touch. "The moon's an arrant thief." Perchance she snatches from great
+Sol some beauties even rarer than that "pale fire" he grants her--it may
+be, against his will. So it may well be thought, for what fairest day
+can be compared with a moonlit night in languorous July?
+
+The water of the fountain, bubbling ever upwards, makes sweet music on
+the silent air; but, even as they hark to it, a clearer, sweeter music
+makes the night doubly melodious. From bough to bough it comes and
+goes,--a heavenly harmony, not to be reproduced by anything of earthly
+mould.
+
+    "O nightingale, that on yon gloomy spray
+    Warbles at eve, when all the woods are still,
+    Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill."
+
+Clear from the depths of the pine woods beyond, the notes ascend,
+softly, tenderly. Not often do they enrich our Irish air, but sometimes
+they come to gladden us with a music that can hardly be termed of earth.
+The notes rise and swell and die, only to rise and to slowly fade again,
+like "linked sweetness long drawn out."
+
+Seating themselves on the edge of the fountain, they acknowledge
+silently the beauty of the hour. Olga's hand, moving through the water,
+breaks it into little wavelets on which the riotous moonbeams dance.
+
+"Where are your bangles, Olga? you used to be famous for them?" asks
+Desmond, idly.
+
+"I have tired of them."
+
+"Poor bangles!" says Ulic Ronayne, in a low tone heard only by her.
+
+"What a heavy sigh!"
+
+"A selfish one, too. More for myself than for the discarded bangles. Yet
+their grievance is mine."
+
+"I thought they suited you," says Desmond.
+
+"Did you? Well, but they had grown so common; every one used to go about
+laden with them. And then they made such a tiresome tinkle-tinkle all
+over the place."
+
+"What place?" says Lord Rossmoyne, who objects to slang of even the
+mildest description from any woman's lips, most of all from the lips of
+her whom he hopes to call his wife.
+
+"Don't be stupid!" says this prospective wife, with considerable
+petulance.
+
+"You are fickle, I doubt," goes on Rossmoyne, unmoved. "A few months ago
+you raved about your bangles, and had the prettiest assortment I think I
+ever saw. Thirty-six on each arm, or something like it. We used to call
+them your armor. You said you were obliged to wear the same amount
+exactly on each arm, lest you might grow crooked."
+
+"I know few things more unpleasant than having one's silly remarks
+brought up to one years afterwards," says Olga, with increasing temper.
+
+"_Months_ not _years_," says Rossmoyne, carefully. Whereupon Mrs. Bohun
+turns her back upon him, and Mrs. Herrick tells herself she would like
+to give him a good shake for so stupidly trying to ruin his own game,
+and Ulic Ronayne feels he is on the brink of swearing with him an
+eternal friendship.
+
+"Bangles?" breaks in Owen Kelly, musingly. "Harmless little circular
+things women wear on their wrists, aren't they? But awkward too at
+times,--amazingly awkward. As Olga has feelingly remarked, they _can_
+make a marvellously loud tinkle-tinkle at times. I know a little story
+about bangles, that ought to be a warning against the use of them. Would
+any one like to hear my little story? It is short, but very sweet."
+
+Every one instantly says "Yes," except Olga, who has drawn herself
+together and is regarding him with a stony glare.
+
+"Well, there was once on a time a young woman, who had some bangles, and
+a young man; she had other things too, such as youth and beauty, but
+they weren't half so important as the first two items; and wherever she
+and her bangles went, there went the young man too. And for a long time
+nobody knew which he loved best, the beauteous maiden or the gleaming
+bangles. Do I make myself clear?"
+
+"Wonderfully so, for _you_," says Mrs. Herrick.
+
+"Well one day the young man's preference was made 'wonderfully so' too.
+And it was in this wise. On a certain sunny afternoon, the young woman
+found herself in a conservatory that opened off a drawing-room, being
+divided from it only by a hanging Indian curtain; a _hanged_ Indian
+curtain she used to call it ever afterwards; but that was bad grammar,
+and bad manners too."
+
+"I feel I'm going to sleep," says Desmond, drowsily. "I hope somebody
+will rouse me when he has done, or pick me out of the water if I drop
+into it. Such a rigmarole of a story I never heard in my life."
+
+"Caviare can't be appreciated by the general; it is too strong for you,"
+says Mr. Kelly, severely. "But to continue----Anything wrong with you,
+my dear Olga?"
+
+"Nothing!" says Mrs. Bohun, with icy indignation.
+
+"Well. In this conservatory my heroine of the bangles found herself; and
+here, too, as a natural consequence, was found the young man. There was
+near them a lounge,--skimpy enough for one, but _they_ found it amply
+large for _two_. Curious fact in itself, wasn't it? And I think the
+young man so far forgot himself as to begin to make violent----and just
+as he was about to emb----the young woman, whose name was----, she very
+properly, but with somewhat mistaken haste, moved away from him, and in
+so doing set all her bangles a-tinkling. Into full cry they burst,
+whereupon the curtain was suddenly drawn back from the drawing-room
+side, giving the people there a full view of the conservatory _and_
+its--contents! The _denouement_ was full of interest,--positively
+thrilling! I should advise all true lovers of a really good novel to
+obtain this book from their libraries and discover it for themselves."
+
+Here Mr. Kelly stops, and looks genially around.
+
+"I think I shall take to writing reviews," he says, sweetly. "I like my
+own style."
+
+A dead silence follows his "little story," and then Mrs. Herrick lifts
+her eyes to his.
+
+"'I wonder that you will still be talking, Signor Benedick: nobody marks
+you,'" she quotes, with a touch of scorn.
+
+"_You_ do, my dear Lady Disdain, or else you would not have addressed me
+that contemptuous remark."
+
+"An absurd story, altogether!" says Olga, throwing up her head, a smile
+lightening her eyes as they meet Kelly's. At her tone, which is more
+amused than annoyed, Ronayne lets his hand fall into the water close to
+hers, and doubtless finds its cool touch (the water's, I mean, of
+course) very refreshing, as it is fully five minutes before he brings it
+to the surface again.
+
+"True, nevertheless," says Kelly. "Both the principals in my story were
+friends of mine. I knew--indeed, I may safely say I _know_--them well."
+
+"I am glad you said '_were_,'" says Olga, shaking her blonde head at
+him. Lord Rossmoyne, by this time, is looking as black as a
+thunder-cloud.
+
+"A questionable friend you must be, to tell tales out of school," says
+Mrs. Herrick.
+
+"I defy any one to say I have told anything," says Kelly, with
+much-injured innocence. "But I am quite prepared to hear my actions, as
+usual, grossly maligned. I am accustomed to it now. The benefit of the
+doubt is not for _me_."
+
+"There isn't a doubt," says Hermia.
+
+"Go on. I must try to bear it,"--meekly. "I know I am considered
+incapable of a pure motive."
+
+"Was it you drew back the curtain?"
+
+"Well, really, yes, I believe it was. I wanted my friend, you see, and I
+knew I should find him with the bangles. Yes; it was I drew the
+curtain."
+
+"Just what I should have expected from you," says Mrs. Herrick.
+
+"Ah! Thank you! Now at last you are beginning to see things in their
+true light, and to take my part," says Mr. Kelly, with exaggerated
+gratitude. "Now, indeed, I feel I have not lived in vain! You have,
+though at a late hour, recognized the extraordinary promptitude that
+characterizes my every action. While another might have been hesitating,
+I drew the curtain. I am seldom to be found wanting, I may, indeed,
+always be discovered just where----"
+
+"You _aren't_ wanting," interrupts Mrs. Herrick, with a sudden smile.
+
+"How can _that_ be," says Kelly, with reproachful sadness, "when I am
+generally to be found near you?"
+
+At this Hermia gives in, and breaks into a low soft laugh.
+
+"But I wish you had not told that story of Olga and Mr. Ronayne," she
+says, in a whisper, and with some regret. "You saw how badly Rossmoyne
+took it."
+
+"That is partly why I told it. I think you are wrong in trying to make
+that marriage: she would be happier with Ronayne."
+
+"For a month or two, perhaps."
+
+"Oh, make it _three_," says Kelly, satirically. "Surely the little
+winged god has so much staying power."
+
+"A few weeks ago you told me you did not believe in him at all."
+
+"I have changed all that."
+
+"Ah! _you_ can be fickle too."
+
+"A man is not necessarily fickle because when he discovers the only true
+good he leaves the bad and presses towards it. I think, too, his
+mentor," in a lowered tone, "should be the last to misjudge him."
+
+"Nothing is so lasting, at least, as riches," says Mrs. Herrick, with a
+chastened but unmistakable desire to change his mood. "Olga with
+unlimited means and an undeniable place in the world of society would be
+a happier Olga than as the wife of a country gentleman."
+
+"I don't agree with you; but you know best--_perhaps_. You speak your
+own sentiments, of course. A title is indispensable to you too, as well
+as to her?"
+
+His tone is half a question.
+
+"It counts," she says, slowly, trifling with firm though slender fingers
+with the grasses that are growing in the interstices of the marble.
+
+"Pshaw!" says Kelly. Rising with a vehemence foreign to him, he crosses
+to where Ulic Ronayne is standing alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+  How Olga drowns a faithful servant--How Mr. Kelly conjures up a
+  ghost--And how Monica, beneath the mystic moonbeams, grants the gift
+  she first denies.
+
+
+"Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" he says, lightly, laying his hand on
+Ulic's shoulder. The latter turns to him with a bright smile that
+renders his handsome face quite beautiful. Seeing its charm, Kelly asks
+himself, in half-angry fashion, how Olga can possibly hesitate for one
+moment between him and Rossmoyne. "But they are all alike heartless,"
+he decides, bitterly.
+
+"I am feeling neither pale nor wan," says Ronayne, still smiling. "It
+must be the moon, if anything. Look here, Kelly, something to-night has
+told me that it will all come right in the end. I shall gain her against
+the heaviest odds."
+
+"If you mean Rossmoyne, he's the heaviest mortal I know," says Kelly.
+
+"Well, he _isn't_ suited to her, is he?" There is a strange excitement
+in Ronayne's manner. "Putting me out of the question altogether, I don't
+believe he could make her happy. If I thought he could, of course I
+should then go away somewhere, and find contentment in the thought of
+hers; but----_you_ don't think she would do well to marry him do you
+Kelly?" He has controlled his features to an almost marvellous calm, but
+the agony of his question in his eyes cannot be hid.
+
+"I think the woman who could even _hesitate_ between you and him must be
+a fool and worse," says Kelly, whose temper is not his own to-night. "He
+is a pedantic ass, more in love with himself than he can ever be with
+anything else. While you----Look here, Ronayne; I wonder if any woman is
+_worth_ it."
+
+"Oh, _she_ is," says Ronayne, with tender conviction. "I don't think
+she is at all like other people; do you? There's something
+different--something _special_--about her."
+
+"I daresay," says Kelly, gently, which is rather good of him,
+considering his frame of mind.
+
+"You're an awfully kind sort of fellow, Kelly, do you know?" says
+Ronayne, slipping his arm through his. "You are the only one I ever talk
+to about _her_. And I suppose I must bore you, though you don't say it.
+It's the most generous thing I know, your sympathizing with me as you
+do. If you were in love yourself, I could understand it. But you are
+not, you know."
+
+"Oh, no; of course not," says Mr. Kelly.
+
+"Is that your guitar, Mrs. Bohun? I wish you would sing us something,"
+says Miss Browne at this moment.
+
+"I don't sing much,--and never out of doors, it hurts my throat so,"
+says Olga, smiling at her; "but if any else will sing, I will gladly
+play to them."
+
+"Mr. Ronayne,--Ulic,--come here," says Monica, half shyly, but very
+sweetly. "You can sing, I know."
+
+"Yes come here," says Olga, turning to him, and away from Lord
+Rossmoyne, who is talking to her in low, short, angry tones. But the
+latter, laying his hand on her arm, half compels her to turn to him
+again.
+
+"Let some one else accompany him if he _must_ sing," he says; "_any_ one
+but you."
+
+"No one else can."
+
+"I object to your doing it."
+
+"You won't when you hear him; he sings _so_ sweetly," with the
+prettiest, most enthusiastic smile. "You really should hear him."
+
+"You persist, then? you compel me to believe the worst,--to regard you
+as implicated in that story of Kelly's."
+
+"I compel you to nothing. And as for the story, I thought it very
+amusing: didn't you?"
+
+"_No!_" says Rossmoyne, with subdued fury.
+
+"Do you know, I often said you lacked humor?" says Mrs. Bohun, with a
+little airy laugh; "and now I am sure of it. I thought it intensely
+comic; such a situation! I should like to have seen your face when the
+curtain was drawn, if _you_ had been the young man."
+
+"I must beg you to understand that such a situation would be
+_impossible_ to _me_."
+
+"I am to understand, then, that you would not 'emb----' that was what he
+said, wasn't it?--a woman if you loved her?"
+
+"Not without permission, certainly," very stiffly.
+
+"Oh, dear!" says Olga; "what a stupid man! Well, I shouldn't think you
+would do it _often_. And so you wouldn't have liked to be that
+particular young man?"
+
+This is a poser; Lord Rossmoyne parries the thrust.
+
+"Would _you_ have liked to be that young woman,--who, as it appears to
+me, wasn't at all particular?" he asks, in turn.
+
+"That is no answer to my question," says Olga, who is angry with his
+last remark. "Are you afraid to say what you mean?"
+
+"Afraid! No. To give publicity to a thing means always to vulgarize it:
+therefore, on consideration, I should not have cared to be that young
+man."
+
+"Ah! I should have thought otherwise," says Olga, in an indescribable
+tone. "Well, there must be consolation for you in the thought that you
+never can be.--Mr. Ronayne," calling to Ulic lightly, "are you coming,
+or must I sit fingering my lyre in vain?"
+
+Ulic, coming slowly up to her, stands beside her, as she seats herself
+again upon the marble edge of the fountain, and runs her fingers
+gracefully over its strings.
+
+His voice, a rich sweet tenor, breaks upon the air, blends with the
+beauty of the night, and sinks into it until all seems one great
+harmony. "'Tis I" is the song he has chosen, and a wonderful pathos that
+borders on despair enriches every note. He has forgotten every one but
+her, the pretty dainty creature who holds his heart in the hollow of her
+small hand. She must hear the melancholy that is desolating and thereby
+perfecting his voice; but, if so, she gives no sign. Once only her
+fingers tremble, but she corrects herself almost before her error is
+committed, and never after gives way to even the faintest suspicion of
+feeling.
+
+Through the glade the music swells and throbs. Mary Browne, drawing
+instinctively nearer, seems lost in its enchantment. Monica, looking up
+with eyes full of tears into Desmond's face, finds his eyes fixed on
+her, and, with a soft, childish desire for sympathy, slips her hand
+unseen into his. How gladly he takes and holds it need not here be told.
+
+As he comes to the last verse, Ronayne's voice grows lower; it doesn't
+tremble, yet there is in it something suggestive of the idea that he is
+putting a terrible constraint upon himself:
+
+    "If regret some time assail thee
+        For the days when first we met,
+    And thy weary spirit fail thee,
+      And thine eyes grow dim and wet,
+            Oh, 'tis I, love,
+            At thy heart, love,
+    Murmuring, 'How couldst thou forget?'"
+
+The music lingers still for a moment, ebbs, and then dies away. Ronayne
+steps back, and all seems over. How Olga has proved so utterly unmoved
+by the passionate protest is exercising more minds than one, when
+suddenly she rises and with a swift movement bends over the fountain.
+Another moment, and she has dropped the guitar into the water. Some
+little silver ornament upon its neck flashes for an instant in the
+moonlight, and then it is gone.
+
+"Oh, Olga!" says Hermia, making an involuntary step towards her.
+
+"I shall never play on it again," says Olga, with a gesture that is
+almost impassioned. An instant, and it is all over,--her little burst of
+passion, the thought that led to it,--everything!
+
+"I hate it!" she says, with a petulant laugh. "I am glad to be rid of
+it. Somebody made me a present of it whom I learned to detest
+afterwards. No, Owen, do not try to bring it to life again: let it lie
+down there out of sight where I may learn to forget it."
+
+"As you will, madame," says Owen Kelly, who has been fruitlessly fishing
+for the drowned guitar.
+
+"It is curious how hateful anything, however pretty, can become to us if
+we dislike the giver of it," says Mary Browne, pleasantly.
+
+"Yes," says Hermia, quickly, glancing at her with a sudden gleam in her
+eyes,--of gratitude, perhaps. A moment ago there had been a certain
+awkwardness following on Olga's capricious action; now these few
+careless, kindly words from this ugly stranger have dispelled it. And is
+she so plain, after all? The fastidious Hermia, gazing at her intently,
+asks herself this question. Surely before that bright and generous gleam
+in her eyes her freckles sink into insignificance.
+
+"I knew you would like her," says Mr. Kelly, at this moment, speaking
+low in Hermia's ear.
+
+When a woman is startled she is generally angry. Mrs. Herrick is angry
+now, whether because of his words, or the fact that she did not know he
+was so close to her, let who will decide.
+
+"You are very, very clever," she says, glancing at him from under
+drooping lids, and then turning away.
+
+"So they all tell me," returns he, modestly.
+
+Rossmoyne, crossing the brilliant moonlit path that divides him from the
+group round Hermia, seats himself beside her, thereby leaving Olga and
+Ulic Ronayne virtually alone.
+
+"You will regret that guitar to-morrow," says Ronayne,--"at least not
+the thing itself (I can replace that), but----"
+
+"I regret nothing," says Mrs. Bohun, carelessly,--"unless I regret that
+you have taken an absurdly ill-tempered action so much to heart. I am
+ill-tempered, you know."
+
+"I don't," says Ronayne.
+
+"So courteous a liar must needs obtain pardon. But let us forget
+everything but this lovely night. Was there ever so serene a sky? see
+how the stars shine and glimmer through the dark interstices of the
+blue-gray clouds!"
+
+"They remind me of something,--of some words," says Ronayne, in a low
+voice. "They come to me now, I hardly know why, perhaps because of the
+night itself, and perhaps because--" he hesitates.
+
+Olga is staring dreamily at the studded vault above her.
+
+"About the stars?" she asks, without looking at him.
+
+"Yes:--
+
+          'A poet loved a star,
+          And to it whispered nightly,
+    Being so fair, why art thou, love, so far,
+    Or why so coldly shine who shin'st so brightly?'
+
+The poet was presumptuous, it seems to me."
+
+"Was he? I don't know. All things come to him who knows how to wait."
+
+"Who's waiting?" says Kelly's voice from the other side of the fountain;
+"and for what?"
+
+"_Toujours_ Owen," says Mrs. Bohun, with a shrug of her pretty
+shoulders. "Well, no one even in this life is altogether without a taste
+of purgatory: mine (this is a delicate compliment to you, Owen, so
+listen to it) might have been worse. Do you know I have sometimes
+thought----"
+
+"She has really!" interrupts Mr. Kelly, turning with cheerful
+encouragement to the others. "You wouldn't think it to look at her,
+would you? but I know her intimately, and can vouch for the truth of her
+words. Go on, my dear Olga."
+
+But "my dear Olga" has turned aside, and declines to take any notice of
+his remark beyond a faint grimace.
+
+"She's very shy," says Mr. Kelly, in an explanatory aside, "and _so_
+retiring. Can't bear to hear herself publicly praised, or feel herself
+the centre of attraction. Let us haste to change the subject." This with
+many becks, and nods, and wreathed smiles, meant to explain the delicacy
+of the feeling that prompts him to this course. "By the by, Desmond,
+doesn't this fairy-like spot, and the moonlight, and the pathos of the
+silent night, and everything, remind you forcibly of old O'Connor?"
+
+"But I always heard----" begins Monica, in a voice of much amazement;
+then she stops confusedly and presently goes on again, but in a
+different key. "Was The O'Connor, then, ęsthetic?" she says.
+
+At this even Lord Rossmoyne, who was in the lowest depths of despair,
+gives way to open mirth.
+
+"Well, no, not exactly," says Ulic Ronayne. "There was a fatal
+healthiness about his appearance that disagreed with that idea. But he
+certainly was fond of this little place; he put up the fountain himself,
+had it brought all the way from Florence for the purpose; and he had a
+trick of lying here on his face and hands for hours together, grubbing
+for worms,--or studying the insect world I think he used to call it."
+
+"I have always thought," says Mr. Kelly, in a tone of reflective
+sadness, "what an uncomfortable position that must be."
+
+"What must be?"
+
+"Lying on one's face and hands. What becomes of the rest of one? Does
+one keep one's heels in the air whilst doing it? To me it sounds awful!
+Yet only last week I read in the papers of a fellow who was found on a
+road on his face and hands, and the doctors said he must have been in
+that position _for hours!_ Fancy--_your_ nose, for instance, Rossmoyne,
+in the mud, and your heels in the air, _for hours_!"
+
+Lord Rossmoyne, having vainly tried to imagine his dignified body in
+such a position, looks distinctly offended.
+
+"No, _nobody_ would like it," says Kelly, pathetically, answering his
+disgusted look exactly as if it had been put into words. "There is a
+shameful frivolity about it not to be countenanced for a moment. Yet
+good and wise men have been said to do it. Fancy the Archbishop of
+Canterbury, now, balancing himself on his nose and his palms! Oh! it
+_can't_ be true!"
+
+His voice by this time is positively piteous, and he looks earnestly
+around, as though longing for some one to support his disbelief.
+
+"You are really excelling yourself to-night," says Mrs. Herrick, in a
+delicately disdainful tone.
+
+"Am I? I am glad," humbly, "that _you_ have had an opportunity of seeing
+me at my poor best."
+
+"I wonder," says Desmond, suddenly, "if, when old O'Connor revisits the
+earth at the witching hour, he comes in the attitude so graphically
+described by Kelly? In acrobat fashion, I mean."
+
+At this Monica breaks into laughter so merry, so full of utterly
+childish _abandon_ and enjoyment, that all the others perforce join in
+it.
+
+"Oh! fancy a ghost standing on his head!" she says, when she can speak.
+
+"I shouldn't fancy it at all," says Mr. Kelly, gloomily. "I _won't_. Far
+from it. And I should advise you, Miss Beresford, to treat with less
+frivolity a subject so fraught with terror,--especially at this time of
+night. If that 'grand old man' were to appear now," with a shuddering
+glance behind him, "what _would_ become of us all?"
+
+"An unpleasant idea!" says Miss Browne,--"so unpleasant, indeed, that I
+think I should like to go for a little walk somewhere,--_any_where, away
+from the scene of the late Mr. O'Connor's nightly visitations."
+
+"Come to the end of the shrubbery, then," says Desmond, "and look at the
+sea. It should be worth the trouble on such a night as this. Come you
+too, Olga."
+
+"I should like it, but my head aches so," says Mrs. Bohun, plaintively.
+And, indeed, she is very pale. "It is either the moonlight which
+oppresses me, or--I don't know what. No! I shall go indoors, I think."
+
+"Then I shall go with you," says Mrs. Herrick, regarding her with a
+certain anxiety. "But you," turning to Mary Browne, "must not miss a
+glimpse of the coast by moonlight. Mr. Kelly will show it to you."
+
+She slips her arm through Olga's, and turns towards the house; Ulic
+Ronayne accompanies them; but Lord Rossmoyne and Owen Kelly move in the
+contrary direction with Miss Browne. Monica and Desmond have gone on
+before; and even when the others arrive at the point in the shrubbery
+from which a glimpse of the ocean can be distinctly seen, these last two
+people are not to be discovered anywhere.
+
+Yet they are not so distant as they seem. Desmond has led Monica to a
+rather higher spot, where the desired scene can be more vividly beheld,
+and where too they can be--oh, blessed thought!--_alone_.
+
+Through a belt of dark-green fir-trees, whose pale tips are touched with
+silver by the moon, can be seen the limitless ocean, lying in restless
+waiting in the bay below.
+
+A sort of enforced tranquillity has fallen upon it,--a troubled
+calm,--belied by the hoarse, sullen roar that rises now and again from
+its depths, as when some larger death-wave breaks its bounds, and,
+rushing inland, rolls with angry violence up the beach. Soft white
+crests lie upon the great sea's bosom, tossing idly hither and thither,
+glinting and trembling beneath the moon's rays, as though reluctantly
+subdued by its cold influence.
+
+Across the whole expanse of the water a bright path is flung, that has
+its birth in heaven, yet deigns to accept a resting-place on earth,--a
+transitory rest, for there in the far distance on the horizon, where the
+dull grays of sea and sky have mingled, it has joined them, and seems
+again to have laid hold of its earliest home.
+
+The birds are asleep in their sea-bound nests; the wind has died away.
+There is nothing to break the exquisite stillness of the night, save the
+monotonous beating of the waves against the rocks, and the faint
+rippling murmur of a streamlet in the ash-grove.
+
+The whole scene is so rich with a beauty mystical and idealistic that
+Monica draws instinctively nearer to Desmond, with that desire for
+sympathy common to the satisfied soul, and stirs her hand in his.
+
+Here, perhaps, it will be as well to mention, once for all, that
+whenever I give you to understand that Desmond is alone with Monica you
+are also to understand, without the telling, that he has her hand in
+his. What pleasure there can be for two people in standing, or sitting,
+or driving, as the case may be, for _hours_, palm to palm (this is how
+the poetical one expresses it), I leave all true lovers to declare. I
+only know for certain that it is a trick common to every one of them,
+rich and poor, high and low. I suppose there is consolation in the
+touch,--a sensation of nearness. I know, indeed, one young woman who
+assured me her principal reason for marrying Fred in a hurry (Fred was
+her husband) lay in the fact that she feared if she didn't she would
+grow left-handed, as he was always in possession of the right during
+their engagement.
+
+"Ah! you like it," says Desmond, looking down upon her
+tenderly,--alluding to the charming view spread out before them,--the
+dark firs, the floating moon, the tranquil stars, the illimitable ocean,
+"of Almightiness itself the immense and glorious mirror."
+
+Monica makes no verbal answer, but a sigh of intensest satisfaction
+escapes her, and she turns up to his a lovely face full of youth and
+heaven and content. Her eyes are shining, her lips parted by a glad,
+tremulous smile. She is altogether so unconsciously sweet that it would
+be beyond the power of even a Sir Percivale to resist her.
+
+"My heart of hearts!" says Desmond, in a low, impassioned tone.
+
+Her smile changes. Without losing beauty, it loses something ethereal
+and gains a touch of earth. It is more pronounced; it is, in fact,
+amused.
+
+"I wonder where you learned all your terms of endearment," she says,
+slowly, looking at him from under her curling lashes.
+
+"I learned them when I saw you. They had their birth then and there."
+
+An eloquent silence follows this earnest speech. The smile dies from
+Monica's lips, and a sudden thoughtfulness replaces it.
+
+"You never called any one your 'heart of hearts' before, then?" she
+asks, somewhat wistfully.
+
+"Never--_never_. You believe me?"
+
+"Yes." Her lids drop. Some inward thought possesses her, and then--with
+a sudden accession of tenderness very rare with her--she lifts her head,
+and lays her soft, cool cheek fondly against his.
+
+"My beloved!" says the young man, in a tone broken by emotion.
+
+For a moment he does not take her in his arms; some fear lest she may
+change her mind and withdraw her expression of affection deters him; and
+when at last he does press her to his heart, it is gently and with a
+careful suppression of all vehemence.
+
+Perhaps no man in all the world is so calculated to woo and win this
+girl as Desmond. Perhaps there is no woman so formed to gain and keep
+him as Monica.
+
+Holding her now in a light but warm clasp, he knows he has his heaven in
+his arms; and she, though hardly yet awake to the full sweetness of
+"Love's young dream," understands at least the sense of perfect rest and
+glad content that overfills her when with him.
+
+"What are you thinking of?" she says, presently.
+
+"'Myn alderlevest ladye deare,'" quotes he, softly.
+
+"And what of her?"
+
+"'That to the deth myn herte is to her holde,'--yes, for ever and ever,"
+says Desmond, solemnly.
+
+"I am very glad of that," says Monica, simply; and then she raises
+herself from his embrace and looks straight down to the sea again.
+
+At this moment voices, not approaching but passing near them, reach
+their ears.
+
+"They are going in," says Monica, hurriedly, and with a regret that is
+very grateful to him. "We must go too."
+
+"Must we?" reluctantly. "Perhaps," brightening, "they are only going to
+try the effect higher up."
+
+"No. They are crossing the gravel to the hall door."
+
+"They are devoid of souls, to be able to quit so divine a view in such
+hot haste. Besides, it is absurdly early to think of going indoors yet.
+By Jove, though!" looking at his watch, "I'm wrong: it is well after
+eleven. Now, who would have thought it?"
+
+"Are you sure you mean _eleven_?" with flattering incredulity.
+
+"Only too sure. _Hasn't_ the time gone by quickly? Well, I suppose I
+must take you in, which means candles and bed for you, and a dreary
+drive home for Kelly and me, and not a chance of seeing you alone
+again."
+
+"This time last week you couldn't have seen me at all," says Miss
+Beresford.
+
+"True. I am ungrateful. And altogether this has been such a delightful
+evening,--to me at least: were," doubtfully, "_you_ happy?"
+
+"Very, _very_ happy," with earnest, uplifted eyes.
+
+"Darling love!--I am afraid I must give you up to Mrs. O'Connor now," he
+goes on, presently, when an ecstatic thought or two has had time to come
+and go. "But, before going, say good-night to me here."
+
+"Good-night, Brian."
+
+He has never attempted to kiss her since that first time (and last, _so
+far_) in the orchard; and even now, though her pretty head is pressed
+against him, and her face is dangerously close to his, he still
+refrains. He has given her his word and will not break it; but perhaps
+he cannot altogether repress the desire to expostulate with her on her
+cruelty, because he gives voice to the gentle protest that rises to his
+lips.
+
+"That is very cold good-night," he says. "You would say quite as much as
+that to Kelly or any of the others."
+
+"I shouldn't call Mr. Kelly by his Christian name."
+
+"No; but you would, Ronayne."
+
+"Well, I shan't again, if you don't like it."
+
+"That has nothing at all to do with what I mean. I only think you might
+show me a little more favor than the rest."
+
+"Good-night, then, _dear_ Brian. Now, I certainly shouldn't dream of
+calling Mr. Ronayne dear Ulic."
+
+"Of course not. I should hope not, indeed! But still----there is
+something else that you might do for _me_."
+
+Miss Beresford draws herself a little--_a very_ little--away from him,
+and, raising her head, bestows upon him a glance that is a charming
+combination of mischief and coquetry. A badly-suppressed smile is
+curving the corner of her delicate lips.
+
+"What a long time it takes you to _say_ it!" she says, wickedly.
+
+At this they both break into low, soft laughter,--_delicious_
+laughter!--that must not be overheard, and is suggestive of a little
+secret existing between them, that no one else may share.
+
+"That is an invitation," says Desmond, with decision. "I consider you
+have now restored to me that paltry promise I made to you the other day
+in the orchard. And here I distinctly decline ever to renew it again.
+No, there is no use in appealing to me: I am not to be either softened
+or coerced."
+
+"Well," says Miss Beresford, "listen to me." She stands well back from
+him this time, and, catching up the tail of her white gown, throws it
+negligently over her arm. "If you _must_ have--you know what!--at least
+you shall earn it. I will race you for it, but you must give me long
+odds, and then, if you catch me before I reach that laurel down there,
+you shall have it. Is that fair?"
+
+Plainly, from her exultant look, she thinks she can win.
+
+"A bargain!" says Desmond. "And, were you Atalanta herself, I feel I
+shall outrun you."
+
+"_So_ presumptuous! Take care. 'Pride goeth before destruction, and a
+haughty spirit before a fall,' and you may trip."
+
+"I may not, too."
+
+"Well," moving cautiously away from him, "when I come to that branch
+there, and say one, two, three, you--will----_Now!_"
+
+At this, before he is half prepared, she cries, "one, two, three," with
+scandalous haste, and rushes away from him down the moonlit path. Swift
+and straight as a deer she flies, but, alas! just as the goal is all but
+reached, she finds the race is not to her, and that she is a prisoner in
+two strong arms!
+
+"Now, who was presumptuous?" says Desmond, gazing into her lovely face.
+Her head, with a touch of exhaustion about it, is thrown back against
+his chest; through her parted lips her breath is coming with a panting
+haste, born of excitement and her fruitless flight. He bends over her,
+lower, and lower still. She feels herself altogether in his power.
+
+"As you are strong, be merciful," she whispers, faintly. A warm flood of
+crimson has dyed her cheeks; her smile has faded; she struggles
+slightly, and then all in one moment Desmond becomes aware that tears
+have sprung into her eyes.
+
+Instantly he releases her.
+
+"Darling, forgive me," he says, anxiously. "See how your heart is
+beating now, and all for nothing! Of course I shall let you off your
+bargain. What do you take me for? Do you think I should make you unhappy
+for all the world could offer? Take those tears out of your eyes this
+instant, or I shall be seriously angry with you."
+
+Monica laughs, but in a rather nervous fashion, and lets her lover dry
+her eyes with his own handkerchief. Then she sits down with him upon a
+rustic seat close by, wishing to be quite mistress of herself again
+before encountering the glare of the drawing-room lamps and the still
+more searching light of her friends' eyes.
+
+For a full minute not a word is spoken by either of them She is inwardly
+troubled; he is downcast. Presently she rises with a little restless
+movement.
+
+"No, do not stir just yet," she says. "I only want to pick some of that
+syringa behind you, it is so sweet."
+
+Disinclined for action of any sort, he obeys her. She slips away behind
+him, and he sits there waiting listlessly for her return, and thinking,
+somewhat sadly, how small a way he has made with her, and that she is
+almost as shy with him now as on that day by the river when first they
+met.
+
+And then something marvellous happens that puts all his theories and
+regrets and fears to flight forever. Two soft arms--surely the softest
+in this wide glad world--steal round his neck; a gold-brown head is laid
+against his; a whisper reaches him.
+
+"You were very good to me about _that_!" says somebody, tremulously; and
+then two warm childish lips are laid on his, and Monica is in his arms.
+
+"I wonder what it was that frightened you?" says Desmond, in a tender
+whisper, drawing her down on his knees and enfolding her closely as
+though she were in form the child that verily at heart she still is.
+"Tell me."
+
+"I don't know." She has twined her bare beautiful arms around him, and
+is rubbing her cheek softly up and down against his in a fresh access of
+shyness.
+
+"I think you do, my dearest."
+
+"It was only this; that when I found I couldn't get away from you, I was
+frightened. It was very foolish of me, but whenever I read those stories
+about prisoners of war, and people being confined in dungeons, and that,
+I always know that if I were made a captive I should _die_."
+
+"But surely your lover's arms cannot be counted a prison, my life!"
+
+"Yes, if they held me when I wanted to get away."
+
+"But," reproachfully, "would you want to get away?"
+
+She hesitates, and, lifting one arm, runs her fingers coaxingly through
+the hair fashion has left him.
+
+"I don't want to go away now, at all events," she temporizes sweetly.
+Then, a moment later, "But I _must_, nevertheless. Come," nervously, "we
+have been here a long time, and Madam O'Connor will be angry with me;
+and besides," pityingly, "you have all that long drive home still before
+you."
+
+"I forgot all about the time," says Desmond, truthfully. "You are right:
+we must go in. Good-night again, my own."
+
+Without waiting for permission this time, he stoops and presses his lips
+to hers. An instant later he knows with a thrill of rapture that his
+kiss has been returned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+  How Mary Browne makes confession, though not by creed a Romanist;
+  and how those who receive it are far removed from being holy
+  fathers!--Moreover, I would have you see there is more acting off
+  the stage than on it.
+
+
+Monica's week at Aghyohillbeg is drawing to a close. The day has dawned
+that is to usher in at even the famous representation of "The School for
+Scandal," as given by Miss Fitzgerald, Captain Cobbett, etc.
+
+The whole house is topsy-turvy, no room being sacred from the actors and
+actresses (save the mark!), and all the servants are at their wit's end.
+There have been men down from the Gayety Theatre, Dublin, who have seen
+about the stage, and there have been other men from the village of
+Rossmoyne to help in the decoration of the ballroom, and between these
+two different sets of men an incessant war has been raging for many
+days.
+
+Now at last the house is comparatively quiet, and, as four o'clock
+strikes, Madam O'Connor finds herself in her own special den (the only
+spot that has not been disturbed), with a tea-equipage before her, and
+all her ladies-in-waiting round her.
+
+These ladies, for the most part, are looking full of suppressed
+excitement, and are in excellent spirits and irreproachable tea-gowns.
+Mary Browne, who has developed into a general favorite, is making some
+laughing remark about Lord Rossmoyne, who, with all the other men, is
+absent.
+
+"D'ye know what it is, Mary?" says Madam O'Connor, in her unchecked
+brogue; "you might do something else with Rossmoyne besides making game
+of him."
+
+"What?" says Mary Browne.
+
+"Marry him, to be sure. A young woman like you, with more money than you
+know what to do with, ought to have a protector. Faith, you needn't
+laugh, for it's only common sense I'm talking. Tenants, and the new
+laws, will play the mischief with your soft heart and your estate, if
+you don't get some one to look after them both."
+
+"Well?" says Mary Browne.
+
+"Well, there's Rossmoyne, as I said before, actually going a begging for
+a wife. Why not take him?"
+
+"I don't care about beggars," says Miss Browne, with a slight smile. "I
+am not one of those who think them picturesque."
+
+"He isn't a beggar in any other sense than the one I have mentioned. He
+is a very good match. Think of it, now."
+
+"I am thinking. Indeed, ever since my first day here I been thinking how
+deeply attached he is to Mrs. Bohun. Forgive me, Mrs. Bohun."
+
+Olga laughs lightly. There is something about this plain girl that
+repels the idea of offence.
+
+"What on earth put that idea into your head?" says her hostess, opening
+her eyes, who talks too much both in season and out of it to be able to
+see all the by-play going on around her. "You aren't setting your cap at
+him, are you, Olga my dear?"
+
+"Indeed, no," says Olga, still laughing. "How could so absurd a notion
+have got into _any_body's head?"
+
+"How, indeed?" says Monica, gayly.
+
+"There's Owen Kelly, then; though he isn't as well off as Rossmoyne,
+still he will be worth looking after by and by, when the old man drops
+off. He's as good hearted a fellow as ever lived, when you know what
+he's at,--which isn't often, to do him justice. It struck me he was very
+civil to you last night."
+
+"He was," says Miss Browne, whose merriment is on the increase. "But I
+never met any one who wasn't civil to me: so I found him commonplace
+enough. Ah! if he had only been uncivil, now!"
+
+"Well, there he is, at all events," says Madam O'Connor, sententiously.
+
+"I hope he's comfortable," says Miss Browne, kindly, "I shan't try to
+make him less so, at least. Why don't you recommend Mr. Desmond or Mr.
+Ronayne to my notice?" with a mischievous glance at Monica and Olga
+Bohun.
+
+"I'm afraid they are done for," says Madam, laughing now herself. "And I
+only hope that handsome boy Ronayne isn't laying up sorrow for himself
+and living in a fool's paradise. Indeed, Olga, pretty as you are, I'll
+be very angry with you if I hear you have been playing fast and loose
+with him."
+
+The old lady shakes her head grimly at Mrs. Bohun, who pretends to be
+crushed beneath her glance.
+
+"To prevent you offering me any more suitors," says Mary Browne,
+steadily, but with a rising blush, "I may as well tell you that I am
+engaged to be married."
+
+"Good gracious, my dear! then why didn't you say so before?" says Madam,
+sitting bolt upright and letting her _pince-nez_ fall unheeded into her
+lap.
+
+"I really don't know; but I daresay because you took it for granted I
+wasn't."
+
+"Mary," says Mrs. Herrick, speaking for the first time, and for the
+first time, too, calling Miss Browne by her Christian name, "tell us all
+about it."
+
+"Yes, _do_," says Monica, and all the women draw their chairs
+instinctively a degree closer to the heroine of the hour, and betray in
+her a warm interest. After all, what can equal a really good
+love-affair?
+
+"Go on, my dear," says Madam O'Connor, who is always full of life where
+romance is concerned. "I hope it is a good marriage."
+
+"The best in the world, for me," says Mary Browne, simply, "though he
+hasn't a penny in the world but what he earns."
+
+As she makes this awful confession, she isn't in the least confused, but
+smiles brightly.
+
+"Well, Mary, I must say I wouldn't have believed it of you," says Madam.
+
+"I would," says Monica, hastily laying her hand on one of Mary's. "It is
+just like her. After all, what has money got to do with it? Is he
+_nice_, Mary?"
+
+"So nice!" says Mary, who seems quite glad to talk about him, "and as
+ugly as myself," with a little enjoyable laugh, "so we can't call each
+other bad names; and his name is Peter, which of course will be
+considered another drawback, though I like the name myself. And we are
+very fond of each other--I have no doubt about that: and that is all, I
+think."
+
+"No, it is not all," says Madam O'Connor, severely. "May I ask when you
+met this young man?"
+
+"I must take the sting out of your tone at once, Gertrude," says her
+cousin, pleasantly, "by telling you that we were engaged long _before_
+poor Richard died." (Richard was the scampish brother by whose death she
+inherited all.)
+
+"Then why didn't you marry him?" says Madam.
+
+"I was going to,--in fact, we were going to run away," says Miss Browne,
+with intense enjoyment at the now remote thought,--"doesn't it sound
+absurd?--when--when the news about Dick reached us, and then I could not
+bring myself to leave my father, no matter how unpleasant my home be."
+
+"What is he?" asks Olga, with a friendly desire to know.
+
+"A doctor. In rather good practice, too, in Dublin. He is very clever,"
+says Miss Browne, telling her story so genially, so comfortably, that
+all their hearts go out to her, and Madam O'Connor grows lost in a
+revery about what will be the handsomest and most suitable thing to give
+"Peter" as a wedding-present. As she cannot get beyond a case of
+dissecting-knives, this revery is short.
+
+"Perhaps if you saw some one else you might change your mind," she says,
+a new thought entering her head (of course there would be a difficulty
+about offering dissecting-knives to a barrister or quiet country
+gentleman).
+
+"I have had five proposals this year already," says Miss Browne,
+quietly, "but, if I could be a princess by doing so, I would not give up
+Peter."
+
+"Mary Browne, come here and give me a kiss," says Madam O'Connor, with
+tears in her eyes. "You are the best girl I know, and I always said it.
+I only hope your Peter knows the extent of his luck."
+
+Miss Browne having to leave the room some few minutes later Olga raises
+herself from the lounging position she has been in, with her hands
+clasped behind her head, and says, slowly,--
+
+"I don't think she is so plain, after all."
+
+"Neither do I," says Monica, eagerly, "there is something so sweet about
+her expression."
+
+"I am perfectly certain that man Peter is awfully in love with her,"
+says Mrs. Herrick solemnly, "and that without the slightest thought of
+her money."
+
+"What would he think of her money for?" says Madam O'Connor, testily,
+who had firmly believed him a fortune-hunter only two minutes ago.
+"Isn't she a jewel in herself?"
+
+"By the bye, where is our Bella all this time?" says Olga, suddenly.
+"It now occurs to me that of course we have been missing her all this
+time."
+
+"I know," says Monica, mysteriously: "she is _asleep_,--getting herself
+up for her Lady Teazle. I was running along the corridor, outside her
+room, half an hour ago, when her mother came out on tiptoe and implored
+me to go gently, lest I should wake her."
+
+"Gentle dove," says Mrs. Herrick.
+
+"I shall go and dance the _can-can_ up and down that corridor this
+moment," says Mrs. Bohun, rising to her feet with fell determination in
+her eye.
+
+"I think you had all better go to your rooms and get ready for dinner.
+It is painfully early to-night," says Madam, "on account of all this
+nonsense of Olga's. But no dressing mind, as I have told the men to come
+as they are. There will be plenty of that by and by."
+
+One by one they all dwindle away at the word of command, Olga, true to
+her word, making such a clatter as she passes Miss Fitzgerald's door as
+might readily be classed with those noises popularly supposed to be able
+to wake the silent dead. Whether it wakes Miss Fitzgerald is unknown to
+all save her mother and her maid.
+
+It makes Monica laugh, however who, sitting in her own room, is gazing
+with dreamy delight at the pretty gown Miss Priscilla has ordered from
+Mrs. Sim's for her all the way from Dublin, and which has been spread
+upon her bed by Olga's maid, Mrs. Bohun having insisted on sharing that
+delightful young person with her ever since her first night at
+Aghyohillbeg.
+
+Yet Aunt Priscilla will not be here to-night to see her favorite niece
+dressed in her charming present.
+
+At the last moment, not two hours agone, had come a letter from Moyne to
+Madame O'Connor telling how Miss Penelope had been seized by a bad
+neuralgic headache and was in such pain that Miss Priscilla could not
+find it in her heart to leave her. Kit, escorted by Terence, would
+arrive, however, in time for the opening act; and it would be impossible
+to say how disappointed the two old ladies were (which indeed was the
+strict truth), and they hoped all would be successful, etc., etc.
+
+With a remorseful pang, Monica acknowledges to herself now that she had
+felt a secret gladness when first the news had been retailed to her by
+Madame O'Connor. A sense of being under an obligation to that dire
+neuralgic headache, is oppressing her. It is wicked of her, and most
+cruel, but the secret exultation cannot be denied.
+
+And see how the case stands. Poor Aunt Penelope in vile suffering, Aunt
+Priscilla enduring bitter disappointment,--for she had, as Monica well
+knew, set her heart on witnessing these theatricals,--and Monica herself
+actually glad and light at heart _because_ of the misfortunes that have
+befallen them. Alas! how fiendish it all sounds!
+
+And again, to add to the iniquity of it, for how slight a cause has she
+welcomed the discomfiture of her best friends! For a few dances with
+their enemy, a freedom for happy smiles and unrestrained glances,--_all_
+to be made over to the enemy. For how, with Miss Priscilla's reproachful
+angry eyes upon her, could she have waltzed or smiled or talked with a
+Desmond?
+
+And what is to be the end of it all? A vague feeling of terror compasses
+her round about as she dwells on her forbidden lover. Will she have to
+give him up at the last?--it must be either him or Aunt Priscilla; and
+she owes so much to Aunt Priscilla; while to him--oh, no! she owes him
+nothing; of course he is only--only--and yet----
+
+A bell sounds in the distance; she starts and glances at the tiny clock
+upon her chimney-piece. Yes, it is almost six, and dinner will be ready
+in ten minutes. And afterwards comes "The School for Scandal," and after
+that the tableaux, and after that again dancing,--delights threefold for
+happy eighteen. Her spirits rise; her fears fall; self-contempt,
+remorse, regret, all sink into insignificance, and with a beating heart
+she coils afresh her tinted hair, and twines some foreign beads about
+her slender throat to make herself a shade more lovable in the eyes of
+the man she must not encourage, and whose very existence she has been
+forbidden to acknowledge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The curtain has risen, has fallen and risen again, and now has descended
+for the last time. A flutter--is it rapture or relief?--trembles through
+the audience. "The School for Scandal" has come to a timely end!
+
+I selfishly forbear from giving my readers a lengthened account of it,
+as they (unless any of the Aghyohillbeg party takes up this book) have
+mercy--that is, unfortunately, been debarred by fate from ever
+witnessing a performance such as this, that certainly, without servile
+flattery, may be termed unique. Words (that is, _my_ words) would fail
+to give an adequate idea of it, and so from very modesty I hold my pen.
+
+"It was marvellous," says Sir Mark Gore, who is paying a flying visit to
+Lord Rossmoyne. He says this with the profoundest solemnity, and
+perhaps a little melancholy. His expression is decidedly pensive.
+
+"It was indeed wonderful," says the old rector, in perfect good faith.
+
+And wonderful it was indeed. Anything so truly remarkable, I may safely
+declare, was never seen in this or any other generation.
+
+Miss Fitzgerald's Lady Teazle left nothing to be desired, save perhaps
+an earlier fall of the curtain, while Captain Cobbett's Joseph Surface
+was beyond praise. This is the strict truth. He was indeed the more
+happy in his representation of the character in that he gave his
+audience a Joseph they never had seen and never would see again on any
+stage, unless Captain Cobbett could kindly be induced by them to try it
+on some other occasion.
+
+A few ignorant people, indeed, who plainly found such a splendid
+rendering of the part too much for their intellectual capacity, were
+seized with a laughter profane, if smothered, whenever the talented
+captain made his appearance, giving the rest of the company (who could
+see them shaking behind their fans) to understand that they at least
+were "not for Joe,"--that is, Captain Cobbett's Joe. But the majority
+very properly took no notice of these Philistines, and indeed rebuked
+them by maintaining an undisturbed gravity to the very end.
+
+Sir Peter (Mr. Ryde) was most sumptuously arrayed. Nothing could exceed
+the magnificence of his attire. Upon an amateur stage, startling
+habiliments copied from a remote period are always attractive, and Mr.
+Ryde did all he knew in this line, giving even to the ordinary Sir Peter
+of our old-fashioned knowledge certain garments in vogue quite a century
+before he could possibly have been born. This gave a charming wildness
+to his character, a devil-may-care sort of an air, that exactly suited
+his gay and festive mood. After all, why should Sir Peter be old and
+heavy? why indeed?
+
+The effect was altogether charming. That there were a few disagreeable
+people who said they would have liked to know what he was _at_ (_such_ a
+phrase, you know!), what he _meant_, in fact, and who declared that, as
+a mere simple matter of choice, they liked to hear a word now and again
+from an actor, goes without telling. There are troublesome people in
+every grade of society,--gnats that _will_ sting. Silence is golden, as
+all the world knows; and Mr. Ryde is of it: so of course he forgot his
+part whenever he could, and left out all the rest!
+
+This he did with a systematic carefulness very praiseworthy in so young
+a man.
+
+On the whole, therefore, you will see that the affair was an
+unprecedented success; and if some did go away puzzled as to whether it
+was a burlesque or a tragedy, nobody was to blame for their obtuseness.
+There certainly are scenes in this admirable comedy not provocative of
+laughter; but such was the bad taste of Madam O'Connor that she joined
+in with the Philistines mentioned farther back, and laughed straight
+through the piece from start to finish, until the tears ran down her
+cheeks.
+
+She said afterwards she was hysterical, and Olga Bohun, who was quite as
+bad as she, said, "_no wonder_."
+
+Now, however, it is all over, and the actors and actresses have
+disappeared, to make way for the gauze, the electric light, and the
+tableaux; whilst the audience is making itself happy with iced champagne
+and conversation, kind and otherwise (very much otherwise), about the
+late performance.
+
+Olga Bohun, who is looking all that the heart of man can desire in white
+lace and lilies, leaving the impromptu theatre, goes in search of
+Hermia, who, with Owen Kelly, is to appear in the opening tableau. She
+makes her way to the temporary green-room, an inner hall, hidden from
+the outer world by means of a hanging velvet curtain, and with a
+staircase at the lower end that leads to some of the upper corridors.
+Here she finds Ulic Ronayne, Miss Browne, Monica, Desmond, and Kelly.
+
+She has barely time to say something trivial to Miss Browne, when a pale
+light appearing at the top of the staircase attracts the attention of
+all below. Instinctively they raise their eyes towards it, and see a
+tall figure clad in white descending the stairs slowly and with a
+strange sweet gravity. Is it an angel come to visit them, or Hermia
+Herrick?
+
+It resolves itself into Hermia at last, but a beautiful Hermia,--a
+lovely apparition,--a woman indeed still, but "with something of an
+angel-light" playing in her dark eyes and round her dusky head. Always a
+distinguished-looking woman, if too cold for warmer praise, she is now
+at least looking supremely beautiful.
+
+She is dressed as Galatea, in a clinging garment of the severest Greek
+style, with no jewels upon her neck, and with her exquisite arms bare to
+the shoulder. One naked sandalled foot can be seen as she comes
+leisurely to them step by step. She is holding a low Etruscan lamp in
+one hand upon a level with her head, and there is just the faintest
+suspicion of a smile about her usually irresponsive lips.
+
+No one speaks until her feet touch the hall, when a little murmur,
+indistinct, yet distinctly admiring, arises to greet her.
+
+"I hope I don't look foolish," she says, with as much nervousness in her
+tone as can possibly be expected from her.
+
+"Oh, Hermia, you are looking too lovely," says Olga, with a burst of
+genuine enthusiasm. "Is she not, Owen?"
+
+But Mr. Kelly makes no reply.
+
+A slight tinge of color deepens Mrs. Herrick's complexion as she turns
+to him.
+
+"Poor Mr. Kelly!" she says, the amused flicker of a smile flitting over
+her face, which has now grown pale again. "What a situation! There!
+don't sully your conscience: I will let you off your lie. That is where
+an old friend comes in so useful, you see."
+
+"At all events, I don't see where the lie would come in. But, as you do,
+of course I shall say nothing," says Kelly.
+
+"What a Pygmalion!" says Olga, in high disgust. "And what a speech!
+Contemptible! I don't believe any Galatea would come to life beneath
+_your_ touch. It would be cold as the marble itself!"
+
+So saying, she moves away to where Monica is standing, looking quite the
+sweetest thing in the world, as
+
+    "A nun demure, of lowly port."
+
+"She has prophesied truly," says Kelly, in a low tone, turning to Mrs.
+Herrick. "I fear _my_ Galatea will never wake to life for _me_."
+
+A subdued bell tinkles in the distance.
+
+"Our summons," says Mrs. Herrick, hastily, as though grateful to it; and
+presently she is standing upon a pedestal, pale motionless, with a rapt
+Pygmalion at her feet, and some Pompeian vases and jugs (confiscated
+from the drawing-room) in the background.
+
+And then follow the other tableaux, and then the stage is deserted, and,
+music sounding in the distant ballroom, every one rises and makes a step
+in its direction, the hearts of some of the younger guests beating in
+time to it.
+
+"Where are you going?" says Ulic Ronayne, seeing Olga about to mount the
+stairs once more.
+
+"To help the others to get into civilized garb,--Hermia and Monica, I
+mean. Lady Teazle I consider capable of looking after herself."
+
+"H'm! you say that? I thought Miss Fitzgerald was a friend of yours."
+
+"Then you thought like the baby you are. No! Women, like princes, find
+few real friends. But one in a hundred can fill that character
+gracefully, and Bella is _not_ that one."
+
+She turns to run up the stairs. "Well, don't be long," says Mr. Ronayne.
+
+"I'll be ready in a minute," she says; and in twenty-five she really
+_is_.
+
+Monica, who has had Kit to help her,--such an admiring, enthusiastic,
+flattering Kit,--is soon redressed, and has run down stairs, and nearly
+into Desmond's arms, who, of course, is waiting on the lowest step to
+receive her. She is now waltzing with him, with a heart as light as her
+feet.
+
+Hermia's progress has been slow, but Miss Fitzgerald's slowest of all,
+the elaborate toilet and its accessories taking some time to arrange
+themselves; she has been annoyed, too, by Olga Bohun, during the earlier
+part of the evening, and consequently feels it her duty to stay in her
+room for a while and take it out of her maid. So long is she, indeed,
+that Madam O'Connor (most attentive of hostesses) feels it her duty to
+come upstairs to find her.
+
+She _does_ find her, giving way to diatribes of the most virulent, that
+have Olga Bohun for their theme. Mrs. Fitzgerald, standing by, is
+listening to, and assisting in, the defamatory speeches.
+
+"Hey-day! what's the matter now?" says Madam, with a _bonhommie_
+completely thrown away. Miss Fitzgerald has given the reins to her
+mortification, and is prepared to hunt Olga to the death.
+
+"I think it is disgraceful the license Mrs. Bohun allows her tongue,"
+she says, angrily, still smarting under the speech she had goaded Olga
+into making her an hour ago. "We have just been talking about it. She
+says the most wounding things, and accuses people openly of thoughts and
+actions of which they would scorn to be guilty. And this, too, when her
+own actions are so hopelessly faulty, so _sure_ to be animadverted upon
+by all decent people."
+
+"Yes, yes, indeed," chimes in her mother, as in duty bound. Her voice is
+feeble, but her manner vicious.
+
+"The shameful way in which she employs nasty unguents of all kinds, and
+tries by every artificial means to heighten any beauty she may possess,
+is too absurdly transparent not to be known by all the world," goes on
+the irate Bella. "Who run may read the rouge and veloutine that cover
+her face. And as for her lids, they are so blackened that they are
+positively _dirty_! Yet she pretends she has handsome eyes and lashes!"
+
+"But, my dear, she may well lay claim to her lashes. All the Egyptian
+charcoal in the world could not make them long and curly. Nature is to
+be thanked for them."
+
+"You can defend her if you like," says Bella, hysterically, "but to my
+mind her conduct is--is positively _immoral_. It is cheating the public
+into the belief that she has a skin when she hasn't."
+
+"But I'm sure she has: we can all see it," says Madam O'Connor, somewhat
+bewildered by this sweeping remark.
+
+"No, you can't. I defy you to see it, it is so covered with pastes and
+washes, and everything; she uses every art you can conceive."
+
+"Well, supposing she does, what then?" says Madam, stoutly. She is
+dressed in black velvet and diamonds, and is looking twice as important
+and rather more good-humored than usual. "I see nothing in it. My
+grandmother always rouged,--put on patches as regularly as her gown.
+Every one did it in those days, I suppose. And quite right, too. Why
+shouldn't a woman make herself look as attractive as she can?"
+
+"But the barefaced fashion in which she hunts down that wretched young
+Ronayne," says Mrs. Fitzgerald, "is dreadful! You can't defend that,
+Gertrude. I quite pity the poor lad,--drawn thus, _against his will_,
+into the toils of an enchantress." Mrs. Fitzgerald pauses after this
+ornate and strictly original speech, as if overcome by her own
+eloquence. "I think he should be warned," she goes on presently. "A
+woman like that should not be permitted to entrap a mere boy into a
+marriage he will regret all his life afterwards, by means of abominable
+coquetries and painted cheeks and eyes. It is horrible!"
+
+"I never thought you were such a fool, Edith," says Madam O'Connor, with
+the greatest sweetness.
+
+"You may think as you will, Gertrude," responds Mrs. Fitzgerald, with
+her faded air of juvenility sadly lost in her agitation, and shaking her
+head nervously, as though afflicted with a sudden touch of palsy that
+accords dismally with her youthful attire. "But I shall cling to my own
+opinions. And I utterly disapprove of Mrs. Bohun."
+
+"For me," says Bella, vindictively, "I believe her capable of
+_anything_. I can't bear those women who laugh at nothing, and powder
+themselves every half-hour."
+
+"You shouldn't throw stones, Bella," says honest Madam O'Connor, now
+nearly at the end of her patience. "Your glass house will be shivered if
+you do. Before I took to censuring other people I'd look in a mirror, if
+I were you."
+
+"I don't understand you," says Miss Fitzgerald, turning rather pale.
+
+"That's because you won't look in a mirror. Why, there's enough powder
+on your right ear to whiten a Moor!"
+
+"I never----" begins Bella, in a stricken tone; but Madam O'Connor stops
+her.
+
+"Nonsense! sure I'm looking at it," she says.
+
+This hanging evidence is not to be confuted. For a moment the fair Bella
+feels crushed; then she rallies nobly, and, after withering her
+terrified mother with a glance, sweeps from the room, followed at a
+respectful distance by Mrs. Fitzgerald, and quite closely by Madam, who
+declines to see she has given offence in any way.
+
+As they go, Mrs. Fitzgerald keeps up a gentle twitter, in the hope of
+propitiating the wrathful goddess on before.
+
+"Yes, yes, I still think young Ronayne should be warned; she is very
+designing, very, and he is very soft-hearted." She had believed in young
+Ronayne at one time, and had brought herself to look upon him as a
+possible son-in-law, until this terrible Mrs. Bohun had cast a glamour
+over him. "Yes, yes, one feels it quite one's duty to let him know how
+she gets herself up. His eyes should be opened to the rouge and the
+Egyptian eye-stuff."
+
+While she is mumbling all this, they come into a square landing, off
+which two rooms open. Both are brilliantly lighted and have been turned
+into cosey boudoirs for the occasion.
+
+In one of them, only half concealed by a looped curtain from those
+without, stand two figures, Olga Bohun and the "poor lad" who is to have
+his eyes opened.
+
+They are as wide open at present as any one can desire, and are staring
+thoughtfully at the wily widow, who is gazing back just as earnestly
+into them. Both he and Olga are standing very close together beneath the
+chandelier, and seem to be scanning each other's features with the
+keenest scrutiny.
+
+So remarkable is their demeanor, that not only Bella but her mother and
+Madam O'Connor refrain from further motion, to gaze at them with growing
+curiosity.
+
+There is nothing sentimental about their attitude; far from it; nothing
+even vaguely suggestive of tenderness. There is only an unmistakable
+anxiety that deepens every instant.
+
+"You are sure?" says Olga, solemnly. "Certain? Don't decide in a hurry.
+Look again."
+
+He looks again.
+
+"Well, _perhaps_! A _very_ little less would be sufficient," he says,
+with hesitation, standing back to examine her countenance more safely.
+
+"There! see how careless you can be," says Olga, reproachfully. "Now,
+take it off with this, but lightly, _very_ lightly."
+
+As she speaks, she hands him her handkerchief, and, to the consternation
+of the three watchers outside, he takes it, and with the gentlest touch
+rubs her cheeks with it, first the one, and then the other.
+
+When he had finished this performance, both he and she stared at the
+handkerchief meditatively.
+
+"I doubt you have taken it _all_ off," she says, plaintively. "I
+couldn't have put more than that on, and surely the handkerchief has no
+need of a complexion; whilst I----It must be all gone now, and I was
+whiter than this bit of cambric when I put it on. Had I better run up to
+my room again, or----"
+
+"Oh, no. You are all right; indeed you are. I'd say so at once if you
+weren't," says Ronayne, reassuringly. "You are looking as lovely as a
+dream."
+
+"And my eyes?"
+
+"Are beautifully done. No one on earth could find you out," says Ulic,
+comfortably; after which they both laugh merrily, and, quitting the
+impromptu boudoir, go down to the ballroom.
+
+Mrs. Fitzgerald shows a faint disposition to sob, as they pass out of
+sight. Madam O'Connor is consumed with laughter.
+
+"I don't think I should trouble myself to open 'that poor young
+Ronayne's' eyes, if I were you, Edith," she says, with tears of
+suppressed amusement in her eyes.
+
+"He is lost!" says Mrs. Fitzgerald, with a groan; but whether she means
+to Bella or to decency never transpires.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+  How Madam O'Connor tells how lovers throve in the good old days when
+  she was young; and Brian Desmond thrives with his love in these our
+  days, when he and she are young.
+
+
+The day is near; the darkest hour that presages the dawn has come, and
+still every one is dancing, and talking, and laughing, and some are
+alluring, by the aid of smiles and waving fans, the hearts of men.
+
+Kit Beresford, in spite of her youth and her closely-cropped
+head,--which, after all is adorable in many ways,--has secured, all to
+her own bow, a young man from the Skillereen Barracks (a meagre town to
+the west of Rossmoyne). He is a _very_ young, young man, and is by this
+time quite _bon comarade_ with the sedate Kit, who is especially lenient
+with his shortcomings, and treats him as though he were nearly as old as
+herself.
+
+Monica is dancing with Mr. Ryde. To do him justice, he dances very well;
+but whether Monica is dissatisfied with him, or whether she is tenderly
+regretful of the fact that at this moment she might just as well--or
+rather better--be dancing with another, I cannot say; but certainly her
+fair face is clothed with a pensive expression that heightens its beauty
+in a considerable degree.
+
+"Look at that girl of Priscilla Blake's," says Madam O'Connor, suddenly,
+who is standing at the head of the room, surrounded, as usual, by young
+men. "Look at her. Was there ever such a picture? She is like a martyr
+at the stake. That intense expression suits her."
+
+Brian Desmond flushes a little, and Kelly comes to the rescue.
+
+"A martyr?" he says. "I don't think Ryde would be obliged to you if he
+heard you. I should name him as the martyr, if I were you. Just see how
+hopelessly silly--I mean, sentimental--he looks."
+
+"Yet I think she fancies him," says Lord Rossmoyne, who is one of those
+men who are altogether good, respectable, and dense.
+
+"Nonsense!" says Madam O'Connor, indignantly. "What on earth would she
+fancy that jackanapes for, when there are good men and true waiting for
+her round every corner?"
+
+As she says this, she glances whole volumes of encouragement at Desmond,
+who, however, is so depressed by the fact that Monica has danced five
+times with Ryde, and is now dancing with him again, that he gives her no
+returning glance.
+
+At this apparent coldness on his part, the blood of all the kings of
+Munster awakes in Madam O'Connor's breast.
+
+"'Pon my conscience," she says, "I wouldn't give a good farthing for the
+lot of you, to let that girl go by! She came into Rossmoyne on the top
+of a hay-cart, I hear,--more luck to her, say I; for it shows the pluck
+in her, and the want of the sneaking fear of what he and she will say
+(more especially _she_) that spoils half our women. When I was her age
+I'd have done it myself. Rossmoyne, get out of that, till I get another
+look at her. I like her face. It does me good. It is so full of life _et
+le beaute du diable_," says Madame O'Connor, who speaks French like a
+native, and, be it understood, Irish too.
+
+"_We_ like to look at her, too," says Owen Kelly.
+
+"To look, indeed! That would be thought poor comfort in my days when a
+pretty woman was in question, and men were men!" says Madam, with
+considerable spirit. "If I were a young fellow, now, 'tis in the
+twinkling of an eye I'd have her from under her aunt's nose and away in
+a coach and four."
+
+"The sole thing that prevents our _all_ eloping with Miss Beresford on
+the spot is--is--the difficulty of finding the coach and four and the
+blacksmith," says Mr. Kelly, with even a denser gloom upon his face than
+usual. Indeed, he now appears almost on the verge of tears.
+
+"We never lost time speculating on ways and means in _those_ days," says
+Madame O'Connor, throwing up her head. "Whoo! Times are changed indeed
+since my grandfather played old Harry with the countrymen and my
+grandmother's father by running away with her without a word to any one,
+after a big ball at my great grandmother's, and that, too, when she was
+guarded as if she was the princess royal herself and had every man in
+the South on his knees to her."
+
+"But how did he manage it?" says Desmond, laughing.
+
+"Faith, by making the old gentleman my great-grandfather as drunk as a
+fiddler, on drugged potheen," says Madam O'Connor, proudly. "The butler
+and he did it between them; but it was as near being murder as anything
+you like, because they put so much of the narcotic into the whiskey that
+the old man didn't come to himself for three days. That's the sort of
+thing for _me_," says Madam, with a little flourish of her shapely
+hand.
+
+"So it would be for me, too," says Kelly, mournfully. "But there's no
+one good enough to risk my neck for, now you have refused to have
+anything to do with me."
+
+"Get along with you, you wicked boy, making fun of an old woman!" says
+Madam, with her gay, musical laugh. "Though," with a touch of pride, "I
+won't deny but I led the lads a fine dance when I was the age of that
+pretty child yonder."
+
+"I wonder you aren't ashamed when you think of all the mischief you
+did," says Desmond, who delights in her.
+
+"Divil a bit!" says Madam O'Connor.
+
+"Still, I really think Ryde affects her," says Rossmoyne, who, being a
+dull man, has clung to the first topic promulgated.
+
+"That's nothing, so long as she doesn't affect him," says Kelly,
+somewhat sharply.
+
+"But perhaps she does; and I daresay he has money. Those English fellows
+generally have a reversion somewhere."
+
+"Not a penny," says Mr. Kelly. "And, whether or no, I don't believe she
+would look at him."
+
+"Not she," says Madam O'Connor.
+
+"I don't know that. And, even allowing what you say to be true, women
+are not always to be won by wealth" (with a faint sigh), "and he is a
+very good-looking fellow."
+
+"Is he?" says Desmond, speaking with an effort. "If flesh counts, of
+course he is. 'Let me have men about me that are fat; sleek-headed men,
+and such as sleep o' nights.' To look at Ryde, one would fancy he slept
+well, not only by night but by day."
+
+"I feel as if I was going to be sorry for Ryde presently," says Mr.
+Kelly.
+
+"Well, he's not the man for Monica," says Madam O'Connor, with
+conviction. "See how sorrow grows upon her lovely face. For shame! go
+and release her, some one, from her durance vile. Take heart of grace,
+go in boldly, and win her, against all odds."
+
+"But if she will not be won?" says Desmond, smiling, but yet with an
+anxious expression.
+
+"'That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man if with his tongue he
+cannot win a woman,'" quotes Madam, in a low voice, turning to Desmond
+with a broad smile of the liveliest encouragement; "and as for you,
+Desmond, why, if I were a girl, I'd be won by yours at once."
+
+Desmond laughs.
+
+"I'm sorry I'm beneath your notice now."
+
+"Where's your uncle? Couldn't even my letter coax him here to-night?"
+
+"Not even that. He has gone nowhere now for so many years that I think
+he is afraid to venture."
+
+"Tut!" says Madam, impatiently; "because _he_ jilted a woman once is no
+reason why the rest of us should jilt _him_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is an hour later, and all the guests have gone except indeed Kit, who
+has been sent upstairs tired and sleepy to share Monica's room, and
+Terence and Brian Desmond, who with his friend Kelly are struggling into
+their top-coats in the hall. The rain is descending in torrents, and
+they are regarding with rather rueful countenances the dog-cart awaiting
+them outside, in which they had driven over in the sunny morning that
+seems impossible, when Madam O'Connor sweeps down upon them.
+
+"Take off those coats at once," she says. "What do you mean, Brian? I
+wouldn't have it on my conscience to send a rat out of my house on such
+a night as this, unless under cover." Her conscience is Madam's strong
+point. She excels in it. She ofttimes swears by it! Her promise to Miss
+Priscilla that Desmond shall not sleep beneath her roof during Monica's
+stay is forgotten or laid aside, and finally, with a smile of
+satisfaction, she sees the two young men carried off by Ronayne for a
+final smoke before turning in.
+
+"I don't feel a bit sleepy myself," says Monica, who is looking as fresh
+and sweet as if only now just risen.
+
+"Neither do I," says Olga. "Come to my room, then, and talk to me for a
+minute or two."
+
+They must have been long minutes, because it is quite an hour later when
+a little slender figure, clad in a pretty white dressing-gown, emerges
+on tiptoe from Mrs. Bohun's room and steals hurriedly along the deserted
+corridor.
+
+Somebody else is hurrying along this corridor, too. Seeing the childish
+figure in the white gown, he pauses; perhaps he thinks it is a ghost;
+but, if so, he is a doughty man, because he goes swiftly up to it with a
+glad smile upon his lips.
+
+"My darling girl," he says, in a subdued voice, "I thought you were in
+the middle of your first happy dream by this."
+
+Monica smiles, and leaves her hand in his.
+
+"I am not such a lazy-bones as you evidently thought me," she says. "But
+I must hurry now, indeed. All the world is abed, I suppose; and if Kit
+wakes and finds me not yet come, she will be frightened."
+
+"Before you go, tell me you will meet me somewhere to-morrow. You,"
+uncertainly, "_are_ going home to-morrow, are you not?"
+
+"Yes. But--but--_how_ can I meet you? I have almost given my word to
+Aunt Priscilla to do nothing--clandestine--or that; and how shall I
+break it? You are always tempting me, and"--a soft glance stealing to
+him from beneath her lashes--"I should _like_ to see you, of course, but
+so much duty I owe to her."
+
+"Your first duty is to your husband," responds he, gravely.
+
+She turns to him with startled eyes.
+
+"Who is that?" she asks.
+
+"I am," boldly; "or at least I soon shall be: it is all the same."
+
+"How sure you are of me!" she says, with just the faintest touch of
+offence in her tone that quickens his pulses to fever-heat.
+
+"_Sure!_" he says, with a melancholy raised by passion into something
+that is almost vehemence. "Was I ever so _unsure_ of anything, I wonder?
+There is so little certainty connected with you in my mind that half my
+days are consumed by doubts that render me miserable! Yet I put my trust
+in you. Upon your sweetness I build my hope. I feel you would not
+willingly condemn any one to death, and what could I do but die if you
+now throw me over? But you _won't I think_."
+
+"No, no," says Monica, impulsively, tears in her eyes and voice.
+Tremblingly she yields herself to him, and let him hold her to his heart
+in a close embrace. "How could you think that of me? Have you forgotten
+that I _kissed_ you?"
+
+Plainly she lays great stress upon that rash act committed the other
+night beneath the stars.
+
+"_Forget it!_" says Desmond, in a tone that leaves nothing to be
+desired. "You are mine, then, now,--now and forever," he says,
+presently.
+
+"But there is always Aunt Priscilla," says Monica, nervously. Her tone
+is full of affliction. "Oh, if she could _only_ see me now!"
+
+"Well, she _can't_, that's one comfort; not if she were the hundred-eyed
+Argus himself."
+
+"I feel I am behaving very badly to her," says Monica, dolorously. "I
+am, in spite of myself, deceiving her, and to-morrow, when it is all
+over,----"
+
+"It shan't be over," interrupts he, with considerable vigor. "What a
+thing to say!"
+
+"I shall feel _so_ guilty when I get back to Moyne. Just as if I had
+been doing something dreadful. So I have, I think. How shall I ever be
+able to look her in the face again?"
+
+"Don't you know? It is the simplest thing in the world. You have only to
+fix your eyes steadily on the tip of her nose, and there you are!"
+
+This disgraceful frivolity on the part of her lover rouses quick
+reproach in Monica's eyes.
+
+"I don't think it is a nice thing to laugh at one," she says, very
+justly incensed. "I wouldn't laugh at _you_ if you were unhappy. You are
+not the least help to me. What _am_ I to say to Aunt Priscilla?"
+
+"'How d'ye do?' first; and then--in an _airy_ tone, you know--'I am
+going to be married, as soon as time permits, to Brian Desmond.' No,
+no," penitently, catching a firmer hold of her as she makes a valiant
+but ineffectual effort to escape the shelter of his arms, "I didn't mean
+it. I am sorry, and I'll never do it again. I'll sympathize with
+_anything_ you say, if you will promise not to desert me."
+
+"It is you," reproachfully, "who desert me, and in my hour of need. I
+don't think," wistfully, "I am so _very_ much to blame, am I? I didn't
+_ask_ you to fall in love with me, and when you came here all this week
+to see Madam O'Connor I couldn't possibly have turned my back upon you,
+could I?"
+
+"You could; but it would have brought you to the verge of suicide and
+murder. Because, as you turned, I should have turned too, on the chance
+of seeing your face, and so on, and on until vertigo set in, and death
+ensued, and we were both buried in one common grave. It sounds awful,
+doesn't it? Well, and where, then, will you come to meet me to-morrow?"
+
+"To the river, I suppose," says Monica.
+
+"Do you know," says Desmond, after a short pause, "I shall have to leave
+you soon? Not now; not until October, perhaps; but whenever I do go it
+will be for a month at least."
+
+"A _month_?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A whole long month!"
+
+"The longest month I shall have ever known," sadly.
+
+"I certainly didn't think you would go and do a thing like _that_," says
+his beloved, with much severity.
+
+"My darling, I can't help it; but we needn't talk about it just yet.
+Only it came into my head a moment ago, that it would be very sweet to
+get a letter from you while I was away: a letter," softly, "a letter
+from my own wife to her husband."
+
+Monica glances at him in a half-perplexed fashion, and then, as though
+some thought has come to her for the first time, and brought merriment
+in its train, her lips part, and all her lovely face breaks into silent
+mirth.
+
+"What is it?" asks he, a little--just a very little--disconcerted.
+
+"Oh, nothing; nothing, really. Only it _does_ seem so funny to think I
+have got a husband," she says, in a choked whisper, and then her mirth
+gets beyond her control, and, but that Brian presses her head down on
+his chest, and so stifles it, they might have had Miss Fitzgerald out
+upon them in ten seconds.
+
+"Hush!" whispers the embryo husband, giving her a little shake. But he
+is laughing, too.
+
+"I don't feel as if I honored you a bit," says Miss Beresford; "and as
+to the 'obey,' I certainly shan't do that."
+
+"As if I should ask you!" says Desmond. "But what of the _love_,
+sweetheart?"
+
+"Why, as it is yours, you ought to be the one to answer _that_
+question," retorts she, prettily, a warm flush dyeing her face.
+
+"But why must you leave me?" she says, presently.
+
+"The steward has written to me once or twice. Tenants nowadays are so
+troublesome. Of course I could let the whole thing slide, and the
+property go to the dogs; but no man has a right to do that. I am talking
+of my own place now, you understand,--_yours_, as it will be soon, I
+hope."
+
+"And where is--_our_ place?"
+
+The hesitation is adorable, but still more adorable are the smile and
+blush that accompany it.
+
+"In Westmeath," says Brian, when some necessary preliminaries have been
+gone through. "I hope you will like it. It is far prettier than Coole in
+every way."
+
+"And I think Coole lovely, what I've seen of it," says Monica, sweetly.
+
+Here the lamp that has hitherto been lighting the corridor, thinking,
+doubtless (and very reasonably, too), that it has done its duty long
+enough, flickers, and goes out. But no darkness follows its defection.
+Through the far window a pale burst of light rushes, illumining in a
+cold and ghostly manner the spot on which they stand. "The meek-eyed
+morn, mother of dews," has come, and night has slipped away abashed,
+with covered front.
+
+Together they move to the window and look out upon the awakening world;
+and, even as they gaze enraptured at its fairness, the sun shoots up
+from yonder hill, and a great blaze of glory is abroad.
+
+          "Over the spangled grass
+    Swept the swift footsteps of the lovely light,
+    Turning the tears of Night to joyous gems."
+
+"Oh, we have delayed too long," says Monica, with a touch of awe
+engendered by the marvellous and mystic beauty of the hour. "Good-night,
+good-night!"
+
+"Nay, rather a fair good-morrow, my sweet love," says Desmond, straining
+her to his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+  How The Desmond's mind is harrassed by a gentle maiden and two
+  ungentle roughs; and how the Land League shows him a delicate
+  attention.
+
+
+"By the by," says old Mr. Desmond, looking at his nephew across the
+remains of the dessert, "You've been a good deal at Aghyohillbeg of
+late: why?"
+
+It is next evening, and, Monica being at Moyne and inaccessible, Brian
+is at Coole. Mr. Kelly is walking up and down on the gravelled walk
+outside, smoking a cigar.
+
+"Because Miss Beresford was there," says Brian, breaking a grape
+languidly from the bunch he holds in his hand.
+
+"_What!_" says Mr. Desmond, facing him.
+
+"Because Miss Beresford was there."
+
+"What am I to understand by that?"
+
+"That she was there, I suppose," says Brian, laughing, "and that I am
+head over ears in love with her."
+
+"How dare you say such a thing as that to me?" says the squire, pushing
+back his chair and growing a lively purple. "Are you going to tell me
+next you mean to marry her?"
+
+"I certainly do," says Brian; "and," with a glance of good-humored
+defiance at the squire, "I'm the happiest man in the world to-day
+because she last night told me she'd have me."
+
+"You shan't do it!" says the squire, now almost apoplectic. "You shan't
+do it!--do you hear? I'm standing in your poor father's place, sir, and
+I _forbid_ you to marry one of that blood. What! marry the
+daughter--of--of--" something in his throat masters him here,--"the
+niece of Priscilla Blake, a woman with a tongue! Never!"
+
+"My dear George, you wouldn't surely have me marry a woman _without_
+one?"
+
+"I think all women would be better without them; and as for Priscilla
+Blake's, I tell you, sir, Xantippe was an angel to her. I insist on your
+giving up this idea at once."
+
+"I certainly shan't give up Miss Beresford, if that is what you mean?"
+
+"Then I'll disinherit you!" roars the squire. "I will, I swear it! I'll
+marry myself. I'll do something desperate!"
+
+"No, you won't," says Brian, laughing again; and going over to the old
+man, he lays his hands upon his shoulders and pushes him gently back
+into his chair. "When you see her you will adore her, and she sent her
+love to you this morning, and this, too," laying a photograph of Monica
+before the Squire, who glances at it askance, as though fearful it may
+be some serpent waiting to sting him for the second time; but, as he
+looks, his face clears.
+
+"She is not like her mother," he says, in a low tone.
+
+"I never met such a remorseful old beggar," thinks Desmond, with wonder;
+but just at this moment a servant enters with a message to the squire;
+so the photograph is hastily withdrawn, and the conversation--or rather
+discussion--comes to an end.
+
+"Two of the tenants are asking to see you, sir," says the butler,
+confidentially.
+
+"What two?"
+
+"Donovan, from the East, and Moloney, from the Bog Road, sir."
+
+"Very well; show Moloney into the library, and tell Donovan to wait
+downstairs until I send for him."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, Moloney, come to pay your rent?" says the squire, cheerfully,
+entering the library and gazing keenly at the man who is awaiting him
+there. He is a fellow of ordinary build, with a cringing, servile
+expression and shifting eyes. He smiles apologetically, and shuffles
+uneasily from one foot to the other as he feels the squire's eye upon
+him.
+
+"No, sir; I can't bring it, sir. I'd be in dhread o' my life wid the
+boys to do it."
+
+"I don't know who the gentlemen in question you designate as 'the boys'
+may be," says the squire, calmly. "I can only tell you that I expect my
+rent from you, and intend to get it."
+
+"That's what I come to spake about, yer honor. But the Land League is a
+powerful body, an' secret too; look at the murdher o' Mr. Herbert and
+that English Lord in Faynix Park, and the rewards an' all, an' what's
+come of it?"
+
+"A good deal of hanging will come of it, I trust," says The Desmond,
+hopefully. "In the mean time, I am not to be detered from doing my duty
+by idle threats. I thought you, Moloney, were too respectable a man to
+mix yourself up with this movement."
+
+"I'm only a poor man, sir, but my life is as good to me as another's;
+an' if I pay they'll murdher me, an' what'll become o' me then? An'
+besides, I haven't it, sir; 'tis thrue for me. How can I be up to time,
+wid the crop so bad this year."
+
+"It is as good a year as I have ever known for crops," says Desmond. "I
+will have no excuses of that sort: either you pay me or turn out; I am
+quite determined on this point."
+
+"Ye wouldn't give me an abatement, yer honor?"
+
+"No, not a penny. Not to men such as you, who come here to demand it as
+a right and are very well to do. There are others whose cases I shall
+consider; but that is my own affair, and I will not be dictated to. On
+Monday you will bring me your rent, or give up the land."
+
+"I think ye're a bit unwise to press matthers just now," says the man,
+slowly, and with a sinister glance from under his knitted brows. "I
+don't want to say anything uncivil to ye, sir, but--I'd take care if I
+were you. The counthry is mad hot, an', now they think they've got
+Gladstone wid 'em, they wouldn't stick at a trifle."
+
+"The trifle being my assassination," says old Desmond, with a laugh. He
+draws himself up, and, in spite of his ugly face, looks almost princely.
+"Tut, man! don't think, after all these years among you, I am to be
+intimidated: you should know me better."
+
+The man cowers before the haughty glance the old squire casts upon him,
+and retreats behind his cringing manner once again.
+
+"I thought ye might take into considheration the fact that I'm of yer
+own religion," he says cunningly.
+
+"That you are a Protestant does not weigh with me one inch. One tenant
+is as worthy of consideration as another; and, to tell the truth, I find
+your Roman Catholic brethren far easier to deal with, I will have no
+whining about differences of that sort. All I require is what is justly
+due to me; and that I shall expect on Monday. You understand?"
+
+"Ye're a hard man," says Moloney, with an evil glance.
+
+"I expected you to say nothing else. All the kindness of years is
+forgotten because of one denial. How often have I let you off your rent
+entirely during these twenty years we have been landlord and tenant
+together! There, go! I have other business to attend to. But on Monday,
+remember."
+
+"Ye won't see me that day or any other," says the fellow, insolently,
+sticking his hat on his head with a defiant gesture.
+
+"Very good. That is your own lookout. You know the consequences of your
+non-arrival. Denis," to the footman, "show this man out, and send
+Donovan here."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, Donovan, what is it?" says Desmond, a few minutes later, as the
+library door again opens to admit the other malcontent. He is a stout,
+thick-set man, with fierce eyes and a lowering brow, and altogether a
+very "villanous countenance." He has mercifully escaped, however, the
+hypocritical meanness of the face that has just gone. There is a
+boldness, a reckless, determined daring about this man, that stamps him
+as a leading spirit among men of evil minds.
+
+"I've come here to spake to ye to-night, Misther Desmond, as man to
+man," he says, with a somewhat swaggering air.
+
+"With all my heart," says The Desmond; "but be as fair to me as I have
+ever been to you and yours, and we shall come to amicable terms soon
+enough."
+
+"As to fairness," says the man, "I don't see how any landlord in Ireland
+can spake of it without a blush."
+
+Strange to say, the aggressive insolence of this man fails to rouse in
+Mr. Desmond's breast the anger that the servile humility of the last
+comer had brought into active being.
+
+"Look here, Donovan," he says, "I've been a good landlord to you; and I
+expect you, therefore, to be a good tenant to me. You hint that I, along
+with the rest, have dealt unfairly with my people; but can you prove it?
+You can lay to my charge no tales of harshness. In famine times, and
+when potatoes failed, in times of misfortune and sickness, I have always
+stood your friend, and the friend of every man, woman, and child on my
+estate; yet now what harvest do I reap, save grossest ingratitude? yet
+what more can I hope for in this most unhappy time, when blood is
+unrighteously poured upon the land, and the laws of God and my queen are
+set at naught?"
+
+There is a touch of passionate old-world grandeur in the squire's face
+and manner that works a sense of admiration in Donovan's breast. But it
+quickly gives way to the carefully-cultivated sense of injury that has
+been growing within him for months.
+
+"Ye can talk, there's no doubt," he mutters; "but words go for little;
+and the fact is, I've got no rent to pay ye."
+
+His tone conveys the idea that he _has_ the rent, but deliberately
+refuses to pay it.
+
+"You will bring it on Monday, or I shall evict you," says the Squire
+quietly. "You hear?"
+
+"I hear," says the man, with an evil frown. "But ye can't have it all
+yer own way now, Misther Desmond. There's others have a voice in the
+matther."
+
+"I don't care for innuendoes of that sort, or for any insolence
+whatever; I only mean you to fully know that I must live as well as you,
+and that therefore I must have my rents."
+
+"I know well enough what ye mane," says the man, with increasing
+insolence. "But I'd have you know this, that maybe before long ye'll
+whistle another tune. There's them I could mention, as has their eye
+upon ye, an' will keep it there till justice is done."
+
+"Meaning, until I give up Coole itself to the mob," says the squire,
+with a sneer.
+
+"Ay, _even_ that, it may be," says the man, with unswerving defiance.
+
+"You dare to threaten me?" says The Desmond, throwing up his head
+haughtily, and drawing some steps nearer to his tenant.
+
+"I only say what is likely to prove truth before long," returns the man,
+sturdily, and giving in an inch. "That we'll have no more tyranny, but
+will have a blow for our rights, if we swing for it."
+
+"You can shoot me when and where you like," says Desmond, with a shrug.
+"But I am afraid it will do you no good."
+
+"It will be a lesson to the others," says the man between his teeth.
+
+"To _you_ others,--yes; because it will make my heir somewhat harder on
+you than I am. The Desmonds never forgive. However, that is more your
+lookout than mine. A last word, though: if you were not the consummate
+idiots this last revolt has proved you, you would see how you are being
+led astray by a few demagogues (a butcher's boy, perchance, or an
+attorney's clerk pushed by you from absolute obscurity into a
+Parliament ashamed to acknowledge them), who will save their skins at
+the expense of yours at the last, and who meanwhile thrive royally upon
+the moneys you subscribe!"
+
+"That's a damned lie for ye," says Donovan losing his temper altogether.
+
+At this outbreak The Desmond rises slowly, and, ringing the bell, calmly
+pares his nails until a servant comes in answer to his summons.
+
+"Ask Mr. Brian to come here for a moment," he says, calmly, not lifting
+his eyes from the fourth finger of his left hand, upon the nail of which
+he is just now employed.
+
+Brian lounging in, in a few moments, his uncle pockets his penknife,
+and, waving his hand lightly in Donovan's direction, says, gravely,--
+
+"This man, Donovan, will be one of your tenants, some time,
+Brian,"--plainly, he has forgotten all about his determination to marry
+again, and so dispossess his nephew of Coole and other things, or else
+one glance at Monica's portrait (in which she had appeared so _unlike_
+her mother) has done wonders: "it is therefore as well you should learn
+his sentiments towards his landlord, especially as he is apparently the
+mouthpiece of all the others. Oblige me, Donovan, by repeating to Mr.
+Brian all you have just said to me."
+
+But the man is far too clever a lawyer to commit himself before a third
+party.
+
+"I have nothing to say," he answers, sullenly, "but this, that times are
+hard an' money scarce, an'----"
+
+"We will pass over all that. It is an old story now; and, as you decline
+to speak, I will just tell you again, I intend to have my rent on
+Monday, and if I don't I shall evict you."
+
+"Ay! as you evicted Ned Barry last month, throwing him on the open road,
+with his wife beside him, an' a baby not a month old."
+
+"Nonsense! the child was six months old, and Barry was better able to
+pay than any tenant I have, and more willing, too, until this precious
+Land League tampered with him. He has proved he had the money since, by
+paying a sum to Sullivan yonder for board and lodging that would have
+kept him in his own house for twice the length of time he has been
+there. I know all about it: I have made it my business to find it out."
+
+"Ye're mighty well informed entirely," says Donovan with a wicked sneer.
+
+"If you can't keep a civil tongue in your head, you had better leave
+this room," says Brian, flushing darkly and making a step towards him.
+
+"Who are _you_, to order me about?" says the man, with a fierce glance.
+"Ye're not my master yet, I can tell ye, an' maybe _ye never will be_."
+
+"Leave the room," says Brian, white with rage, pointing imperiously to
+the door.
+
+"Curse ye!" says the man; yet, warned by the expression on Brian's face,
+he moves in a rebellious manner to the door, and so disappears.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"They are the most unpleasant peasantry in the world," says the squire,
+some hours later,--the words coming like a dreary sigh through the
+clouds of tobacco-smoke that curl upwards from his favorite meershaum.
+
+He and Brian and Owen Kelly are all sitting in the library, the scene of
+the late encounter, and have been meditating silently upon many matters,
+in which perhaps Love has the largest share, considering his votaries
+are two to one, when the squire most unexpectedly gives way to the
+speech aforesaid.
+
+"The women are very handsome," says Mr. Kelly.
+
+"Handsome is as handsome does," says the squire with a grunt.
+
+"Don't the Protestant tenants pay?" asks Owen, presently, who is in a
+blissful state of ignorance about the tenant-right affair generally.
+
+"They're just the worst of the lot," says old Desmond, testily: "they
+come whimpering here, saying they would gladly pay, but that they are
+afraid of the others, and won't I let them off? and so forth."
+
+"I wonder," says Brian, dreamily,--it is very late, and he is in a
+gently, kindly, somnolent state, born of the arm-chair and his pipe,--"I
+wonder if one was to give in to them entirely, would they be generous
+enough to----"
+
+"If you can't talk sense," interrupted his uncle, angrily, "don't talk
+at all. I am surprised at you, Brian! Have you seen or noticed nothing
+all these years, have you been blind to the state of the country, that
+you give sound to such utter trash? Pshaw! the weakly sentiment of the
+day sickens me."
+
+"But suppose one was to humor them. I am not alluding to you, my dear
+George," to his uncle,--"I know you have humored them considerably,--but
+I mean landlords generally: would not peace be restored? That fellow
+Donovan to-day was beyond doubt impertinent to the last degree; but of
+course he meant nothing: they would, I should think, hesitate, in their
+own interest, before falling foul of you."
+
+"You don't understand them as I do," says the squire, slowly.
+
+"I still think peace, and not war, should be instilled into them," says
+Brian. "Too many landlords are harsh and unyielding in an aggravated
+degree, when a little persuasion and a few soft words would smooth
+matters. They, of course, are visited with the revenge of the League,
+whilst such as you escape."
+
+These complacent words are still upon his lips, he has had time to lean
+back in his chair with the languid air of one who has given to the world
+views not admitting of contradiction, when a sharp whirring noise is
+heard, followed by a crash of broken glass and the dull thud of a bullet
+that has found its home in the wall right opposite the squire. Right
+opposite Brian, too, for they had been side by side with Owen Kelly,
+fortunately not _quite_, but very nearly, opposite.
+
+For a moment nobody quite knows what has happened, so sudden is the
+thing; and then they spring to their feet, full of the knowledge that a
+bullet has been fired into their midst.
+
+It had passed right over The Desmond's shoulder, close to his ear,
+_between_ him and Brian, and had grazed the sleeve of Kelly's coat, who,
+as I have said, was sitting _almost_ opposite.
+
+With an oath Brian rushes to the window, tears open the shutters, throws
+up the sash, and jumps down into the garden, followed by Kelly and the
+Squire.
+
+It is a dark night, murky and heavy with dense rain-laden clouds, and so
+black as to render it impossible to see one's hand before one. Search
+after a while is found to be impossible and the cowardly would-be
+assassin so far is safe from arrest. Dispirited and indignant, they
+return to the room they left, to discuss the outrage.
+
+"Now, who will preach to me of peace again?" says the squire turning to
+Brian a face pale with excitement.
+
+"Not I," says Brian, with a face pale as his own, and eyes that burn
+fiercely with the wrath of an incomplete revenge.
+
+"I retract every foolish word I said a few minutes since. Henceforth it
+shall be war to the knife between me and my tenantry, as well as yours."
+
+"War to the bullet would be more in harmony," says Mr. Kelly, seriously.
+He has extracted the bullet in question from the wall with the aid of a
+stout penknife, and is now regarding it mournfully as it lies in the
+palm of his hand. "Don't you think they take a very unfair advantage of
+you?" he says, mildly. "They come here and shoot at you; why don't you
+go to their cabins and shoot at them?"
+
+"Let them keep their advantage," says Brian, disdainfully. "We shall
+conquer at last, no matter how many lives it costs us."
+
+"At all events, they won't get a glimpse of the white feather _here_,"
+says the squire, who is looking quite ten years younger. There is
+nothing like a row for an Irishman, after all.
+
+"Still, I think I wouldn't sit with my back to that window any more, if
+I were you," suggests Mr. Kelly, meekly, seeing the squire has sunk into
+his usual seat again.
+
+"It will be a bad winter, I fear," says the squire shaking his head.
+
+"A lively one, no doubt. I quite envy you. I should rather like to stay
+here and see you through it. My dear sir, if you and that enormous chair
+are inseparables, let me entreat you to move it at least a _little_ to
+the left."
+
+    "'I love it, I love it, and who shall dare
+    To chide me from loving this old arm-chair?'"
+
+quotes the squire, with quite a jolly laugh. "Eh? well, Kelly, this is
+hardly a pleasant time to ask a fellow on a visit, and I expect you'll
+be glad to get back to more civilized parts; but we'll write and tell
+you how we're getting on, my lad, from time to time. That is, as long as
+we are alive to do it."
+
+"You shall hear of our mishaps," says Brian laughing too.
+
+"It is rather inhospitable of you not to take the hint I have thrown
+out," says Kelly, with a faint yawn. "_Won't_ you ask me to spend this
+winter with you?"
+
+"My _dear_ fellow, you really mean it?" says Brian, looking at him.
+
+"Oh, yes, I really mean it. Excitement of the sort I have been treated
+to to-night seldom comes in my way. I should like to see this affair
+through with you."
+
+"You're a brave lad!" says the squire; "but there is always a risk in
+this kind of thing, and it is quite probable you will have the roof
+burned over your head one of these dark nights to come. You will have to
+chance that if you stay, as I intend to persevere with these
+blackguardly tenants and fight it out with them to the last."
+
+"To the very last," says Brian, regarding his friend meaningly.
+
+"That's why I'm staying," returns his friend, languidly. Which is half,
+but not the whole, truth, as the fact that Mrs. Bohun and her cousin
+Hermia are going to spend the winter at Aghyohillbeg has a good deal to
+do with it too.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+  How rations fall short in the enemy's camp; and how Monica, armed
+  with a strange ammunition, marches into the hostile land.
+
+
+"Did ye hear, miss? Oh, faix, there's terrible news, ma'am!" says old
+Timothy, trotting into the breakfast-room at Moyne the following
+morning, his face pale with excitement.
+
+"You alarm me, Ryan! what is it?" says Miss Priscilla, laying down her
+fork.
+
+"Oh, it's beyant everything, ma'am! Oh, the blackguards o' the world! It
+was last night, miss, it happened. The ould squire, there below, was
+sittin' in his library, as paceable as ye plaze, ma'am, when they fired
+a bullet at him, an' shot him an' wounded Misther Brian----No, be the
+powers, I b'lave I'm wrong; they kilt Misther Brian an' wounded the
+Squire; an' there's the greatest commotion ye iver see down below,
+miss."
+
+For one awful moment Monica thinks she is going to faint. A mist rises
+between her and Timothy's face; his voice sounds far away, in the next
+county as it were, and then ceases altogether. Then a sharp sting of
+pain rushing through her veins rouses her, and sends the blood back with
+a tumultuous haste to cheek and neck and brow. The pain is short but
+effective, and is, indeed, nothing more than a pinch of a pronounced
+type, administered by the watchful Kit, with a promptitude very
+creditable to her.
+
+"He is exaggerating," says the astute Kit, in a subdued whisper
+apparently addressed to her plate. "Don't believe him; take courage;
+and, at all events, remember their eyes are upon you!" Her tone is great
+with mystery and kindly encouragement. More revived by it than even by
+the pinch, Monica takes heart of grace, and listens with maddening
+impatience for what is yet to come. Glancing at Miss Priscilla, she can
+see that her aunt is as pale as death, and that her hands are trembling
+excessively. Miss Penelope is looking with anxiety at her, whilst trying
+to elicit the truth from Ryan.
+
+"Collect yourself, Ryan," she says, severely. "Who was killed?"
+
+"No one outright, I'm tould, miss,--but----"
+
+"Then who is wounded?"
+
+"The bullet went right through them, miss."
+
+"Through _both_! But that is impossible. I must beg you again to collect
+yourself, Timothy; all this is most important, and naturally Miss
+Blake--that is, _we_--are much upset about it. Through whom did the
+bullet go?"
+
+"The ould squire an' his nephew, miss."
+
+"Through their bodies?" cries Miss Penelope, throwing up hope and both
+her hands at the same time.
+
+"No, ma'am, jist between them, as it might be between you an' Miss
+Priscilla now." He illustrates the real truth as he says this.
+
+"Bless me, man! sure they weren't touched at all so," says Miss
+Penelope.
+
+"No more they were, miss. Sorra a bit, praise be----"
+
+"Then why did you say they were killed?" says Terence, indignantly, who
+has been stricken dumb by the appalling fate of his dear Desmond.
+
+"An' sure how much nearer could they be to it? What saved thim, but
+maybe the hitch of a chair? Oh! wirrasthrue this day!" says old Ryan,
+beginning to cry.
+
+"Timothy sit down directly. Terence get him a glass of whiskey," says
+Miss Penelope. "Now, don't excite yourself, Timothy; you know it is very
+bad for you at your age. Take time, now. Collect yourself!"
+
+"Have the assassins been discovered?" asks Miss Priscilla, in a
+trembling tone.
+
+"No, miss. But I'm tould the polis is very eager afther 'em."
+
+"Was nobody hurt, Timothy?"
+
+"No one, ma'am."
+
+Here Monica, feeling the relief greater than she can support, gives way
+to a dry but perfectly audible sob.
+
+"Don't be afeard, miss, dear," says old Ryan, with heartfelt but most
+ill-judged sympathy: "the _young gentleman_ is all right. Not a single
+scratch on him, they say; so you needn't be cryin' about him, honey."
+
+"Miss Monica is in no wise anxious about Mr. Brian Desmond," says Miss
+Priscilla, recovering from her nervousness with as much haste as though
+she had been subjected to an electric shock. "She is only distressed--as
+I am--by these lawless proceedings."
+
+"An' we hear they're boycotted, too, ma'am," says old Ryan, still
+oppressed with news that must be worked off. "John Bileman, the
+Protestant baker in the village they always dealt wid, has been
+forbidden to give 'em another loaf, and the butcher is threatened if he
+gives 'em a joint, an' the Clonbree butcher has been telegraphed to
+also, miss, an' there's the world an' all to pay!"
+
+"Do you mean that they are going to treat him as they did Mr. Bence
+Jones?" says Miss Penelope, indignantly.
+
+"Troth, I believe so, ma'am."
+
+"Will Mr. Brian have to milk the cows?" says Terence, at which
+astounding thought both he and Kit break into merry laughter until
+checked by Monica's reproachful gaze. How _can_ they laugh when Brian
+may be _starving_?
+
+"Faix, it's awful, miss; an' the ould man to be wantin' for things
+now,--he that allus kep' a fine table, to spake truth of him, and liked
+his bit an' sup amazin', small blame to him. I'm thinkin' 'tis hungry
+enough he'll be now for the future, the crathur! Oh, wirra! wirra!" says
+Timothy, sympathetically, as he shambles towards the door.
+
+When he is gone, Miss Priscilla turns upon Terence and Kit.
+
+"I must say, I think your mirth at such a time most unseemly," she says.
+"I am glad Monica takes no part in it. Terence, did you go up to the
+widow Driscoll with my message this morning?"
+
+"Yes, aunt."
+
+She had evidently expected him to say "no," because her tone is
+considerably mollified when she speaks again.
+
+"Was she pleased, do you think?"
+
+"Yes, aunt."
+
+"She said so, perhaps?"
+
+"No, aunt."
+
+"Then what _did_ she say? I wish, my dear boy, you would try to be a
+little less reticent."
+
+"She said, 'Her duty to you, aunt, and her very coarse veins were worse
+than ever.'"
+
+"Varicose, Terence--varicose!"
+
+"She said very coarse, aunt, and I suppose she knows more about them
+than any one else."
+
+He has a very sweet face, and it is more than usually so as he says all
+this.
+
+"And her son, how is he, poor soul?" asks Miss Penelope, as Miss
+Priscilla withdraws, beaten, into the background.
+
+"His duty to you, too, and 'he is better, but has been much afflicted
+with the egg-cups for the last two days.'"
+
+"_The what!_" says Miss Penelope, shifting her _pinceneze_ uneasily, and
+looking perplexed in the extreme.
+
+"Oh, Terry! how can you be so silly?" says Kit, with another merry
+laugh.
+
+"How am I silly?" with an impassible countenance. "Young Driscoll is
+silly, of course, and evidently looks upon part of the breakfast-ware as
+enemies of some sort. But that is not _my_ fault."
+
+"Hiccoughs he must have meant, my dear," says Miss Priscilla, hastily.
+"Dear--dear--dear! what a terrible shock he--they--must have got last
+night at Coole!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When day is deepening into eventide, Monica, finding Kit alone, kneels
+down beside her, and lays her cheek to hers.
+
+All day long she has been brooding miserably over her lover's danger,
+and dwelling with foolish persistency upon future dangers born of her
+terrified imagination.
+
+She had been down to their trysting-place at the river, hardly hoping to
+find him there, yet had been terribly disappointed when she had _not_
+found him, Brian at that very moment being busy with police and
+magistrates and law generally.
+
+"What is it, ducky?" says Kit, very tenderly, laying down her book and
+pressing her pretty sister close to her.
+
+"Kit," says Monica, with tearful eyes, "_do_ you think it is all true
+that Timothy said this morning about their--their _starving_ at Coole?
+Oh Kit, I can't bear to think he is _hungry_!"
+
+"It is dreadful! I don't know what to think," says Kit. "If nobody will
+sell them anything, I suppose they have nothing to eat."
+
+At this corroboration of her worst fears, Monica dissolves into tears.
+
+"I couldn't eat my chicken at lunch, thinking of him," she sobs. "It
+stuck in my throat."
+
+"Poor sweet love!--it _was_ dry," says Kit, expanding into the wildest
+affection. She kisses Monica fondly, and (though you would inevitably
+have suffered death at her hands had you even hinted at it) is beginning
+to enjoy herself intensely. Once again this luckless couple look to
+_her_ for help. She is to be the one to raise them from their "Slough of
+Despond,"--difficult but congenial task! "Then you have been existing on
+lemon tart and one glass of sherry since breakfast time?" she says, with
+the deepest commiseration. "Poor darling! I saw it; I noticed you ate
+nothing _except_ the tart. You liked that, didn't you?"
+
+"I didn't," says Monica. "I _hated_ it. And I was a cruel, cold-hearted
+wretch to _touch_ it. But it was sweet--and--I--it--somehow
+disappeared."
+
+"It did," says Kit, tenderly.
+
+"Oh, Kit, help me!"
+
+"You mean you want to take him something wherewith to stave off the
+pangs of hunger," says the younger Miss Beresford, with that grandeur of
+style she usually affects in moments of strong excitement, and with the
+vigor that distinguishes her. "I see; certainly." She grows abstracted.
+"There's a leg of mutton hanging in the larder, with some fowl, and a
+quarter of lamb," she says, presently. "But I suppose if we took _them_,
+Aunt Priscilla would put us in the hue and cry."
+
+"It mustn't be thought of. No, no; think of something else."
+
+"Bread, then. Ordinary, of course, very ordinary, but yet the staff of
+life."
+
+"I _couldn't_ take him anything so nasty as mere bread," says Monica, in
+despair. "But, if cook would make us a cake----"
+
+"A big one, with currants! The very _thing_!" says Kit, with decision.
+"And she will never betray us. Reilly, in little affairs of this
+kind,--though sadly wanting where soups are concerned,--is quite all she
+ought to be."
+
+"When will it be baked? He _must_ get it to-night," says Monica, who is
+evidently afraid her lover, if not succored, will die of want before
+morning.
+
+"Leave all to me," says Kit, flitting away from her through the
+gathering gloom to seek the lower region and its presiding goddess.
+
+Leaving all to Kit means that when dinner is over, about half-past
+eight, the two Misses Beresford may be seen crossing the boundary that
+divides Moyne from Coole with anxious haste and a hot cake.
+
+This last is hugged to Monica's breast, and is plainly causing her the
+greatest inconvenience. It is a _huge_ cake, and has to be carried
+parcelwise, being much too big for the smaller basket they had, and
+much too small for the bigger. But Monica--though it is heavy beyond
+description (though, I hope, light in every other way for the sake of
+Reilly's reputation) and still appallingly _hot_--trudges along with it
+bravely, resisting all Kit's entreaties to be allowed to share the
+burden.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Who are those coming towards us through the elms down there?" says Mr.
+Kelly, suddenly.
+
+He and Brian Desmond are sitting upon a garden seat outside the
+dining-room windows, enjoying an after dinner cigar.
+
+"There?" says Brian, following his glance. "Eh?--What?" There is a
+second pause, then, rising to his feet with much precipitancy, he flings
+his cigar to the winds, and, before Owen has time to recover from his
+astonishment at these proceedings, is well out of sight. A turn in the
+lawn has hidden Brian and the advancing figures from his view.
+
+"Monica!" says Desmond, as he reaches her; "what has brought you here at
+this hour? My darling! how pale and tired you look!"
+
+"She has been much perturbed," says Kit, solemnly. She has been
+meditating this remark for some time.
+
+"We heard all about last night," murmurs Monica, with a sweet troubled
+face, out of which her eyes look into his, full of a tender pathos, like
+violets drowned. "And you were not at the river this afternoon, and so I
+came here to find you, and----" Her voice trembles ominously.
+
+"I was obliged to be with the sergeant and the other men all day," says
+Desmond, hurriedly. "Do not blame me, my _love_. When I went to the
+river towards evening it was then of course too late. I meant to go up
+to Moyne when the moon was up----But what have you got there, dearest?"
+pointing to the enormous thing she is still holding tightly to her
+breast.
+
+She colors and hesitates; seeing which, the faithful Kit comes once more
+to the rescue.
+
+"It's a cake!" she says, with a nod of her sleek head. "We knew of you
+being boycotted, and we thought you would be hungry, so we brought it to
+you. But," eyeing him with disfavor, and as one might who feels herself
+considerably _done_, "you are evidently not. You are looking just the
+same as ever, and not a bit _pinched_ or _drawn_, as people are when
+they are found starved in garrets."
+
+"Yes, I was afraid you would get nothing to eat," says Monica, timidly.
+There is in her lovely eyes a certain wistfulness suggestive of the
+idea that she hopes her cake has not been made in vain.
+
+Mr. Desmond, seeing it, grasps the situation.
+
+"I _am_ hungry," he says; and I hope, and think, the gentle lie will be
+forgiven him. "We have had nothing in the house all day but bread, and
+that is not appetizing."
+
+"_There!_" says Monica, turning to Kit with sparkling eyes, "I _told_
+you he wouldn't like bread."
+
+"But," goes on Desmond, with a view to making her future happier,
+"to-morrow all will be right again. We know of a few faithful people who
+will smuggle us in all we may require. So do not be unhappy about me
+again. Sweetheart, what a terrible weight you have been carrying!"
+
+"It _is_ a fine one, isn't it?" says Kit. "But give it to me now,
+Monica," taking the cake from her, "while you talk to Brian: when you
+are ready to come home, I can give it to him."
+
+So saying, this inestimable child withdraws herself and Monica's
+offering to a safe distance, and pretends for the remainder of the
+interview an absorbing interest in some wild flowers growing near.
+
+"I have only a moment to stay," says Monica, nervously. "I shall be
+missed; and now I have _seen_ you safe and unhurt," with a very sweet
+smile, "I shall be able to sleep. But all day long I have been haunted
+by timid thoughts," she sighs.
+
+"I doubt it was a sorry day for you, that first one when we met," says
+Desmond, remorsefully. "I have brought you only trouble. By and by you
+will regret you ever knew me."
+
+"Do not say that. I have no regrets,--none! Even if--if--we cannot be--"
+reddening vividly, "more to each other than we are now, I can still be
+happy in the thought that you love me and are near me, and that I can
+sometimes, in spite of _every one_--" with a recklessness that sits very
+funnily upon her--"see you."
+
+"But we shall be more to each other, Monica," says the young man,
+earnestly. "We shall be all in all to each other. No human being has the
+right to separate two hearts for the sake of a mere whim."
+
+"There are so many things. But now, indeed, I must go. Good-night."
+
+"Good-night, my own. But I shall go with you as far as the boundary
+fence."
+
+"No, no, indeed!"
+
+"But indeed I shall!" and of course he has his own way, and parts from
+her and Kit there, and answers her parting injunction "to take care of
+himself for _her_ sake"--this last very low--with a lingering lover's
+kiss, and watches the two slight figures with a beating heart, until
+they are out of sight.
+
+Then, picking up the cake, he goes back again to where Mr. Kelly is
+still awaiting him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+  How Monica's gift receives due attention, and is thoroughly
+  appreciated; and how a torpedo falls into a morning-room at Moyne.
+
+
+"Well," says Kelly, "was it Miss Beresford?"
+
+"Yes, and her sister. I saw them back to the boundary fence, but they
+would let me go no farther. It was rather----"
+
+"What on earth have you got there?" says his friend, sticking his
+eyeglass in his eye, and staring with bent head and some suspicion at
+the mysterious thing in Desmond's arms.
+
+"This! oh, ah! yes." Then, desperately, "Kelly, if you laugh at it I'll
+never forgive you."
+
+Mr. Kelly drops the eyeglass and looks afflicted.
+
+"My dear fellow, do I _ever_ laugh?" he says.
+
+"Well, it--it's _a cake_!" says Brian, who (in spite of the warning just
+delivered to his friend) is now indulging in wild mirth and can scarcely
+speak for laughter. "She--Monica--heard we were boycotted, and, thinking
+we were starving, the dear angel! she brought this up herself to us."
+
+"Desmond, I'm ashamed of you," says Kelly, who has not moved a muscle of
+his face. "Such an action as hers calls for reverence,--not this
+unseemly gayety."
+
+"It's not the action I'm laughing at," says Brian, still convulsed;
+"it's the _cake_. The action is divine--the cake hot!" Here he sinks
+upon the garden-seat again, as if exhausted, and dries his eyes.
+
+"I see nothing to laugh at in that, either. It seems an excellent cake,
+and, as you say, _hot_," says Mr. Kelly, prodding it meditatively with
+his finger,--"a merit in a cake of this sort, I should say; and nicely
+browned, too, as far as I can see. I can see, too, that it is quite the
+biggest cake I ever made acquaintance with. _Another_ merit! Did she
+carry it herself all the way?"
+
+"All the way, poor darling! and just because she was afraid we should
+be hungry." Mr. Desmond's laughter has subsided, and he now looks rather
+absent. "It quite weighed her down," he says, in a low tone.
+
+"Poor child! I said yesterday, you remember, that I thought her one of
+the nicest girls I have met. The cake has finished me. I think her now
+_the_ nicest." He says this with a cheerful conscience. Between girls
+and widows a deep margin lies.
+
+"But what are we to do with it?" says Brian, regarding the cake, which
+is now lying upon the garden seat, with a puzzled expression.
+
+"Say a repentant tenant--no, that sounds like tautology--say a
+remorseful tenant brought it to you."
+
+"That wouldn't do at all."
+
+"Then say you found it in the garden."
+
+"Nonsense, Kelly! they don't _grow_. Think of something more plausible."
+
+"Give me time, then." As he speaks he absently breaks off a piece of the
+cake and puts it in his mouth. Desmond, in quite as abstracted a manner,
+does likewise. Silence ensues.
+
+"I think the idea was so sweet," says Desmond, presently, his thoughts
+being (as they should be) with Monica.
+
+"As honey and the honeycomb!" says Mr. Kelly, breaking off another
+piece, with a far-off, rapt expression.
+
+"She said she couldn't be happy, thinking we were hungry. Her dear heart
+is too big for her body."
+
+"Her cake is certainly," says Mr. Kelly: here he takes a third enormous
+pinch out of it, and Desmond follows his example.
+
+"I didn't tell her we had had dinner," says Brian. "It would have taken
+the gloss off it."
+
+"Off this?" pointing to the smoking structure between them. "I don't
+believe it."
+
+"No, the deed."
+
+Another silence.
+
+"It's a capital cake," says Mr. Kelly, pensively, who has been eating
+steadily since the first bite. "After all, give me a good sweet,
+home-made cake like this! Those bought ones aren't to be named in the
+same day with it. There is something so light and wholesome about a cake
+like this."
+
+"Wholesome!" doubtfully: "I don't know about that. What _I_ like about
+it is that it is hot and spongy. But, look here, you haven't yet said
+what we are to do with it."
+
+"I think we are doing uncommonly well with it," says Kelly, breaking off
+another piece.
+
+"But what are we to do with the remains, provided we leave any, which at
+present seems doubtful?"
+
+"Keep, them, of course. You ought to, considering she gave it you whole
+as a present."
+
+"You are right: no one shall touch a crumb of it save you and me," says
+Mr. Desmond, as though inspired. "Let us smuggle it up to my room and
+keep it there till it is finished."
+
+"I feel as if I was at school again with a plum-cake and a chum," says
+Mr. Kelly.
+
+"Well, come and follow me up with it now, and distract my uncle's
+attention if we meet him."
+
+"To _my_ room or yours?" insinuatingly.
+
+"To _mine_," firmly.
+
+"I'd take the greatest care of it, if you like to trust it to me," with
+what Kit would certainly have termed "an obliging air."
+
+"I don't doubt you," sardonically. "But certainly _not_. It was given to
+me, and I feel myself bound to look after it."
+
+"Pity we can't have it petrified," says Mr. Kelly, thoughtfully. "Then
+you might hang it round your neck as a trophy." At this they both laugh,
+and finally the trophy, after much difficulty is satisfactorily stored
+away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is a fortnight later, and desolation has overtaken Monica. Brian has
+passed out of her active life, has ceased from that seeing and hearing
+and that satisfaction of touch that belong to a daily intercourse with
+one beloved. Only in thought can she find him now. He has gone upon that
+threatened journey to those detested estates of his in Westmeath.
+
+Yesterday he went; and to-day as she wakes it seems to her that a cold
+and cruel mist has wrapped her world in its embrace. We never know how
+we prize a thing until we lose it (N. B.--Mark the novelty of this
+idea;) and now, for the first time, Monica finds herself fully awake to
+the fact of how necessary Desmond is to her everyday happiness.
+
+She had gone down to the river-side to bid him farewell, and had been
+calm, almost careless, throughout the interview,--_so_ calm that the
+young man's heart dies within him, and a latent sense of hope deferred
+had made it sick.
+
+But just at the very last she had given way, and had flung herself into
+his embrace, and twined her arms around his neck,--dear, clinging
+arms--and had broken into bitter weeping. And--
+
+"Don't be long, Brian! don't be _long_!" she had sobbed, with deep
+entreaty, and with such a tender passion as had shaken all her slender
+frame.
+
+So they had "kissed and kissed," and parted. And Desmond, though sad as
+man may be at the thought that he should look upon her face no more for
+four long weeks, still left her with a gladder heart than he had ever
+known. Her tears were sweet to him, and in her grief he found solace for
+his own.
+
+And, indeed, as the days flew by, they found the pain of absence was
+checkered by dreams of the reunion that lay before them; and each day,
+as it was born, and grew, and died, and so was laid upon the pile of
+those already gone, was a sad joy to them, and counted not so much a day
+lost as one gained.
+
+"We take no note of time but from its loss." This loss in the present
+instance was most sweet to Monica and her lover. To them Time was the
+name of a slow and cruel monster, whose death was to be desired.
+
+And now the monster is slain, and to-day Brian will return to Coole. A
+few lines full of joyful love and glad expectancy had been brought to
+her yesterday by the sympathetic Bridget, who affected an ignorance
+about the whole matter that utterly imposed on Monica, who would have
+found a bitterness in sharing her heart's secret with her maid. Yet
+Bridget knows quite as much about it as she does. To Kit alone has
+Monica unburdened her soul, and talked, and talked, and talked, on her
+one fond topic, without discovering the faintest symptom of fatigue in
+that indefatigable person.
+
+Yes, to-day he comes! Monica had risen with the lark, unable to lie abed
+with the completion of a sweet desire lying but a few short hours away
+from her, and had gone through the morning and afternoon in a dreamy
+state of tender anticipation.
+
+Yet surely not short, but of a terrible length, are these hours. Never
+has the old clock ticked with such maddening deliberation; yet--
+
+    "Be the day weary, or never so long,
+    At length it ringeth to evensong;"
+
+and at last the old clock, tick it never so slowly, must bring round the
+hour when she may go down to the river to meet her love again.
+
+But the relentless Fates are against her, and who shall interfere with
+their woven threads? As though some vile imp of their court had
+whispered in Miss Priscilla's ear the whole story of her forbidden
+attachment, she keeps Monica in the morning-room with her, copying out
+certain recipes of a dry nature, that could have been copied just as
+well to-morrow, or next year, or _never_.
+
+As the hour in which she ought to meet her lover comes and goes by, the
+poor child's pulses throb and her heart beats violently. Kit has gone to
+the village, and so cannot help her. All seems lost. Her eyes grow large
+and dark with repressed longing, her hand trembles.
+
+"There, that will do, dear child; thank you," says Miss Priscilla,
+gratefully, folding up the obnoxious papers and slipping them into the
+davenport.
+
+It is now quite half an hour past the time appointed by Desmond in his
+letter. Monica, rising impetuously, moves towards the door.
+
+"Is the writing at an end?" Miss Penelope's voice comes to her from the
+other end of the room, with a plaintive ring in it. It casts despair
+upon the hopes that are kindling afresh within her bosom. "Dear, dear!
+I'm so glad! Monica, come to me, and help me with this wool. It has got
+so entangled that only bright eyes like yours," with a loving smile,
+"can rescue it from its hopeless state."
+
+Poor Monica! after one passionate inclination to rebel, her courage
+fails her, and she gives in, and taking the tangled skein of wool (that
+reminds her in a vague, sorrowful fashion of her own hapless love story)
+between her slender fingers, bends over it.
+
+Her cheeks are aflame. Her eyes are miserable but tearless. It all seems
+too cruel. There sits Aunt Priscilla at the davenport, with a smile of
+triumph on her lips, as she finds her accounts right to a halfpenny.
+Here sits Aunt Penelope fanning herself with soft complacency, because
+the day, though of September, is sultry as of hot July. And all this
+time Brian is walking impatiently to and fro upon the tiny beach,
+thinking her cold, unloving, indifferent, watching with straining,
+reproachful eyes the path along which she ought to come.
+
+This last thought is just too much. A great fire kindles in her
+beautiful eyes; the spirit of defiance seizes on her gentle breast; her
+lips quiver; her breath comes from between them with a panting haste.
+"Yes! she will go to him, she will!" She rises to her feet.
+
+Just at that moment the door is flung wide open, and Desmond enters the
+room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+  How the Misses Blake receive the nephew of their sworn foe--How
+  Monica at all hazards proclaims her truth--And how Miss Priscilla
+  sees something that upsets her and the belief of years.
+
+
+One moment of coma ensues. It is an awful moment, in which nobody seems
+even to breathe. The two Misses Blake turn into a rigidity that might
+mean stone; the young man pauses irresolutely, yet with a sternness
+about his lips that bespeaks a settled purpose not to be laid aside for
+any reason, and that adds some years to his age.
+
+Monica has turned to him. The tangled wool has fallen unconsciously from
+her hands to her feet. Her lips are parted, her eyes wide: she sways a
+little. Then a soft rapturous cry breaks from her, there is a
+simultaneous movement on his part and on hers; and then--she is in his
+arms.
+
+For a few moments speech is impossible to them: there seems nothing in
+the wide world but he to her, and she to him.
+
+Then he lifts her face, and looks at her long and eagerly.
+
+"Yes, I have found you again, my love,--_at last_," he says.
+
+"Ah! how long it has seemed!" whispers she, with tears in her eyes.
+
+The old ladies might have been in the next county, so wrapt are they in
+their happy meeting. Their hearts are beating in unison; their souls are
+in their eyes. She has reached her home,--his breast,--and has laid her
+heart on his. The moment is perfect, and as near heaven as we poor
+mortals can attain until kindly death comes to our aid.
+
+It is but a little moment, however. It passes, and recollection returns.
+Monica, raising her head, sees the two Misses Blake standing side by
+side, with folded, nerveless hands, and fixed eyes, and horror-stricken
+faces. Shrinking still closer to her lover, Monica regards them with a
+troubled conscience and with growing fear. She is at last discovered,
+and her sin is beyond redemption.
+
+She trembles in Desmond's arms, and pales visibly. But the frantic
+beating of her heart against his renders him strong and bold. He throws
+up his head, with the action of one determined to fight to the death.
+No one shall ever take her from him. He is only too anxious to enter the
+lists and do battle for his love.
+
+And then, as his eyes light upon his foes, his spirit dies. Poor old
+ladies, so stupefied, so stricken! are they not already conquered?
+Looking at the frail front they present, he feels his weapons must be
+blunted in this fight, his gloves anything but steel.
+
+A terrible silence fills the room,--a silence that grows almost
+unbearable, until at length it is broken by Miss Priscilla. Her voice is
+low, and hushed and broken.
+
+"Monica, why did you deceive us?" she says.
+
+There is reproach, agonized disappointment, in her tone, but no anger.
+
+To these poor old women the moment is tragical. The child of their last
+years--the one thing they had held most dear and sacred--has proved
+unworthy, has linked herself with the opposition, has entered the lists
+of the enemy. They are quite calm, though trembling. Their grief is too
+great for tears. But they stand together, and there is a lost and
+heart-broken look about them.
+
+Monica, seeing it, breaks away from her lover's restraining arms, and,
+running to Miss Priscilla, falls down on her knees before her, and,
+clasping her waist with her soft, white arms, bursts into bitter tears.
+She clings to Miss Priscilla; but the old lady, though her distress is
+very apparent, stands proudly erect, and looks not at her, but at
+Desmond. The tears gather slowly in her eyes--tears come ever slowly to
+those whose youth lies far behind--and fall upon the repentant sunny
+head; but the owner shows no sign of forgiveness; yet I think she would
+have dearly liked to take the sweet sinner in her arms, to comfort and
+forgive her, but for the pride and wounded feeling that overmastered
+her.
+
+"Your presence here, sir, is an insult," she says to Desmond, meaning to
+be stern; but her grief has washed away the incivility of her little
+speech and has left it only vaguely reproachful. Desmond lowers his head
+before her gaze, and refrains from answer or explanation. A great sorrow
+for the defencelessness of _their_ sorrow has arisen in his breast for
+these old aunts, and killed all meaner thoughts. I think he would have
+felt a degree of relief if they had both fallen upon him, and said hard
+things to him, and so revenged themselves in part.
+
+Monica is sobbing bitterly. Not able to endure her grief, Desmond,
+going even to the feet of Miss Priscilla, tries to raise her from the
+ground. But she clings even more closely to Miss Priscilla, and so
+mutely refuses to go to him.
+
+A pang, a sudden thought, shoots through him, and renders him desperate.
+Will they be bad to his poor little girl when he is gone? will they
+scold her?
+
+"Oh, madam," he says to Miss Priscilla, with a break in his voice,
+"_try_ to forgive her; be gentle with her. It was all my fault,--mine
+entirely. I loved her, and when she refused to hear me plead my cause,
+and shrunk from me because of that unhappy division that separates my
+family from yours, and because of her reverence for your wishes, I still
+urged her, and induced her to meet me secretly."
+
+"You did an evil deed, sir," says Miss Priscilla.
+
+"I acknowledge it. I am altogether to blame," says Desmond, hastily.
+"She has had nothing to do with it. Do not, I beseech you, say anything
+to her when I am gone that may augment her self-reproach." He looks with
+appealing eyes at Miss Blake, his hand on Monica's shoulder, who has her
+face hidden in a fold of her aunt's gown.
+
+"Sir," says Miss Priscilla, drawing herself up, with a touch of
+old-world grandeur in her manner, but a sad tremulousness in her tone,
+"my niece has been with us now for some time, and we have dared to hope
+she has been treated in accordance with the great love we feel for her."
+
+"The _great_ love," echoes Miss Penelope, gently. Though deeply
+distressed, both old ladies are conscious of a subdued admiration for
+the young man, because of the tenderness of his fears for his beloved.
+
+"But if," says Miss Priscilla, with a mournful glance at the pretty
+bowed head--"if _she_ thinks we have failed in our love towards her, as
+indeed it seems it may be, by your finding it necessary to ask us to
+treat her with kindness in this trouble,--we can only say to her that we
+regret,--that we----" Here she breaks down, and covers her sad old face
+with her trembling hands.
+
+Monica springs to her feet.
+
+"Oh, auntie!" she says, a world of love and reproach and penitence in
+her voice. She throws her arms round her aunt's neck; and, Miss
+Priscilla clasping her in turn, somehow in one moment the crime is
+condoned, and youth and age are met in a fond embrace.
+
+"Go, sir," says Miss Priscilla, presently, without lifting her eyes.
+There is so much gentleness in her tone that the young man is emboldened
+to ask a question.
+
+"You will permit me to come to-morrow, to--to--plead my cause?" he says,
+anxiously.
+
+Miss Priscilla hesitates, and a pang of apprehension rushes through his
+heart. He is almost in despair, when Miss Penelope's voice breaks the
+oppressive silence.
+
+"Yes. Come to-morrow," she says, pressing Miss Priscilla's arm. "To-day
+we are too tired, too upset. To-morrow let it be."
+
+"I thank you madam," says Desmond, humbly; and then he turns to go, but
+still lingers, with grieved eyes fixed on Monica.
+
+"Monica, you will give me one parting word?" he says, at last, as though
+the petition is wrung from him.
+
+Still holding Miss Priscilla's hand, she turns to him, and, raising her
+other arm, places it softly round his neck. Holding them both thus, she
+seems the embodiment of the spirit that must in the end unite them. Her
+position compels her to throw back her head a little, and she smiles at
+him, a sad little smile, but bright with love and trust.
+
+"Not a _parting_ word," she says, with a sweetness so grave as to be
+almost solemn.
+
+"You will be true to me?" says Desmond, reckless of listeners. He has
+his arms round her, and is waiting for her answer with a pale, earnest
+face. Something in the whole scene touches the two kindly old maids with
+a sense of tender reverence.
+
+"Until my death," says the girl, with slow distinctness, laying her head
+against the gray sleeve of his coat.
+
+A great wave of color--born of emotion and love that is stronger than
+the grave--sweeps over his face. He stoops and lays his lips on hers.
+When he is gone, Monica turns suddenly upon Miss Priscilla.
+
+"Do not say a word to me!" she cries, feverishly; "I could not bear
+it--_now_. I may have done wrong, but I am not sorry for it. I love him.
+That should explain everything to you; it means _all_ to me! Nothing can
+alter that! And I will have nothing said,--nothing; and----"
+
+"Nothing shall be said, dear child," says Miss Penelope, gently.
+"Everything shall be as you wish with regard to us. Can you not trust us
+to spare you where we _can_?"
+
+"I am ungrateful. I must go and think it all out," says Monica,
+stoutly, pressing her hands against her head. She turns away. A little
+cry breaks from Miss Priscilla.
+
+"Oh! not without kissing us _too_, Monica!" she says, in a broken voice,
+holding out her arms to her niece. Monica throws herself into them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Long and eager is the discussion that follows on the girl's
+disappearance.
+
+The two Misses Blake, side by side, argue (with what they erroneously
+term dispassionate calmness) the case just laid before them.
+
+"I don't know what is to be done," says Miss Priscilla, at length: "all
+I do know is that, for her sake, consent will be impossible."
+
+"And what is to be said to him to-morrow? He looks so earnest, so--full
+of her. _What_ is to be said to him?"
+
+"So his uncle looked at her mother," says Miss Priscilla, with a
+terrible bitterness; "and what came of that? Is this young man to steal
+from us our best and dearest--as _he_ did? Be firm, Penelope. For her
+sake crush this attachment before the fickleness that is in his blood
+asserts itself to break her heart."
+
+"I fear it will be broken either way," says Miss Penelope, who has a
+secret hankering after all true lovers.
+
+"At least her self-respect will be spared, and for that she will thank
+us later on. She must give him up!"
+
+"Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, in a low tone, "supposing she _refuses_
+to do it?"
+
+"When I have fully explained the matter to her, she will withdraw her
+refusal," says Miss Priscilla, very grandly, but her expression is not
+up to her tone in anyway. It is, indeed, depressed and uncertain.
+
+"He struck me as being a very attractive young man," ventures Miss
+Penelope absently.
+
+"Humph!" says Miss Priscilla.
+
+"And--but that would be impossible in one of his name--a very _lovable_
+young man," says Miss Penelope, timidly.
+
+"Hah!" says Miss Priscilla: this ejaculation is not meant for surprise
+or acquiescence, but is merely a warlike snort.
+
+"And very loving, too," says Miss Penelope, dreamily. "I never saw such
+eyes in my life! and he never took them off her."
+
+"Penelope," says Miss Priscilla, with such a sudden and awful amount of
+vehemence as literally makes Miss Penelope jump, "I am ashamed of you.
+Whatever we--that is" (slightly confused) "_you_ may think about that
+young man, please keep it to yourself, and at least let me never hear
+you speak of a Desmond in admiring terms."
+
+So saying, she stalks from the rooms and drives down to the village to
+execute a commission that has been hanging over her for a fortnight, and
+which she chooses to-day to fulfil, if only to prove to the outer world
+that she is in no wise upset by the afternoon excitement.
+
+Yet in a very short time she returns from her drive, and with a
+countenance so disturbed that Miss Penelope's heart is filled with fresh
+dismay.
+
+"What is it?" she says, following Miss Priscilla into her own room. "You
+have heard something further; you have seen----"
+
+"Yes, I have seen _him_--young Desmond," says Miss Priscilla, with an
+air of much agitation. "It was just outside the village, on my way home;
+and he was carrying a little hurt child in his arms, and he was hushing
+it so tenderly; and--the little one was looking up in his face--and he
+kissed it--and----_Why_ isn't he a _bad_, _wicked_ young man?" cries
+Miss Priscilla, in a frenzy of despair, bursting into tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+  How Miss Priscilla is driven to enter Coole--How she there receives
+  an important proposal, but with much fortitude declines it--And how
+  The Desmond suffers more from a twinge of conscience than from a
+  bullet.
+
+
+In the morning, a certain amount of constraint prevails with every one.
+Kit is, of course, aware of all that has happened, and of the day's
+expected visitor for Monica, who has refused to come down to breakfast,
+and who is as unsettled and miserable as she well can be. Kit has
+espoused her cause _con amore_, and is (I need hardly say) ready for
+open war at a moment's notice. She has indeed arranged a plan of action
+that will bring her on the battle-field at a critical moment to deliver
+a speech culled from some old novels in her room and meant to reduce
+both her aunts to annihilation.
+
+When breakfast is over she disappears to study her part afresh, and the
+Misses Blake, too, separate and go to their own rooms, with an air of
+careful unconcern, that would not have imposed upon a one-year babe.
+
+When again they reappear, they seem desirous of avoiding each other's
+glances, whereupon it occurs suddenly to everybody that they have both
+put on their very best silk gowns and lace caps, and have in fact got
+themselves up with elaborate care to receive--a _Desmond_! No wonder
+they are ashamed of themselves!
+
+Still keeping up the outward symptoms of supreme indifference, they seat
+themselves in the drawing-room, Miss Penelope attacking her knitting
+with tremendous vigor, whilst Miss Priscilla gets apparently lost in the
+pages of "Temple Bar." Monica, sliding in presently like a small ghost,
+in her clinging white gown, slips into a seat in the window that
+overlooks the avenue, and hides herself and her pretty anxious face
+behind the lace curtains.
+
+An hour glides by with aggravating slowness; and then a sound of wheels
+upon the gravel makes Monica's heart beat almost to suffocation. The two
+Misses Blake, suddenly forgetful of their _role_ of unconcern, start
+from their seats and go to the window where Monica now is standing. A
+brougham and pair of horses drive up to the door, and a young man,
+opening the door, springs to the ground. It is Desmond.
+
+"To come here in a close carriage!" says Miss Priscilla, with much
+contempt. "Is he afraid of catching cold, I wonder? I never heard of
+such foppery in my life."
+
+"He is not a fop," says Monica, indignantly, and then she catches sight
+of her lover's face, and something in it awakes within her a prescience
+of coming evil.
+
+Then the drawing-room door is thrown open with rather unceremonious
+haste, and the young man, entering, goes straight to where Miss
+Priscilla is standing, merely taking and holding Monica's hand as he
+reaches her, but addressing to her neither word nor look. He seems
+greatly agitated, and altogether unlike the man who stood here yesterday
+and almost defied them. His face is very pale, and full of honest grief
+and indignation.
+
+"My uncle is at death's doors," he says in a voice that quivers with
+rage and excitement. "Coming home late last night he was shot at by some
+ruffians from behind the blackthorn hedge on the Coole road. He wants
+you Miss Blake" (to Priscilla). "He is asking for you. You will not
+refuse to come to a man who may be dying for all we know! I have
+brought the carriage for you, and I implore you not to delay, but to
+come to him at once."
+
+Miss Priscilla has sunk into a chair, and is quite colorless; Miss
+Penelope clasps her hands.
+
+"Oh, poor George!" she says, involuntarily, almost unconsciously. His
+present danger has killed remembrance of all the angry years that stand
+between to-day and the time when last she called him by his Christian
+name.
+
+"When did it happen? How?" asks Monica, tightening her fingers round
+his, and trembling visibly.
+
+"About ten o'clock last evening. Both Kelly and I were with him, and a
+groom. Two shots were fired. Kelly and I jumped off the dog-cart and
+gave chase and succeeded in securing one of them. There were four
+altogether, I think. We did not know my uncle was wounded when we ran
+after them, but when we came back we found Murray the groom holding him
+in his arms. He was quite insensible. I left Kelly and Murray to guard
+our prisoner, and drove my uncle home myself. He is very badly hurt.
+Miss Blake," turning again to Miss Priscilla, "you will come with me?"
+
+"Oh, yes, yes," says Miss Priscilla, faintly.
+
+"And I shall go with you, my dear Priscilla," says Miss Penelope,
+heroically. "Yes, you will want me. To find yourself face to face with
+him after all these years of estrangement and in so sad a state will be
+distressing. It is well I should be on the spot to lend you some
+support."
+
+Miss Priscilla lays her hand on her arm.
+
+"I think I shall go alone, Penelope," she says, falteringly. For one
+moment Miss Penelope is a little surprised, and then in another moment
+she is not surprised at all. But I believe in her heart she is a good
+deal disappointed: there is a flavor of romance and excitement about
+this expedition she would gladly have tasted.
+
+"Well, perhaps it will be better so," she says, amiably. "I am glad he
+has sent for you. He will be the easier for _your_ forgiveness, though
+he cannot obtain _hers_, now. Come upstairs: you should not keep Mr.
+Desmond waiting." There is a kindly light in her eyes as she glances at
+the young man. And then she takes Miss Priscilla away to her room, and
+helps her carefully with her toilet, and accepts the situation as a
+matter of course, though in her secret soul she is filled with amazement
+at The Desmond's sending for Miss Priscilla even though lying at death's
+door.
+
+And indeed when the old man had turned to Brian and asked him to bring
+Miss Blake to Coole, Brian himself had known surprise too, and some
+misgivings. Was he going to make her swear never to give her consent to
+his (Brian's) marriage with her niece? or was he going to make open
+confession of that dishonorable action which caused Miss Blake's pretty
+stepsister to suffer dire tribulation, according to the gossips round?
+
+"I should like to see Priscilla Blake," the old squire had said, in a
+low whisper, his nephew leaning over him to catch the words, and then he
+had muttered something about "old friends and forgiveness," that had not
+so easily been understood.
+
+"You shall see her," the younger man says, tenderly. "I'll go for her
+myself. I am sure she won't refuse to come."
+
+"_Refuse!_" There is something in the squire's whisper that puzzles
+Brian.
+
+"I am certain she will not," he repeats, mechanically, whilst trying to
+translate it. But the look has faded from the old man's face, and his
+tone is different, when he speaks again.
+
+"If she is afraid to come," he says, generously, having evidently
+settled some knotty point of inward discussion to his entire
+satisfaction, "tell her from me that I am ready and willing to forgive
+_all_."
+
+"You mean you are anxious to obtain her forgiveness," says Brian, with
+the kindly intention of assisting the old man's wandering imagination.
+
+"Eh?" says the squire, sharply. "What d'ye mean, Brian? Speak, lad, when
+I desire you."
+
+"Look here, George! if you excite yourself like this, you know what the
+consequences will be," says Brian, sharply, in his turn. "I only meant
+that, as you--er--jilted their stepsister, I suppose you are anxious to
+obtain their pardon, now you feel yourself pretty low. But I'd advise
+you to wait and see about that when you have recovered your strength a
+little."
+
+"And you believed that old story too!" says the poor squire, forlornly.
+"I didn't jilt her at all, Brian. _It was she jilted me!_"
+
+"_What!_" says Brian, turning to see if the bullet had touched his brain
+instead of his ribs.
+
+"'Tis true. I tell you, that girl broke my heart. She was the prettiest
+creature I ever saw, with soft dove's eyes, and a heavenly smile, and no
+more heart than _that_," striking the post of the old-fashioned bedstead
+with his uninjured arm. "I gave myself up to her, I worshipped the very
+ground she walked on, and within a fortnight of our wedding she calmly
+wrote to tell me she could not marry me!"
+
+"Giving a reason?"
+
+"No. Even _she_, I presume, could not summon sufficient courage to tell
+the wretch she had deluded of her love for another. She gave me no
+reason. She entreated me, however, to keep silence about the real author
+of the breach between us,--that is, herself. _I_ was the one to break
+off our engagement! I was to bear all the blame! She implored me to
+conceal her share in it, and finally demanded of me, as a last favor,
+that I would give the world to understand I had thrown _her_ over."
+
+"A charmingly disinterested specimen of womankind," says Brian, raising
+his brows.
+
+"And this to _me_," says The Desmond, an indignant sob making his weak
+voice weaker,--"a man who had always kept himself straight in the eyes
+of the world. I was required to represent myself as a low, despicable
+fellow, one of those who seek a woman's affections only to ignore them
+at the sight of the next pretty face."
+
+"But you refused to comply with her request?" says Brian, hastily.
+
+"No, sir, I didn't," says the squire, shame struggling with his
+excitement. "On the contrary, I gave in to her in every respect. I
+believe at that time I would cheerfully have allowed myself to be
+branded as a _thief_ if she had desired it and if it would have saved
+her one scrap of discomfort. She was afraid of her sisters, you see. I
+blamed them then, Brian, but I think now her fear of them arose from the
+fact that _they_ were as true as _she_ was----Well, well!"
+
+"This is indeed a revelation," says Brian.
+
+"Yes; you wouldn't think they would behave like that, would you?" says
+Mr. Desmond, eagerly.
+
+"Who? The Misses Blake?" says Brian, startled.
+
+"Yes. It wasn't like them to keep silent all these years, and let me
+bear the brunt of the battle, when they knew I was innocent and that it
+was their own flesh and blood who was in fault. Yet they turned their
+backs upon me, and have treated me ever since as though I were in
+reality the miscreant they have succeeded in making me out."
+
+"There is a terrible mistake somewhere," says Brian. "They do verily
+believe you to be the miscreant you describe."
+
+"Brian, come here!" says the old man, in an ominously calm tone. "Do you
+mean to tell me Priscilla Blake believes me guilty of having behaved
+dishonestly to her sister Katherine? You positively think this?"
+
+"I _know_ it," says Brian, who feels it is better to get out the plain
+unvarnished truth at once.
+
+"You have no doubt? Think, Brian; think."
+
+"I needn't.--There is no doubt on my mind."
+
+"Then she deceived us _all_," says the squire, in a stricken tone. Then
+he roused himself again. He seems to have recovered his strength
+wonderfully during the past hour. "Go, get me Priscilla Blake," he says.
+"Hurry, boy! hurry! I must make it right with her before I die."
+
+"Before you recover, you mean," says Brian, cheerily. "There! lie down
+now, and keep yourself quiet, or you won't be looking your best when she
+comes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now Miss Priscilla has come, and is standing beside the bed of her
+quondam friend, looking down upon him with dim eyes.
+
+"I am sorry to meet you again like this, George Desmond," she says, at
+last, in tones meant to be full of relentless displeasure, but which
+falter strangely.
+
+"She made as great a fool of _you_ as of _me_, Priscilla," is the
+squire's answer, whose tired mind can only grasp one thought,--the
+treachery of the woman he had loved! And then it all comes out, and the
+letter the false Katherine had written him is brought out from a little
+secret drawer, bound round with the orthodox blue ribbon, and smelling
+sadly of dust, as though to remind one of all things, of warmest
+sweetest love, of truest trust, and indeed of that fair but worthless
+body from whose hand it came, now lying mouldering and forgotten in a
+foreign land.
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't have believed it of her!" says Miss Priscilla, weeping
+bitterly. "But there must have been something wrong with her always,
+though we could never see it. What an angel face she had! But the
+children, they speak terribly of her, and they say--that she--and James
+Beresford--did not get on at all."
+
+"Eh?" says the squire. He rises himself on his sound elbow, and quite a
+glow of color rushes into his pallid cheeks. When, with a groan of
+self-contempt, he sinks back again, and the light in his eye (was it of
+satisfaction?) dies.
+
+"You have met Brian," he says presently. "What do you think of him,
+Priscilla? He is a good lad,--a _very_ good lad."
+
+"He looks it," says Miss Priscilla, shortly.
+
+"He does," heartily. "Well, I'm told this boy of mine is in love with
+your girl."
+
+"Who told you?" says Miss Priscilla.
+
+"Brian himself," says the Squire.
+
+"I like that in him," says Miss Priscilla. "Well, George, if you will
+look upon that as settled, so shall I."
+
+"So be it," says the squire--"Eh, my dear? but doesn't it make us feel
+old to be discussing the love-affairs of these young things, when it
+seems only yesterday that we--that you and I, Priscilla----"
+
+"That is all buried long ago: don't rake it up. It died when first your
+eyes fell on _her_," says Miss Blake, hurriedly.
+
+"I was a fool," says the squire. "But, somehow, since I have been
+talking to you, I don't think I'm going to die this time, and old scenes
+came back to me, and--I suppose it is too late now, Priscilla?"
+
+There is no mistaking his meaning.
+
+"Oh, yes; a whole lifetime too late," says Miss Priscilla, with a soft,
+faint blush that would not have misbecome a maiden in her teens. "But I
+am glad we are friends again, George."
+
+She pressed his hand with real affection, and then colors again warmly,
+as though afraid of having discovered herself in the act of committing
+an indiscretion. Could that gentle pressure be called forward, or light,
+or unseemly? Terrible thought!
+
+"So am I, my dear," says the squire. And then again, "You won't think of
+it, then, Priscilla?"
+
+"No, no," says Miss Blake, feeling flattered at his persistence, and
+then she actually laughs out loud, and The Desmond laughs too, though
+feebly; and then the doctor comes in again, and Miss Priscilla goes
+home, to tell Miss Penelope, in the secrecy of her chamber, and with the
+solemnity that befits the occasion, all about the squire's proposal, its
+reception, and its rejection.
+
+Be assured no minutest detail is forgotten; Miss Penelope is soon in
+possession of every smallest look and word connected with it, and deeply
+gratifying is the manner in which the great news is received by that
+gentle maiden.
+
+"Though late in the day, Penelope," says Miss Priscilla, as a sort of
+wind-up to her recital, "it was an offer of marriage _any_ woman might
+be proud of, be she young or old; and he _meant_ it, too. He was quite
+_pressing_. Twice he asked me, although my first was a most decided
+'No.'"
+
+"It seems terrible, your having been so cold to him, poor fellow!" says
+Miss Penelope, with a regretful sigh for the griefs of the rejected
+Desmond.
+
+"What could I do?" says Miss Priscilla, with an air of self-defence.
+This thought, that she can actually be accused of having treated the
+sterner sex in a hardhearted fashion, is cakes and ale to her.
+
+"We must not talk of this, Penelope," she says, presently. "It would be
+unfair. It must never transpire through _us_ that George Desmond laid
+his heart and fortune at my feet only to be rejected."
+
+To her these old-world phrases sound grand and musical and full of fire
+and sentiment.
+
+"No, no," says Miss Penelope, acquiescing freely, yet with a sigh; she
+would have dearly liked to tell her gossips of this honor that has been
+done her dear Priscilla. And, after all, she has her wish, for the story
+gets about, spread by the hero of it himself.
+
+The squire, tired, no doubt, of keeping secrets, and perhaps (but this
+in a whisper) grateful to her because of her refusal, goes about
+everywhere, and tells people far and near of his offer; so that when
+their friends flock to Moyne, and, giving The Desmond as their authority
+for it, accuse Miss Priscilla of her refusal, and she still, with
+maidenly modesty, parries their questions, Miss Penelope, feeling
+herself absolved from further reticence, comes to the front and gives
+them a full and true account of the wonderful event.
+
+"Yes, Priscilla might indeed have reigned as queen at Coole had she so
+wished it, and well graced the position too," winds up Miss Penelope, on
+all these occasions, with much pride and dignity.
+
+Brian, who had been busy all the morning swearing informations, and so
+forth, with Mr. Kelly and the groom, before magistrates and others,
+coming into his uncle's room about half an hour after Miss Blake's
+departure, finds him considerably better both in mind and in body,
+though feeble in spirit, as is only natural. Indeed, the bullet had done
+him little harm, causing merely a flesh-wound, but the shock had been
+severe to a man of his years.
+
+"Come here, Brian; I want to tell you something," he says, as the young
+man leans over him.
+
+"You are not to talk," says his nephew, peremptorily.
+
+"If you won't listen to me, I'll send for Bailey, the steward," says the
+squire. "Nonsense! it does me good." And then he tells him all the
+particulars of Miss Priscilla's visit relating to his engagement with
+Katherine Beresford, with one reservation.
+
+"It is all right between us now," he says, in a pleased tone. "She told
+me everything, and it appears we were both sadly taken in, though I
+don't wish to say anything against her even now. I daresay she had her
+own grievances, poor soul; and indeed Priscilla said----"
+
+Here he pauses, and a guilty flush covers his pale face. He hesitates,
+and then beckons Brian to come even nearer.
+
+"Look you, lad! I'm not quite at ease even yet. There's something wrong
+here!" laying his hand upon his heart.
+
+"Is it pain?" asks his nephew, anxiously. "I told you you were talk----"
+
+"No, no, boy. It's only mental pain. I want to be ashamed of myself, and
+I _can't_. I'm feeling a satisfaction about something that I shouldn't.
+It's not right, Brian. It's not a gentlemanly feeling, but I can't curb
+it. The more I think of it, the more pleased I feel. Eh? You don't look
+as if you understood me."
+
+"I don't, much," confesses Brian, seating himself on the edge of the
+bed. "You see, you haven't told me what it is all about."
+
+"It is about Katherine Beresford. Priscilla told me, and I should like
+to tell you. I say, Brian, you won't throw it in my teeth, now, when I'm
+better, eh?"
+
+"I swear I won't," says Brian.
+
+"Well, she told me Katherine had a regular _devil_ of a life with her
+husband, and _I'm glad of it_! _There!_" says the squire; after which
+disgraceful confession he regularly scrambles under the bedclothes, with
+a view to hiding his shame and his exultation from public view.
+
+Brian fairly roars with laughter. At the sound of his welcome mirth, the
+old man slowly emerges from the sheets again, and looks at him
+doubtfully, but with growing hope.
+
+"_She_ had the best of it, of course; any one would have the best of it
+with James Beresford," he says. "But she couldn't have been altogether
+comfortable; that's what I mean. I don't want you to think I should
+rejoice at her having received bad treatment at her husband's hands. He
+had all the bad treatment to himself, I expect."
+
+"So do I," says Brian, who is laughing still.
+
+"And you don't think so badly of me for it?" says the Squire, anxiously.
+
+"Not I," says Brian.
+
+"Still, it's rather a mean sort of feeling, isn't it, now? It's very
+low--eh?"
+
+"Low or not," says Brian, with decision, "I'm perfectly certain if it
+was _my_ case I should feel just like that myself."
+
+"You're the comfort of my life, Brian," says his uncle, gratefully; and
+then he indulges in a covert smile himself, after which he drops off
+into a slumber, sound and refreshing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+  How Madam O'Connor gives her opinion on certain subjects--How Fay
+  electrifies an entire audience--And how Olga makes up her mind.
+
+
+It is growing towards evening, and as yet at Aghyohillbeg they have not
+grown tired of discussing the terrible event of last night.
+
+"When I called just now, Priscilla Blake was with him," says Madam
+O'Connor. "Brian told me The Desmond had sent for her. I suppose the old
+quarrel about Katherine will be patched up now, and I shouldn't wonder
+if our two lovers, Monica and Brian, get married quite comfortably and
+in the odor of sanctity, after all."
+
+"I suppose they couldn't have managed it without the old people's
+consent," says Mrs. Herrick, who is rocking herself lazily to and fro in
+a huge American chair.
+
+"Nonsense, my dear!" says Madam, throwing up her chin. "Accredit them
+with some decent spirit, I beg of you. Of course they would have got
+married whether or not,--there is nothing like opposition for that kind
+of thing, and no doubt would have enjoyed it all the more for the fun of
+the thing, because there must be an excitement in a runaway match
+unknown to the orthodox affair."
+
+"I don't think I should like to run away," says Olga Bohun; "there is
+always a difficulty about one's clothes."
+
+"What's the good of being in love if you can't get over a few paltry
+obstacles?" says Madam, whose heart is still young. "Well, I expect we
+shall have a gay wedding here before long, and be able to give that
+pretty child our presents without any trouble."
+
+"How long the day has been!" says Olga, with a little affected yawn,
+meant to reduce Ulic Ronayne to despair, who is sitting in a distant
+window touching up one of her paintings. "I don't know when I have been
+so bored,--no one to speak to. Madam, darling, you shall never go out
+again without me; remember that. Nobody has called,--I suppose they are
+afraid of being shot,--not even Owen Kelly; and one would _like_ to see
+him and Brian, to make sure they are all there."
+
+"Talk of somebody," says Madam, looking out of the window, "here comes
+Owen."
+
+As Olga puts her hand in his presently, she says, laughing,--
+
+"Madam O'Connor says you are, in polite language, his sable majesty
+himself. So you must be, to escape as you did last night. Now tell us
+all about it. We have heard so many garbled accounts that a _real_ one
+will set our minds at rest."
+
+Then he tells them all about it, dropping as though unconsciously into a
+low chair very close to Hermia's.
+
+"So, you see," he says, when he had finished, "it might have been a very
+sensational affair, and covered us all with glory, only it didn't."
+
+"I think it did," says Mrs. Herrick, gently. She doesn't raise her eyes
+from her work to say this, but knits calmly on; only a _very_ careful
+observer could have noticed the faint trembling of her fingers, or the
+quivering of her long, downcast lashes.
+
+"How can you say such a thing, Owen?" says Olga. "Look at all the cases
+we have known where the assassins have got away quite free, and here we
+have the principal secured."
+
+"Yes, that was very clever of Brian," says Mr. Kelly.
+
+"Did he capture him, then, single-handed? Were not you with him? Were
+_you_ in no danger of your life, too?" exclaims Hermia, with such
+unwonted animation that every one looks at her. She takes no notice of
+their regard, but fixes her kindling eyes on Kelly, who, in returning
+her mute protest, forgets that any other more open answer may be
+required of him. Then she lets her eyes fall from his, and her face
+grows calm and statuesque again, and only the rapid clicking of her
+needles show the perturbation of the mind within.
+
+"Did the fellow give you much trouble, Kelly?" asks Ronayne, who in his
+secret soul is bitterly regretful he had not been on the scene of
+action.
+
+"Not he, the fool!" says Mr. Kelly, with something approaching a smile.
+"Brian fired his revolver and grazed his arm slightly,--a mere scratch,
+you will understand,--and the miserable creature rolled upon the ground,
+doubled himself in two, and, giving himself up as dead, howled dismally.
+Not knowing at that time that the poor squire was hurt, Brian and I
+roared with laughter: we couldn't help it, the fellow looked so absurd."
+
+They all laugh at this, but presently Olga, holding up her finger, says,
+seriously,--
+
+"Owen, recollect yourself. You said you _laughed_. Oh! it _can't_ be
+true."
+
+"I regret to say it is," says Mr. Kelly, with intensest self-abasement.
+"For once I forgot myself; I really _did_ do it; but it shan't occur
+again. The exquisite humor of the moment was too much for me. I hope it
+won't be placed to my account, and that in time you will all forgive me
+my one little lapse."
+
+"Well, Owen, you are the drollest creature," says Madam O'Connor, with a
+broad sweet smile, that is copied by Olga and Ronayne. Mrs. Herrick
+remains unmoved, and her needles go faster and faster: Mr. Kelly stares
+at them uneasily.
+
+"They'll give out sparks in another minute or so," he says, warningly,
+"and if they do there will be a general conflagration. Spare me that: I
+have had enough excitement for a while."
+
+Mrs. Herrick lets her knitting fall into her lap.
+
+"The squire may be thankful he got off so easily," says Madam O'Connor
+at this moment.
+
+"He may, indeed," says Kelly. "Fay," to the child who is standing at a
+distance gazing thoughtfully with uplifted head at the blue sky without,
+"what are you wondering about now?"
+
+The child turns upon him her large blue eyes, blue as Nankin china, and
+answers him in clear sweet tones, indifferent to the fact that every one
+in the room is regarding her.
+
+"I was wondering," she says, truthfully, "why Ulic says his prayers to
+Olga."
+
+A most disconcerting silence follows this speech. Madam hums a tune;
+Mrs. Herrick loses herself in her knitting; but Mr. Kelly, who is always
+alive, says "Eh?"
+
+"I saw him," says Fay, dreamily.
+
+Olga, who is as crimson as the heart of a red rose, makes here a frantic
+but subdued effort to attract the child's attention; Mr. Kelly, however,
+gets her adroitly on to his knees before she can grasp the meaning of
+Olga's secret signals.
+
+"Where did you see him?" he says, mildly.
+
+"In the summer-house, this morning. He was kneeling down before her,
+just as I kneel to mamma, and he had his head in her lap, and he was
+whispering his prayers. I could not hear what he said." At this instant
+an expression of the most devout thankfulness overspreads Mrs. Bohun's
+features. "But they were very _long_ prayers; and I think he was _sorry_
+for something he had done."
+
+"I haven't a doubt of it," says Mr. Kelly, mournfully. "Go on, my
+child."
+
+"I'm not your child; I'm mamma's," says Fay, firmly; but, having so far
+vindicated her mother's character, she goes on with her tale: "When he
+got up he didn't look a bit better," she says. "He looked worse, I
+think. Didn't you, Ulic?" addressing the stricken young man in the
+window. "And I always thought it was only children who said their
+prayers to people, and not the grown-up ones. And why did he choose
+Olga? Wasn't there mamma? And wasn't there Madam? You would have let him
+say his prayers to you, Madam, wouldn't you?" turning placidly to her
+hostess.
+
+"I should have been only too charmed,--too highly flattered," says
+Madam, in a stifled tone; and then she gives way altogether, and breaks
+into a gay and hearty laugh, under cover of which Olga beats an
+ignominious retreat.
+
+Mr. Ronayne, feeling rather than seeing that his colleague in this
+disgraceful affair has taken flight, puts down his brushes softly and
+jumps lightly from the open window to the grass beneath. Then with a
+speed that belongs to his long limbs, he hurries towards that corner of
+the house that will lead him to the hall door: as he turns it, he
+received Olga almost in his arms.
+
+"You here?" she says. "Oh, that terrible child!"
+
+"She didn't understand, poor little soul." And then, as though the
+recollection overcomes him, he gives away to uncontrollable mirth.
+
+"Such unseemly levity!" says Mrs. Bohun, in a disgusted tone; but, after
+the vaguest hesitation, she laughs too.
+
+"Come to the orchard," says Ronayne; and to the orchard they go. Here,
+finding a rustic seat at the foot of a gnarled and moss-grown
+apple-tree, they take possession of it.
+
+"It is very unfortunate," says Olga, with a sigh. Her fair hair is being
+blown like a silver cloud hither and thither and renders her
+distractingly pretty.
+
+"You mean our betrayal by that child?"
+
+"Yes. I hope it will cure you of ever being so silly as to go on your
+knees to any woman again."
+
+"I shall never go on my knees to any woman but you, whether you accept
+or reject me."
+
+"I am sure I don't know how I am ever to face those people inside
+again." Here she puts one dainty little finger to her lips and bites it
+cruelly.
+
+"There is nothing remarkable in having one's _accepted_ lover at one's
+feet."
+
+"But you are not that," she says, lifting her brows and seeming half
+amused at his boldness.
+
+"By one word you can make me so."
+
+"Can I? What is the word?"
+
+This is puzzling; but Mr. Ronayne, nothing daunted says,--
+
+"You have only to say, 'you are,' and I am."
+
+"It isn't Christmas yet," says Mrs. Bohun: "you shouldn't throw
+conundrums at me out of season. It is too much? 'you _are_ and I _am_.'
+I couldn't guess it, indeed; I'm anything but clever."
+
+"If you say the 'I will,' you will find the solution to _our_ conundrum
+at once."
+
+"But that is two words."
+
+"Olga, does the fact that I love you carry no weight with it at all."
+
+"But do you love me--_really_?"
+
+"Need I answer that?"
+
+"But there are others, younger, prettier."
+
+"Nonsense! There is no one prettier than you in this wide world."
+
+"Ah!" with a charming smile, "now indeed I believe you do love me, for
+the Greek Cupid is blind. What a silly boy you are to urge this matter!
+For one thing I am older than you."
+
+"A year or two."
+
+"For another----"
+
+"I will not listen. 'Stony limits cannot hold love out:' why, therefore,
+try to discourage me?"
+
+"But you should think----"
+
+"I think only that if you will say what I ask you, I shall be always
+with you, and you with me."
+
+"What is _your_ joy is _my_ fear. Custom creates weariness! And--'the
+lover in the husband may be lost!'"
+
+"Ah! you have thought of me in that light," exclaims the young man,
+eagerly. "Beloved if you will only take me, you shall find in me both a
+lover and husband until your life's end."
+
+The smile has died from Olga's lips; she holds out her hands to him.
+
+"So be it," she says gravely.
+
+"You mean it?" says Ronayne, as yet afraid to believe in his happiness.
+
+"Yes. But if ever you repent blame yourself."
+
+"And if you repent?"
+
+"I shall blame you too," she says, with a sudden return to her old
+archness.
+
+"And you will refuse Rossmoyne?"
+
+She laughs outright at this, and glances at him from under drooping
+lashes.
+
+"I can't promise that," she says, with carefully simulated
+embarrassment--"because----"
+
+"What?" haughtily, moving away from her.
+
+"I _did so yesterday_."
+
+"Oh, darling, how cruelly I misjudged you! I thought--I feared----"
+
+"Never mind all that. I know--I forgive you. I've a _lovely_ temper,"
+says Olga, with self-gratulation.
+
+"Why did you refuse him? Was it," hopefully, "because you didn't like
+him?"
+
+"N--o. Not so much that--as----" again this shameless coquette
+hesitates, and turns her head uneasily from side to side, as though
+afraid to give utterance to the truth.
+
+"What? Explain, Olga," says her lover, in a fresh agony.
+
+"As that I----_loved you_!" returns she, with a heavenly smile.
+
+His arms close round her, and at this moment she lets all her heart be
+seen by him. The mocking light dies out of her eyes, her face grows
+earnest. She lets her heart beat with happy unrestraint against his. The
+minutes fly, but time was never made to be counted by blissful lovers.
+
+A gong sounding in the distance rouses them from their contented
+dreaming.
+
+"I must go and tell Hermia," she says, starting to her feet: "that is
+the dressing-bell."
+
+"You won't let her influence you against me?"
+
+"Nobody could do that." She moves away from him, and then runs back to
+him again and lays her arms round his neck.
+
+"You are more to me now than Hermia and _the world_!" she says, softly.
+
+Yet presently, when she finds herself in Hermia's calm presence, her
+courage somewhat fails her. It is not that she for a moment contemplates
+the idea of having to give up her lover, but she is afraid of her
+cousin's cold disparagement of both him and her.
+
+"I have just promised to marry Ulic," she says, plunging without preface
+into her story, with a boldness born of nervous excitement.
+
+"To _marry_ him! Why, I thought you looked upon him as a mere boy! Your
+'baby,' you used to call him."
+
+"Probably that is why I have accepted him. A baby should not be allowed
+to roam the world at large without some one to look after him."
+
+"Do you love him, Olga?"
+
+"Yes, I do," says Olga, defiantly. "You may scold me if you like, but a
+title _isn't_ everything, and he is worth a dozen of that cold, stiff
+Rossmoyne."
+
+"Well, dearest, as you have given him the best part of you,--your
+heart,--it is as well the rest should follow," says Mrs. Herrick,
+tenderly. "Yes, I think you will be very happy with him."
+
+This speech is so strange, so unexpected, so exactly unlike anything she
+had made up her mind to receive, that for a moment Olga is stricken
+dumb. Then with a rush she comes back to glad life.
+
+"'Do I wake? do I dream? are there visions about?'" she says. "Why, what
+sentiments from _you_! You have 'changed all that,' apparently."
+
+"I have," says Hermia, very slowly, yet with a vivid blush. Something in
+her whole manner awakes suspicion of the truth in Olga's mind.
+
+"Why," she says, "you don't mean to tell me that----Oh, no! it can't be
+true! and yet----I verily believe you have----_Is_ it so, Hermia?"
+
+"It is," says Hermia, who has evidently, by help of some mental process
+of her own, understood all this amazing farrago of apparently
+meaningless words.
+
+There is a new sweetness on Mrs. Herrick's lips. One of her rare smiles
+lights up all her calm, artistic face.
+
+"After all your vaunted superiority!" says Olga, drawing a deep sigh.
+"Oh, _dear_!" Then, with a wicked but merry imitation of Mrs. Herrick's
+own manner to her, she goes on!--
+
+"You are throwing yourself away, dearest. The world will think nothing
+of you for the future; and you, so formed to shine, and dazzle,
+and----"
+
+"_He_ will be a baronet at his father's death," says Mrs. Herrick,
+serenely, with a heavy emphasis on the first pronoun; and then suddenly,
+as though ashamed of this speech, she lets her mantle drop from her, and
+cries, with some tender passion,----
+
+"I don't care about that. Hear the truth from me. If he were as ugly and
+poor as Mary Browne's Peter, I should marry him all the same, just
+because I love him!"
+
+"Oh, Hermia, I am so _glad_," says Olga. "After all what is there in the
+whole wide world so sweet as love? And as for Rossmoyne,--why, he
+couldn't make a tender speech to save his life as it should be made;
+whilst Ulic--_oh he's charming!_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+  How Monica's heart fails her; and how at last Hope (whose name is
+  Brian) comes back to her through the quivering moonlight.
+
+
+And now night has fallen at last upon this long day. A gentle wind is
+shivering through the elms; a glorious moon has risen in all its beauty,
+and stands in "heaven's wide, pathless way," as though conscious of its
+grandeur, yet sad for the sorrows of the seething earth beneath. Now
+clear, now resplendent she shines, and now through a tremulous mist
+shows her pure face, and again for a space is hidden,
+
+    "As if her head she bow'd
+    Stooping through a fleecy cloud."
+
+Miss Priscilla, with a sense of now-found dignity upon her, has gone
+early to bed. Miss Penelope has followed suit. Terence, in the privacy
+of his own room, is rubbing a dirty oily flannel on the bright barrels
+of his beloved gun, long since made over to him as a gift by Brian.
+
+Kit is sitting on the wide, old-fashioned window-seat in Monica's room
+at her sister's feet, and with her thin little arms twined lovingly
+round her. She is sleepy enough, poor child, but cannot bear to desert
+Monica, who is strangely wakeful and rather silent and _distraite_. For
+ever since the morning when he had come to carry Miss Priscilla to
+Coole, Brian has been absent from her; not once has he come to her; and
+a sense of chill and fear, as strong as it is foolish, is overpowering
+her.
+
+She rouses herself now with a little nervous quiver that seems to run
+through all her veins and lets her hand fall on Kit's drooping head.
+
+"It grows very late. Go to bed, darling," she says, gently.
+
+"Not till you go," says Kit, tightening the clasp of her arms.
+
+"Well, that shall be in a moment, then," says Monica, with a stifled
+sigh. All through the dragging day and evening she has clung to the
+thought that surely her lover will come to bid her "good-night." And now
+it is late, and he has not come, and----
+
+She leans against the side of the wide-open casement, and gazes in sad
+meditation upon the slumbering garden underneath. The lilies,--"tall
+white garden-lilies,"--though it is late in the season now, and
+bordering on snows and frosts, are still swaying to and fro, and giving
+most generously a rich perfume to the wondering air. Earth's stars they
+seem to her, as she lifts her eyes to compare them with the
+"forget-me-nots of the angels," up above.
+
+Her first disappointment about her love is desolating her. She leans her
+head against the woodwork, and lifts her eyes to the vaguely-tinted sky.
+Thus, with face upturned, she drinks in the fair beauty of the night,
+and, as its beauty grows upon her, her sorrow deepens.
+
+      "With how sad steps, O moon! thou climb'st the skies!
+      How silently, and with how wan a face,
+      Thou feel'st a lover's case!
+      I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace,
+    To me, that feel the like, thy state descries."
+
+As she watches the pale moon, Sidney's sad words return to her. Just now
+Diana is resting in a path of palest azure, whilst all around her
+clouds, silver-tinged, are lying out from her, trembling in mid-air.
+
+Great patches of moonlight lie upon the garden sward. One seems brighter
+than its fellows, and as her eyes slowly sink from heaven to earth they
+rest upon it, as though attracted unconsciously by its brilliancy. And,
+even as she looks, a shadow falls athwart it, and then a low, quick cry
+breaks from her lips.
+
+"What is it?" says Kit, scrambling to her knees.
+
+"Only Brian," says Monica, with a hastily-drawn breath. A rich color has
+rushed into her cheeks, her eyes are alight, her lips have curved
+themselves into a happy smile.
+
+"It's all right now, then, and I can go," says Kit, joyfully.
+
+"Go? To bed, you mean, darling?"
+
+"Yes, now I know you are _happy_," says Kit, tenderly; and then the
+sisters embrace, and presently Monica is alone, but for the shadow in
+the moonlight.
+
+"It is you, Monica?" says Brian, coming close beneath her window, and
+looking upwards.
+
+She leans out to him, her white gown gleaming softly in the moon's rays.
+
+"Oh, why venture out at this hour?" she says, nervously. Now he is
+here,--woman-like,--fears for his safety, forgotten before, arise in all
+their horror. "They may have followed you; they may----"
+
+"Come down to the balcony," he interrupts her, with a light laugh. "I
+want to talk to you. Nonsense, dear heart! I am as safe as a church. Who
+would touch me, with an angel like you near to protect me?"
+
+His shadow, as he moves away, may again be seen for an instant, before
+he turns the corner of the old house; and Monica, opening her door
+softly, runs lightly down the corridor and the staircase, and across the
+hall and the drawing-room floor until she reaches the balcony beyond,
+where she finds his arms awaiting her.
+
+"You have missed me all day?" he says, after a pause that to them has
+been divine.
+
+"Oh, Brian, what a day it has been!" she clings to him. "All these past
+hours have been full of horror. Whenever I thought of your danger last
+night, I seemed to grow cold and dead with fear; and then when the
+minutes slipped by, and still you never came to me, I began to picture
+_you_ as cold and dead, and then----Ah!" she clings still closer to him,
+and her voice fails her. "I never knew," she whispers, brokenly, "how
+well I loved you until I so nearly lost you. I could not live without
+you now."
+
+"Nor shall you," returns he, straining her to his heart with passionate
+tenderness. "My life is yours, to do what you will with it. And somehow
+all day long I knew (and was happy in the knowledge, forgive me that)
+that you were lonely for want of me; but I could not come to you, my
+soul, until this very moment. Yet, believe me, I suffered more than you
+during our long separation." (If any one laughs here, it will prove he
+has never been in love, and so is an object of pity. This should check
+untimely mirth.)
+
+"You felt it long too, then?" says Monica, hopefully.
+
+"How can you ask me that? Your darling face was never once out of my
+mind, and yet I _could_ not come to you. I had so many things to do, so
+many people to see, and then the poor old fellow was so ill. But have we
+not cause to be thankful?--at last the breach between our houses is
+healed, and we may tell all the world of our love."
+
+"You should have heard Aunt Priscilla, how she talked of you when she
+came back to-day from Coole," says Monica, in a little fervent glow of
+enthusiasm. "It was beautiful! You know she must have _understood_ you
+all along to be able to say the truth of you so well. She said so much
+in your favor that she satisfied even me."
+
+She says this with such a graceful _naivete_, and such an utter belief
+in his superiority to the vast majority of men, that Mr. Desmond does
+well to feel the pride that surges in his heart.
+
+"I really think she has fallen in love with you," says Miss Beresford,
+at the last, with a little gay laugh.
+
+"Perhaps that is why she refused the squire," says Brian; and then he
+basely betrays trust, by telling her all that tale of the late wooing of
+Miss Priscilla, and its result, which awakens in the breast of that
+ancient lady's niece a mirth as undutiful as it is prolonged.
+
+"And what were you doing all day?" she says, when it has somewhat
+subsided.
+
+"Trying to keep my uncle--did I tell you he has fallen in love with your
+photograph?--from talking himself into a brain fever, and I was swearing
+hard, and----"
+
+"_Brian!_"
+
+"Only informations, darling! And I wouldn't have done that either, only
+I had to. They made me. Lay the blame on '_they_.' It wasn't my fault,
+indeed. If I had thought for a moment you had the slightest objection to
+that sort of----"
+
+"Nonsense! don't be silly; go on," says Miss Beresford, austerely.
+
+"Well, then, I listened patiently to a good deal of raving from Kelly on
+the subject of Hermia Herrick. I don't suppose I should have exhibited
+as much patience as I did, but for the fact that I was waiting on
+George--my uncle--at the time, and couldn't get away. And after that I
+listened with even more patience to a perfect farrago of nonsense from
+our sub-inspector about the would-be assassin we have caught, and his
+fellows; and, besides all this, I thought of _you_ every moment since
+last I saw you."
+
+"_Every_ moment. Not _one_ neglected?" asks she, smiling.
+
+"I'll swear to that too, if you like. I'm in good practice now."
+
+"No, no," hastily. "I can believe you without that."
+
+"Did you hear about your Ryde?" asks Desmond, suddenly.
+
+"I disclaim the possession," says Monica. "But what of him?"
+
+"He has been ordered, with his regiment, to Egypt, to fight Arabi, where
+I hope he will be shot. And the 36th are coming in his place."
+
+"How can you say such shocking things?"
+
+"Is it shocking to say the 36th are coming to Clonbree?"
+
+"No, but what you said about Mr. Ryde."
+
+"Oh, that! Well, I hope, then, if they don't knock the life they will
+knock the conceit and the superfluous _flesh_ out of him: will that do?"
+
+"Very badly. He was a horrid man in many ways, but he did _you_ no
+harm."
+
+"He dared to look at you."
+
+"The cat may look at the king."
+
+"But the cat may not look at my queen. So now, madam, what have you to
+say?"
+
+"Well, never mind, then: tell me about Hermia. So Mr. Kelly is engaged
+to her?"
+
+"Yes. He has just discovered her to be the most superior as well as the
+loveliest woman upon earth. He told me so. I ventured mildly, but
+firmly, to differ with him and enter a protest on your behalf, but he
+wouldn't hear of it. In his opinion you are nowhere beside the majestic
+Hermia."
+
+"I know that. He is right," says Monica, meekly. But there is a
+reproachful question in her eyes, as she says it, that contradicts the
+meekness.
+
+"He is _not_," says Desmond, with loving indignation, pressing her dear
+little head so close against his heart that she can hear it throbbing
+bravely and can find joy in the thought that each separate throb is all
+her own. "The man who thinks so must be insane. A fig for Hermia! Where
+would she be if placed beside _you_, my 'Helen fair beyond compare'?"
+
+"You are prejudiced; you tell too flattering a tale," says Monica, with
+soft disparagement; but the fond, foolish, lover-like words are very
+dear and sweet to her, all the same.
+
+He has his arms round her; in her tender childish fashion she has laid
+her cheek against his; and now, with a slow movement, she turns her head
+until her lips reach his.
+
+"I love you," she whispers.
+
+Almost in a sigh the words are breathed, and a sense of rapture--of
+completion--renders the young man for the instant mute. Yet in her soul
+so well she knows of his content that she cares little for any answer
+save that which his fond eyes give.
+
+A breath from the sleeping world of flowers below comes up to the
+balcony and bathes the lovers in its sweets. The "wandering moon" looks
+down upon them, and lights up the dark windows behind them, till they
+looked like burnished silver. A deadly silence lies on grass and bough;
+it seems to them as though, of all the eager world, they two only are
+awake, and alone!
+
+"Do I count with you, then, as more than all?" he says, at length; "than
+Terence or than Kit?"
+
+"You know it," she says, earnestly.
+
+Suddenly he loosens his arms from round her, and, pushing her slender,
+white-robed figure gently backwards, gazes searchingly into her calm but
+wondering face.
+
+"Tell me," he says,--some mad, inward craving driving him to ask the
+needless question--"how would it have been with you if I had been killed
+yesterday? Would you _in time_ have loved again?"
+
+I am not sure, but I think he would have recalled the words when it is
+too late. A quiver runs through the girl's frame; a great wave of
+emotion sweeping over her face transfigures it, changing its calm to
+quick and living grief. The moonbeams, catching her, fold her in floods
+of palest glory, until he who watches her with remorseful eyes can only
+liken her to a fragile saint, as she stands there in her white, clinging
+draperies.
+
+"You are cruel," she says, at last, with a low, gasping cry.
+
+He falls at her feet.
+
+"Forgive me, my love, my darling!" he entreats, "I should never have
+said that, and yet I am glad I did. To feel, to _know_ you are
+altogether mine----"
+
+"You had a doubt?" she says; and then two large tears rise slowly, until
+her beautiful eyes look passionate reproach at him through a heavy mist.
+Then the mist clears, and two shining drops, quitting their sweet home,
+fall upon the back of the small hand she has placed nervously against
+her throat.
+
+"A last one, and it is gone _forever_." He rises to his feet. "Place
+your arms round my neck again," he says, with anxious entreaty, "and let
+me feel myself forgiven."
+
+A smile, as coy as it is tender, curves her dainty lips, as she lifts to
+his two, soft, dewy eyes, in which the light of a first love has at last
+been fully kindled. She comes a step nearer to him, still smiling,--a
+lovely thing round which the moonbeams riot as though in ecstasy over
+her perfect fairness,--and then in another instant they are both in
+heaven, "in paradise in one another's arms!"
+
+"You are happy?" questions he, after a long pause, into which no man may
+look.
+
+"I am with _you_," returns she, softly.
+
+"How sweet a meaning lies within your words!"
+
+"A true meaning. But see, how late it grows! For a few hours we must
+part. Until to-morrow--good-night!"
+
+"Good-night, my life! my sweet, _sweet_ heart!" says Desmond.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rossmoyne, by Unknown
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rossmoyne, by Unknown
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Rossmoyne
+
+Author: Unknown
+
+Release Date: March 3, 2010 [EBook #31492]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROSSMOYNE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="trnote">
+<h2>Transcriber's note</h2>
+<ol>
+<li>Punctuation errors have been repaired silently.</li>
+<li>Word errors have been corrected and a <a href="#trcorrections">list
+  of corrections</a> can be found after the book.</li>
+<li>A Table of Contents has been added to ease navigation.</li>
+</ol>
+</div>
+
+
+<h1 class="caps">Rossmoyne.</h1>
+
+<p class="caps center">By The Author Of<br />
+"Phyllis," "Molly Bawn," "Portia," Etc.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr25" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza center">
+<span class="i0">"Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza center">
+<span class="i0">"Here's much to do with hate, but more with love."&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="smcap right">Romeo and Juliet.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr25" />
+
+<p class="caps center">New York and Chicago
+<span class="larger"><br />Butler Brothers</span></p>
+
+<p class="caps center smaller">Trow's<br />
+Printing and Bookbinding Company,<br />
+New York.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="hr45" />
+<ol class="toc">
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a>
+<p>How a Dove-cot was fluttered in Rossmoyne.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a>
+<p>How two Old Maids are made acquainted with a very Young One.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a>
+<p>How Monica studies the landscape.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a>
+<p>How Monica makes a most important discovery and, changing suddenly
+from "lively to severe," is reprehensibly cruel to a most unoffending
+young man.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a>
+<p>How Monica is put in possession of a dreadful secret&mdash;And how Kit protests
+against the injustice of the world.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a>
+<p>How Monica goes to Aghyohillbeg, and meets there an old friend and a
+very new one.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a>
+<p>How Monica listens to strange words and suffers herself to be led away.&mdash;How
+Cupid plants a shaft in Mars, and how Miss Priscilla finds herself
+face to face with the enemy.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a>
+<p>How Brian, having instituted inquiries, condemns his Uncle secretly&mdash;How
+Terry throws light upon a dark subject, and how, for the third
+time, Love "finds out his way."</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a>
+<p>How Terry is put in the Dock&mdash;And how the two Misses Blake baffle expectation,
+and show themselves in their true colors.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a>
+<p>How Monica falls a prey to the green-eyed monster&mdash;How Mr. Kelly
+improves the shining hours&mdash;And how Brian Desmond suffers many
+things at the hands of his lady-love.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a>
+<p>How Kit sees a Vision, and being exhorted thereto by it, pleads a certain
+cause with great success.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a>
+<p>How Monica with faltering footsteps enters the mysterious moonlight,
+and how she fares therein.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a>
+<p>How Kit reads between the lines&mdash;How the Misses Blake show themselves
+determined to pursue a dissipated course, and how Monica is led astray
+by an apt pupil of Machiavelli.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a>
+<p>How Kit's plot is betrayed, and how a walk that begins gayly ends in gloom.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a>
+<p>How the Misses Blake discover a gigantic fraud&mdash;How Terence is again
+arraigned, and brought before the Court on a charge of duplicity&mdash;and
+how he is nearly committed for contempt.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a>
+<p>How the afternoon at Moyne proves a great success&mdash;How Olga Bohun is
+led into a half confession, and how Monica, growing restless, seeks a
+dubious solitude.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a>
+<p>The marvellous history of how Monica finds the green-eyed monster in a
+beech-tree&mdash;and how, single-handed, she attacks and overcomes him.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a>
+<p>How, after much discussion, the devoted, if mistaken, adherents of Thalia
+gain the day&mdash;and how, for once in his life, Owen Kelly feels melancholy
+that is not assumed.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</a>
+<p>How Desmond asserts himself, and shows himself a better man than his
+rival&mdash;And how a bunch of red roses causes a breach, and how a ring
+heals it.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</a>
+<p>How gossip grows rife at Aghyohillbeg&mdash;How Hermia parries the question,
+and how Olga proves unkind.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</a>
+<p>How Mrs. Herrick grows worldly-wise and Olga frivolous&mdash;How Mr. Kelly
+tells a little story; and how, beneath the moonlight, many things are
+made clear.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</a>
+<p>How Olga drowns a faithful servant&mdash;How Mr. Kelly conjures up a ghost&mdash;And
+how Monica, beneath the mystic moonbeams, grants the gift
+she first denies.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.</a>
+<p>How Mary Browne makes confession, though not by creed a Romanist;
+and how those who receive it are far removed from being holy fathers!&mdash;Moreover,
+I would have you see there is more acting off the stage
+than on it.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.</a>
+<p>How Madam O'Connor tells how lovers throve in the good old days when
+she was young; and Brian Desmond thrives with his love in these our
+days, when he and she are young.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV.</a>
+<p>How The Desmond's mind is harrassed by a gentle maiden and two ungentle
+roughs; and how the Land League shows him a delicate attention.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.</a>
+<p>How rations fall short in the enemy's camp; and how Monica, armed with
+a strange ammunition, marches into the hostile land.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.</a>
+<p>How Monica's gift receives due attention, and is thoroughly appreciated;
+and how a torpedo falls into a morning-room at Moyne.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a>
+<p>How the Misses Blake receive the nephew of their sworn foe&mdash;How Monica
+at all hazards proclaims her truth&mdash;And how Miss Priscilla sees something
+that upsets her and the belief of years.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.</a>
+<p>How Miss Priscilla is driven to enter Coole&mdash;How she there receives an
+important proposal, but with much fortitude declines it&mdash;And how The
+Desmond suffers more from a twinge of conscience than from a bullet.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX.</a>
+<p>How Madam O'Connor gives her opinion on certain subjects&mdash;How Fay
+electrifies an entire audience&mdash;And how Olga makes up her mind.</p></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI.</a>
+<p>How Monica's heart fails her; and how at last Hope (whose name is
+Brian) comes back to her through the quivering moonlight.</p></li>
+</ol>
+<hr class="hr45" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+<h2>ROSSMOYNE.</h2>
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How a Dove-cot was fluttered in Rossmoyne.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The old-fashioned clock is ticking loudly, ponderously, as
+though determined to betray the flight of fickle time and impress
+upon the happy, careless ones that the end of all things
+is at hand. The roses knock their fragrant buds against the
+window-panes, calling attention to their dainty sweetness. The
+pigeons coo amorously upon the sills outside, and even thrust
+their pretty heads into the breakfast-room, demanding plaintively
+their daily crumbs; but no one heeds.</p>
+
+<p>A deadly silence has fallen upon this room at Moyne, albeit
+life is fully represented here, and two eyes, in which the light
+of youth is quenched, are looking anxiously into the two other
+eyes that have also seen the best and the sweetest of their
+days.</p>
+
+<p>Hopelessly the golden roses scatter their petals. In vain
+the white and tawny birds entreat backsheesh. To no purpose
+does the elderly clock count out its numbers. The urn is hissing
+angrily, the two cups of tea so carefully prepared are growing
+cold. So are the crisp little hot cakes, so is the&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>No! by the bye, it isn't! Honey can't. What a chance I
+was near giving the reviewers!</p>
+
+<p>One bird, growing annoyed at the prolonged quiet, flies
+from the open window to the back of Miss Penelope's chair,
+and settles there with an indignant flutter and a suppressed
+but angry note. This small suggestion of a living world destroyes
+the spell that for the last few minutes has been connecting
+the brain with a dead one.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Miss Penelope, raising her head, gives words to her
+thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor, poor Katherine!" she says, gently smoothing out
+the letter that lies upon her knee. "How her happiness was
+wrecked and what a sad ending there has been to everything!
+Her children coming home to us, fatherless&mdash;motherless!
+Dear child! what a life hers has been! It is quite
+twenty years ago now, and yet it all seems to me as fresh as
+yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"She shouldn't have taken things so easily; she should
+have asserted herself at the <i>time</i>," says Miss Priscilla, whose
+voice is always a note sharper than her sister's.</p>
+
+<p>"It requires a great deal of thought and&mdash;and a great deal
+of moral courage to assert one's self when a man has behaved
+abominably to one,&mdash;has, in fact, <i>jilted</i> one!" says Miss
+Penelope, bringing out the awful word with a little shudder
+and a shake of her gentle head, that sets two pale lavender
+ribbons on her cap swaying mildly to and fro.</p>
+
+<p>"Why was she so fatally silent about everything, except
+the one bare fact of his refusal, at the last moment, to marry
+her, without assigning any cause for his base desertion? Why
+didn't she open her whole heart to me? I wasn't afraid of the
+man!" <a class="corr" name="TC_1" id="TC_1" title="say">says</a> Miss Priscilla, with such terrible energy and such a
+warlike front as might well have daunted "<i>the man</i>," or indeed
+any man, could he have seen her. "She should have unburdened
+her poor bruised spirit to me, who&mdash;if my mother
+was not hers, and if I was many years her senior&mdash;had at
+least a sister's love for her."</p>
+
+<p>"A true love," says Miss Penelope, with another sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Instead of which," regretfully, "she hid all her sorrows
+in her own bosom, and no doubt wept and pined for the
+miscreant in secret."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor soul!" says Miss Penelope, profoundly affected by
+this dismal picture. Tears born of tenderness <a class="corr" name="TC_2" id="TC_2" title="pring">spring</a> to her
+eyes. "Do you remember, Priscilla, how she refused to show
+his letter, wishing, I suppose, even <i>then</i> to spare him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I forget nothing!" with some acerbity. "Often, when
+saying my prayers, I have wished I could forget him, but I
+can't, so I have to go on being uncharitable and in sin,&mdash;if indeed
+sin it be to harden one's heart against a bad man."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember, too, my dear Priscilla, how she refused
+to go to church the Sunday after she received his cold-blooded
+missive telling her he wished his engagement at an end? I
+often wonder in what language he could have couched such a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+scandalous desire; but she tore the letter up. Dear! dear! it
+might have happened to-day, it is all so clear to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Too clear," says Miss Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"I recollect, too," says Miss Penelope, leaning her elbows
+on the table, pushing her untasted tea from her, and warming
+to the dismal memory, "how she would not come down to dinner
+on that eventful evening, though we had the red-currant
+tart she was so fond of, and how I took some up myself and
+knocked at her door and entreated her to open to me and to
+eat some of it. There was whipped cream on it; and she was
+very fond of cream, too."</p>
+
+<p>"And she refused to open the door?" asks Miss Priscilla,
+with the satisfied air of one who has often heard the thrilling
+recital before, yet was never tired of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely! so I laid the plate on a little table outside
+her door. Some hours afterwards, going up to bed, I saw the
+plate was gone and her door slightly ajar. Stealing into her
+room on tiptoe, I saw she was sleeping peacefully, and that she
+had eaten the red-currant tart. I felt so happy then. Poor
+dear child! how fond she was of that tart."</p>
+
+<p>"She liked everything that had sugar in it," says Miss Priscilla,
+mournfully.</p>
+
+<p>"It was only natural. 'Sweets to the sweet,'" says Miss
+Penelope, letting one little white jewelled hand fall slowly, sadly
+upon the other.</p>
+
+<p>There is a lengthened pause.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, stooping slightly towards her sister, Miss Penelope
+says in a mysterious whisper,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder, my dear Priscilla, <i>why</i> she married James
+Beresford a month afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>"Who can read the human heart? Perhaps it was pride
+drove her into that marriage,&mdash;a desire to show George Desmond
+how lightly she treated his desertion of her. And James
+was a handsome young fellow, whereas George was&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ugly," says Miss Penelope, with quite an amazing amount
+of vicious <a class="corr" name="TC_3" id="TC_3" title="satisfactiou">satisfaction</a> for her.</p>
+
+<p>"Strikingly so," says Miss Priscilla, acquiescing most
+agreeably. "But then the Desmond estates mean half the
+county; and we <i>used</i> to think he was the soul of honor."</p>
+
+<p>"It was our father's expressed desire upon his deathbed
+that Katherine should marry him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes; a desire to be held sacred. And Katherine
+gave her promise to our dying parent. Nothing," says Miss
+Priscilla, in a solemn tone, "should induce any one to break
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+such an oath. I have often said so to the dear child. But she
+appeared not only willing, but anxious, to marry George Desmond.
+<i>His</i> was the traitorous mind."</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay he has had his own punishment," says Miss
+Penelope, mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," says Miss Priscilla, sternly. Then, with a
+return to sadness, "Twenty years ago it is, and now she has
+been a twelvemonth dead and in her quiet grave."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>don't</i>, my dear Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, in a
+broken voice, burying her face in her pocket-handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! well, well, we had better look to the future; the
+past has no charms for us," says Miss Priscilla, with a ghastly
+attempt at cheerfulness. "Let me see," referring through a
+pair of gold-rimmed spectacles to the letter in her hand: "That
+the dear children have landed we know, and&mdash;h'm&mdash;yes, this
+very&mdash;yes, plainly, <i>very</i> respectable person, the captain, writes
+to say they will be with us to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"<i><span class="s_corr" title="To morrow">To-morrow</span>!</i> and that was written yesterday," says Miss
+Penelope, putting down her handkerchief and starting once
+more into life. "Why, at that rate, my dear Priscilla, they
+will be here <i>to-day</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Bless me! you don't mean it!" exclaims Miss Priscilla,
+again applying her glasses to the letter. <span class="s_corr" title="">"</span>Monday, and this is
+Tuesday: yes, sure enough you are right. What a head you
+have, my dear Penelope!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not at all," says Miss Penelope, flushing with pleasure
+at this tribute to her intellect.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day,&mdash;in a few hours. Now, what is to be done about
+the beds?"</p>
+
+<p>"But surely they are aired?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aired?&mdash;yes. They have been aired every day regularly
+for the past two months, ever since I first heard the children
+were likely to come to us. But still I am uncertain about them.
+I know they will want hot jars; and then the rooms, they will
+want flowers and many things&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't I help you?" demands Miss Penelope, eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear girl, not at all," says Miss Priscilla, with a calmly
+superior air, arising from the fact that she is quite eighteen
+months her senior. "You can assist me with your valuable
+counsel, but I would not have you disturb yourself for worlds.
+You must be cool and collected, and hold yourself in readiness
+to receive them when they come. They will be shy, no doubt,
+coming here all the way from Palestine, and it must be your
+part to make them feel quite at home."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This to Miss Penelope, who is afraid of strangers in any
+guise, appears such a fearful mission that she pales, and says,
+tremblingly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But you too will be present at our first meeting? I must
+indeed <i>beg</i> you to be present, my dear Priscilla."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, of course," says Miss Priscilla, encouragingly.
+Then, doubtfully, "I hope the boy won't take a dislike to us."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder how we shall get on with children," says Miss
+Penelope. She is evidently growing extremely nervous. "It
+seems so strange they should be coming here to the old house."</p>
+
+<p>"Monica cannot be a child now. She must be at least
+eighteen," says Miss Priscilla, thoughtfully. "It was in 1863
+that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"1864, I think," interrupts Miss Penelope.</p>
+
+<p>"1863," persists Miss Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"You may be right, my dear," says Miss Penelope, mildly
+but firmly, "you often are,&mdash;but I know it was in '64 that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" asks Miss Priscilla, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"The Desmond jilted our Katherine."</p>
+
+<p>"You are wrong, Penelope, utterly wrong. It was in '63."</p>
+
+<p>"I am nearly always wrong," says Miss Penelope, meekly,
+yet with a latent sense of suppressed power. "But I cannot
+forget that in the year George Desmond behaved so shamefully
+to our sweet Katherine, Madam O'Connor's cow had two
+calves, and <i>that</i>," triumphantly, "was in '64."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right&mdash;quite right," says Miss Priscilla, vanquished,
+but not cast down. "So it was. What a memory you
+have, my dear Penelope!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing when compared with <i>yours</i>," says Miss Penelope,
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the door opens and an old man enters the
+room. He is clad in the garb of a servant, though such wonderful
+habiliments as those in which he has arrayed himself
+would be difficult to purchase nowadays: whether there are
+more wrinkles in his forehead or in his trousers is a nice question
+that could not readily be decided at a moment's notice.</p>
+
+<p>He is quite ten years older than either of his mistresses;
+and, indeed, both he and his garments belong to a by-gone
+generation. His knees are bent, so is his back; his face is
+like a Ribston pippin, his coat is a marvel both in cut and in
+texture, but his linen is irreproachable, and what hair nature
+has still left him is most carefully brushed. There is, too, in
+his small gray Irish eyes a mischievous twinkle, and a fund of
+honest good humor that goes far to defy the ravages of time.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+In spite of his seventy years and his quaint attire, he still at
+times can hold his own with many a younger man.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Timothy," says Miss Priscilla, looking up as he
+approaches the table, "we have had news of Miss Katherine's&mdash;I
+mean Mrs. Beresford's&mdash;children."</p>
+
+<p>"Rest her sowl!" says Timothy, in a reverential tone,
+alluding to that part of the late Mrs. Beresford.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems they have landed and will be with us to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"The day, miss?" growing brisk at this unexpected announcement.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they have reached England in safety, and are now
+in Dublin. What a long, long journey it has been for them,"
+with another dreamy glance at the letter, "all the way from
+Palestine!"</p>
+
+<p>"An' so it has, miss, poor little crathurs!" says Timothy,
+who knows as much about the whereabouts of Palestine as he
+does about the man in the moon.</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't think they are very young, Timothy," says
+Miss Penelope, hastily. "Miss Priscilla and I have been talking
+it over, and we believe Miss Beresford must be now seventeen,
+Master Terence sixteen, and Miss Kate fourteen."</p>
+
+<p>"And so of course they must be, miss. Thrue for ye,
+ma'am. Dear, dear, though only to think now; it seems only
+the other day the dear young lady was married to Mister
+Beresford. But you aren't eating a bit, miss," anxiously;
+"you haven't tasted a morsel, ma'am. What can I get ye
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, Timothy. The fact is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There's an iligant ham downstairs, ma'am," says the old
+man, now really concerned for the mistresses, who still always
+appear to him as "the young ladies:" "let me bring it up to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you, Timothy: we are just a little upset by
+this sudden news. We cannot help wondering how the old
+house will be with children in it, after all these years of calm
+and quiet."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure an' a grand change it will be for us all, miss; 'twill
+indeed, ma'am,<span class="s_corr" title="'">"</span> says Timothy, cheerfully, though his mind
+misgives him. "There's nothing like children, when all's
+told: sure's there's music in every sound of their footsteps."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope they will be good," says Miss Penelope, with a
+doubtful sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Faix, what else would they be, miss?" says the old man,
+with assumed reproach. "'Tis well I mind of poor Miss
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+Katherine herself,&mdash;the soft tongue she had in her head, an'
+never a cross word out of her, save to Nelly Doolin&mdash;an' she
+was the divil herself, savin' your presence, miss, and enough to
+provoke all the saints&mdash;glory be&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I trust they will be happy here," goes on Miss Penelope,
+still wistful.</p>
+
+<p>"An' why not, miss? Sure the counthry is the finest place
+at all for the young; and where's a finer counthry than ould
+Ireland?"</p>
+
+<p>"Much can't be said for it of late, Timothy," says Miss
+Priscilla, sadly: "all it can boast of now is rebellion, sedition,
+and bloodshed."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure every one must have a kick up sometimes, miss,"
+says Timothy, with youthful lightness; "an', afther all, isn't
+the ould place only doin' what she can for herself, more power
+to her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ryan," says Miss Priscilla, sternly, addressing her butler
+by his surname,&mdash;a thing that is never done except in dire
+cases,&mdash;and fixing upon him an icy glance beneath which he
+quails, "I regret you should so far forget yourself as to utter
+such treasonable sentiments in our presence. You ought to be
+ashamed of yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"So I am miss. I humbly ask yer pardon, ma'am," says
+Mr. Ryan, promptly. "But all the different opinions one
+hears addles the brain. 'Twas only last night the Murphys had
+a meeting, and they do say, miss," lowering his voice confidentially,
+"that the Squire down there," pointing apparently
+through the breakfast-room wall, "is in a bad way with the
+League boys."</p>
+
+<p>"The Desmond?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, miss. He's been evictin' again, ma'am, an' there's
+queer talk about him. But," with a relapse into former
+thought, "if he's a bad landlord, what can he expect?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, Timothy. He is not a bad landlord," says Miss
+Priscilla, hastily, though this allowance of grace to her enemy
+causes her a bitter pang. "He has been most patient for years.
+That I <i>know</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, maybe so, miss," says Ryan, deferentially, but with
+a reservation in his manner that speaks volumes. "It isn't for
+the likes of me ma'am, to contradict the likes of you. But did
+ye hear, miss, that Misther Desmond's nephew has come to
+stay with him?"</p>
+
+<p>"At Coole?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the Castle. Yes, miss. Faix 'twas meself was surprised
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+to hear it. But there he is, safe enough, an' another
+gentleman with him; an' they do say that the old masther is as
+proud as Punch of him. But his blood's bad, I'll no doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," says Priscilla, severely.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Penelope sighs.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How two Old Maids are made acquainted with a very Young One.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Already we have reached the afternoon<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span> In these warm
+June days, when all the earth is languorous and glad with its
+own beauty, time slips from us unannounced, and the minutes
+from morn to eventide, and from the gloaming till nightfall,
+melt into one another, until all seem one sweet, lengthened
+hour.</p>
+
+<p>Just now the hot sun is pouring down upon garden and
+gravelled walks at Moyne; except the hum of the industrious
+bees, not a sound can be heard; even the streamlet at the end
+of the long lawn is running sleepily, making sweet music as it
+goes, indeed, but so drowsily, so heavily, that it hardly reaches
+the ear; and so, too, with the lap-lapping of the waves upon
+the shore below, as the tide comes and goes.</p>
+
+<p>Not a breath of air comes to disturb the languid grandeur
+of the huge elms that stand staring up to heaven just opposite
+the hall door. The crows swinging in their branches up above
+are all subdued; hardly have they energy enough to flap their
+great, broad wings.</p>
+
+<p>Little stationary clouds lie like flecks of silver upon the
+pale-blue sky; far far away, in the woods of Coole, a cuckoo may
+be heard at long and yet longer intervals,&mdash;last remnant of a
+vanished spring; but all the other birds have succumbed to
+the power of the great god of light, and are wrapped in
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>Certain stray little sunbeams, half wild with glee, rushing
+hither and thither through the roses, discover Miss Penelope
+Blake sitting in the drawing-room at Moyne. She is dressed
+in her very best lavender silk, that would stand alone, and be
+glad to do it if it was let, but unabashed by her splendor
+Apollo's saucy babies dance down upon her, and, seizing on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+her knitting-needles, play hide and seek among them, until the
+poor lady's eyes are fairly dazzled.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, at this instant Miss Priscilla, entering the room,
+draws down the blind and restores order: after which she seats
+herself almost directly opposite her sister.</p>
+
+<p>The Misses Blake are not pretty old ladies at all. I don't
+want to deceive you in this matter. They are, in fact, quite
+ugly old ladies. Their noses are all wrong, their cheeks
+are as wrinkled as Timothy's forehead, and their mouths out
+of all drawing.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Priscilla's eyes are brown,&mdash;a deep startling brown,
+that seems to look you through and through and compels the
+truth. Her hair is brown, too, and soft, and silky, and pretty,
+though thickly sprinkled with gray. She has a great deal of
+this hair, and is secretly very proud of it.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Penelope's eyes are pale blue,&mdash;with very little blue,&mdash;and
+but for her long lashes (sole remnants of goodlier days)
+would be oppressive. Her hair is pale, too, and sandy, and is
+braided back from her forehead in severe lines.</p>
+
+<p>There is a pensive air about Miss Penelope that might
+suggest to the casual observer an early and disastrous love-affair.
+But all such imaginings on his part would be vain. No
+winged cupid ever hid in Miss Penelope's ear, or played bo-peep
+in her virgin bosom, or nestled in her sandy locks: she is
+free from all taint of such wild frivolisms.</p>
+
+<p>"All is ready now," says Miss Priscilla,&mdash;who is the Martha
+at Moyne, while we may regard Miss Penelope as the Mary.
+"The rooms are prepared, nothing is wanting, and the flowers
+smell so sweet. I have sent the carriage to meet them, though
+I know the train cannot be here for quite an hour yet; but I
+think it wise always to be in time."</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing like it," says Miss Penelope, placidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I shall rest here with you a little while," goes on the
+elder maiden, complacently, "and think of all that is likely to
+happen."</p>
+
+<p>"Really," says Miss Penelope, lowering her work and
+glancing restlessly at her sister, "I feel more nervous than I
+can say, when I think of their coming. What on earth should
+we do, dear Priscilla, if they took a dislike to us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have thought of that myself," says Miss Priscilla, in an
+awe-struck tone. "We are not attractive, Penelope: beyond
+a few&mdash;a <i>very</i> few&mdash;insignificant touches," with an inward glance
+at her fine hair, "we are absolutely outside the pale of beauty.
+I wonder if Monica will be like her mother, or if&mdash;&mdash;"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Here something happens that puts a final stop to all conversation.
+The door is opened, quickly, impetuously; there is a
+sound as of many footsteps on the threshold without.</p>
+
+<p>The old ladies start in their seats, and sit upright, trembling
+excessively. What can have happened? Has the sedate Ryan
+come to loggerheads with Mrs. Reilly the cook? (a state of
+things often threatened); and are they now standing on the mat
+meditating further bloodshed?</p>
+
+<p>A moment surcharged with thrilling suspense goes by, and
+then, not Ryan or the cook, but a much more <a class="corr" name="TC_4" id="TC_4" title="preplexing">perplexing</a> vision
+comes slowly into the room.</p>
+
+<p>It is a very radiant vision, though it is clothed in mourning
+garments, full of grace and beauty. Very shy, with parted lips,
+and brilliant frightened eyes, but perfect as an opening flower.</p>
+
+<p>Is it a child or a woman? is the first question that strikes
+Miss Penelope. As for Miss Priscilla, she is too surprised for
+thought of any kind, too lost in admiration of the little, gracious
+uncertain, figure, with its deep-blue eyes glancing up at her
+with a half-terrified yet trusting expression, to give way to
+speech of any kind.</p>
+
+<p>She is slight, and slim as a hazel wand. Her hair is nut-brown,
+with a red gold tinge running through it. Her nose is
+adorable, if slightly tilted; her mouth is a red, red rose, sad but
+sweet, and full of purpose. Her eyes are large and expressive,
+but touched, like her lips, with a suspicion of melancholy that
+renders them only a degree more sweet and earnest.</p>
+
+<p>There is a spirituality about her, a calm, a peace that shines
+out of these dark Irish eyes, and rests upon her perfect lips, as
+it were a lingering breath of the heaven from whence she came.</p>
+
+<p>She stands now, hesitating a little, with her hands loosely
+clasped,&mdash;brown little hands, but beautifully shaped. Indeed,
+all her skin owes more of its coloring to Ph&oelig;bus Apollo than
+nature intended. She draws her breath somewhat quickly,
+and then, as though anxious to get through the troublous task
+assigned her, says, nervously, in a low, sweet voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am Monica."</p>
+
+<p>As she says this, she glances entreatingly from one old lady
+to the other, with some trouble in her great eyes, and some
+tears. Then all at once her lips tremble to a smile, and a soft
+light breaks upon her face.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> are Aunt Priscilla," she says, turning to Miss Blake;
+"I know you by your dark eyes, and by your <i>pretty</i> hair!"</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of her voice the two old ladies wake from
+their abstraction.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, it is your aunt Priscilla," says Miss Penelope,
+eagerly, with a sudden pleased smile. Had the compliment
+been made to herself she could not possibly have appeared
+more delighted, and certainly would not have betrayed her
+satisfaction so openly. "Her hair," she says, "was always
+beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>As for Miss Priscilla, she is smiling too, but in a shamefaced
+fashion, and is blushing a warm pretty crimson, such as
+a girl of seventeen might be guilty of, listening to a first word
+of love.</p>
+
+<p>She takes Monica's right hand in hers and pats it softly;
+and Miss Penelope takes her left; and then the two old ladies
+stoop forward, and, one after the other, kiss the pale, girlish
+cheek, and with the kiss take her at once and forever into their
+very hearts.</p>
+
+<p>"But surely, dear child, you did not come alone?" says
+Miss Priscilla, presently, calling to remembrance the fact that
+there ought to be two other Beresfords somewhere.</p>
+
+<p>"No; Terence and Katherine are with me."</p>
+
+<p>"But where, my dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I <i>think</i> they are standing on the mat, just outside
+the door," says Monica, blushing and laughing; and then she
+says, rather louder, "Terry and Kit, you may come in now. It
+is all right."</p>
+
+<p>As to what was evidently supposed not to be "all right" up
+to this, the Misses Blake have no time to decide upon before a
+fresh nephew and niece present themselves to their view.
+They come in quite gayly,&mdash;reassured, no doubt, by Monica's
+tone: Terence, a tall slim lad of about sixteen, and a little girl
+somewhat like Monica, but more restless in features, and even
+a degree more pallid.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear children, why didn't you come in before?" said
+Miss Priscilla, aghast at the inhospitable thought that they had
+been shivering with needless nervousness in the hall for the
+last five minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"They said they wouldn't come in until I paved the way
+for them," says Monica, with a slight shrug of her shoulders
+that is a trick of hers. "They always put everything upon my
+shoulders: a little shabby of them <i>I</i> call it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid you must have pictured us as ogres," says
+Miss Priscilla, which idea strikes the old ladies as such a
+delicious flight of fancy that they laugh outright, and look at
+each other with intense enjoyment of their little joke.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course we couldn't tell what you would be like,"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+says Monica, gravely. "You might have been people likely to
+impress one with awe; but, as <i>it is</i>&mdash;&mdash;This is Terry," laying
+her hand upon her brother's arm; "and this is Kit. She is
+really Katherine, you know, but no one ever calls her by so
+long a name. She isn't worth it."</p>
+
+<p>At this the three Beresfords laugh among themselves, as
+children will, at time-worn fun, knowing no fatigue; after which
+Katherine and Terence are embraced and made much of by
+their new-found relatives, and freely commented upon.</p>
+
+<p>But ever and anon the eyes of both old ladies wander
+thoughtfully, admiringly, to where the lissome Monica stands,
+like a pale, pensive lily.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>"But how have you managed to be here so soon?" asks
+Miss Priscilla, when the impromptu luncheon, improvised by
+the startled Timothy, has come to an end. The children were
+all hungry, and have eaten a great deal, and have talked more.
+Indeed, though Miss Priscilla has been dying to ask this question
+for a long time, it has been impossible for her to do so, as
+there has not been so much as a comma in the conversation
+for the last hour.</p>
+
+<p>The Beresfords <a class="corr" name="TC_5" id="TC_5" title="ars">are</a> like so many clocks wound up, and
+bound to go for a certain time whether they like it or not; and,
+apparently, they do like it. Now they have run down a little,
+Terence being exhausted after his last laughing attack, and Kit
+wrapped in contemplation of an old-fashioned hair brooch that
+is fastening an equally old-fashioned piece of priceless lace that
+adorns Miss Penelope's throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I can't think how they do it!" she says, lost in
+admiration of a little slim hair lady bending over a miniature
+hair urn in the most lachrymose attitude conceivable. "But
+they have put her eye in wrongly: she looks as if she is dying
+with laughter."</p>
+
+<p>Here Miss Priscilla edges in her question, as to how they
+have contrived to be at Moyne at so early an hour.</p>
+
+<p>"We came by the wrong train," says Terry. "We
+generally do. Ever since we left the South of France&mdash;where
+we were staying with the Bohuns, you know, on our way here&mdash;we
+have been missing our trains right and left, and turning
+up at all sorts of unexpected places. Haven't we, Kit?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> have," says Kit, with suspicious emphasis. "You
+have such a pretty trick of rushing into the first train you see,
+without ever asking any one where it is going. No wonder we
+always turned up at the wrong end."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>You've</i> a pretty trick of putting everything down on other
+people's shoulders," says Terence, with open disgust. "Whose
+fault was it we were always so late at the stations that we
+hadn't time to make inquiries, I'd like to know? Could you,"
+with fine irony, "tell us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly; it was nurse," replies Kit, with dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me! and where is your nurse now?" asks Miss
+Priscilla, anxiously. The query is a fortunate one, in that it
+turns the conversation into a different channel, and checks the
+eloquence of Kit and Terry, who are plainly on the brink of
+an open war.</p>
+
+<p>"When last <i>I</i> saw her," says Terence, "she was sitting on
+the top of our biggest box, with everything else strewn around
+her, and her feet resting on two brown-paper parcels.&mdash;I wonder,"
+says Mr. Beresford, addressing Monica, "what on earth
+she had in those brown paper parcels. She has been hugging
+them night and day ever since she left Jerusalem."</p>
+
+<p>"Dynamite," suggested Monica, lightly; whereupon the
+two Misses Blake turn pale.</p>
+
+<p>"At that rate, Aunt Priscilla, we needn't trouble about
+her," says Terence, pleasantly, "as she <i>must</i> be blown up by
+this. None of those clock-work affairs could be arranged to
+go on much longer. Poor thing! when in the flesh she wasn't
+half bad. I forgive her everything,&mdash;even her undying hatred
+to myself."</p>
+
+<p>"If she is in fragments, so are our things," says Kit. "I
+think she <i>needn't</i> have elected to sit on them at the supreme
+moment.<span class="s_corr" title="'">"</span></p>
+
+<p>"You don't really think," says Miss Penelope, in a somewhat
+troubled tone, remembering how an innocent baker in Rossmoyne
+had had some of the explosive matter in question thrown
+into his kitchen the night before last,&mdash;<span class="s_corr" title="&quot;">"</span>you don't really think
+that these parcels you speak of contain infernal machines?&mdash;Yes,
+that is what they call them, my dear Priscilla," turning to
+her sister, as though anxious to apologize for having used a word
+calculated to lead the mind to the lower regions.</p>
+
+<p>By this time both Kit and Terence are convulsed with delight
+at the sensation they have created, and would probably have
+gone on to declare the innocent Mrs. Mitchell an advanced Nihilist
+of the most dangerous type, but for Monica's coming to the
+rescue and explaining matters satisfactorily.</p>
+
+<p>"Still, I cannot understand how you got up here so quickly,"
+says Miss Penelope. <span class="s_corr" title="&quot;">"</span>You know Moyne&mdash;home I hope you will
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+call it for the future, my dears<span class="s_corr" title=",&quot;&mdash;">&mdash;" </span>with a little fond pat on Monica's
+hand, <span class="s_corr" title="&quot;">"</span>is quite three miles from the station."</p>
+
+<p>"We should have thought nothing of that," says Terence,
+"but for Kit; she has had a fever, you know," pointing to the
+child's closely-cropped, dark little head; "so we said we would
+just stroll on a little and see what the country was like<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>"And lovely it is," puts in Kit, enthusiastically. "We got
+up on a high hill, and saw the sea lying like a great quiet lake
+beneath us. There was scarcely a ripple on it, and only a soft
+sound like a sob." Her eyes, that are almost too big for her
+small face, glow brilliantly.</p>
+
+<p>"And then there came by a man with a cart filled with hay,
+and he nodded to us and said, 'Good-morning, sir;' and so I
+nodded back, and said, 'How d'ye do?' to him and asked him was
+it far to Moyne House. 'A good step,' he said; 'three miles at
+the very least.'"</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't; he said <i>laste</i>," says Kit, who is plainly in a
+litigious mood.</p>
+
+<p>"At that," says Monica, breaking in eagerly, feeling, no
+doubt, she has been left too long out in the cold, and that it is
+time her voice were heard, "I suppose I looked rather forlorn,
+because he said, quite nicely 'Maybe ye'd not be too proud, miss,
+to get into me cart, an I'll dhrive the lot of ye up to the House,
+where as luck has it, I'm goin' meself.'" She mimicks the soft
+Southern brogue very prettily.</p>
+
+<p>"So up we got," says Kit, gayly, "and away we went in
+the nice sweet hay, jog trot, jog trot, and <i>so</i> comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>The Misses Blake by this time are filled with dismay. In
+Rossmoyne, where families are few and far between, and indecent
+scandal unknown, the smallest trifles are seized upon with
+avidity and manufactured into mountains. "A good appearance,"
+Miss Penelope was taught at school, "is the first step in
+life," and here have these children been making <i>their</i> appearance
+for the first time in a common hay-cart.</p>
+
+<p>What will Madam O'Connor say? Madam O'Connor's
+father having always laid claim to being a direct descendant of
+one of the old kings of Munster, Madam's veins of course are
+filled with blood royal, and as such are to be held in reverence.
+What <i>won't</i> this terrible old woman say, when she hears
+of the Beresfords' escapade?</p>
+
+<p>The Misses Blake sit shivering, blinking their eyelids, and
+afraid to say anything.</p>
+
+<p>"We got on splendidly," Terence is saying, "and might
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+indeed have finished our journey respectably, but for Monica.
+<i>She</i> laid our reputation in the dust."</p>
+
+<p>Monica turns upon him an appealing glance from her large
+soft eyes that would have melted any heart but that of a
+brother's.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Priscilla," says the adamantine youth, "what is the
+name of the house with a big gate, about a half a mile from
+this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Coole Castle," replies she, stiffly, the very fact of having
+to mention the residence of the detested Desmond making her
+heart beat violently. But Terry is a person blind to speaking
+glances and deaf to worded hints. In effect, Terry and tact
+are two; so he goes on, unheeding his aunt's evident disrelish
+for the subject,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, just as we got to Coole, I saw a fellow standing inside
+the entrance-gate, smoking a cigar. I fancied he looked
+amused, but would have thought nothing of that, only I heard him
+laugh aloud, and saw he was staring over my head&mdash;I was
+driving&mdash;to where Monica and Kit were, on the top of the hay.
+It occurred to me then to see what the girls were doing, so I
+stood up on the shaft, and looked, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here he pauses, as though slightly overcome.</p>
+
+<p>"What, my dear?" asks Miss Priscilla, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"There was Monica lying in an &aelig;sthetic attitude,&mdash;<i>very</i>
+&aelig;sthetic,&mdash;with her chin in her hands, and her eyes on the
+horse's ears, and her thoughts I presume in heaven, or wherever
+young ladies keep them, and with her heels&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't <i>truth</i>!<span class="s_corr" title="&quot;"></span>&mdash;it <i>isn't</i>!" interrupts Monica, blushing
+furiously, and speaking with much indignation. "I don't believe
+a single word of it!"</p>
+
+<p>"And with her heels&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Terence!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"In mid-air. She was kicking them up and down with delight,"
+says Terence, fairly bubbling over with joy at the recollection.
+"It was the most humiliating sight for a modest
+brother. I shall never forgive her for it. Besides, the strange
+young man was&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If you say another word," says Monica, white with wrath
+and tears in her eyes, "I shall never speak to you again, or help
+you out of any trouble."</p>
+
+<p>This awful threat has the desired effect of reducing Mr.
+Beresford to subjection. He goes down before the foe, and
+truckles to her meanly.</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't take it so much to heart," he says soothingly:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+"there wasn't much in it, after all; and your shoes are
+very pretty, and so are your feet."</p>
+
+<p>The compliment works wonders; Monica quite brightens up
+again, but the two old ladies are hopelessly scandalized.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel assured, Terence," says Miss Priscilla, with much
+dignity, "that under <i>no</i> circumstances could a niece of mine
+show too much of her&mdash;&mdash;her&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here Miss Priscilla blushes, and breaks down.</p>
+
+<p>"Legs?" suggests Terry, politely.</p>
+
+<p>"But who was the strange young man?" asks Miss Penelope,
+curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Our friend of the hay-cart said his name was Desmond,
+and that he was nephew to the master of the house behind the
+big gates," returns Kit, fluently.</p>
+
+<p>"Desmond!" says Miss Priscilla, greatly agitated. "Let
+me never hear you mention that name again! It has been our
+bane! Forget you have ever been so unfortunate as to encounter
+this young man; and if ill luck should ever drive him
+across your path again, remember you do not&mdash;you never <i>can</i>&mdash;know
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"But I'm certain he will know Monica if he sees her again,"
+says Kit. "He stared at her as if she had seven heads."</p>
+
+<p>"No wonder, considering her equivocal position. And as
+to knowing Monica, I'm not certain of that, of course, but I'm
+utterly positive he could swear to her <i>shoes</i> in a crowd," says
+Terence, with unholy delight. "He was enchanted with them,
+and with the clocks on her stockings: I think he was taking
+the pattern of them."</p>
+
+<p>"He was <i>not</i>," says Monica, almost weeping. "He couldn't
+see them. I was too high up."</p>
+
+<p>"What will you bet he doesn't know the color of them?"
+asks her tormentor, with a fresh burst of appreciation of the
+undignified scene. "When I see him again I'll ask him."</p>
+
+<p>"Terence," says Miss Priscilla, growing very pale, "you
+must never see him again, or, at all events, you must never
+speak to him. Understand, once for all, that intimacy between
+us and the inhabitants of Coole is impossible. This feud I
+hint at touches you even more closely than it touches us, but
+you cannot feel it more than we do,&mdash;perhaps not as much.
+The honor of our family has suffered at the hands of the Master
+of Coole. He is the enemy of our house!"</p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla!" murmurs Miss Penelope, in a low and trembling
+tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not try to check me, Penelope. I <i>will</i> speak," says
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+Miss Priscilla, sternly. "This man, years ago, offered one
+near and dear to us an indignity not to be lightly borne. The
+world is wide," turning to the astonished children, "you can
+make friends where you choose; but I would have you recollect
+that <i>never</i> can a Beresford and a Desmond have aught in common."</p>
+
+<p>"But what have the Desmonds done to us, Aunt Priscilla?"
+asks Monica, a good deal awed by the old lady's solemnity.</p>
+
+<p>"Some other time you shall know all," says Miss Priscilla<span class="s_corr" title="?"></span>
+in the low tone one might adopt if speaking of the last
+appalling murder.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, some other time<span class="s_corr" title=".">,</span>" echoes Miss <a class="corr" name="TC_6" id="TC_6" title="Penolope">Penelope</a>, gently.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Monica studies the landscape.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>"Is it thrue, ma'am, what I hear, that ye'll be wantin' a
+maid for Miss Monica?" asks Mrs. Reilly, the cook at Moyne,
+dropping a respectful courtesy just inside the drawing-room
+door. "Ryan let dhrop a word to me about it, so I made so
+bould, ma'am, as to come upstairs an' tell ye I think I know a
+girl as will come in handy to ye."</p>
+
+<p>"And who is she, Reilly?" asks Miss Priscilla anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"She's a very good girl, ma'am, an' smart, an' nate, an' I
+think ye'll like her," replies cook, who, like all Irish people,
+finds a difficulty in giving a direct answer to a direct question.
+Perhaps, too, there is a little wiliness in her determination not
+to name the new servant's parentage just at present.</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay; I place great reliance upon your opinion,
+Reilly. But who is she? Does she come from the village, or
+from one of the farms? I should prefer the farms."</p>
+
+<p>"She's as tidy as she can be," says Mrs. Reilly, amiably
+but still evasively, "an' a bit of a scholard into the bargain,
+an' a very civil tongue in her head. She's seventeen all out,
+ma'am, and never yet gave her mother a saucy word."</p>
+
+<p>"That is as it should be," says Miss Priscilla, commendingly.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+"You feel a great interest in this girl, I can see. You
+know her well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, miss. She is me uncle's wife's sisther's child, an' as
+good a girl as ever stepped in shoe leather."</p>
+
+<p>"She is then?" asks Miss Priscilla, faintly, puzzled by this
+startling relationship.</p>
+
+<p>"She's that girl of the Cantys', ma'am, and as likely a
+colleen as ever ye met, though I say it as shouldn't, she being
+kin-like," says Mrs. Reilly, boldly, seeing her time is come.</p>
+
+<p>"What! that pretty, blue-eyed child that called to see you
+yesterday? She <i>is</i> from the village, then?" with manifest
+distaste.</p>
+
+<p>"An' what's the matther wid the village, ma'am?" By this
+time Mrs. Reilly has her arms akimbo, and has an evident
+thirst for knowledge full upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"But I fear she is flighty and wild, and not at all domesticated
+in any way."</p>
+
+<p>"An' who has the face to say that, ma'am? Give me the
+names of her dethractors," says Mrs. Reilly, in an awful tone,
+that seemed to demand the blood of the "dethractors."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel sure, Reilly," says Miss Priscilla, slowly, "that you
+are not aware of the position your arms have taken. It is most
+unbecoming." Mrs. Reilly's arms dropped to her sides. "And
+as for this girl you speak of, I hear she is, as I say, very
+flighty.<span class="s_corr" title="'">"</span></p>
+
+<p>"Don't believe a word of it, ma'am," says cook, with virtuous
+indignation. "Just because she holds up her head a bit,
+an' likes a ribbon or two, there's no holdin' the gossips down
+below," indicating the village by a backward jerk of her thumb.
+"She's as dacent a little sowl as you'd wish to see, an' has as
+nate a foot as there is in the county. The Cantys has all a
+character for purty feet."</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty feet are all very well in their way," says Miss Priscilla,
+nodding her head. "But can she sew? and is she quiet
+and tractable, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Divil a thing she can't do, ma'am, axin' yer pardon," says
+Mrs. Reilly, rather losing herself in the excitement of the moment.
+"Just thry her, ma'am, an' if ye don't like her, an' if
+Miss Monica finds even one fault in her, just send her back to
+her mother. I can't say fairer nor that."</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed. Very well, Reilly, let her come up to me to-morrow;
+and see that her inside clothes are all right, and let
+her know she must <i>never</i> be out after dark.<span class="s_corr" title="'">"</span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am," says the triumphant Reilly, beating a hasty
+retreat.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour afterwards she encounters Monica upon the
+avenue.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, where are you going, Mrs. Reilly?" asks Monica,
+seeing that cook is got up in all her war-paint, regardless of expense.</p>
+
+<p>"To mass first, miss," says Mrs. Reilly.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's that?" asks Monica, with foreign ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>"Law! to the chapel, miss," says Reilly, with an amused
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"But it isn't Sunday?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, miss. It's a saint's day&mdash;may they be good to us!"
+crossing herself. "It's different with you, miss, you see; but
+we poor folks, we must say our prayers when we can, or the
+Virgin will dhrop us out of her mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Is your chapel pretty?" asks Monica, who has now been
+a week in the country, and through very weariness feels a mad
+desire to talk to somebody or anybody.</p>
+
+<p>"Faix, it's lovely, miss, since Father Jerry took it in hand!
+There's the finest pictures ye ever saw on the walls, an' an
+altar it 'ud do ye good to look at."</p>
+
+<p>"Would it? Then I'll go some day to see it," says Monica,
+smiling, not knowing that her aunts would as soon let her enter
+a pandemonium as a Roman Catholic chapel.</p>
+
+<p>Dear old ladies! frightened by shadows, they have been
+bred in the belief that the Evil One dwells beneath the shade
+of the Romish Church, and will therefore surely die in it.</p>
+
+<p>"Do, then, agra!" said Mrs. Reilly, who has, of course,
+like all the other servants, gone down before Monica: "it's
+proud we'd be to see ye there."</p>
+
+<p>There is no thought of conversion in the woman's mind,
+you must remember,&mdash;merely a hospitable desire to let her
+know she will be welcome anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>"By the same token, Miss Monica," says she, "there's
+something I was near forgettin' to tell ye."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" says Monica.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye're goin' to have me uncle's wife's niece for yer own
+maid, miss."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I? I'm glad of that," says Monica, with a native
+courtesy. "Is she"&mdash;with some hesitation and a faint blush&mdash;"is
+she pretty, <a class="corr" name="TC_7" id="TC_7" title="Rielly">Reilly</a>?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's the purtiest girl ye ever set eyes on," says Mrs.
+Reilly, with enthusiasm.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad of <i>that</i>; I can't bear ugly people," says Monica.</p>
+
+<p>"Faix, then, there's a bad time before ye wid the ould
+ladies," mutters Mrs. Reilly, <i>sotto voce</i>, gathering up her cloak
+and stepping onwards. She is a remarkably handsome woman
+herself, and so may safely deplore the want of beauty in her
+betters.</p>
+
+<p>Monica, turning aside, steps on a high bank and looks down
+towards the village. Through the trees she can see the spire
+of the old cathedral rising heavenwards. Though Rossmoyne
+is but a village, it still can boast its cathedral, an ancient edifice,
+uncouth and unlovely, but yet one of the oldest places of
+worship in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Most of my readers would no doubt laugh it to scorn, but
+we who belong to it reverence it, and point out with pride to
+passers by the few quaint marks and tokens that link it to a
+bygone age.</p>
+
+<p>There is a nave, broad and deep, comprising more than a
+third of the whole building, with its old broken stone pavement,
+and high up, carven upon one of its walls the head of
+St. Faughnan, its patron saint,&mdash;a hideous saint, indeed, if he
+resembled that ancient carving. How often have I gazed
+upon his unlovely visage, and wondered in my childish fashion
+why the grace that comes from so divine an origin had not the
+power to render his servant's face more beautiful!</p>
+
+<p>In these later years they have improved (?) and modernized
+the old structure. A stone pulpit, huge and clumsy, erected by
+subscription to the memory of some elderly inhabitant, stands
+like a misshapen blot before the altar rails; a window, too
+broad for its length, and generally out of proportion, throws
+too much light upon the dinginess within; the general character
+of the ugly old place has lost something, but assuredly
+gained nothing, by these innovations. It is hard to put "a
+piece of new cloth on an old garment" successfully.</p>
+
+<p>The village itself stands upon a high hill; the ocean lies at
+its feet. From Moyne House one can see the shimmer of the
+great Atlantic as it dances beneath the sunbeams or lashes itself
+into furious foam under the touch of the north wind. The
+coastguard station, too, stands out, brilliant in its whitewash, a
+gleaming spot upon the landscape.</p>
+
+<p>To the left of the station lies Ounahincha,&mdash;a long, deep
+line of sea-beach that would make its fortune as a bathing
+place under happier auspices and in some more appreciated
+clime.</p>
+
+<p>Monica, looking down from her height, takes in all the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+beauties of the landscape that surround her, and lets the music
+of the melancholy ocean sink into her very soul.</p>
+
+<p>Then she lets her eyes wander to the right, and rest with
+pardonable curiosity upon Coole Castle, where dwells the
+ogre of her house. Above Coole, and about two miles farther
+on, lies Aghyohillbeg, the residence of Madam O'Connor,
+that terrible descendant of one of Ireland's kings; whilst below,
+nestling among its firs and beeches, is Kilmore, where the
+Halfords&mdash;a merry tangle of boys and girls&mdash;may be seen at
+all hours.</p>
+
+<p>Then there is the vicarage, where the rector lives with his
+family, which is large; and nearer to the village, the house
+that holds the curate and his family, which, of course, is
+larger. Besides which, Monica can just see from her vantage-ground
+the wooded slopes of Durrusbeg that have lately called
+young Ronayne master,&mdash;a distant cousin having died most
+unexpectedly and left him all his property.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" style="visibility: hidden; margin-top: .5em;" />
+
+<p>Six months ago, Ulic Ronayne was spoken of by anxious
+matrons as a wild lad, with nothing to recommend him save
+his handsome face and some naughty stories attached to
+his name. Now he is pronounced charming, and the naughty
+stories, which indeed never had any foundation, are discovered
+to have been disgraceful fabrications. Marriageable daughters
+are kinder to him than words can say, and are allowed by the
+most cautious mothers to dance with him as often as they choose,
+and even to sit unlimited hours with him in secluded corners
+of conservatories unrebuked.</p>
+
+<p>Truly, O Plutus! thou art a god indeed. Thou hast outlived
+thy greater brethren. Thy shrine is honored as of old!</p>
+
+<p>After a last lingering glance at the distant ocean and the
+swelling woods that now in Merry June are making their grandest
+show, Monica jumps down from her bank again and goes
+slowly&mdash;singing as she goes&mdash;towards the river that runs at the
+end of Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>Down by its banks Moyne actually touches the hated lands
+of Cooles, a slight boundary fence being all that divides one
+place from the other. The river rushes eagerly past both, on
+its way to the sea, murmuring merrily on its happy voyage, as
+though mocking at human weals and woes and petty quarrels.</p>
+
+<p>Through the waving meadows, over the little brook, past
+the stile, Monica makes her way, plucking here and there the
+scarlet poppies, and the blue cornflowers and daisies, "those
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+pearled Arcturi of the earth, the constellated flower that never
+sets."</p>
+
+<p>The sun is tinting all things with its yellow haze, and is
+burning to brightest gold the reddish tinge in the girl's hair
+as she moves with dallying steps through the green fields. She
+is dressed in a white gown, decked with ribbons of sombre tint,
+and wears upon her head a huge poky bonnet, from which her
+face peeps out, half earnest, half coquettish, wholly pure.</p>
+
+<p>Her hands are bare and shapely, but a little brown; some
+old-fashioned rings glisten on them. She has the tail of her
+gown thrown negligently over her arm, and with her happy
+lips parted in song, and her eyes serene as early dawn, she
+looks like that fair thing of Chaucer's, whose</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Berthe was of the womb of morning dew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And her conception of the joyous prime."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And now the sparkling river comes in sight. Near its
+brink an old boat-house may be seen fast crumbling to decay;
+and on the river itself lies, swaying to and fro, a small punt in
+the very last stages of decline. It is a very terrible little boat,
+quite at death's door, and might have had those lines of Dante's
+painted upon it without libel:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But Monica, in happy ignorance of rotting timbers, thinks only
+of the joy she felt last evening when the discovery of this demoralized
+treasure was made. In the mouldering boat-house
+she had found it, and so had claimed it for her own.</p>
+
+<p>She had told no one of her secret, not even Kit, who is, as
+a rule, her prime minister, her confidante, and her shadow. She
+has, indeed, had great difficulty in escaping from "her shadow"
+just now, but after much diplomatic toil had managed it. To
+find herself upon the calm and gentle river, to dream there her
+own sweet thoughts beneath the kindly shade of the pollard
+willows, to glide with the stream and bask in the sunlight <i>all
+alone</i>, has been her desire since yester-eve.</p>
+
+<p><a class="corr" name="TC_8" id="TC_8" title="To morrow">To-morrow</a>, if to-day proves successful and her rowing does
+not fail her, of which she has had some practice during the last
+two years of her life, she will tell Kit and Terry all about it,
+and let them share her pleasure. But to-day is her own.</p>
+
+<p>The boat is connected with the shore by a rope tied round
+the stump of a tree by most unskilful hands. Flinging her
+flowers into the punt, she strives diligently to undo the knot
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+that she herself had made the night before, but strives in vain<span class="s_corr" title="">.</span>
+The hard rope wounds her tender hands and vexes her gentle
+soul.</p>
+
+<p>She is still struggling with it, and already a little pained
+frown has made a wrinkle on her smooth brow, when another
+boat shoots from under the willows and gains the little
+landing-place, with its pebbly beach, that belongs equally to
+Coole Castle and to Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>This new boat is a tremendous improvement on our
+heroine's. It is the smartest little affair possible, and as safe
+as a church,&mdash;safer, indeed, as times go now. Not that there
+is anything very elaborate about it, but it is freshly painted,
+and there are cushions in it, and all over it a suppressed air of
+luxury.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the cushions, there is something else in it, too,&mdash;a
+young man of about six and twenty, who steps lightly on to
+the bank, though it is a miracle he doesn't lose his footing
+and come ignominiously to the ground, so bent is his gaze on
+the gracious little figure at the other side of the boundary-fence
+struggling with the refractory rope.</p>
+
+<p>It doesn't take any time to cross the boundary.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you allow me to do that for you?" says the strange
+young man, raising his hat politely, and taking the rope out of
+Monica's hand without waiting for permission.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Monica makes a most important discovery and, changing suddenly
+from "lively to severe," is reprehensibly cruel to a most unoffending
+young man.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>"You are very kind," says Monica slowly, feeling not so
+much embarrassment as surprise at this sudden advent.</p>
+
+<p>Then the young man looses the rope, and, having done so,
+casts a cursory glance at the boat to which it is attached. As
+he does so, he lifts his brows.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely you are not dreaming of going on the river in
+<i>that</i>!" he says, indicating the wretched punt by a contemptuous
+wave of his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Why not?" returns she.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There isn't a sound bit of timber in her. What <i>can</i> your
+people be thinking of, to let you trust yourself in such a miserable
+affair?"</p>
+
+<p>"My people have nothing to do with it," says Monica,
+somewhat grandly. "I am <i>my own mistress</i>."</p>
+
+<p>She has picked up her flowers again out of the despised
+punt, and now stands before him with her hands filled with the
+June blossoms, blue, and white, and red. They show bravely
+against the pallor of her gown, and seem, indeed, to harmonize
+altogether with her excessive fairness, for her lips are as red
+as her poppies, and her cornflowers as blue as her eyes, and
+her skin puts her drooping daisies all to shame.</p>
+
+<p>"As you <i>are</i> your own mistress," says the young man, with
+a suspicion of a smile, as he takes in the baby sweetness of
+her mouth, and each detail of her slight girlish figure, that bespeaks
+the child rather than the woman, "I entreat you to
+have mercy upon <i>yourself</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"But what is the matter with it?" asks Monica, peering
+into the boat. "It <i>looks</i> all right; I can't see a hole in it."</p>
+
+<p>"It's nothing <i>but</i> holes, in my opinion," says the strange
+young man, peering in his turn. "It's a regular <i>coffin</i>. You
+will be committing nothing less than suicide if you put your foot
+in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me," says Monica, blankly, feeling impressed in
+spite of herself, "I do think I am the most unfortunate person
+alive. Do you know," lifting her eyes to his, "I didn't sleep
+a wink last night, thinking of this row on the river to-day,
+and now it comes to nothing! That is just like my luck always.
+I was so bent on it; I wanted to get round that corner
+over there," pointing to it, "to see what was at the other side,
+and now I can't do it." It seems to the young man looking at
+her, as though her glance is reproachful, and as if she connects
+him, innocent as he is, with her disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no reason why you shouldn't," he is beginning,
+anxiously, when she contradicts him.</p>
+
+<p>"After all," she says, doubtfully, bending over to look into
+the clear bed of the river, "I don't believe, if things came to
+the worst, and I <i>did</i> get swamped, I should be drowned."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not, if you could swim, or if there was any one
+watching over your welfare from the banks that could."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I can't," confesses Monica, with a sigh; "and unless
+<i>you</i>," with an irrepressible laugh that shows all her white
+and even teeth, "will promise to run along the banks of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+river all the afternoon to watch over me, I don't think there is
+much chance of my escaping death."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't mind in the least being on guard in such a
+cause," says the stranger, politely, with the same carefully
+suppressed smile upon his lips (which are very handsome) as
+had moved them a while ago. "Command me if you will; but
+I would have you remember that, even though I should come
+to the rescue, it would not save you an unpleasant ducking,
+and&mdash;and your pretty gown," with a glance that is almost affectionate
+at the white Indian cotton, "would be completely
+ruined."</p>
+
+<p>"Even that dire idea doesn't daunt me," says Monica,
+gayly: "you forgot that the more limp I am the more &aelig;sthetic
+I shall look. Well," with a sudden relapse into melancholy,
+"I suppose I must give it up, and not go round the corner
+to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>why</i> not?" exclaims he, eagerly. "My boat is at
+your service. <i>Do</i> take it. I have quite done with it, I have
+indeed, and it is lighter than it looks."</p>
+
+<p>"Too heavy for me, I am afraid," says Monica with a
+sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it? Then<span class="s_corr" title="">,</span>" with desperate boldness, "let <i>me</i> row
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>no</i>!" returns she, blushing warmly. "You forget,"
+with a swift glance at him, "you are quite a stranger to me."</p>
+
+<p>Yet he is not quite such a stranger as she thinks. She is
+not such a stranger to him at least, because her face, seen for
+a minute about a week a	go, has haunted him persistently ever
+since.</p>
+
+<p>"As we live in the same neighborhood, we cannot long
+continue strangers," he says, gently; <span class="s_corr" title="">"</span>and, in the mean time,
+why lose this lovely afternoon, and that corner you were <a class="corr" name="TC_9" id="TC_9" title="speak of">speaking of</a>?
+The view of the sea, when you get round it, is really
+worth seeing."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I daresay," reluctantly turning to leave him. "I
+shall see it some day."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," says the young man, very earnestly, following
+her as she moves. "If you will come with me you will see it
+<i>now</i>. I will only be your oarsman; I won't say a word to you
+unless you wish it; I won't even <i>look</i> at you. Think of me as
+a common boatman you have hired by the hour; or, better
+still, don't think of me at all. With a little care you might
+bring yourself to imagine I wasn't there."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But if we met any one?" says Miss Beresford, visibly
+relenting.</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible! There is never a soul on this stream save
+myself. I have been here now every day for ten days, and
+never yet came upon even the ghost of anything human."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," says Monica, though still with palpable hesitation.
+"Now, remember, you have pledged yourself not to
+speak to me, or to look at me." At this he fixes on her so
+prolonged a gaze that one may readily understand he means it
+to be a last one for some time.</p>
+
+<p>Then he turns aside, and, having brought his boat to her
+side of the fence, holds out to her his hand. As he does this
+he keeps his eyes bent upon the ground, as though determined
+to let her know his penance has already begun.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not in the boat yet," says Monica, with a quaint little
+smile, laying her palm on his. Whereupon he looks at her
+again; and then, as their eyes meet, they both laugh joyously,
+as youth will when it meets youth.</p>
+
+<p>Lightly she steps into his boat, and slowly, lazily, he rows
+her down the little river,&mdash;flower-clad on either bank,&mdash;letting
+the boat drift almost at its own sweet will.</p>
+
+<p>The willows, drooping towards the water's edge, woo
+them as they pass; the foolish weeds would hold them in
+embrace; the broad flag-flowers would fain entwine them. But
+they, though loving them, go by them, thinking their own
+thoughts, and wondering vaguely at the beauty of the</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Starry river-buds among the sedge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And floating water-lilies broad and bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="snip"><span class="star">*</span><span class="star">*</span><span class="star">*</span><span
+ class="star">*</span><span class="star">*</span></span>
+<span class="i0">And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As soothes the dazzled eye with sober sheen."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>So far silence has been scrupulously kept. Not a word has
+been spoken since they left the bank, not a look exchanged.
+Monica is letting her little slender fingers trail through the
+water and the flat leaves of the lilies. He, with his coat off,
+is pretending to row, but in reality is letting his body grow
+subservient to his mind. He has even adhered honorably to
+his promise not to look at her, and is still mentally ambitious
+about being true to his word in this respect, when an exclamation
+from her puts an end to all things.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! look at <i>that</i> lily!" she says, excitedly. "Was there
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+ever such a beauty? If you will row a little more to the right,
+I am sure I shall be able to get it."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't stir. I'll get it," returns he, grateful to the lily for
+this break in their programme; and presently the floating
+prize is secured, and he lays it, wet and dripping, in her outstretched
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"After all, you see, you broke your promise," she says, a
+moment later, most ungratefully, glancing up at him coquettishly
+from under her long lashes.</p>
+
+<p>"But who made me do it?" asks he, reproachfully, whereupon
+she laughs and reddens.</p>
+
+<p>"I never confess," she says, shaking her pretty head;
+"and after all&mdash;do you know?&mdash;I am rather glad you spoke to
+me, because, though I like being quite by myself at times,
+still I <i>hate</i> silence when any one is with me."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," says her companion, with the utmost cheerfulness.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," leaning towards him with a friendly smile, "I
+cannot do better than begin our acquaintance by telling you
+my name. It is Monica Beresford."</p>
+
+<p>"Monica," lingering over it lovingly; "a beautiful name,
+I think. I think, too, it suits you. Mine is not to be compared
+to yours; but, such as it is, I give it you!"</p>
+
+<p>He throws a card into her lap.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope it isn't John Smith," says Monica, smiling and
+picking up the card. But, as she reads what is printed thereon,
+the smile fades, and an expression of utter dismay overspreads
+her face.</p>
+
+<p>"'Desmond'&mdash;Oh! <i>not</i> Desmond!" she says, imploringly,
+her lips growing quite pale.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it <i>is</i> Desmond," says the young man, half amused,
+half puzzled. "You really think it ugly, then! Do you know
+I rather fancy my surname, although my Chris&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You are not&mdash;you cannot be <i>the</i> Desmond," interrupts
+she, hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"No; that's my uncle," says the young man, innocently.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! then you acknowledge the crime?" in deep distress.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know that an old Irish title must necessarily be
+connected with guilt," says her companion, fairly puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" says Monica, puzzled in her turn. "I don't
+understand you: I only want to know if you are one of the
+<i>particular</i> Desmonds?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose not," he replies, now openly amused, "because
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+I regret to say we have never yet done anything worthy of
+note, or likely to distinguish us from all the other Desmonds,
+whose name is legion."</p>
+
+<p>"If you are going to tell me you live at Coole," says Miss
+Beresford, in a tone that is almost tragic, "I warn you it will
+be the last straw, and that I shan't be able to bear it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not going to tell you anything," protests he.</p>
+
+<p>"But you must," declares she, illogically. "I may as
+well hear the worst at once. Go on," heroically; "tell me
+the truth. <i>Do</i> you live there?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm awfully afraid I do," says Mr. Desmond, feeling
+somehow, without knowing why, distinctly ashamed of his
+name and residence.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it! I <i>felt</i> it!" says Monica, with the calmness
+of despair. "Take me back to the bank at once,&mdash;this very
+instant, please. Oh, what a <i>row</i> I should get into if they only
+knew!"</p>
+
+<p>Very justly offended at the turn affairs have taken, Mr.
+Desmond rows her in silence to the landing-place, in silence
+gives her his hand to alight, in silence makes his boat safe,
+without so much as a glance at her, although he <i>knows</i> she is
+standing a little way from him, irresolute, remorseful, and uncertain.</p>
+
+<p>He might, perhaps, have maintained this dignified indifference
+to the end, but that, unfortunately lifting his eyes, he
+catches sight of her in this repentant attitude, with her head
+bent down, and her slim fingers toying nervously with the
+lilies of his own gathering.</p>
+
+<p>This picture flings dignity to the winds. Going up to her,
+he says, in a would-be careless but unmistakably offended
+voice, "May I ask what I have done, that 'they,' whoever
+they are, should consider you had disgraced yourself by being
+with me for half an hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> have done nothing," says Monica, faintly. "It was
+your uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"My <i>uncle!</i>&mdash;George Desmond! Why, what on earth
+can <i>he</i> have done?" demands he, bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know." Feeling this is indeed a lame answer to
+a most natural question, she goes on hurriedly, "It all happened
+twenty years ago, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But what happened?" asks he, with pardonable impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"Something dreadfully wicked," says Monica, solemnly.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+"Something really very, <i>very</i> bad, because Aunt Priscilla
+can't hear you spoken of with common patience."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Me!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so much you, perhaps, as your name. She hates
+the very sound of it. There isn't a doubt about <i>that</i>; because,
+though I have not heard the exact story yet, I know
+both my aunts grow actually faint with horror when your
+uncle's name is mentioned."</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious!" says the horrified nephew of this apparently
+disreputable old man. He is staring at Monica, but
+in reality he does not even see her. Before his mind's eye is
+a picture of a stout old gentleman, irascible, but kindly, with
+a countenance innocent of guile. Yet how can he doubt this
+girl's story? Twenty years ago, as it seems, George Desmond
+had done something too bad to be discussed. After all, how
+impossible it is to trust to appearances! As a rule, the most
+seemingly harmless people are those who are guilty of the
+vilest misdemeanors. And, yet, what on earth <i>could</i> George
+have done twenty years ago? Visions of forgery, murder,
+homicide, rise up before him, but, try as he will, he cannot connect
+Mr. Desmond's face with any of them.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't exactly know yourself what the crime is with
+which he is charged?" he asks her, with growing diffidence.</p>
+
+<p>"No. But I shall find out, and tell&mdash;&mdash;But that will be
+impossible!"&mdash;with a glance full of liveliest regret. "I <i>cannot</i>
+tell you, because after to-day I shall never see or speak to you
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the most insane nonsense I ever heard in my
+life," says Mr. Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>The girl shakes her head sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"If you won't speak to me I shall speak to you, whether
+you like it or not," says Desmond, with decision.</p>
+
+<p>"That will be out of your power, as you will never see
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to tell me I may not call at Moyne?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I do. They wouldn't hear of it. They
+wouldn't, in fact, receive you."</p>
+
+<p>"But why must they visit my uncle's sins upon my shoulders?
+I have heard of a father's sins being entailed upon his
+heir, but never an uncle's."</p>
+
+<p>"It is your name," says Monica. Then she laughs a little,
+in spite of herself, and quotes, in a low tone, "Oh! Romeo,
+Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?"</p>
+
+<p>But he takes no heed of this frivolous quotation.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You mean me to understand, then, that I am never to
+speak to you again?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"What! Do you know we are to be close neighbors for
+the future, you and I? This is to be your home. Coole is to
+be mine. At the most, only a mile of road lies between us, and
+<i>here</i> not quite a yard. And yet you calmly tell me I am from
+this day forth to be only a common stranger to you."</p>
+
+<p>"You look as if you were angry with <i>me</i>," says Monica, with
+sudden tears in her eyes at his injustice. "It isn't my fault<span class="s_corr" title=":">;</span> I
+haven't done anything wicked. Blame your uncle for it all."</p>
+
+<p>"The whole thing is simply absurd," says the young man,
+taking now the superior tone that is meant to crush the situation
+by holding it up to ridicule. "You forget, perhaps, that
+we shall <i>have</i> to meet sometimes. I suppose the people down
+here give balls occasionally, and tennis-parties, and that; and
+when I meet you at them, is it your wish that I shall pretend
+never to have seen you before,&mdash;never to have known you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says Monica, with as much hesitation as lets him
+know how she hates saying it. "When next you meet me, you
+are to look right over my head, and pass on!"</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't do it," returns he, gazing at her steadily. "I
+couldn't indeed. In fact, I feel it is just the last thing in the
+world I <i>could</i> do."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must," says Monica, imperiously, terrified to
+death as she conjures up before her Aunt Priscilla's face as it
+will surely be if this Philistine dares to address her: "I tell
+you my aunts would never forgive me if they knew I had interchanged
+even one syllable with you. From this moment you
+must forget me. There will really be no difficulty about it, as
+our acquaintance is but of an hour's growth. You have seen
+me for the first time to-day, and a chance meeting such as this
+is easily driven from the mind."</p>
+
+<p>"That is your opinion," says the young man, moodily. "It
+is not mine. I dare say <i>you</i> will find it very easy to forget. I
+shan't! And this isn't the first time I have seen you, either.
+It seems to me as if years have rolled by since last I looked
+upon your face. I was standing at the gate of Coole, and saw
+you pass by, the day of your arrival in Rossmoyne. So, you
+see, we are&mdash;in spite of you&mdash;almost old friends."</p>
+
+<p>A bombshell flung at her feet could hardly have produced
+a greater sensation than this apparently harmless speech. All
+at once there rushes back upon her the recollection of that
+fatal day when she lay upon a cart-load of hay and (according
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+to Terence) kicked up her heels in the exuberance of her joy.
+Oh, horror! she grows crimson from her soft throat to her forehead!
+even her little ears do not escape the tint, but turn a
+warm and guilty pink.</p>
+
+<p>Never until this unlucky instant did it occur to her that this
+strange young man must be the detested one who had stood in
+the gateway and laughed at her undignified position and taken
+the clocks of her stockings into careful remembrance.</p>
+
+<p>The one absorbing thought that he was nephew to Aunt
+Priscilla's bugbear has swallowed up all others; but now, as he
+himself reveals this other truth to her, she feels that her cup is
+indeed full.</p>
+
+<p>Deeper and deeper grows the crimson tint that dyes her
+pale, shy face, until her cheeks are all aflame. Something like
+anger, too, is rendering her sweet eyes brilliant beyond their
+wont. Delicately but haughtily she gathers up the train of her
+white gown and casts one expressive glance upon the way she
+came. This glance says much. Somehow it tells him as distinctly
+as though she said it aloud that she is sorry she ever
+came down to this river, and that her sorrow arises from the
+fact that it was here she encountered him.</p>
+
+<p>While he is still sore perplexed by her sudden change of
+demeanor, she turns away from him. Then, pausing, she turns
+again, and bestows upon him so indignant a look as completely
+finishes this ill used young man.</p>
+
+<p>"I object to hasty friendships," she says, icily. "And,"
+pausing as if to make the effect greater, "if I were <i>you</i>, I think
+I should seek some better employment than standing <i>idling all
+day long</i> at your uncle's gate."</p>
+
+<p>With this parting shaft, and before he can recover from his
+consternation, she goes swiftly away from him, up through the
+meadows, home.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Monica is put in possession of a dreadful secret&mdash;And how Kit protests
+against the injustice of the world.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>"An invitation from Madam O'Connor<span class="s_corr" title="">,</span>" says Miss Priscilla
+in a pleased tone, glancing at them all, over the top of her
+spectacles. She has the card in her hand, and slowly reads
+aloud the information printed upon it, to the effect that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+Madam O'Connor will be at home on Friday the 15th, from
+four to six o'clock, etc.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very glad she has asked Terence and Monica," says
+Miss Penelope. "Excessively attentive I call it."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you go, Aunt Priscilla?" asks Monica, in a sneaky
+sort of tone. Her young soul hankers after the world, and
+will not be subdued. Upon Miss Priscilla's "yes" or "no"
+she waits with an anxiety that surprises even herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, my dear," says Miss Blake, drawing herself up.
+"I shall feel it my duty to take you to all such places as will
+enable you to mix with people in your own rank of life.
+I am not one of those who think it well for young girls to lead
+the life of nuns. No, indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>"I quite agree with you, my dear Priscilla," says Miss
+Penelope, who is an echo of her elder sister. "Yes, we will
+rouse ourselves, and once more seek the world."</p>
+
+<p>"But I would not have you make yourselves unhappy,"
+says Monica, falteringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, my dear, it will be a pleasure, for <span class="s_corr" title="yoursake"><i>your</i> sake</span>."</p>
+
+<p>Not for worlds, even to themselves, would these two old
+ladies acknowledge that they are right glad of the chance that
+has come to them of introducing so beautiful a niece to the gay
+world around them, and of mingling, even in a subdued and
+decorous fashion, with the amusements that for the last five
+years they have (most unwillingly, be it said, but on the score
+of age) declined.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder who will be there," says Monica, in a fresher
+tone, striving vainly to drown the hope that is taking possession
+of her, a hope that connects itself with a certain blue-eyed,
+dark-haired young man, last seen in boating flannels.</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody," says Miss Priscilla,&mdash;"the entire country.
+Madam<span class="s_corr" title=","></span> O'Connor may not be&mdash;is not&mdash;there may be certain
+points about her&mdash;that"&mdash;floundering hopelessly&mdash;"I mean"&mdash;with
+a rush&mdash;"there are a few who object to her <i>manner</i> but
+her birth is undeniable, and she has a large fortune; you must
+know, my dear, her father was a direct descendant of King
+<span class="s_corr" title="O'To ole">O'Toole</span>, <span class="s_corr" title="andher">and her</span> husband the head of one of the oldest families
+in Ireland."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that the old woman who called here the day before
+yesterday?" asked Terence, irreverently. They are all sitting
+in the drawing-room, Terence being rather on the balcony perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I regret you were not in to receive her. I should
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+have liked you to make her acquaintance, Monica<span class="s_corr" title="">,</span> before
+going to Aghyohillbeg."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh I saw her," says Terence, contemptuously<span class="s_corr" title=".">,</span> "she's got an
+eye like a lance, and a man's figure. She drove herself, and
+held the reins like this," throwing himself into position.</p>
+
+<p>"If you are going out, Terence, you may as well go at once,"
+says Miss Priscilla, with dignity, pretending neither to hear
+nor see him. Whereupon Terence gladly departs.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, auntie," says Monica, slipping down on a footstool
+close to Aunt Penelope, and leaning both her arms
+across the old lady's knee. "Who else will be there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, tell her everything, Priscilla," says Miss Penelope,
+smoothing the girl's hair softly, and feeling a strange thrill of
+pleasure in her heart as she notices the little confident gesture
+with which the girl nestles close to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there will be her own guests, of course, I mean
+those staying with her, for she always has her house full," says
+Miss Priscilla, after a slight pause, being still somewhat ruffled
+by Terry's remarks. "The Fitzgeralds will be there, of course.
+Bella is considered a very handsome girl, but I don't think you
+will like her much."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, she is not at all our Monica's style," says Miss
+Penelope, stroking the pretty cheek near her with her mittened
+hand. "Yet she has a fine skin."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and a fine temper under it, or I'm a Dutchman,"
+says Miss Priscilla. "And she is more peculiar than handsome;
+but men admire her, so <i>we</i> say nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Is she tall?" asks Monica, anxiously, who is a little thing
+herself, and looks even smaller than she really is because of
+her slender, girlish figure. She wonders in a vague, uncomfortable
+fashion whether&mdash;whether most men like tall women
+best.</p>
+
+<p>"Tall? yes, and large in proportion; and as for her <i>manners</i>,"
+says Miss Priscilla, in her severest tone, "in my opinion
+they are simply unbearable. Modesty in my days was a
+virtue, nowadays it is as <i>naught</i>. Bella Fitzgerald is never
+content unless she has every man in the room at her side, and
+goodness alone knows what it is she says to them. The way
+she sets her cap at that poor boy Ronayne, just because he has
+fallen in for that property, is quite revolting."</p>
+
+<p>"And a mere lad, too," says Miss Penelope.</p>
+
+<p>Monica draws a breath of relief. Perhaps if Miss Fitzgerald
+likes Mr. Ronayne she will not care to practise her fascinations
+upon&mdash;&mdash;any other man.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How old is she?" she asks, feeling deeply interested in
+the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"She <i>says</i> she is twenty-four," says Miss Priscilla, with an
+eloquent sniff. "There is nothing easier to say than that. I
+<i>won't</i> be uncharitable, my dear Penelope,&mdash;you needn't look at
+me like that,&mdash;but this I must say, she looks every hour of
+eight and twenty."</p>
+
+<p>"Her mother ought to know," says Miss Penelope.</p>
+
+<p>"She ought, indeed," grimly. "But, as from the way she
+dresses we may reasonably conclude she thinks <i>herself</i> nineteen,
+I suppose she has lost her memory on all points."</p>
+
+<p>"Her father, Otho Fitzgerald, was the same," says Miss
+Penelope, reflectively. "He never could bear the idea of age.
+He was one who saw nothing honorable in it. Gray hairs with
+him were a crime."</p>
+
+<p>"So he used to dye them," says Miss Priscilla, maliciously;
+"and when he got warm the dye used to melt, and (unknown
+to him) run all down his cheek."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Priscilla, how you remember things? Dear, dear, I
+think I see him now," says Miss Penelope. And here the two
+old ladies, overcome by this comical recollection, laugh until
+the tears run down their faces. Monica joins in from sheer
+sympathy; but Kit, who is sitting in the embrasure of a distant
+window and who had been strangely silent ever since the
+invitation came from Aghyohillbeg, maintains a stern gravity.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor man," says Miss Penelope, wiping her eyes, "I shall
+never forget the night your sweet mother, my dear Monica,
+most unintentionally offended him about the diamond&mdash;you
+recollect, Priscilla? Tell Monica of it."</p>
+
+<p>"He always wore a huge diamond ring upon his little finger,"
+says Miss Priscilla, addressing Monica, "of which he
+was very proud. He was at this time about fifty-three, but
+used to pose as a man of thirty-nine. One evening showing
+the ring to your mother, then quite a girl, he said to her, in his
+stilted way, 'This jewel has been in our family for fifty years.'
+'Ah! did you buy it, Mr. Fitzgerald?' asks your mother, in her
+sweet innocent way. Ha, ha, ha!" laughs Miss Priscilla, "you
+should have seen his face. It was a picture! and just when
+he was trying to make himself agreeable to your poor mother,
+and acting as if he was a youthful beau of twenty-five, or at
+least as young as the best of us."</p>
+
+<p>"That was so like mother," says Monica, in a low tone.
+"She always knew where to <i>touch</i> people."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, my dear, not at all like her," says Miss Penelope,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+hastily. "She didn't <i>mean</i> it, you must understand; she was
+the very soul of sweetness, and would not willingly affront any
+one for the world."</p>
+
+<p>For just an instant Monica lifts her eyes and gazes
+earnestly at her aunt; but the old face is so earnest and
+sincere that with a faint sigh she lowers her eyes again, and
+makes no further remark.</p>
+
+<p>"After that he married his cousin's wife, a widow with one
+child, this girl, Bella," says Miss Priscilla, still full of <a class="corr" name="TC_10" id="TC_10" title="reminiscenses">reminiscences</a>,
+as old people will be. "A most unpleasant person
+I thought her, though she was considered quite a belle in those
+days."</p>
+
+<p>"She always appeared to me such a silly woman," says Miss
+Penelope.</p>
+
+<p>"She is worse than that now," says Miss Priscilla, who
+seems specially hard on the Fitzgeralds. "She is a shocking
+old woman, with a nose like a flower-pot. I won't say she
+drinks, my dear Penelope, because I know you would object to
+it; but I <i>hear</i> she does, and certainly her nose is her betrayer."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember," says Miss Penelope, "how anxious
+she once was to marry George Desmond?" This she says in a
+very low tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I remember." The bare mention of her enemy's
+name has sent a flush of crimson into Miss Priscilla's cheeks.
+"But he never bestowed a thought upon <i>her</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, never," says Miss Penelope, after which both
+the Misses Blake grow silent and seem to be slowly sinking
+into the land of revery.</p>
+
+<p>But Monica, having heard the "enemy's name" mentioned,
+becomes filled with a determination to sift the mystery
+connected with him, now, to the end.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Priscilla," she says, softly, looking at her with
+grave eyes across Miss Penelope's knees, "tell me, now<span class="s_corr" title="">,</span> why
+Mr. Desmond is our enemy."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not <i>now</i>," says Miss Penelope, nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, now, please," says Monica, with ever-increasing
+gravity.</p>
+
+<p>"It may all be said in a few words, Monica," says Miss
+Priscilla, slowly. "And what I have to say affects you, my
+dear, even more than us."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Me?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, in that it affects your mother. Twenty years ago
+George Desmond was her affianced husband. Twenty years
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+ago, wilfully and without cause, he deliberately broke with her
+his plighted troth."</p>
+
+<p>"He threw her over?" exclaims Monica, aghast at this
+revelation.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I never heard be used actual violence to her, my
+dear," says Miss Penelope, in a distressed tone; "but he
+certainly broke off his engagement with her, and behaved as
+no man of honor could possibly behave."</p>
+
+<p>"And mother must have been quite beautiful at that time,
+must she not?" says Monica, rising to her knees in her
+excitement, and staring with widely-opened eyes of purest
+amazement from one aunt to the other.</p>
+
+<p>"'Beautiful as the blushing morn,'" says Miss Priscilla,
+quoting from some ancient birthday-book. "But, you see,
+even her beauty was powerless to save her from insult. From
+what we could learn, he absolutely refused to fulfil his
+marriage-contract with her. He was false to the oath he had
+sworn over our father's dying bed."</p>
+
+<p>Nothing can exceed the scorn and solemnity of Miss Priscilla's
+manner as she says all this.</p>
+
+<p>"And what did mother do?" asks Monica, curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>could</i> she do, poor child? I have no doubt it went
+nigh to breaking her heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Her heart?" says Monica.</p>
+
+<p>"She suffered acutely. That we could see, or rather we
+had to guess it, as for days she kept her own chamber and
+would see no one, going out only when it was quite dusk for a
+solitary ramble. Ah! when sorrow afflicts the soul, there is
+no balm so great as solitude. Your poor mother took the
+whole affair dreadfully to heart."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that she really <i>fretted</i>?" asks Monica, still in
+the same curious way, with her eyes fixed on her aunt. There
+is, indeed, so much unstudied surprise in her whole manner as
+might have produced a corresponding amount in the Misses
+Blake, had they noticed it.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my dear, of course. Dear, dear, dear! what a sad
+thing it all was! Well, now you understand all that it is needful
+you should, Monica," says Miss Penelope, with a glance at
+her sister, who really seems quite overcome. "So we will say
+no more about it. Only you can see for yourself how impossible
+it is for any of our blood to be on friendly terms with a
+Desmond."</p>
+
+<p>"They may not all be like <i>that</i> Mr. Desmond," says Monica,
+timidly, coloring to her brow.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes. Like father, like son; you know the old adage;
+and a nephew is as close a relation almost. We can know no
+one at Coole."</p>
+
+<p>"I would almost rather see you dead than intimate with
+one of the name," says Miss Priscilla, with sudden harshness.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think we told Monica about the other guests at
+Aghyohillbeg," says Miss Penelope, hastily, with the kindly intention
+of changing the conversation. "A very pretty young
+woman came there about a week before your arrival, child, and
+is to remain, I believe, for some time. She is a widow, and
+young, and&mdash;by the bye, I wonder if she can be any relation to
+your friends in the South of France."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Her name is Bohun, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not <i>Olga</i> Bohun?" says Monica, springing to her feet.
+"A widow, you say, and young. Oh! auntie, if she only <i>might</i>
+be Olga!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, certainly she has a heathenish&mdash;I mean, a Russian&mdash;name
+like that," says Miss Priscilla. "She is a very little
+woman, with merry eyes, and she laughs always, and she has
+the prettiest, the most courteous manners. Quite a relief I
+found her, after the inanities of Bella Fitzgerald."</p>
+
+<p>"She is even smaller than I am. Yes, and her eyes do
+laugh!" says Monica, delight making her cheeks warm. "She
+is the prettiest thing. Ah! how happy I shall be if I may see
+her sometimes!"</p>
+
+<p>"You shall see her just as often as ever you and she wish,"
+say the two old maids in a breath, glad in the thought that
+they can make her home at Moyne happy to her.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope <i>you</i> like her," says Monica, glancing from one to
+the other of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I thought her quite fascinating," says Miss Penelope.
+"Some people say she is rather&mdash;rather <i>fast</i>, I believe
+is the word they use nowadays," getting the word out with
+difficulty, as though afraid it may go off and do somebody an
+injury. "But for my part I don't believe a word of it. She is
+quite natural, and most pleasing in manner, <i>especially</i> to those
+who are older than herself. A great charm in these times, my
+dear, when age is despised."</p>
+
+<p>Plainly, the little widow at Aghyohillbeg has been playing
+off her sweetest graces upon the two Misses Blake.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say Monica will like young Ronayne," says Miss
+Priscilla. "He is quite nice, that lad. But I hope, Monica,
+that, even if circumstances should throw you together, you will
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+take no notice of young Mr. Desmond. I myself would not exchange
+a word with him if a queen's diadem were offered me
+as a bribe."</p>
+
+<p>"You might speak to him without knowing him," says
+Monica, blushing again that nervous crimson of a while ago.</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible, my dear. Instinct, sharpened by hatred,
+would tell me when one of the race was near me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as it is your first party here, dear child, I hope you
+will enjoy it," says Miss Penelope, quickly, as though again
+anxious to throw oil on the waters by changing the conversation.
+"It is a charming place, and its mistress, if a little
+rough, is at least kindly."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Kit, emerging from the curtains that have
+hidden her for the past hour, comes slowly to the front. Her
+face, her very attitude, is martial. She is plainly in battle-array.
+Pausing before Miss Priscilla, she directs her first fire
+upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I not asked at all?" she says, in a terrible tone, that
+contrasts painfully with the ominous silence she has maintained
+ever since the invitation was brought by Mrs. O'Connor's
+groom.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child, you must remember you are only fourteen,"
+says Miss Priscilla, who is sincerely sorry the child has
+not been included in the invitation, and, in fact, thinks it rather
+unkind she has been left out.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>know</i> that, thank you," says the youngest Miss Beresford,
+uncompromisingly, fixing her aunt with a stony glare. "I
+know my birthday as well as most people. And so, just because
+I am a child, I am to be slighted, am I? I call it unfair!
+I call it beastly <i>mean</i>, that every one here is to be invited
+out to enjoy themselves except <i>me</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Young people are seldom asked to grown-up parties,"
+says Miss Priscilla, in her best conciliatory manner. "When
+you are as old as Monica, of course you will go everywhere.
+In the meantime you are only a child."</p>
+
+<p>"I am old enough to conduct myself properly, at all
+events," says Kit, unmoved. "I suppose at <i>fourteen</i>"&mdash;as if
+this is an age replete with wisdom&mdash;"I am not likely to
+do anything <i>very</i> extraordinary, or make myself unpleasant, or
+be in anybody's way."</p>
+
+<p>"That is not the question, at all: it is merely one of age,"
+says Miss Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it? And yet people say a great deal about childhood
+being the happiest time of one's life," says Kit, almost choking
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+with scornful rage. "I should just like to see the fellow
+who first said that. Maybe I wouldn't enlighten him, and tell
+him what a hypocrite he was. Whoever said it, it is a decided
+untruth, and I know I wish to goodness I was grown up, because
+then," with withering emphasis, "I should not be trampled
+upon and insulted!"</p>
+
+<p>This is dreadful. The two old ladies, unaccustomed in
+their quiet lives to tornadoes and volcanoes of any kind, are
+almost speechless with fright.</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest," says Monica, going up to her, "how <i>can</i> you
+look at it in such a light?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all very well for you," says the indignant Kit:
+"<i>you're</i> going, you know. I'm to stay at home, like that
+wretched Cinderella!"</p>
+
+<p>"Katherine, I am sure you are quite unaware of the injustice
+of your remarks," says Miss Priscilla, at last finding her
+voice. She is bent on delivering a calm rebuke; but inwardly
+(as any one can see) she is quaking. "And I have frequently
+told you before that the expression 'I wish to goodness,' which
+you used just now, is anything but ladylike. It is not nice; it
+is not proper."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care what is proper or improper, when I am
+treated as I now am," says the rebel, with flashing eyes and undaunted
+front.</p>
+
+<p>"There is really <i>nothing</i> to complain of," says Miss Priscilla,
+earnestly, seeing censure has no effect. "Madam O'Connor
+would not willingly offend any one; she is a very kind woman,
+and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She is a regular old wretch!" says the youngest <a class="corr" name="TC_11" id="TC_11" title="Uiss">Miss</a>
+Beresford, with considerable spirit.</p>
+
+<p>"My <i>dear</i> Katherine!"</p>
+
+<p>"And it's my belief she has done it <i>on purpose</i>!" with increasing
+rage.</p>
+
+<p>"Katherine, I must insist&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You may insist as you like, but I'll be even with her yet,"
+persists Kit, after which, being quite overcome with wrath, she
+breaks down, and bursts into a violent fit of weeping.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child, don't do that," says Miss Penelope, rising
+precipitately, and going over to the weeping fury. "Priscilla,"
+in a trembling tone, "I fear it is selfish. I think, my dear, I
+shall stay at home, too, the day you all go to Madam
+O'Connor's.<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span></p>
+
+<p>This kills the storm at once.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, indeed, Aunt Penny, you shan't." Kit cries, subdued,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+but still in tears. She is overcome with remorse, and
+blames herself cruelly in that her ill temper should have led
+to this proposal of self-sacrifice. To give in to Kit is the
+surest and quickest method of gaining your own point. She
+throws her arms, as she speaks, around Miss Penelope's neck,
+and nearly strangles that dear old lady in her remorseful
+agitation, to say nothing of the deadly havoc she makes of her
+frills and laces.</p>
+
+<p>"But indeed, my Kitten, it will be no privation to me to
+stay at home with you, and we will be quite happy together,
+and we will have our tea out in the orchard," says Miss
+Penelope, soothing her with sweet words; while Miss Priscilla,
+who is thoroughly frightened by the sobbing, pats the refractory
+child on the back, with a view to allaying all fear of convulsions.</p>
+
+<p>"You shan't stay at home, Aunt Penny,&mdash;you shan't indeed,"
+cries the inconsistent Kitten. "I like being alone,
+I <i>love</i> it; if you don't go to that place with the long name,
+and enjoy yourself very much, I shall be miserable all my
+life, though I love you very, very, <i>very</i> much for wishing to
+keep me from being lonely. Tell her I mean it, Monica."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am sure she means it," says Monica, earnestly,
+whereupon peace is once more restored to the breasts of the
+terrified aunts.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Monica goes to Aghyohillbeg, and meets there an old friend and a
+very new one.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Time flies, and no man can reach his hand to stay it. A
+very good thing, too, thinks Monica, as she stands before her
+looking-glass putting the last pretty touches to her white toilet.</p>
+
+<p>It is Friday. Madam O'Connor's garden-party lies before
+her, and, probably, other things. Here she blushes at herself,
+as she sees that pretty soul in the glass, though, <span class="s_corr" title="in deed">indeed</span>,
+she has no cause to do so; but possibly the vague
+thought of those "other things" has something to do with it,
+and perhaps it is for their sake too that she places with such
+care the heavy, blood-colored rose beneath her chin.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This is the only suspicion of color about her. Her gown is
+white; her hat is white; long white silk gloves run up her
+rounded arms as though bent on joining her sleeves far above
+the elbow. A white Surat sash is tied round her dainty waist.
+She is looking "as fair as the moon, as lovely as a rose," and
+altogether distinctly dangerous.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps she half recognizes this fact, because she smiles at
+her own reflection, and&mdash;vain little girl that she is&mdash;stoops forward
+and kisses herself in the happy glass that holds her even
+for so brief a minute; after which she summons her maid from
+her dressing-room beyond.</p>
+
+<p>"Canty," she says, as the "uncle's wife's sister's child"
+enters, "I am dressed now; and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Shure, so you are, miss; and lovely ye look, more power
+to ye."</p>
+
+<p>"Make my room very tidy," says Monica, giving her her directions
+before starting. "And, Canty, I shall want my blue
+dress for dinner. You can put it out."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, miss," whereupon Monica prepares to leave the room;
+but the new maid stops her.</p>
+
+<p>"If ye please, Miss Monica," she says, hesitating, and applying
+her apron to her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Canty?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd be very thankful to ye, miss, if ye wouldn't call me
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"Call you what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Canty, miss."</p>
+
+<p>"But," astonished, "isn't it your name?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, miss; me name is Bridget."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely Canty is your name, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's me father's name, miss, no doubt; but faix I
+feel just like a boy when ye call me by it, an' ye wouldn't like
+me to feel like a boy, miss, would ye?" says the village beauty
+casting an anxious glance at Monica from her dark Irish eyes,
+and blushing deeply.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not," says Monica, laughing a little. "Very
+well, Bridget; I shall try to forget you ever had a surname."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank ye, miss," says Bridget, with a sigh of profound
+relief.</p>
+
+<p>Then Monica runs downstairs, where she finds her aunts
+in the drawing-room, dressed in their very best silk gowns, waiting
+for the carriage to come round. There is a little delay,
+which wasted time the two old ladies spend in endeavoring to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+drill Terence into shape. Something of this sort is going on
+as Monica enters.</p>
+
+<p>"When I introduce you to Madam O'Connor or Lady Rossmoyne,
+my dear boy, be sure you make a very low bow. Nothing
+distinguishes a gentleman so much from the common herd as
+the manner of his salute. Now make me a bow, that I may
+judge of your style." Thus Miss Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't make one to order like that," says Terence;
+yet he sulkily complies, making a very short, stiff, and uncompromising
+nod that makes both aunts lift their hands in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, my dear!&mdash;that won't do <i>at all</i>! Most ungraceful,
+and totally devoid of the dignity that should inspire it. Now
+look at me. It should be something like <i>this</i>," making him a
+reverence that might well have created admiration in the court
+of Queen Anne.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes! that is something like what it should be," chimes
+in Miss Penelope, paying a tribute to the talent of her sister.
+"Priscilla has caught the true tone. I wish, Terence, we
+could see you more like your dear grandfather; <i>he</i> was a man
+to bow."</p>
+
+<p>Terence, calling to mind the portrait of his "dear grandfather,"
+as represented in the elaborate gilt frame in the dining-room,
+in a court suit and a periwig, and with an abominable
+simper, most devoutly thanks his gods that he is <i>not</i> like
+unto him. He is, indeed (feeling goaded to the last degree),
+about to break into unseemly language, when, fortunately, the
+arrival of the ancient equipage that has done duty at Moyne as
+state carriage for generations is announced.</p>
+
+<p>The coachman, who is considerably older than Timothy,
+draws up the old horses before the door with a careful manner
+that impresses the beholder with the belief that he thinks they
+would run away in a minute if he relaxed a muscle on the
+reins; and a small boy who acts as footman and looks decidedly
+depressed, lets down the rickety steps.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Priscilla Blake then enters the carriage. She is <a class="corr" name="TC_12" id="TC_12" title="follow">followed</a>
+with much ceremony by Miss Penelope. After which Monica,
+who is impressed by the proceedings, and Terence, who is consumed
+with secret mirth, step in and seat themselves. Then
+the coachman says, "Gee up!" in exactly the tone he has employed
+for forty years; and the gloomy boy settling down beside
+him, they are all presently on the fair road to Aghyohillbeg.</p>
+
+<p>The drive is a very pleasant one, though filled with injunctions
+of the most obsolete from the Misses Blake as to their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+behavior, etc. The fact is, that the two old maids are so puffed
+out with pride at the thought that they will presently introduce
+to the county the handsome lad and beautiful girl opposite
+them that they have grown fidgety and over-anxious about the
+niceties of their presentation.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely," say the Misses Blake to themselves and to each
+other, "not half so pretty a pair could be produced by any
+family in the south!"</p>
+
+<p>Which is saying a great deal, as in the south of Ireland a
+pretty face is more the rule than the exception.</p>
+
+<p>Over the dusty road they go, calmly, carefully, the old horses
+being unaccustomed to fast ways of any sort; slowly, with much
+care they pick their aged steps, never stumbling, never swerving,
+but as certainly never giving way to frivolous haste.</p>
+
+<p>Then, all at once, as it seems to Monica, the hillside seems
+to break in twain, and a great iron gate appears, into which
+they turn to drive in their solemn fashion down a dark avenue
+shaded by swaying elms.</p>
+
+<p>It is a perfect place, old as the hills that surround it, and
+wild in its loveliness. To right and left great trees, gnarled
+and moss-grown, and dipping tangles of blackberry and fern;
+patches of sunlight, amidst the gloom, that rests lovingly upon
+a glowing wilderness of late bluebells, and, beyond all these
+broad glimpses of the glorious, restless ocean, as it sleeps in its
+bay below.</p>
+
+<p>Gazing at all this natural beauty, Monica's soft eyes and
+heart expand, and,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Joy rises in her like a summer morn."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And then she sees an old house, low, broad, picturesque, with
+balconies and terraces, and beyond the house slanting lawns,
+and at one side tennis-courts, where many gayly-clad figures
+are moving to and fro. There is a sound of subdued laughter
+and the perfume of many flowers, and a general air of gayety;
+it is as though to-day care has utterly forgotten this one
+favored corner of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Then they all descend from the time honored chariot, and
+cross the lawn to where they can see their hostess standing,
+tall and erect and handsome, in spite of her sixty years.</p>
+
+<p>"Your niece?" says Madam O'Connor, staring hard at
+Monica's pure little face, the girl looking straight back at her
+with a certain amount of curiosity in her eyes.&mdash;"Well, I wish
+you no greater fortune than your face, my dear," says the old
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+Irishwoman. "It ought to be a rich one, I'm thinking.
+You're like your mother, too; but your eyes are honester than
+hers. You must know I knew Kitty Blake very well at one
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard my mother speak of you," says Monica.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay&mdash;so? Yet I fear there wasn't much love lost between
+us."</p>
+
+<p>Then she turns a little aside to greet some one else, and
+Monica lets her eyes roam round the grounds. Suddenly she
+starts, and says out loud,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! there is Olga?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know Mrs. Bohun, then?" says her hostess, attracted
+by her exclamation and her pretty vivacious expression.</p>
+
+<p>"So very, very well," says Monica. She has flushed
+warmly, and her eyes are brilliant. "I want to speak to her;
+I want to go to her, <i>please</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Bless me! what a shame to waste that lovely blush on a
+mere woman!" says Madam O'Connor, with a merry laugh.
+"Here, Fred," turning to a young man standing close to her
+with a very discontented expression, "I am going to give you
+a mission after your own heart. You are to take Miss Beresford
+over there, to where Mrs. Bohun is dealing death to all
+those boys.&mdash;This is Lord Rossmoyne, Miss Beresford: he
+will see you safely over your rubicon."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank you!" says Monica, gratefully smiling at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Tut, child! thank me when I have done something for
+you. It is Fred's turn to thank me now," says Madam O'Connor,
+with a merry twinkle in her gray eyes.</p>
+
+<p>She is a large woman close on sixty, with an eagle eye
+and a hawk's nose. As Monica leaves her she continues her
+gossip with the half dozen young men round her, who are all
+laughing at some joke. Presently she herself is laughing
+louder than any of them (being partial to boys and their "fun,"
+as she calls it). Bestowing now a smart blow with her fan
+upon the youngest and probably therefore most flippant of her
+attendants, she stalks away from them across the lawn, to
+where two ladies are sitting together.</p>
+
+<p>One is elderly, but most ridiculously dressed in juvenile
+attire, that might have well suited the daughter sitting beside
+her. This latter is a tall girl, and large in every way, with
+curious eyes and a rather harsh voice; she is laughing now at
+some remark made by a man lounging at the back of her chair,
+and the laugh is both affected and discordant.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen that girl of Kitty Beresford's, Edith?"
+asks Madam O'Connor of the elder lady.</p>
+
+<p>"That little washed-out-looking girl who came with those
+two old Miss Blakes?" asks the youthful old woman, with a
+profoundly juvenile lisp.</p>
+
+<p>"Faith, I don't know about her being washed out," says
+Madam O'Connor, bluntly. "I think she is the prettiest creature
+I've seen this many a day."</p>
+
+<p>"You are so impulsive, my dear Theresa!" says her friend,
+with a simper: "all your geese are swans."</p>
+
+<p>"And other people's swans my geese, I suppose," says
+Madam, with a glance at the tall girl, which somehow brings
+the conversation to a full stop.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, Monica is crossing the soft turf, with the moody
+man called Rossmoyne beside her. She can see her goal in
+the distance, and finds comfort in the thought that soon she
+must be there, as she cannot bring herself to be agreeable to
+her new acquaintance; and certainly he is feeling no desire
+just at present to be agreeable to her or to anybody.</p>
+
+<p>As Monica comes nearer to her friend, she gazes anxiously
+at her, as though to see if time has worked a change in her.</p>
+
+<p>She is quite a little woman about five and twenty, but looking
+at least four years younger than that. Her eyes are large,
+dark, and mischievous. Her hair is so fair as to be almost
+silvery; naturally wavy, it is cut upon the forehead in the prevailing
+fashion, but not curled. Her mouth is small, mutinous,
+and full of laughter; her nose distinctly retrouss&eacute;. Altogether
+she is distractingly pretty, and, what goes for more nowadays,
+very peculiar in style, and out of the common.</p>
+
+<p>She is exquisitely dressed in a costume that suggests Paris.
+She is a harmony in black and white, as Lord Rossmoyne told
+her an hour ago, when he was <i>not</i> wearing his discontented expression.
+Seated beside her is a tall pallid woman with a cold
+face, but very velvety eyes and a smile rare but <a class="corr" name="TC_13" id="TC_13" title="handsone">handsome</a>.
+Every now and then this smile betrays itself, as her companion
+says anything that chances to amuse her. She is a Mrs.
+Herrick, a cousin of Olga Bohun's, and is now on a visit with
+her at Aghyohillbeg.</p>
+
+<p>There are several men grouped round Mrs. Bohun, all in
+various standing positions. One man is lying at her feet. He
+is a tall slight young fellow, of about twenty-three, with a lean
+face, dark hair, and beautiful teeth. He has, too, beautiful
+eyes, and a most lovable expression, half boyish, but intensely
+earnest and very sensitive.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Just now he appears happy and careless, and altogether as
+if he and the world are friends indeed, and that he is filled with
+the belief that every one likes him; and, in truth, he is right
+in so believing, for every one does like him, and a great many
+are fond of him, and some love him.</p>
+
+<p>He is looking up at Mrs. Bohun, and is talking rapidly, as
+Monica and Lord Rossmoyne come up behind them.</p>
+
+<p>"What! another bit of scandal?" exclaims Mrs. Bohun,
+lifting her brows in pleased anticipation. "The air seemed full
+of it. An hour ago I heard of the dire discomfiture of two of
+my dearest friends, and just now I listened to a legend of
+Belgravia that was distinctly <i>fifi</i> and had a good deal to do with
+a marchioness. It is really quite too much happiness for <i>one</i>
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"My tale does not emanate from such an aristocratic region
+as Belgravia," says Ulic Ronayne, the man at her feet: "it is,
+I blush to say, from the city."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" in a regretful tone; "then it will of course be
+decenter. Don't trouble to expend color on it, as I daresay
+there isn't a blush in the whole of it. Well," resignedly, "go
+on."</p>
+
+<p>In the usual quick manner habitual to him, and with the
+slight but eloquent amount of gesture common to Irish people,
+Ronayne tells his news, which is received with low laughter by
+those around.</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard better stories," says Mrs. Bohun, discontentedly;
+"and it isn't a bit like what Lord Tommy would do. It
+is more in Rossmoyne's line. I don't think I believe it. And
+the roundabout way in which you told it reminds one of a
+three-volume novel: the first leads up to the point, the third
+winds up the point, the second <i>is</i> the point. I confess I like
+the second volume best. When I grow funny over my friends
+I'm <i>all</i> second."</p>
+
+<p>"Then don't be funny about me, please," says Ronayne,
+lazily.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Are</i> you my friend?" asks she, glancing at him. Lifting
+his eyes to hers, he pauses, and then says slowly, the smile
+dying from his face,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, perhaps <i>not</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Then he lowers his eyes again, and goes back to his idle
+occupation of decorating with daisies some of the fantastic
+loops upon her gown.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Lord Rossmoyne, coming forward, says,
+sullenly, "May I hear the story that just now reminded you of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+me? But first&mdash;&mdash;" He pauses, and glances at Monica. Mrs.
+Bohun, following his glance, rises hurriedly from her seat, and
+going up to the girl, embraces her warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! my <i>pretty</i> Monica! my little saint!" she cries, in her
+sweet, gay voice, "what happy breeze has blown you hither?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am living here,&mdash;at Moyne,&mdash;with my aunts," in a happy,
+breathless way. "Some days ago they described you to me,
+and I knew it must be you. I was right. And to-day I have
+found you."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm always found out, as a rule," says Mrs. Bohun, with a
+light laugh. "That is my standing grievance. You know Hermia,
+don't you?" indicating the tall, cold-looking woman near her,
+who so far unbends as to take Monica's hand kindly and bestow
+upon her one of her handsome smiles. "She has come here to
+look after me and see that I don't get into a scrape or make
+myself unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>"Could you be unhappy?" says Rossmoyne, from behind
+her chair, in so disagreeable a tone that every one looks at
+him. "Decidedly," thinks Monica to herself, "he has either
+neuralgia or an execrable temper."</p>
+
+<p>"Miserably so," says the pretty widow, airily. "Though,
+after all," reflectively, "I believe I have even a greater talent
+for making others so. That, however, is my misfortune, not my
+fault. I was 'born so,' like that poor man with the twisted
+neck."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, this is not one of your miserably unhappy hours, at
+all events," says Hermia Herrick. "You have been in magnificent
+spirits ever since you came to Aghyohillbeg."</p>
+
+<p>"You've learned it?" says Olga, staring at her with pretended
+surprise. "The name, I mean. Well, you <i>are</i> clever.
+It takes most people four long weeks. Oh, yes, I am blissfully
+happy here. I <i>ought</i> to be. It would be the grossest ingratitude
+if I were otherwise, as all the men have been good enough
+to fall in love with me, and that, of course, is the principal
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>At this the young man at her feet smiles openly and presses
+his face unperceived against her gown; but Rossmoyne throws
+up his head and glances with a coldly displeased expression
+into the vague distance.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you been here long?" asks Monica, turning to her
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Very</i> long," pettishly. Something&mdash;perhaps Rossmoyne&mdash;has
+annoyed the capricious beauty.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Only a fortnight," says Mrs. Herrick, briefly. "You <i>must</i>
+know that."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't judge time by days and weeks; it <i>seems</i> long," says
+Mrs. Bohun, "years,&mdash;an eternity almost!"</p>
+
+<p>A sudden gloom appears to have fallen upon the group.
+Rossmoyne's dark face grows darker still; the smile fades from
+Ronayne's face, a shadow falls athwart his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I like the country," says Monica, suddenly. "It
+is so calm, so quiet, and there are moments when the very
+beauty of it brings tears to my eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"I love it too," says Ronayne, quickly, addressing her
+pointedly in a friendly tone, although no introduction has been
+gone through between them. "I wonder how any one who
+has once tasted the sweetness of it can ever again long for the
+heat and turmoil of the town."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, for a time it is charming, all-sufficing," says Mrs.
+Bohun, "but for what a <i>little</i> time! Perhaps,&mdash;I am not sure,&mdash;but
+<i>perhaps</i> I should like to live for three months of every
+year in the country. After that, I know I should begin to pine
+again for the smoke and smuts of my town."</p>
+
+<p>"If you are already wearied, I wonder you stay here," says
+Lord Rossmoyne, sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>"And I wonder what has happened to-day to your usually
+so charming temper," returns she, laughingly uplifting her face
+to his, and letting her eyes rest on him with almost insolent inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>"Desmond says good temper is a mere matter of digestion,"
+says some one at this moment. Monica starts more at the
+name mentioned than at the exceedingly worn-out words uttered.
+She glances at the speaker, and sees he is a very ugly young
+man, with a nice face, and a remarkably dismal expression. He
+is looking at Rossmoyne. "Sit down, dear boy," he says, <i>sotto
+voce</i> and very sadly. "There's too much of you; you should
+never stand. You appear to so much better advantage when
+doubled in two. It don't <i>sound</i> well, does it? but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But really, when you come to think of it," Mrs. Bohun is
+saying, feelingly, "there is very little in the country."</p>
+
+<p>"There is at least the fascinating tulip and lily," says the
+sad man who mentioned Desmond's name. "Don't put yourself
+beyond the pale of art by saying you had forgotten those
+&aelig;sthetic flowers,&mdash;blossoms, I mean. Don't you yearn when
+you think of them? <i>I</i> do."</p>
+
+<p>"So glad you are awake at last, Owen!" says Mrs. Bohun.</p>
+
+<p>"That silly craze about tulips," says Mrs. Herrick, contemptuously,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+"I have always treated it with scorn. Why could
+not the art idiots have chosen some better flower for their
+lunatic ravings? What can <i>any</i> one see in a tulip?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes earwigs," says the man called Owen.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! I don't believe even earwigs would care for
+it. Foolish, gaudy thing, uplifting its lanky neck as though to
+outdo its fellows! There is really nothing in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Like the country," says Owen, meekly, "according to
+Mrs. Bohun."</p>
+
+<p>"And like Bella Fitzgerald," says that graceless person,
+with a little grimace.</p>
+
+<p>"My <i>dear</i> Olga," says Mrs. Herrick, glancing quickly to
+right and left. "Do you never <i>think</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"As seldom as ever I can. But why be nervous, Hermia?
+If any one were to compare <i>me</i> with a tulip, I should die of&mdash;no,
+not chagrin&mdash;<i>joy</i>, I mean, of course. Monica, what are
+you saying to Owen?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I know who Owen is," says Monica, with a
+glance at the gentleman in question, that is half shy, half
+friendly.</p>
+
+<p>"That argues yourself unknown," says Olga. "He is Master
+Owen Kelly, of Kelly's Grove, county Antrim, and the
+bright and shining light of the junior bar. They all swear by
+him in Dublin,&mdash;all, that is except the judges, and they swear
+<i>at</i> him."</p>
+
+<p>Monica looks at Master Owen Kelly in a faintly puzzled
+fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"It is all quite true," says that young man, modestly, in a
+reassuring tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Now tell us what you were saying to each other," says
+Olga.</p>
+
+<p>"It was nothing," returns Monica. "We were only talking
+about this Egyptian war. But I don't really," nervously,
+"understand anything about it."</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't blush for your ignorance on that score," says
+Mr. Kelly. "You're in the general swim: nobody knows."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the most senseless proceeding altogether," says
+Hermia Herrick, in her decided way. "Gladstone's wars are
+toys. He has had three of them now, dear little fellow, to
+amuse himself with, and he ought to be proud of his <a class="corr" name="TC_14" id="TC_14" title="victorles">victories</a>."</p>
+
+<p>"According to Erasmus, war is the 'malady of princes,'"
+says Lord Rossmoyne, sententiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Rossmoyne isn't well," says Mr. Kelly, softly. "He is
+calling the wood-cutter a prince. It reminds one of Hans
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+Andersen's fairy-tale: all hewers of wood and drawers of water
+were blood-royal then."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet Gladstone has intellect," says Mrs. Herrick, in oh,
+<i>such</i> a tone: would that the master of Hewarden could have
+heard her!</p>
+
+<p>"Some!" said Mr. Kelly. "He is indeed 'a thing apart.'
+I know nothing like him. 'Once, in the flight of ages past,
+there lived a <i>man</i>.' In ages to come they will say that of our
+modern immortal William. They will probably add that no
+<i>real</i> man has ever lived since.<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span></p>
+
+<p>"How silly you can be at times!" says Olga.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't mine; it's Montgomery's nonsense," says Mr. Kelly,
+sadly. "Blame him, not me."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to blame any one," says Olga, with a skillfully-suppressed
+yawn; "but, taking your view of the case, I
+think it will be an awful age when there <i>doesn't</i> live a man."</p>
+
+<p>"Your 'occupation will be o'er,' indeed," says Rossmoyne,
+with an accentuated bitterness, "when that time comes."</p>
+
+<p>("He must be very much in love with her," thinks Monica,
+with a touch of inspiration, "he is so excessively rude to her!"<span class="s_corr" title="">)</span></p>
+
+<p>"Lord Rossmoyne," says Mrs. Bohun, turning to him with
+ineffable sweetness, "will you do something for me?"</p>
+
+<p>The transition from coldness to tender appeal is too much
+for Rossmoyne: his face brightens.</p>
+
+<p>"You know there is nothing I would not do for you," he
+says, gravely but eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," promptly, "please take that ugly frown off your
+forehead and put it in your pocket; or&mdash;no, throw it away altogether;
+if you kept it near you, you might be tempted to put
+it on again."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not know I was frowning."</p>
+
+<p>"You were," sweetly. "You are all right again now, and
+so shall be rewarded. You can't think how unbecoming frowns
+are, and how much better you look when you are all 'sweetness
+and light' as now for example. Come," rising, "you
+shall take me for a nice long walk through these delightful old
+gardens."</p>
+
+<p>As she moves she sees the daisies still clinging to her gown
+that Ulic Ronayne has been amusing himself with during the
+past half-hour. More than this, she sees, too, the imploring
+gaze of his dark eyes upturned to hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Silly boy!" she says, stooping to shake away the daisies
+with her hand; but her words have a double meaning. Involuntarily,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+unseen by all the others&mdash;except Monica&mdash;his hand
+closes upon hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not go with him," he says, with deep entreaty.</p>
+
+<p>"I must&mdash;now."</p>
+
+<p>"Then let me come <a class="corr" name="TC_15" id="TC_15" title="to">too</a>?"</p>
+
+<p>"No." Then she raises herself, and says, gayly, "You
+shall stay and make love to Miss Beresford&mdash;Monica, I have
+desired Mr. Ronayne to stay here and amuse you."</p>
+
+<p>She moves across the lawn with Rossmoyne beside her.
+Mrs. Herrick and Mr. Kelly are strolling lazily in another direction.
+Monica and Ulic are alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there anything I can take you to see?" asks he, gently.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you. I am quite happy here."</p>
+
+<p>Then, noticing the extreme sadness on his beautiful face,
+she says, slowly, "But you are not, I am afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>should</i> be, with so fair a companion." He smiles as he
+says this, but his smile is without mirth, and she does not return
+it. Suddenly leaning forward, she says to him, very tenderly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You love Olga, do you not?"</p>
+
+<p>She never afterwards thinks of this speech without blushing
+deeply and wondering why she said it. It was an impulse
+too strong to be conquered, and it overpowers her. His face
+changes, and he colors <a class="corr" name="TC_16" id="TC_16" title="perceptibily">perceptibly</a>; he hesitates too, and regards
+her inquiringly. Something, perhaps, in her expression
+reassures him, because presently he says, bravely,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do. I love her with all my heart and soul; as I
+never have loved, as I never shall love again. <i>This</i> thought is
+my happiness: my sorrow lies in the fear that she will never love
+<i>me</i>. Forgive my saying all this to you: she told me to amuse
+you," with a faint smile, "and I have woefully neglected her
+commands."</p>
+
+<p>"You must forgive me," says Monica. "I should not have
+asked you the question."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not be sorry for that: it has done me good, I think.
+I am glad I have said it <i>out loud</i> to somebody at last. It is
+odd though,&mdash;isn't it?&mdash;I should have made my confession to
+you, of all people, whom I never saw until ten minutes ago!"</p>
+
+<p>Then Monica remembers that this is the second young man
+she has found herself on friendly terms with since her arrival
+at Moyne, without the smallest introduction having been gone
+through on any side. It all sounds rather dreamy, and certainly
+very irregular.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! there is Madam O'Connor beckoning to me," says
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+Ronayne, rising lazily to his feet. "I suppose she wants me
+for a moment. Will you mind my leaving you for a little, or
+will you come with me? I shan't be any time."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall stay here," says Monica. "There, go: she seems
+quite in a hurry. Come back when you can."</p>
+
+<p>He runs across the grass to his hostess; and Monica, leaning
+back in her chair, gives herself up to thought. Everything
+is strange, and she is feeling a little lonely, a little <i>distraite</i>, and
+(but this she will not allow even to herself) distinctly disappointed.
+She is trying very hard to prevent her mind from
+dwelling upon a certain face that should be naught to her, when
+she suddenly becomes conscious of the fact that some one has
+come to a standstill close beside her chair. She turns.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Monica listens to strange words and suffers herself to be led away.&mdash;How
+Cupid plants a shaft in Mars, and how Miss Priscilla finds herself
+face to face with the enemy.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>"You see I failed," says Brian Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>A quick warm blush has dyed Monica's cheeks crimson.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! it is you," she said. "I thought you had not come."</p>
+
+<p>This betrays the fact that she has been thinking of him, but
+he is far too wise a young man in his own generation to take
+count of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I came. Three days ago I thought I should have
+been in London now, and then I heard <i>you</i> were to be here to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"In what have you failed?" asks she, abruptly, alluding to
+his opening sentence.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you guess? Have you forgotten the last cruel injunction
+you laid upon me? 'When next we meet,' you said,
+'you are to look straight over my head and pass on.' Will you
+believe that twice to-day I obeyed that mandate? The third
+time was the charm: it conquered me; I broke my sword in
+two and came to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you hadn't," says Monica, sincerely, if impolitely.
+"I wish you would go away now, and promise me never to speak
+to me again. You <i>know</i> I am afraid of you," looking nervously
+around.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't, indeed; I can't conceive such a situation. You
+do me a great injustice, I think. I verily believe if I tried my
+very hardest I couldn't instil terror into the smallest child in
+the village."</p>
+
+<p>"You know what I mean. Of course," scornfully, "I should
+never be afraid of a <i>man</i>: it is Aunt Priscilla I am afraid of.
+And see, see <i>there</i>!" in an agony, "she is standing quite close
+to us, talking to somebody."</p>
+
+<p>"If that is your aunt Priscilla, she is safe for an hour at least.
+The old lady with her is Lady Rossmoyne, and she never lets any
+one (unfortunate enough to get into her clutches) go free under
+a generous sixty minutes. She is great on manures, and
+stock, and turnips, and so forth. And your aunt, I hear, is a
+kindred spirit."</p>
+
+<p>"But then there is Aunt Penelope," says Monica, timidly.</p>
+
+<p>"She, too, is arranged. Half an hour ago I met her so
+deep in a disgraceful flirtation with the vicar that I felt it my
+duty to look the other way. Depend upon it, she is not thinking
+of you."</p>
+
+<p>"But some one may tell them I have been talking to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I always thought I had a proper amount of pride until
+I met you<span class="s_corr" title=".">,</span>" says Mr. Desmond. "You have dispelled the belief
+of years. 'Is thy servant a dog,' that you should be ostracized
+for speaking to him? Never mind; I submit even to
+that thought if it gives me five minutes more of your society. But
+listen to me. No one can tell tales of us, because we are both
+strangers in the land. No one knows me from Adam, and
+just as few know you from&mdash;let us say <i>Eve</i>, for euphony's
+sake."</p>
+
+<p>She laughs. Encouraged by her merriment to believe that
+at least she bears him no ill will, Brian says, hurriedly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Come with me to the rose-garden. It is stupid sitting here
+alone, and the garden is beyond praise. Do come."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" lifting her heavy lashes.</p>
+
+<p>"For one thing, we shall be free from observation, and you
+know you dislike being seen with me. For another&mdash;&mdash;" He
+pauses.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" rather nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"It is just this, that I <i>must</i> speak to you," says the young
+man, his gay manner changing to one of extreme earnestness.
+"You were unkind to me that day we parted. I want you to
+tell me why. I understand quite that I have no right to demand
+even the smallest favor of you, yet I do entreat you to come
+with me<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span>"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For another moment she hesitates, then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I will come with you," she says, raising her soft eyes
+to his. In her whole manner, voice, and bearing there is something
+so sweet and childish and trusting as to render Desmond
+her slave upon the spot.</p>
+
+<p>The path to the rose-garden leads away from Miss Priscilla,
+so they avoid detection as they go.</p>
+
+<p>But they are singularly silent and grave; when the garden
+is reached they pass between the rows of growing blossoms
+mute, if rich in thought. At last, when silence is becoming too
+eloquent to be borne, her companion turns to her.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't <i>true</i> what you said to me that last day, was it?<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span>
+he asks, with far more anxiety than the occasion seems to demand.
+"Not <i>really</i>, I mean. You said it for fun, perhaps&mdash;or&mdash;&mdash;It
+has been with me ever since. I can't forget it.
+You said you disliked sudden friendships, and the way you said
+it made me think you disliked <i>me</i>. Tell me I thought wrong."</p>
+
+<p><span class="s_corr" title="">"</span>Quite wrong," in a low tone. She is plucking a rose to
+pieces, and keeps her eyes downcast. "When I said that, I
+was angry about something."</p>
+
+<p>"About something I <i>said</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Nothing you said."</p>
+
+<p>"Something I did, then?" growing more and more anxious.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye-es."</p>
+
+<p>"What was it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't matter now; not in the least now; and I can
+not tell you, <i>indeed</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"But I wish very much you would. Perhaps, being in
+wretched ignorance, I shall be so unhappy as to do it again
+some day, and so make you hate me a second time."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't <i>hate</i> you."</p>
+
+<p>"No? Yet there was a look in your eyes I wouldn't like
+to see there again. Do tell me, lest I once more fall into
+error."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," coloring deeply, as though at some unpleasant recollection.
+"That would be impossible. It could never
+happen again. I shall take care of that. I shall never as
+long as I live get into a&mdash;that is&mdash;I mean&mdash;I&mdash;&mdash;Really I
+have forgiven it all now, so let us forget it too."</p>
+
+<p>Though still greatly mystified, Mr. Desmond wisely forbears
+to press the point, something in her pretty distressed
+face and heightened color forbidding him.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good," he says, pleasantly. "But there is another
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+thing I have not forgotten. Have you ever cleared up that
+mystery about my uncle and your aunts?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! <i>that</i>. It cannot be cleared, I am afraid it is too
+muddy a tale for any help; but I have at least found out all
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Would it be indiscreet if I said I would give anything to
+be as wise as you on this subject? In other words, will you
+divulge the secret?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a story that doesn't redound to the honor and glory
+of <i>your</i> house," says Miss Beresford, stepping back from him
+with a gay little laugh, and glancing at him mischievously from
+under her big "Patience" hat. "If I were you I should
+shrink from hearing it."</p>
+
+<p>"I decline to shrink," with <a class="corr" name="TC_17" id="TC_17" title="unparalled">unparalleled</a> bravery. "I prefer
+to rush upon my fate. Life has no longer any flavor for me
+until I hear what the old reprobate at Coole has done."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you <i>will</i> insist upon the sorry tale, 'tis this. Once
+there lived a wicked knight, who wooed a maiden fair. But
+when that her heart was all his own, his love grew cold, and,
+turning from her, he refused to fulfil his plighted troth and
+lead her to the hymeneal altar. In fact, he loved and he
+rode away, leaving her as dismally disconsolate as the original
+maid forlorn."</p>
+
+<p>"Alas for the golden age of chivalrie!" says Mr. Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"Alas, indeed! That wicked knight was your uncle; the
+maid forlorn my mother!"</p>
+
+<p>"You have been giving me a summary of a fairytale,
+haven't you?" asks he, in an unbelieving tone.</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed; it is all quite true. From what I have
+heard, your uncle must have treated my mother very badly.
+Now, aren't you thoroughly ashamed of yourself and your
+family?"</p>
+
+<p>"One swallow makes no summer," says Mr. Desmond,
+hardily. "Because my uncle refused to succor a distressed
+damosel is no reason why I should so far forget myself. Besides,
+the whole thing seems incredible. Report says, and,"
+with an expressive glance at her, "I can well believe it, your
+mother was the most beautiful woman of her time in all the
+countryside; while my uncle, bless him, is one of the very
+ugliest men I ever met in my life. He might take a prize in
+that line. Just fancy the Beast refusing to wed with Beauty!"</p>
+
+<p>"To be ugly, so far as a <i>man</i> is concerned, is nothing,"
+says Monica with a knowledge beyond her years. "Many
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+singularly plain men have been much beloved. Though<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span>&mdash;with
+an unconscious study of her companion's features, who is
+decidedly well favored&mdash;"I confess I should myself prefer a
+man whose nose was straight, and whose eyes were&mdash;had no
+inclination to look round the corner, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"A straight nose is to be preferred, of course," says Mr.
+Desmond, absently stroking his own, which is all that can be
+desired. "But I never since I was born heard such an extraordinary
+story as yours. I give you my word,"&mdash;earnestly,&mdash;"my
+uncle is just the sort of man who, if <i>any</i> girl, no matter
+how hideous, were to walk up to him and say, 'I consent to
+marry you,<span class="s_corr" title="&quot;">'</span> ought to be devoutly grateful to her. Why, talking
+of noses, you should just see his: it's&mdash;it's <i>anyhow</i>," with
+growing excitement. "It's all up hill and down dale. I
+never before or since saw such a nose; and I'd back his mouth
+to <i>beat that</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"He must be a very distinguished-looking person," says
+Miss Beresford, demurely.</p>
+
+<p>"I know very little about him, of course, having been always
+so much abroad; but he <i>looks</i> like a man who could be
+painfully faithful to an attachment of that kind."</p>
+
+<p>"He was not faithful to her, at all events. I daresay he
+fell in love with some other girl about that time, and slighted
+my mother for her."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says Mr. Desmond, drawing a deep breath, "he
+<i>is</i> 'a grand man!'"</p>
+
+<p>"I think he must be a very <i>horrid</i> old man," replies Monica,
+severely.</p>
+
+<p>"You have proofs of his iniquity, of course," says Brian,
+presently, who evidently finds a difficulty in believing in his
+uncle's guilt.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He wrote her a letter, stating in distinct terms
+that"&mdash;and here she alters her voice until it is highly suggestive
+of Miss Blake's fine contralto&mdash;"'he deemed it expedient
+for both parties that the present engagement existing between
+them should be annulled.' Those are Aunt Priscilla's
+words; what he really meant, I suppose, was that he was tired
+of her."</p>
+
+<p>"Your mother, I should imagine, was hardly a woman to
+be tired of readily."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a matter of opinion. We&mdash;that is, Terry and
+Kit and I&mdash;thought her a very tiresome woman indeed," says
+Miss Beresford, calmly. She does not look at him as she
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+makes this startling speech, but looks beyond him into, possibly,
+a past where the "tiresome woman" held a part.</p>
+
+<p>Brian Desmond, gazing at her pale, pure, spiritual face, sustains
+a faint shock, as the meaning of her words reaches him.
+Is she heartless, emotionless? Could not even a mother's
+love touch her and wake her into life and feeling?</p>
+
+<p>"You weren't very fond of your mother, then?" he asks,
+gently. The bare memory of his own mother is adored by
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Fond?" says Monica, as though the idea is a new one to
+her. "Fond? Yes, I suppose so; but we were all much fonder
+of my father. Not that either he or mamma took very much
+notice of us."</p>
+
+<p>"Were they so much wrapt up in each other, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, certainly not," quickly. Then with an amount of
+bitterness in her tone that contrasts strangely with its usual
+softness, "I wonder why I called my mother 'mamma' to you
+just now. I never dared do so to <i>her</i>. Once when she was
+going away somewhere I threw my arms around her and called
+her by that pet name; but she put me from her, and told me I
+was not to make a noise like a sheep."</p>
+
+<p>She seems more annoyed than distressed as she says this.
+Desmond is silent. Perhaps his silence frightens her, because
+she turns to him with a rather pale, nervous face.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I should not say such things as these to you,"
+she says, unsteadily. "I forgot, it did not occur to me, that we
+are only strangers."</p>
+
+<p>"Say what you will to me," says Desmond, slowly, "and be
+sure of this, that what you <i>do</i> say will be heard by you and me
+alone."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you," she answers, with a little sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"And, besides, we are not altogether strangers," he goes
+on, lightly; "that day on the river is a link between us, isn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, the river," she says, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Our</i> river. I have brought myself to believe it is our
+joint property: no one else seems to know anything about it."</p>
+
+<p>"I have never been near it since," says Monica.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>know that</i>," returns he, meaningly.</p>
+
+<p>"How?" is almost framed upon her lips; but a single glance
+at him renders her dumb. Something in his expression suggests
+the possibility that he has spent pretty nearly all his time since
+last they met, and <i>certainly</i> all his afternoons, upon that shady
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+river just below the pollard willows, in the vain hope of seeing
+her arrive.</p>
+
+<p>She blushes deeply, and then, in spite of herself, laughs out
+loud, a low but ringing laugh, full of music and mischief.</p>
+
+<p>This most uncalled-for burst of merriment has the effect of
+making Mr. Desmond <a class="corr" name="TC_18" id="TC_18" title="perternaturally">preternaturally</a> grave.</p>
+
+<p>"May I ask what you are laughing at?" he says, with painful
+politeness; whereupon Miss Beresford checks her mirth
+abruptly, and has the grace to blush again even harder than before.
+Her confusion is, indeed, the prettiest thing possible.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," she says, in an evasive tone.</p>
+
+<p>"People generally <i>do</i> know what they are laughing at<span class="s_corr" title=".">,</span>"
+contends he, seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, <i>I</i> don't," returns she, with great spirit.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not, if you <i>say</i> so; but," with suppressed wrath,
+"I don't myself think there is anything provocative of mirth in
+the thought of a fellow wasting hour after hour upon a lonely
+stream in the insane but honest hope of seeing somebody who
+<i>wouldn't</i> come. Of course in your eyes the fellow was a fool
+to do it; but&mdash;but if I were the girl I wouldn't laugh at him
+for it."</p>
+
+<p>Silence.</p>
+
+<p>Monica's eyes are bent upon the ground; her face is averted;
+but there is something about her attitude that compels Mr.
+Desmond to believe she is sorry for her untimely laughter; and
+thinking this breeds hatred towards himself for having caused
+this sorrow and makes him accuse himself of basest ill temper.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon!" he says, in a contrite tone; "I
+shouldn't have spoken to you like that. I lost my temper
+most absurdly and must apologize to you for it now. It was
+ridiculous of me to suppose you would ever come again to the
+river; but one hopes against hope. Yet, as Feltham tells us,
+'he that hopes too much shall deceive himself at last:' that
+was my fate, you see. And you never once thought of coming,
+did you? You were quite right."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I was quite wrong; but&mdash;but&mdash;<i>you</i> are quite wrong
+too in <i>one</i> way," still with her eyes downturned.</p>
+
+<p>"By what right did I expect you? I was a presumptuous
+fool and got just what I deserved."</p>
+
+<p>"You were not a fool," exclaims she, quickly; and then,
+with a little impulsive gesture, she draws herself up and looks
+him fair in the eyes. "If I had known you were there," she
+says, bravely, though evidently frightened at her own temerity,
+"I&mdash;I&mdash;am almost sure <i>I</i> should have been there too!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No! would you really?" says Desmond, eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>Then follows a rather prolonged silence. Not an awkward
+one, but certainly a silence fraught with danger to both. There
+is no greater friend to Cupid than an unsought silence such as
+this. At last it is broken.</p>
+
+<p>"What lovely roses there are in this garden!" says Desmond,
+pointing to a bush of glowing beauty near him.</p>
+
+<p>"Are there not?" She has taken off a long white glove,
+so that one hand and arm are bare. The hand is particularly
+small and finely shaped, the nails on it are a picture in themselves;
+the arm is slight and childish, but rounded and very
+fair.</p>
+
+<p>Breaking a rose from the tree indicated, she examines it
+lovingly, and then, lifting it to his face, as though desirous of
+sympathy, says,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Is it not sweet?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is indeed!" He is staring at her. Very gently he
+takes the little hand that holds the flower and keeps it in his
+own. He detains it so lightly that she might withdraw it if she
+pleases, but she does not. Perhaps she doesn't please, or perhaps
+she sees nothing remarkable in his action. At all events,
+she, who is so prone to blush on all occasions, does not change
+color now, but chatters to him gayly, in an unconcerned manner,
+about the scented blossoms round her, and afterwards
+about the people yonder, behind the tall flowering shrubs that
+surround the tennis-ground.</p>
+
+<p>And still her little slender fingers lie passively in his. Glancing
+at them, he strokes them lightly with his other hand, and
+counts her rings.</p>
+
+<p>"Four&mdash;five," he says; "quite a burden for such a little
+hand to carry."</p>
+
+<p>"I like them," says Monica: "brooches and earrings and
+bracelets I don't care for, but rings I love. I never really feel
+dressed until they are on. To slip them on my fingers is the
+last thing I do every morning before running downstairs. At
+least nearly the last."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is the last?"</p>
+
+<p>"I say my prayers," says Monica, smiling. "That is what
+every one does, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," says Mr. Desmond, not looking at her. It
+seems to him a long, long time now since last he said <i>his</i>
+prayers. And then he suddenly decides within himself that he
+will say them to-morrow morning, "the last thing before going
+downstairs;" he cannot have quite forgotten <i>yet</i>.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He is examining her rings as he thinks all this, and now
+a little pale turquoise thing attracts his notice.</p>
+
+<p>"Who gave you that?" he asks, suddenly. It is to a jealous
+eye rather a lovable little ring.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa, when I was fourteen," says Monica. "It is very
+pretty, isn't it? I have felt quite grown up ever since he gave
+me that."</p>
+
+<p>"Monica," says Brian Desmond suddenly, tightening his
+hold on her hand, "had you ever a lover before?"</p>
+
+<p>"Before?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," slowly, and as if determined to make his meaning
+clear, and yet, too, with a certain surprise at his own question.
+"Had you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Before?" as if bewildered, she repeats the word again.
+"Why, I never had a lover <i>at all</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do not say that again," says Brian, moving a step nearer
+to her and growing pale: "I am your lover now&mdash;and <i>forever</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! no<span class="s_corr" title=".">,</span> <i>no<span class="s_corr" title=".">,</span></i>" says Monica, shrinking from him. "Do not
+say that."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't<span class="s_corr" title=".">,</span> if you forbid me, but," quietly, "I am, and shall
+be, all the same. I think my very soul&mdash;belongs to you."</p>
+
+<p>A crunching of gravel, a sound of coming footsteps, the
+murmur of approaching voices.</p>
+
+<p>Monica, pallid as an early snowdrop, looks up to see her
+Aunt Priscilla coming towards her, accompanied by a young
+man, a very tall and very stout young man, with a rather
+drilled air.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! here is Aunt Priscilla," says Monica, breathlessly.
+"Who is that with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ryde, one of the marines stationed at Clonbree," says
+Mr. Desmond, cursing the marine most honestly in his heart
+of hearts. Clonbree is a small town about seven miles from
+Rossmoyne, where a company of marines has been sent to
+quell the Land League disturbances.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Priscilla is looking quite pleased with herself, and
+greets Monica with a fond smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew I should find you here," she says; "flowers have
+such a fascination for you. You will let me introduce you to
+Mr. Ryde, dear child!"</p>
+
+<p>And then the introduction is gone through, and Monica
+says something unworthy of note to this big young man, who is
+staring at her in a more earnest manner than is strictly within
+the rules of etiquette. Somehow, too, she presently discovers
+she has fallen into line with her new friend, and is moving towards
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+the lawn again with Aunt Priscilla following in her train
+with <i>Mr. Desmond</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Quaking inwardly, Monica at first cannot take her mind off
+the twain behind her, and all the consequences that must ensue
+if Miss Priscilla once discovers a Desmond is being addressed
+by her with common civility.</p>
+
+<p>She is, therefore, but poor company for the tall marine,
+who seems, however, quite satisfied with the portion allotted
+him and maunders on inanely about the surroundings generally.
+When the weather and the landscape have been exhausted, it
+must be confessed, however, that he comes to a standstill.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Priscilla, pleased with her day and the satisfactory
+knowledge that every one has been raving about Monica, is
+making herself specially agreeable to her companion, who,
+nothing loath, draws her out and grows almost sycophantic in
+his attentions. She becomes genial with him, not knowing
+who he is, while he becomes even more than genial with her,
+knowing right well who she is. Indeed, so merrily does he make
+the time fly that Miss Priscilla is fain to confess to herself that
+seldom has she passed so pleasant a five minutes.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, Monica, strolling on in front with Mr.
+Ryde, is feeling both nervous and depressed. This chance
+meeting between her aunt and Mr. Desmond, and the memory
+of all the strange exciting things the latter has said to her,
+renders her mute and unequal to conversation, and her present
+companion is not one likely to enchain her attention by any
+brilliant flashes of intellect.</p>
+
+<p>He is, in truth, a very ordinary young man, of the heavy,
+stupid type too often met with to require either introduction or
+description. He had arrived in Queenstown about a fortnight
+before, with nothing much to guide his conduct in a strange
+country beyond the belief that Hibernia, as he elects to call it,
+is like Africa, a "land benighted," fit only to furnish food for
+jests. He has a fatal idea that he himself can supply these
+jests at times, and that, in fact, there are moments when he
+can be irresistibly funny over the Paddies: like many others
+devoid of brain, and without the power to create wholesome
+converse, he mistakes impertinence for wit, and of late has become
+rude at the expense of Ireland whenever he found anybody
+kind enough, or (as in Monica's case now) obliged, to
+listen to him.</p>
+
+<p>Just now, there being a distinct and rather embarrassing
+pause, he says amiably,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Awfully jolly gown you've got on!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"So glad you like it!" says Monica, absently.</p>
+
+<p>"Got it from town, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"From Dublin&mdash;yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! by Jove, you call Dublin town, do you?" says Mr.
+Ryde, with a heavy laugh that suggests danger of choking, he
+being slightly plethoric by nature.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes: what do you call it?" says Monica, regarding him
+steadily. She has hardly looked at him till now, and tells
+herself instantly that young men with fat faces are not in <i>her</i>
+line.</p>
+
+<p>"Always thought it was a village, or something of that sort,
+you know," replies he, with a continuation of the suicidal merriment.</p>
+
+<p>Monica stares, and her color rises, ever so little, but unmistakably.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to read something, papers and articles on
+Ireland, now and then," she says, deep but suspicious pity for
+him in her tone. "Considering what education costs nowadays,
+it is shameful the way yours has been neglected. Your
+college, or wherever you were, ought to be ashamed of itself.
+Why, I don't believe you know what a capital means."</p>
+
+<p>"A capital?&mdash;in writing, do you mean?" asks he, puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"N&mdash;o; I wasn't thinking of that. You can write, I suppose,"
+with malicious hesitation that betrays doubt. "I was
+speaking of the capitals of Europe. Dublin is one of them."</p>
+
+<p>Unable to grasp the fact that she is mildly snubbing him,
+Mr. Ryde smiles gayly, and says, "Oh, really?" with an
+amused air that incenses her still more highly. "Was there
+ever," she asks herself, angrily, "so hateful a man, or so long
+a gravel walk!"</p>
+
+<p>Having racked his brain to find something further wherewith
+to beguile the monotony of the way, and finding it barren,
+Mr. Ryde falls back upon the original subject.</p>
+
+<p>"I like a white gown on a woman better than any," he
+says. "And so they really <i>can</i> make gowns in Ireland? I've
+been awfully disappointed, do you know?&mdash;reg'lar sold. I
+came over here in the full hope of seeing everybody going
+about in goatskins and with beads round their necks&mdash;and&mdash;er&mdash;that."</p>
+
+<p>"And why are you disappointed?" asks Monica, mildly,
+with a provoking want of appreciation of this brilliant sally.
+"Are you fond of goatskins and beads? Do <i>you</i> wear them
+when 'your foot is on your native heath'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?&mdash;Oh, you don't understand," says this dense young
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+man, fatally bent on explanation. "I meant to imply that the
+general belief with us over there"&mdash;pointing to the horizon,
+which would have led him to America rather than to England&mdash;"is
+that everybody here is half savage&mdash;d'ye see&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, it's quite plain," says Miss Beresford, her eyes
+immovably fixed on the horizon. "'Over <i>there</i><span class="s_corr" title="">'</span> must be a most
+enlightened spot."</p>
+
+<p>"So of course I thought the goatskins, etc., would be the
+order of the day," goes on Mr. Ryde, with another chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>"You do think sometimes, then?" says Monica, innocently.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been thinking of <i>you</i> ever since I first saw you
+this afternoon," returns he, promptly, if unwisely.</p>
+
+<p>There is an almost imperceptible pause, and then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Don't trouble yourself to do that again," says <a class="corr" name="TC_19" id="TC_19" title="Moncia">Monica</a>
+<i>very</i> sweetly, but with a telltale flash in her blue eyes; "I am
+sure it must fatigue you dreadfully. Remember what a warm
+day it is. Another thing: don't for the future, please, say
+<a class="corr" name="TC_20" id="TC_20" title="rud">rude</a> things about Ireland, because I don't like that <i>either</i>."</p>
+
+<p><span class="s_corr" title="&quot;"></span>The "<i>either</i>" is the cruellest cut of all: it distinctly
+forbids him even to think of her.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid I have been unlucky enough to offend you,"
+says young Mars, stiffly, awaking at last to a sense of the
+situation, and glancing down uneasily at the demure little
+figure marching beside him with her pretty head erect. "I
+didn't mean it, I assure you. What I said was said in fun."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you always like that when you are funny?" asks
+she, looking straight before her. "Then I think, if I were
+you, I wouldn't do it."</p>
+
+<p>Then she is a little ashamed of her severity, and, changing
+her tone, makes herself so charming to him that he quite
+recovers his spirits before they come up with all the others on
+the lawn.</p>
+
+<p>Yet perhaps her smiles have wrought him more harm than
+her frowns.</p>
+
+<p>Madam O'Connor, going up to Miss Priscilla, engages her
+in some discussion, so that presently Monica finds Brian beside
+her again.</p>
+
+<p>"You will let me see you again soon," he says, in a low
+tone, seeing Ryde is talking to Miss Fitzgerald.</p>
+
+<p>"But how can I?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can if you will. Meet me somewhere, as I may not
+call; bring your brother, your sister, <i>any one</i>, with you; only
+meet me."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If I did that, how could I look at Aunt Priscilla afterwards?"
+says Monica, growing greatly distressed. "It would
+be shameful; I should feel like a traitor. I feel like it
+already."</p>
+
+<p>"Then do nothing. Take a passive part, if you will, and
+leave all to me," says Desmond, with a sudden determination
+in his eyes. "I would not have you vexed or made unhappy
+in any way. But that I shall see you again&mdash;and <i>soon</i>&mdash;be
+sure."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I will listen to no 'buts:' it is too late for them. Though
+all the world, though even you yourself, should forbid me your
+presence, I should still contrive to meet you."</p>
+
+<p>Here somebody addresses him, and he is obliged to turn
+and smile, and put off his face the touch of earnest passion
+that has just illumined it; while Monica stands silent, spellbound,
+trying to understand it all.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it thus that all my countrymen make love?" she asks
+herself, bewildered. At the very second meeting (she always,
+even to herself, ignores that <a class="corr" name="TC_21" id="TC_21" title="ignominous">ignominious</a> first) to declare in this
+masterful manner that he <i>must</i> and <i>will</i> see her again!</p>
+
+<p>It is rapid, rather violent wooing; but I do not think the
+girl altogether dislikes it. She is a little frightened, perhaps,
+and uncertain, but there is a sense of power about him that
+fascinates her and tells her vaguely that faith and trust in him
+will never be misplaced. She feels strangely nervous, yet she
+lifts her eyes to his, and gazes at him long and bravely, and
+then the very faintest glimmer of a smile, that is surely full of
+friendliness and confidence, if nothing more, lights up her eyes
+and plays around her pensive mouth. A moment, and the
+smile has vanished, but the remembrance of it lives with him
+forever.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, the wooing is rapid, and she is not won; but "she
+likes me," thinks Desmond, with a touch of rapture he has
+never known before. "Certainly, she <i>likes</i> me; and&mdash;there
+are always time and hope."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Monica, it grows late," says Miss Priscilla at
+this moment. "Say good-by to Madame O'Connor, and let
+us go."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not a bit of it, now," says Madam O'Connor, hospitably
+in her rich, broad brogue, inherited in all its purity, no
+doubt, from her kingly ancestor. "You mustn't take her away
+yet: sure the day is young. Mr. Ryde, why don't you get
+Miss Beresford to play a game with you? In my time, a young
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+fellow like you wouldn't wait to be told to make himself agreeable
+to a pretty girl. There, go now, do! Have you brought
+your own racket with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I left it at home," says Mr. Ryde. "Fact is," affectedly,
+"I didn't think tennis was known over here. Didn't fancy you
+had a court in the land."</p>
+
+<p>This speech fires the blood of the O'Toole's last descendant.</p>
+
+<p>Madam O'Connor uprears a haughty crest, and fixes the
+luckless lieutenant with an eagle eye, beneath which he quails.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no doubt we lack much," she says, taking his
+measure with lofty scorn; "but we have at least our <i>manners</i>."</p>
+
+<p>With this she turns her back upon him, and commences a
+most affable discussion with Miss Penelope, leaving her victim
+speechless with fright.</p>
+
+<p>"Have a brandy-and-soda, Ryde?" says Mr. Kelly, who is
+always everywhere, regarding the wretched marine through his
+eyeglass with a gaze of ineffable sadness. "Nothing like it,
+after an engagement of this sort."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought Ireland was the land for jokes," says the injured
+Ryde, indignantly,&mdash;"stock in trade sort of thing over
+here; and yet when I give 'em one of mine they turn upon me
+as if I was the worst in the world. I don't believe any one
+understands 'em over here."</p>
+
+<p>"You see, your jokes are too fine for us," says Mr. Kelly,
+mournfully. "We miss the point of them."</p>
+
+<p>"You are all the most uncomfortable people I ever met,"
+says the wrathful marine.</p>
+
+<p>"We are, we are," acquiesces Kelly. "We are really a very
+stupid people. Anything, delicate or refined is lost upon us,
+or is met in an unfriendly spirit. I give you my word, I have
+known a fellow's head smashed for less than half what you said
+to Madam O'Connor just now. Prejudice runs high in this land.
+You have, perhaps," in a friendly tone, "heard of a shillelagh?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I haven't," sulkily.</p>
+
+<p>"No? <i>really</i>? It is quite an institution here. It's a sort
+of a big stick, a very unpleasant stick, and is used freely upon
+the smallest difference of opinion. You'll meet them round
+every corner when you get more used to us: you'd like to see
+them, wouldn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I shouldn't," still more sulkily.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but you ought, you know. If you are going to live
+for any time in the country, you should study its institutions.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+The best way to see <i>this</i> one is to make cutting remarks about
+Ireland in a loud voice when two or three of the peasants are
+near you. They don't like cutting remarks, they are so stupid,
+and jokes such as yours annoy them fearfully. Still, you
+mustn't mind that; you must smother your natural kindliness of
+disposition and annoy them, if you want to see the shillelagh."</p>
+
+<p>"I said nothing to annoy Mrs. O'Connor, at any rate," says
+Mr. Ryde. "She needn't have taken a simple word or two
+like that."</p>
+
+<p>"You see, we are all so terribly thin-skinned," says Mr.
+Kelly, regretfully, "I quite blush for my country-people. Of
+course there are noble exceptions to every rule. I am the noble
+exception here. I don't feel in the least annoyed with you.
+Now do try some brandy, my dear fellow: it will do you all
+the good in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know this moment whether <i>you</i> are laughing at me
+or not," says the marine, eying him doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>never</i> laugh," says Mr. Kelly, reproachfully. "I thought
+<i>even you</i> could see that. Well, will you have that B. and S.?"</p>
+
+<p>But Mars is huffed, and declines to accept consolation in
+any shape. He strolls away with an injured air to where his
+brother officer, Captain Cobbett, is standing near the hall door,
+and pours his griefs into his ears. Captain Cobbett being a
+very spare little man, with a half starved appearance and a
+dismal expression, it is doubtful whether poor Ryde receives
+from him the amount of sympathy required.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says Madam O'Connor, turning round as she sees
+him disappear, and addressing the three or four people round
+her generally, "'pon me conscience, that's the silliest young
+man I ever met in my life!" When disturbed, elated, or distressed,
+Madam O'Connor always says, "'Pon me conscience!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be hard upon him," says Mr. Kelly, kindly.
+"Though very mad, he is <i>quite</i> harmless!"</p>
+
+<p>"He plays tennis very well," says Miss Fitzgerald, the tall
+girl. "So nice, isn't it? to have these ancient games reproduced!"
+This with the learned air of one who <a class="corr" name="TC_22" id="TC_22" title="would">could</a> say
+more if she would.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ancient?</i>" says Madam O'Connor. "Faith, I thought it
+was a game of yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear, no!" says the erudite Bella, with a lenient
+smile. "Tennis was first brought from France to England in
+the reign of Charles the Second."</p>
+
+<p>"There now, Miss Beresford, don't forget that," says
+Madam O'Connor, turning to Monica with an amused smile:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+"it is essential you should remember it, as it is part of one's education."
+After which she moves away towards some other
+guests, having said all she has to say to those near her.</p>
+
+<p>"May I see you to your carriage, Miss Blake?" says Desmond,
+finding she and Miss Penelope are bent on going; and
+Aunt Priscilla, who has taken quite a fancy to this strange
+young man, gives her gracious permission that he shall accompany
+them to the fossilized chariot awaiting them.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is he, my dear Priscilla?" asks Miss Penelope, in a
+stage whisper, as they go.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know, my dear, but a vastly agreeable young man,
+very superior to those of his own age of the present day. He
+is marvellously polite, and has, I think, quite a superior air."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite," says Penelope, "and a very sweet expression besides,&mdash;so
+open, so ingenuous. I wish <i>all</i> were like him." This
+with a sigh, Terence having proved himself open to suspicion
+with regard to plain dealing during the past few days.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it so happens that at this instant they turn a corner
+leading from the shrubbery walk on to the gravel sweep before
+the hall door; as they turn this corner, so does some one
+else, only <i>he</i> is coming from the gravel sweep to the walk, so
+that consequently he is face to face with the Misses Blake without
+any hope of retreat.</p>
+
+<p>The walk is narrow at the entrance to it, and as the newcomer
+essays to pass hurriedly by Miss Priscilla he finds himself
+fatally entangled with her, she having gone to the right as
+he went to the left, and afterwards having gone to the left as he
+went to the right, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>Finally a passage is cleared, and the stranger&mdash;who is an
+amazingly ugly old man, with a rather benign though choleric
+countenance&mdash;speeds past the Misses Blake like a flash of lightning,
+and with a haste creditable to his years, but suggestive
+rather of fear than elasticity.</p>
+
+<p>"My uncle?" says Brian Desmond, in an awestruck tone,
+to Monica, who literally goes down before the terrible annunciation,
+and trembles visibly.</p>
+
+<p>It is a rencontre fraught with mortal horror to the Misses
+Blake. For years they have not so much as looked upon their
+enemy's face, and now their skirts have actually brushed him
+as he passed.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come quickly, Monica," says Miss Penelope, on
+this occasion being the one to take the initiative. "Do not linger,
+child. Do you not see? It was <i>our enemy</i> that passed by."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>If she had said "it was the arch fiend," her voice could
+not have been more tragic.</p>
+
+<p>"I am coming, Aunt Penny," says Monica, nervously.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it is at this inauspicious moment that Mr. Kelly (who,
+as I have said before, is always everywhere) chooses to rush up
+to Brian Desmond and address him in a loud tone.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear boy, you are not going yet, are you?" he says reproachfully.
+"I say, Desmond, you can't, you know, because
+Miss Fitzgerald says you promised to play in the next match
+with her."</p>
+
+<p>The fatal name had been uttered clearly and distinctly. As
+though petrified the two old ladies, stand quite still and stare
+at Brian; then Miss Priscilla, with a stately movement, gets between
+him and Monica, and, in tones that tremble perceptibly,
+says to him,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you for the courtesy already received sir; but we
+will no longer trouble you for your escort: we prefer to seek
+our carriage <i>alone</i>."</p>
+
+<p>She sweeps him a terribly stiff little salute, and sails off,
+still trembling and very pale, Miss Penelope, scarcely less pale,
+following in her wake.</p>
+
+<p>Desmond has barely time to grasp Monica's hand, and
+whisper, "Remember," in as mysterious a tone as the hapless
+Stuart, when she too is swept away, and carried from his sight.</p>
+
+<p>Not until the gates of Aghyohillbeg are well behind them
+do the Misses Blake sufficiently recover themselves for speech.
+Terence, who has been a silent witness of the whole transaction,
+creating a diversion by making some remark about the day generally,
+breaks the spell that binds them. His remark is passed
+over in silence, but still the spell is broken.</p>
+
+<p>"Whoever introduced you to that young man," begins Miss
+Priscilla, solemnly, "did a wrong thing. Let us hope it was
+done in ignorance."</p>
+
+<p>At this Monica shivers inwardly and turns cold, as she remembers
+that no introduction has ever been gone through between
+her and "that young man." What if her Aunt Priscilla persists,
+and asks the name of the offending medium? Fortunately,
+Miss Blake loses sight of this idea, being so much engrossed
+with a greater.</p>
+
+<p>"For the future you must forget you ever spoke to this
+Mr. Desmond," she says, her face very stern. "Happily he
+is an utter stranger to you, so there will be no difficulty about
+it. You will remember this, Monica?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I will remember," says the girl, slowly, and with a
+visible effort.</p>
+
+<p>Then Moyne is reached in solemn silence so far as the
+Misses Blake are concerned; in solemn silence, too, the two
+old ladies mount the oaken staircase that leads to their rooms.
+Outside, on the corridor, they pause and contemplate each
+other for a moment earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"He&mdash;he is very good-looking," says Miss Penelope at last,
+as though compelled to make the admission even against her
+will.</p>
+
+<p>"He is abominably handsome," says Miss Priscilla fiercely:
+after which she darts into her room and closes the door with a
+subdued bang behind her.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Brian, having instituted inquiries, condemns his Uncle secretly&mdash;How
+Terry throws light upon a dark subject, and how, for the third
+time, Love "finds out his way."</p></div>
+
+
+<p>It is the evening of the next day, and dinner at Coole has
+just come to an end. Mr. Kelly, who has been Brian's guest
+for the last fortnight, and who is to remain as long as suits him
+or as long after the grouse-shooting in August as he wills,
+has taken himself into the garden to smoke a cigar. This he
+does at a hint from Brian.</p>
+
+<p>Now, finding himself alone with his uncle, Brian says, in the
+casual tone of one making an indifferent remark,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"By the bye, I can see you are not on good terms with
+those old ladies at Moyne."</p>
+
+<p>As he speaks he helps himself leisurely to some strawberries,
+and so refrains from looking at his uncle.</p>
+
+<p>"No," says The Desmond, shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"Some old quarrel I have been given to understand."</p>
+
+<p>"I should prefer not speaking about it," says the squire.</p>
+
+<p>"Twinges of conscience even at this remote period," thinks
+Brian, and is rather tickled at the idea, as he lifts his head to
+regard his uncle in a new light,&mdash;that is, as a regular Don
+Juan.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course, I dare say I should not have mentioned
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+the subject," he says, apologetically; "but I had no idea it
+was a sore point. It was not so much bad taste on my part as
+ignorance. I beg your pardon!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was a very unhappy affair altogether," says Don Juan.</p>
+
+<p>"Very unfortunate indeed, from what I have heard."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>More</i> than unfortunate!&mdash;right down disgraceful!" says
+the squire, with such unlooked-for energy as raises astonishment
+in the breast of his nephew. ("By Jove, one would
+think the old chap had only now awakened to a sense of his
+misconduct," he thinks, irreverently.)</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well," he says, leniently, "hardly <i>that</i>, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Quite</i> that," emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>"It has been often done before: yours is not a solitary
+case."</p>
+
+<p>"Solitary or not, there were elements about it inexcusable,"
+says the old squire, beating his hand upon the table as though
+to emphasize his words.</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't take it so much to heart if I were you," says
+Brian, who is really beginning to pity him.</p>
+
+<p>"It has lain on my heart for twenty years. I can't take it
+off now," says the squire.</p>
+
+<p>"You have evidently suffered," returns Brian, who is getting
+more and more amazed at the volcano he has roused.
+"Of course I can quite understand that if you were once more
+to find yourself in similar circumstances you would act very
+differently."</p>
+
+<p>"I should indeed!&mdash;<i>very</i> differently. A man seldom makes
+a fool of himself twice in a lifetime."</p>
+
+<p>("He's regretting her now," thinks Brian.)</p>
+
+<p>But out loud he says,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't show much wisdom, I daresay."</p>
+
+<p>"No, none; and as for <i>her</i>,&mdash;to fling away such a love as
+that&mdash;&mdash;" Here he pauses, and looks dreamily at the silver
+tankard before him.</p>
+
+<p>This last speech rather annoys Brian; to gloat over the
+remembrance of a love that had been callously cast aside to
+suit the exigences of the moment, seems to the younger man a
+caddish sort of thing not to be endured.</p>
+
+<p>("Though what the mischief any pretty girl of nineteen
+could have seen in <i>him</i>," he muses, gazing with ill-concealed
+amazement at his uncle's ugly countenance, "is more than I
+can fathom.")</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it wasn't so deep a love as <i>you</i> imagine," he cannot
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+refrain from saying <i>a propos</i> to his uncle's last remark, with
+a view to taking him down a peg.</p>
+
+<p>"It was, sir," says the Squire, sternly. "It was the love
+of a lifetime. People may doubt as they will, but I know <i>no</i>
+love has superseded it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he is in his dotage!" thinks Brian, disgustedly; and,
+rising from the table, he makes a few more trivial remarks, and
+then walks from the dining-room on to the balcony and so to
+the garden beneath.</p>
+
+<p>Finding his friend Kelly in an ivied bower, lost in a cigar,
+and possibly, though improbably, in improving meditation, he
+is careful not to disturb him, but, making a successful detour,
+escapes his notice, and turns his face towards that part of
+Coole that is connected with Moyne by means of the river.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>At Moyne, too, dinner has come to an end, and, tempted
+by the beauty of the quiet evening, the two old ladies and the
+children have strolled into the twilit garden.</p>
+
+<p>There is a strange and sweet hush in the air&mdash;a stillness
+full of life&mdash;but slumberous life. The music of streams can
+be heard, and a distant murmur from the ocean; but the birds
+have got their heads beneath their wings, and the rising night-wind
+wooes them all in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Shadows numberless are lying in misty corners; the daylight
+lingers yet, as though loath to quit us and sink into
+eternal night. It is an eve of "holiest mood," full of tranquillity
+and absolute calm.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"It is that hour of quiet ecstasy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When every rustling wind that passes by<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sleeping leaf makes busiest minstrelsy."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"You are silent, Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, glancing
+at her.</p>
+
+<p>"I am thinking. Such an eve as this always recalls Katherine;
+and yesterday <i>that meeting</i>,&mdash;all has helped to bring the
+past most vividly before me."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, dear, yes," says Miss Penelope, regarding her with a
+furtive but tender glance. "How must <i>he</i> have felt, when he
+thought what grief he brought to her young life!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are talking of mother?" asks Kit, suddenly, letting
+her large dark eyes rest on Miss Penelope's face, as though
+searching for latent madness there.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my dear, of course."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He would not have dared so to treat her had her father
+been alive or had we been blessed with a brother," says Miss
+Priscilla, sternly. "He proved himself a dastard and a coward."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps there was some mistake," says Monica, timidly,
+plucking a pale blossom and pretending to admire it.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no. We believe he contracted an affection for some
+other girl, and for her sake jilted your mother. If so, retribution
+fit and proper followed on his perfidy, because he
+brought no wife later on to grace his home. Doubtless he was
+betrayed in his turn. That was only just."</p>
+
+<p>"There seems to be reason in that conjecture," says Miss
+Penelope, "because he went abroad almost immediately. I
+saw him shortly before he left the country, and he was then
+quite a broken-down man. He must have taken his <i>own</i> misfortune
+greatly to heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Served him right!" says Miss Priscilla, uncompromisingly.
+"He deserved no greater luck. Your mother suffered
+so much at his hands that she almost lost her health. I don't
+believe she ever got over it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, she did," says Terry, suddenly; "she got over
+it uncommonly well. We didn't know who Mr. Desmond was
+then, of course; but I know she used to make quite a joke of
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"A joke!" says Miss Priscilla, in an awful tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, regular fun, you know," goes on Terence, undaunted.
+"One day she was telling father some old story about Mr.
+Desmond, a 'good thing' <i>she</i> called it, and she was laughing
+heartily; but he wasn't, and when she had finished, I remember,
+he said something to her about want of 'delicacy of feeling,'
+or something like that."</p>
+
+<p>"I was there," says Kit, in her high treble. "He said, too,
+she ought to be ashamed of herself."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that was nothing," says Mr. Beresford, airily. "Father
+and mother never agreed for a moment; they were always
+squabbling from the time they got up till they went to bed
+again.<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span></p>
+
+<p>The Misses Blake have turned quite pale.</p>
+
+<p>"Terence how can you speak so of your sainted mother?"
+says Miss Penelope. "I'm sure, from her letters to us, she
+was a most <i>devoted</i> mother and wife, and, indeed, sacrificed
+her every wish and pleasure to yours<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>"I never knew it cost her so much to <i>keep away</i> from us,"
+says Terence. "If she was dying for our society, she must indeed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+have sacrificed herself, because she made it the business
+of her life to avoid us from morn to dewy eve."</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless she had her duties," says Miss Penelope, in a
+voice of suppressed fear. What is she going to hear next?
+what are these dreadful children going to say?<span class="s_corr" title="&quot;"></span></p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps she had," said Terence. "If so, they didn't
+agree with her, as she was always in a bad temper. She used
+to give it to papa right and left, until he didn't dare to call his
+soul his own. When I marry, I shall take very good care my
+wife doesn't lead me the life my mother led my father."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Your</i> wife! who'd marry <i>you</i>?" says Kit, scornfully, which
+interlude gives the discussion a rest for a little time. But soon
+they return to the charge.</p>
+
+<p>"Your mother when here had an angelic temper," says Miss
+Penelope. Miss Priscilla all this time seems incapable of
+speech.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she hadn't when <i>there</i>," says Terence; and then he
+says a dreadful thing, as vulgar as it is dreadful, that fills his
+aunt's heart with dismay. "She and my father fought like cat
+and dog," he says; and the Misses Blake feel their cup is indeed
+full.</p>
+
+<p>"And she never would take Monica anywhere," says Kit;
+"so selfish!"</p>
+
+<p>It is growing <i>too</i> terrible. Is their idol to be shattered thus
+before their eyes?</p>
+
+<p>"Monica, was your mother <i>unkind</i> to you?" says Miss Penelope,
+in a voice full of anguish. After all these years, is the
+Katherine of their affections to be dragged in the dust?</p>
+
+<p>Monica hesitates. She can see the grief in her aunt's face,
+and cannot bear to add to it. The truth is that the late Mrs.
+Beresford had <i>not</i> been beloved by her children, for reasons
+which it will be possible to conceive, but which would be tiresome
+to enumerate here. Perhaps there seldom had been a
+more careless or disagreeable mother.</p>
+
+<p>So Monica pauses, flushes, glances nervously from right to
+left, and then back again, and finally rests her loving, regretful
+eyes full upon Miss Penelope's agitated face.</p>
+
+<p>Something she sees there decides her. Sinking to her
+knees, she flings her arms around the old lady's neck, and lays
+her cheek to hers.</p>
+
+<p>"I will say nothing, but that I am happy <i>here</i>," she says, in
+a low whisper.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Penelope's arms close round her. The worst has come
+to her; yet there is solace in this clinging embrace, and in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+dewy lips that seek hers. If she has lost one idol, who can
+say she has not gained another, and perhaps a worthier one?</p>
+
+<p>Yet beyond doubt the two old ladies have sustained a
+severe shock: they hold down their heads, and for a long time
+avoid each other's eyes, as though fearing what may there be
+seen.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us walk round the garden, Aunt Priscilla," says Monica,
+feeling very sorry for them. "The evening is lovely, and
+the roses so sweet."</p>
+
+<p>"Come then," says Miss Priscilla, who is perhaps glad to
+escape from her own thoughts. And so they all wander to and
+fro in the pretty garden, bending over this flower and lingering
+over that in a soft, idle sort of enjoyment that belongs alone to
+the country.</p>
+
+<p>Terence had disappeared, but, as he is not great on flowers,
+his presence is not indispensable, and no one takes any notice
+of his defection.</p>
+
+<p>Presently they come upon the old gardener, who is also the
+old coachman, upon his bended knees beside a bed. The
+whole garden is scrupulously raked and scrupulously weeded
+till not a fault can be found. But Miss Priscilla is one of those
+who deem it necessary always to keep a servant up to his
+trumps.</p>
+
+<p>Stooping over the bed, therefore, she carefully adjusts her
+glasses upon her nose, and proceeds to examine with much
+minuteness the earth beneath her. A tiny green leaf attracts
+her notice.</p>
+
+<p>"Corney, is that a <i>weed</i>?" she asks, severely. "I certainly
+remember sowing some seeds in this place; but <i>that</i> has a
+weedy look."</p>
+
+<p>"It's seeds, miss," says Corney, "Ye'd know it by the
+curl of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so, I <i>hope</i> so," says Miss Priscilla, doubtfully, "but
+there's a common cast about it. It reminds me of groundsel.
+Corney, whatever you do, don't grow careless."</p>
+
+<p>"Faix, I'm too ould a hand for that, miss," says Corney.
+"But, to tell the truth, I think myself, now, not to desaive ye,
+that the leaf ye mentioned is uncommon like the groundsel.
+You ought to be proud of yer eyes, Miss Priscilla; they're as
+clear as they were twinty years ago."</p>
+
+<p>Greatly mollified by this compliment, Miss Priscilla declines
+to scold any more, and, the groundsel forgotten, moves onward
+to a smooth piece of sward on which a cartload of large white
+stones from the seashore has been ruthlessly thrown.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What is this?" she says, indignantly, eying the stones
+with much disfavor. "Corney, come here! Who flung those
+stones down on my green grass?"</p>
+
+<p>"The rector, miss. He sent his man wid a load of 'em,
+and 'tis there they left 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"A most unwarrantable proceeding!" says Miss Priscilla,
+who is in her managing mood. "What did Mr. Warren mean
+by that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think it was kind of him to draw them for our
+rookery, my dear Priscilla?" says Miss Penelope, suggestively.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't," says Miss Priscilla. "To bring cartloads of
+nasty large stones and fling them down upon my velvet grass
+on which I pride myself (though <i>you</i> may think nothing of it,
+Penelope) is <i>not</i> kind. I must say it was anything but nice,&mdash;anything
+but gentlemanly."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, he is quite a gentleman, and a very good man."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be. I suppose I am not so uncharitable as to be
+rebuked for every little word; but to go about the country destroying
+people's good grass, for which I paid a shilling a pound,
+is <i>not</i> gentlemanly. Katherine, what are you laughing at?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the stones," says Kit.</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing to laugh at in a stone. Don't be silly,
+Katherine. I wonder, Monica, you don't make it the business
+of your life to instil some sense into that child. The idea of
+standing still to laugh at a <i>stone</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Better do that than stand still to <i>cry</i> at it," says the
+younger Miss Beresford, rebelliously. Providentially, the remark
+is unheard; and Monica, scenting battle in the breeze, says,
+hastily,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember the roses at Aghyohillbeg, auntie?
+Well, I don't think any of them were as fine as this," pointing
+to a magnificent blossom near her. It is the truth, and it
+pleases Miss Priscilla mightily, she having a passion for her
+roses. And so peace is once more restored.</p>
+
+<p>"It grows chilly," says Miss Penelope, presently.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; let us all go in," says Miss Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not yet, auntie; it is quite lovely yet," says Monica,
+earnestly. She cannot go in yet, not <i>yet</i>; the evening is still
+young, and&mdash;and she would like <i>so</i> much to go down to the
+river, if only for a moment. All this she says guiltily to herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Well we old women will go in at least," says Miss Penelope.
+"You two children can coquet with the dew for a little
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+while; but don't stay too long, or sore throats will be the result."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes," says Miss Priscilla, following her sister. As
+she passes Monica, she looks anxiously at the girl's little slight
+fragile figure and her slender throat and half-bared arms.</p>
+
+<p>"That dress is thin. Do not stay out too long. Take care
+of yourself, my darling." She kisses her pretty niece, and then
+hurries on, as though ashamed of this show of affection.</p>
+
+<p>A little troubled by the caress, Monica moves mechanically
+down the path that leads towards the meadows and the river,
+followed by Kit. By this time the latter is in full possession
+of all that happened yesterday,&mdash;at least so much of it as relates
+to Monica's acquaintance with Mr. Desmond (minus the
+tender passages), his uncle's encounter with her aunts, and
+Brian's subsequent dismissal. Indeed, so much has transpired
+in the telling of all this that Kit, who is a shrewd child, has come
+to the just conclusion that the young Mr. Desmond is in love
+with her Monica!</p>
+
+<p>Strange to say, she is not annoyed at his presumption, but
+rather pleased at it,&mdash;he being the first live lover she has ever
+come in contact with, and therefore interesting in no small degree.</p>
+
+<p>Now, as she follows her sister down the flowery pathway,
+her mind is full of romance, pure and sweet and great with
+chivalry, as a child's would be. But Monica is sad and taciturn.
+Her mind misgives her, conscience pricks her, her soul
+is disquieted within her.</p>
+
+<p>What was it she had promised Aunt Priscilla yesterday?
+Aunt Priscilla had said, "For the future you will remember
+this?" and she had answered, "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>But how can she forget? It was a foolish promise, for who
+has got a memory under control?</p>
+
+<p>Of course, Aunt Priscilla had meant her to understand that
+she was never to speak to Mr. Desmond again, and she had
+given her promise in the spirit. And of course she would be
+obedient; she would at least so far obey that she would not be
+the first to speak to him, nor would she seek him&mdash;nor&mdash;&mdash;But
+why, then, is she going to the river? Is it because the evening
+is so fine, or is there no lurking hope of&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>And, after all, what certainty is there that&mdash;that&mdash;any one
+will be at the river at this hour? And even if they should be,
+why need she speak to him? she can be silent; but if he
+speaks to her, what then? Can she refuse to answer?</p>
+
+<p>Her mind is as a boat upon a troubled sea, tossed here and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
+there; but by and by the wind goes down, and the staunch boat
+is righted, and turns its bow toward home.</p>
+
+<p>"Kit, do not let us go to the river to-night," she says, turning
+to face her sister in the narrow path.</p>
+
+<p>"But why? It is so warm and light, and such a little
+way!"</p>
+
+<p>"You have been often there. Let us turn down this side
+of the meadow, and see where it will lead to."</p>
+
+<p>That it leads directly away from Coole there cannot be the
+least doubt; and the little martyr treading the ground she
+would not, feels with an additional pang of disappointment that
+the fulfilment of her duty does not carry with it the thrill of
+rapture that ought to suffuse her soul. No, not the faintest
+touch of satisfaction at her own heroism comes to lighten the
+bitter regret she is enduring as she turns her back deliberately
+on the river and its chances. She feels only sorrow, and the
+fear that <i>some one</i> will think her hard-hearted, and she could
+cry a little, but for Kit and shame's sake.</p>
+
+<p>"Monica, who is that?" exclaims Kit, suddenly, staring
+over the high bank, beside which they are walking, into the
+field beyond. Following her glance, Monica sees a crouching
+figure on the other side of this bank, but lower down, stealing
+cautiously, noiselessly, towards them, as though bent on secret
+murder. A second glance betrays the fact that it is Terence,
+with&mdash;yes, most positively with a <i>gun</i>!</p>
+
+<p>"Where on earth did he get it?" says Kit; and, unable
+to contain her curiosity any longer, she scrambles up the bank,
+and calls out, "Terry, here we are! Come here! Where did
+you get it?" at the top of her fresh young lungs.</p>
+
+<p>As she does so, a little gray object, hitherto unseen by her,
+springs from among some green stuffs, and, scudding across
+the field into the woods of Coole beyond, is in a moment lost
+to view.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>bother</i>!" cries Terry, literally dancing with rage; "I
+wouldn't <i>doubt</i> you to make that row just when I was going to
+fire. I wish to goodness you girls would stay at home, and
+not come interfering with a fellow's sport. You are always
+turning up at the wrong moment, and just when you're not
+wanted!&mdash;indeed you <i>ever are</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>These elegant and complimentary remarks he hurls at their
+heads, as though with the wish to annihilate them. But they
+haven't the faintest effect: the Misses Beresford are too well
+accustomed to his eloquence to be dismayed by it. They
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+treat it, indeed, as a matter of course, and so continue their
+inquiries uncrushed.</p>
+
+<p>"Terry, where <i>did</i> you get this gun?" asks Monica, as
+breathless with surprise as Kit. "Is it"&mdash;fearfully&mdash;"<i>loaded</i>?
+Oh! don't!&mdash;don't point it this way! It will surely go off and
+kill somebody."</p>
+
+<p>Here she misses her footing and slips off the high bank,
+disappearing entirely from view, only to reappear again
+presently, flushed but uninjured.</p>
+
+<p>"What a lovely gun!" says Kit, admiringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it?" says Terence, forgetting his bad temper in his
+anxiety to exhibit his treasure. "It's a breech-loader, too;
+none of your old-fashioned things, mind you, but a reg'lar
+good one. I'll tell you who lent it to me, if you'll promise not
+to peach."</p>
+
+<p>"We won't," says Kit, who is burning with curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess, then."</p>
+
+<p>"Bob Warren?" says Monica. Bob Warren is the rector's
+son, and is much at Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>"Not likely! Pegs above <i>him</i>. Well, I'll tell you. It's
+that fellow that's spoons on you,"&mdash;with all a brother's perspicacity,&mdash;"the
+fellow who saw us on the hay-cart,"&mdash;Monica
+writhes inwardly,&mdash;"Desmond, you know!"</p>
+
+<p>"The enemy's nephew?" asks Kit, in a thrilling tone,
+that bespeaks delight and a malicious expectation of breakers
+ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I was talking to him yesterday, early in the day,
+at Madam O'Connor's; and he asked me was I your brother,
+Monica, to which I pleaded guilty, though," with a grin, "I'd
+have got out of it if I could; and then he began to talk about
+shooting, and said I might knock over any rabbits I liked in
+Coole. I told him I had no gun, so he offered to lend me one.
+I thought it was awfully jolly of him, considering I was an
+utter stranger, and that; but he looks a real good sort. He
+sent over the gun this morning by a boy, and I have had it
+hidden in the stable until now. I thought I'd never get out of
+that beastly garden this evening."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Terence, you shouldn't have taken the gun from him,"
+says Monica, flushing. "Just think what Aunt Priscilla would
+say if she heard of it. You know how determined she is that
+we shall have no intercourse with the Desmonds."</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff and nonsense!" says Mr. Beresford. "I never
+heard such a row as they are forever making about simply
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+<i>nothing</i>. Why, it's quite a common thing to jilt a girl, nowadays.
+I'd do it myself in a minute."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't have time," says Kit, contemptuously. "She&mdash;whoever
+she may be&mdash;will be sure to jilt <i>you</i> first."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," says Terence, eyeing his younger sister with
+much disfavor; "you're getting so precious sharp, you know,
+that I should think there'll be a conflagration on the Liffey before
+long; and I should think, too, that an outraged nation
+would be sure to fling the cause of it into the flames. So take
+care."</p>
+
+<p>"Terence, you ought to send that gun back <i>at once</i>," says
+Monica.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I ought, but certainly I shan't," says Terence,
+genially. "And if I were you," politely, "I wouldn't make
+an ass of myself. There is quite enough of that sort of thing
+going on up there," indicating, by a wave of his hand, the
+drawing-room at Moyne, where the Misses Blake are at present
+dozing.</p>
+
+<p>"You shouldn't speak of them like that," says Monica;
+"it is very ungrateful of you, when you know how kind they
+are, and how fond of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm fond of them, too," says Terence, remorsefully
+but gloomily; "and I'd be even fonder if they would only
+leave me alone. But they keep such a look-out on a fellow
+that sometimes I feel like cutting the whole thing and making
+a clean bolt of it."</p>
+
+<p>"If you ran away you would soon be wishing yourself back
+again," says Monica, scornfully. "You know you will have no
+money until you are twenty-one. People pretend to be discontented,
+at times, with their lives; but in the long run they
+generally acknowledge 'there is no place like home.'"</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank goodness, there isn't," says Terence, with
+moody fervor. "I'll acknowledge it at once, without the run.
+To have frequent repetitions of it would be more than human
+nature could endure. I have known two homes already; I
+should think a third would be my death."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he shoulders the forbidden gun and marches
+off.</p>
+
+<p>Monica and Kit, getting down from their elevated
+position, also pursue their path, which leads in a contrary
+direction.</p>
+
+<p>"Monica," says Kit, presently, slipping her slender brown
+fingers through her sister's arm, "what did Terry mean just now,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+when he spoke about some one being 'spoons' on you? Does
+that mean being in love with you?"</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Mr. Desmond, then, in love with you?"</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Is</i> he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Kit, how can I answer such a question as that?"</p>
+
+<p>"In words, I suppose. <i>Is</i> he in love with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," says Monica, in a troubled tone. "If I
+ever had a lover before, I should <i>know</i>; but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That means he is," says the astute Kit. "And I'm
+sure," with a little loving squeeze of her arm, "I don't wonder
+at it."</p>
+
+<p>"You must not say that," says Monica, earnestly. "Indeed,
+he said a few <i>things</i> to me, but that is nothing; and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You think he <i>likes</i> you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," reluctantly.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe he adores the very ground you walk on."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"If you say that, he <i>isn't</i> a real lover. A real one, to my
+mind, ought to be ready and willing to kiss the impressions
+your heels may make in the earth."</p>
+
+<p>"That would be the act of a fool; and Mr. Desmond is not
+a fool."</p>
+
+<p>"Ergo, not a lover. And yet I think he is <i>yours</i>. Monica,"
+coaxingly, "did he say any pretty things to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"What should he say? I only met him twice."</p>
+
+<p>"You are prevaricating," gazing at her severely. "Why
+don't you answer me honestly?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what <i>you</i> call 'pretty things.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you do. Did he tell you your eyes were <i>deep, deep</i>
+wells of love, and that your face was full of soul?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, he did not," says Monica, somewhat indignantly;
+"<i>certainly</i> not. The idea!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is what Percival said to the girl <i>he</i> loved
+in the book I was reading yesterday," says Kit, rather cast
+down.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'm very glad Mr. Desmond isn't like Percival."</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay he is nicer," says Kit, artfully. Then she
+tucks her arm into her sister's, and looks fondly in her face.
+"He must have said <i>something</i> to you," she says. "Darling
+love, why won't you tell your own Kitten all about it?"</p>
+
+<p>A little smile quivers round Monica's lips.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, I will, then," she says. In her heart I believe she
+is glad to confide in somebody, and why not in Kit the sympathetic?
+"First, he made me feel he was delighted to meet
+me again. Then he asked me to go for a walk <i>alone</i> with him;
+then he said he was&mdash;my lover!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says Kit, screwing up her small face with delight.</p>
+
+<p>"And then he asked me to meet him again to-day with
+<i>you</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"With <i>me</i>! I think that was very delicate of him." She is
+evidently flattered by this notice of her existence. Plainly, if
+not <i>the</i> rose in his estimation, she is to be treated with the
+respect due to the rose's sister. It is all charming! she feels
+wafted upwards, and incorporated, as it were, in a real love
+affair. Yes, she will be the guardian angel of these thwarted
+lovers.</p>
+
+<p>"And what did you say?" she asks, with a gravity that
+befits the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"I refused," in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>"To meet him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"With <i>me</i>?" says this dragon of propriety.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because of Aunt Priscilla." And then she tells her all
+about Aunt Priscilla's speech in the carriage, and her reply
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard such a rubbishy request in my life!" says
+the younger Miss Beresford, disdainfully. "It is really beneath
+notice. And when all is told it means nothing. As <i>I</i> read it,
+it seems you have only promised to forget you ever spoke to
+Mr. Desmond: you haven't promised never to speak to him
+again." Thus the little Jesuit.</p>
+
+<p>"That was not what Aunt Priscilla meant."</p>
+
+<p>"If she meant anything, it was folly. And, after all, what
+is this dreadful quarrel between us and the Desmonds all
+about? It lives in Aunt Priscilla's brain. I'll tell you what I
+think, Monica. I think Aunt Priscilla was once in love with
+old Mr. Desmond, and mother cut her out; and now, just
+because she has been disappointed in her own love-affair, she
+wants to thwart you in yours."</p>
+
+<p>"She doesn't, indeed. Any one but Mr. Desmond might
+show me attention, and she would be pleased. She was quite
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+glad when Mr. Ryde&mdash;well&mdash;when he made himself agreeable
+to me."</p>
+
+<p>"From all you told me of him, he must have made himself
+<i>dis</i>-agreeable. I'm perfectly certain I should hate Mr. Ryde,
+and I'm equally sure I should like Mr. Desmond. What did
+he say to you, darling, when you refused to meet him even with
+<i>me</i>?" She lays great stress on this allusion to herself.</p>
+
+<p>"He said I might do as I chose, but that he would meet me
+again, whether I liked it or not, and <i>soon</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, that's the lover for <i>me</i>!" says Kit, enthusiastically.
+"No giving in, no <a class="corr" name="TC_23" id="TC_23" title="shilly-shillying">shilly-shallying</a>, but downright determination.
+He's an honest man, and we all know what an honest man is,&mdash;'the
+noblest work of God.' I'm certain he will keep his
+word, and I do hope I shall be with you when next you meet
+him, as I should like to make friends with him."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment it occurs to Monica that she never before
+knew how very, <i>very</i> fond she is of Kit.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, I don't suppose I <i>can</i> see him again for ever so
+long," she says. But even as the words pass her lips she
+knows she does not mean them, and remembers with a little
+throb of pleasure that he had said he would see her again
+<i>soon</i>. <i>Soon!</i> why, that might mean this evening,&mdash;now,&mdash;<i>any</i>
+moment! Instinctively she lifts her head and looks around
+her, and there, just a little way off, is a young man coming
+quickly towards her, bareheaded and in evening dress.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you how it would be," says Kit, in a nervous
+whisper, taking almost a bit out of poor Monica's arm in her
+excitement. "Oh, when I have a lover I hope he will be like
+<i>he</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Her grammar has gone after her nerve.</p>
+
+<p>Monica is silent: some color has gone from her cheeks, and
+her heart is beating faster. It is her very first <i>affaire</i>, so we
+must forgive her: a little frightened shadow has fallen into
+her eyes, and altogether she looks a shade younger than usual:
+she is troubled in spirit, and inclined to find fault with the
+general management of things.</p>
+
+<p>After all, she might as well have gone to the river this
+evening for what good her abstinence has done her: the
+poverty of our strength to conquer faith and the immutability
+of its decrees fills her with consternation and a fretful desire
+for freedom. Yet above and beyond all these vain imaginings
+is a gladness and a pride that her power is strong enough to
+draw her lover to her side in spite of all difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>The bareheaded young man has come up to her by this
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+time, and is holding out his hand: silently she lays her own in
+it, and colors treacherously as his fingers close on hers in a
+close, tender, and possessive fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"I found the river too chilly," he says, smiling, "so I came
+on here. Having been unsuccessful all the afternoon and
+morning, I <i>knew</i> I should find you <i>now</i>."</p>
+
+<p>This might be hieroglyphics to others, but is certainly English
+to her, however she may pretend otherwise; she doesn't
+pretend much, to do her justice.</p>
+
+<p>"This is your sister?" goes on Desmond, looking at Kit,
+who is regarding him with an eye that is quite a "piercer."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says Monica. "Kit, this is Mr. Desmond."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that," says this <i>enfant terrible</i>, still fixing him with
+a glance of calm and searching scrutiny that is well calculated
+to disconcert even a bolder man. Then all at once her mind
+seems made up, and, coming forward, she holds out her hand,
+and says, "How d'ye do?" to him, with a sudden, rare sweet
+smile that convinces him at once of her sisterhood to Monica.</p>
+
+<p>"We are friends?" he says, being attracted to the child for
+her own grace alone, as well as for the charm of her relationship
+to the pale snowdrop of a girl beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. If you prove true to my Monica."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Kit!" says Monica, deeply shocked; but Kit pays no
+heed, her eyes being fastened gravely upon the man before her.
+He is quite as grave as she is.</p>
+
+<p>"If our friendship depends upon that, it will be a lasting
+one," he says, quietly. "My whole life is at your sister's service."</p>
+
+<p>Something in his tones touches Monica: slowly she lifts
+her eyes until they reach his.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish, I <i>wish</i> you would not persist in this," she says,
+sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"But why? To think of you is my chiefest joy. Do you
+forbid me to be happy?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"In the morning and the afternoon I went to the river, to
+look for you&mdash;in vain; after dinner I went too, still hoping
+against hope; and now at last that I <i>have</i> found you, you are
+unkind to me!" He speaks lightly, but his eyes are earnest.
+"Miss Katherine," he says appealingly to Kit, "of your grace,
+I pray you to befriend me."</p>
+
+<p>"Monica would not go to the river this evening because
+she remembered an absurd promise she made to Aunt Priscilla,
+and because she feared to meet you there. It is the most
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+absurd promise in the world: wait till you hear it." Whereupon
+Kit, who is in her element, proceeds to tell him all about
+Miss Priscilla's words to Monica, and Monica's answer, and
+her (Kit's) interpretation thereof. "She certainly didn't
+promise never to speak to you again," concludes she, with a
+nod Solomon might have envied.</p>
+
+<p>Need it be said that Mr. Desmond agrees with her on all
+points?</p>
+
+<p>"There is no use in continuing the discussion," says
+Monica, turning aside a little coldly. "I should not have gone
+to the river, <i>anyway</i>."</p>
+
+<p>This chilling remark produces a blank indescribable, and
+conversation languishes: Monica betrays an interest in the
+horizon never before developed; Mr. Desmond regards with a
+moody glance the ripening harvest; and Kit, looking inward,
+surveys her mental resources and wonders what it is her duty
+to do next.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"For aught that ever I could read,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could ever hear by tale or history,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The course of true love never did run smooth<span class="s_corr" title="">.</span>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><i>This</i> much she knows; and to any one blessed with a vision
+sharp as hers it is very apparent now that there is a roughness
+somewhere. She knows too, through many works of fiction,
+that those in attendance on loving couples should at certain
+seasons see cause to absent themselves from their duty, and
+search for a supposititious handkerchief or sprain an unoffending
+ankle, or hunt diligently in hedgerows for undiscoverable
+flowers. Three paths therefore lie open to her; which to
+adopt is the question. To return to the house for a handkerchief
+would be a decidedly risky affair, calculated to lead up
+to stiff and damning cross-examination from the aunts, which
+might prove painful; to sprain an ankle might prove even
+painfuller; but to dive into the innocent hedgerow for the
+extraction of summer flowers, what can be more effectual and
+reasonable? she will do it at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what lovely dog-roses!" she says, effusively, in a
+tone that wouldn't have deceived a baby; "I really <i>must</i> get
+some."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me get them for you," says Desmond, gloomily, which
+she at once decides is excessively stupid of him, and she doing
+all she can for him too! She tries to wither him with a
+glance, but he is too miserable to be lightly crushed.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you," she says; "I prefer getting them myself.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+Flowers are like fruit, much more enjoyable when you
+pick them with your own hands."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, this accomplished gooseberry skips round the
+corner, leaving Monica and Mr. Desmond <i>tete-a-tete</i>.</p>
+
+<p>That they enjoy their sudden isolation just at first is
+questionable: Monica discovers blots on the perfect horizon;
+and Mr. Desmond, after a full minute's pause, says, reproachfully,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't <i>really</i> mean that, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mean what?" uncompromisingly, and without changing
+position.</p>
+
+<p>"That even if matters had been quite&mdash;quite comfortable
+with us, you would not have gone to meet me at the river?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Say</i> you didn't mean it."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;suppose I didn't," even lower.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at me, then," says Mr. Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>Kit, in her high, sweet voice, is warbling that little, pretty
+thing about a "lover and his lass," in the next field. The
+words of her song, and its silly refrain of</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>come to them across the corn and scented meadow. Monica,
+with her hand in his, smiles faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"You hear what she sings,&mdash;<span class="s_corr" title="&quot;">'</span>that life is but a flower:<span class="s_corr" title="&quot;">'</span> is
+it wise, then, to set your heart upon&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You?"</p>
+
+<p>"I meant, an impossibility."</p>
+
+<p>"Which you are <i>not</i>. You shall not be. I don't believe
+in impossibilities, to begin with; and, even if it were so, I
+should still prefer to be unwise."</p>
+
+<p>"You are defiant," she says, lightly; but her smile is
+still very sad.</p>
+
+<p>"I have hope. 'Affection's ground is beyond time,
+place, and all mortality,' as we read. I shall conquer yet;
+yes, even <i>your</i> prejudices. In the mean time, give me fair
+play; do not harden your heart against me."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish mine was the only hard heart you had to contend
+against," returns she, with a faint sigh. But this remark
+seems to drop so carelessly from her lips that, though elated
+by it, he is afraid to take any open notice of it.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope your aunts were not cross to you last evening on
+my account?" he says, anxiously.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No. Nothing was said, more than Kit told you, except
+that Aunt Priscilla touched upon the point of introduction.
+Oh, what a fright I got then! If she had persisted in her inquiries,
+what <i>would</i> have become of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't you have&mdash;&mdash;" began Mr. Desmond, and then
+stops abruptly. A glance at the face uplifted to his checks his
+half-uttered speech effectually, and renders him, besides,
+thoroughly ashamed of himself.</p>
+
+<p>"If I had to confess there had been <i>no</i> introduction,"
+goes on Monica, laughingly, "I don't know what would have
+been the result."</p>
+
+<p>"The deluge, I suppose," returns her companion thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"What a pity you have an uncle at all!" says Monica, presently.
+"It would be all right only for him." She omits to
+say <i>what</i> would be all right, but the translation is simple.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't say that," entreats Desmond, who has a wholesome
+affection for the old gentleman above at Coole. "He is
+the kindest old fellow in the world. I think, if you knew him,
+you would be very fond of him; and I know he would adore <i>you</i>.
+In fact, he is so kind-hearted that I cannot think <a class="corr" name="TC_24" id="TC_24" title="now">how</a> all that
+unfortunate story about your mother ever came about. He
+looks to me as if he couldn't say 'Bo to a goose' where a woman
+was concerned and yet his manner to-night confirmed everything
+I heard."</p>
+
+<p>"He confessed?" in a deeply interested tone.<span class="s_corr" title="&quot;"></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well just the same thing. He seemed distressed about
+his own conduct in the affair, too. But his manner was odd, I
+thought: and he seems as much at daggers drawn with your
+aunts as they with him."</p>
+
+<p>"That is because he is ashamed of himself. One is always
+hardest on those one has injured."</p>
+
+<p>"But that is just it," says Mr. Desmond, in a puzzled tone.
+"I don't believe, honestly, he is a bit ashamed of himself.
+He <i>said</i> a good deal about his regret, but I could see he quite
+gloried in his crime. And, in fact, I couldn't discover the
+smallest trace of remorse about him."</p>
+
+<p>"He must really be a very bad old man," says Monica,
+severely. "I am perfectly certain if he were <i>my</i> uncle I should
+not love him at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say that. When he <i>is</i> your uncle you will see that
+I am right, and that he is a very lovable old man, in spite of
+all his faults."</p>
+
+<p>At this Monica blushes a little, and twirls <a class="corr" name="TC_25" id="TC_25" title="rings her">her rings</a> round her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+slender fingers in an excess of shyness, and finally, in spite of
+a stern pressure laid upon herself, gives way to mirth.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you laughing at now?" asks he laughing too.</p>
+
+<p>"At you," casting a swift but charming glance at him from
+under her long lashes. "You <i>do</i> say such funny things!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you hear there is to be an afternoon dance at the
+Barracks next week?" asks he presently. "I was at Clonbree
+on Thursday, and Cobbett told me about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Cobbett?"</p>
+
+<p>"The captain there, you know. He was at Aghyohillbeg
+yesterday. Didn't you see him,&mdash;a little, half-starved looking
+man, with a skin the color of his hair, and both gray?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course&mdash;now I remember him," says Monica, this
+fetching description having cleared her memory. "I thought
+to myself how odd he and the other man, Mr. Ryde, looked together,
+one as big as the other was little."</p>
+
+<p>"I think there is more matter than brains about Ryde,"
+says Desmond, contemptuously. "Do you think your aunt will
+let you go to this dance at Clonbree?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no; I am <i>sure</i> not. My aunts would be certain to
+look upon a dance in the Barracks as something too awfully
+dissipated."</p>
+
+<p>"For one reason I should be glad you didn't go."</p>
+
+<p>"Glad?" opening her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. That fellow Ryde never took his eyes off you yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"Is <i>that</i> a crime?"</p>
+
+<p>"In my eyes, <i>yes</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"And you would wish me to be kept a prisoner at home just
+because one man looked at me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want any one to look at you but me!" Then he
+comes a little closer to her and compels her, by the very strength
+of his regard, to let her eyes meet his. "Do you like Ryde?"
+he asks, somewhat imperiously. "Monica, answer me."</p>
+
+<p>It is the second time he has called her by her Christian
+name, and a startled expression passes over her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he was nice to me," she says, with a studied hesitation
+that belongs to the first bit of coquetry she has ever practised
+in her life. She has tasted the sweetness of power, and,
+fresh as her knowledge is she estimates the advantage of it to
+a nicety.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe a man has only to be six feet one to have every
+woman in the world in love with him," says Desmond, wrathfully,
+who is only five feet eleven.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am not exactly in <i>love</i> with Mr. Ryde," says Monica,
+sweetly, with averted face and a coy air, assumed for her companion's
+discomfiture; "but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>what</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, I was going to say, there is nothing remarkable in
+that, <a class="corr" name="TC_26" id="TC_26" title="a">as</a> I am not in love with <i>any one</i>, and hope I never shall
+be. I wonder where Kit can have gone to: will you get up
+there, Mr. Desmond, and look?" Breaking off a tiny blade of
+grass from the bank near her, she puts it between her pretty
+teeth, and slowly nibbles it with an air of utter indifference to
+all the world that drives Mr. Desmond nearly out of his
+wits.</p>
+
+<p>Disdaining to take any heed of her "notice to quit," and
+quite determined to know the worst, he says, defiantly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If you <i>do</i> go to this dance, may I consider myself engaged
+to you for the first waltz?" There is quite a frown upon his face
+as he says this; but it hasn't the faintest effect upon Monica.
+She is not at all impressed, and is, in fact enjoying herself immensely.</p>
+
+<p>"If I go, which is more than improbable, I shall certainly
+not dance with you at all," she says, calmly, "because Aunt
+Priscilla will be there too, and she would not hear of my doing
+even a mild quadrille with a Desmond."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," with a melancholy assumption of composure. "All
+your dances, then, are to be reserved for Ryde."</p>
+
+<p>"If Mr. Ryde asks me to dance, of course I shall not refuse."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to tell me"&mdash;even the poor assumption is now
+gone&mdash;"that you are going to give him <i>all</i> and me <i>none</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not give any one <i>all</i>: how can you talk like that?
+But I cannot defy Aunt Priscilla. It is very unkind of you to
+desire it. I suppose you think I should enjoy being tormented
+from morning till night all about you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not. I don't want you to be tormented on any
+account, and, above all on mine," very stiffly. "To prevent
+anything of the kind, I shall not go to Cobbett's dance."</p>
+
+<p>"If you choose to get into a bad temper I can't help you."</p>
+
+<p>"I am <i>not</i> in a bad temper, and even if I were I have cause.
+But it is not temper will prevent my going to the Barracks."</p>
+
+<p>"What then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I go there to be made miserable? <i>You</i> can go
+and dance with Ryde to your heart's content, but I shall spare
+myself the pain of seeing you. Did you say you wanted your
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+sister? Shall I call her now? I am sure you must want to go
+home."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't<span class="s_corr" title="">,</span>" she says, unexpectedly; and then a little smile of
+conscious triumph wreathes her lips as she looks at him, standing
+moody and dejected before her. A word from her will
+transform him; and now, the day being all her own, she can
+afford to be generous. Even the very best of women can be
+cruel to their lovers.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't," she says, "not <i>yet</i>. There is something I want to
+ask you first," she pauses in a tantalizing fashion, and glances
+from the grass she is still holding to him, and from him
+back to the grass again, before she speaks. "It is a question,"
+she says then, as though reluctantly, "but you look so
+angry with me that I am afraid to ask it." This is the rankest
+hypocrisy, as he is as wax in her hands at this moment; but,
+though he knows it, he gives in to the sweetness of her manner,
+and lets his face clear.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask me anything you like," he says, turning upon her
+now a countenance "more in sorrow than in anger."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't much," said Miss Beresford, sweetly, "only&mdash;what
+<i>is</i> your Christian name? I have been so <i>longing</i> to know. It
+is very unpleasant to be obliged to <i>think</i> of people by their
+surnames, is it not? so unfriendly!"</p>
+
+<p>He is quite staggered by the excess of her geniality.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Brian," he says, devoutly hoping she will
+not think it hideous and so see cause to pass judgment upon it.</p>
+
+<p>"Brian!" going nearer to him with half-shy eyes, and a
+little <i>riante</i> mouth that with difficulty suppresses its laughter.
+"How <i>pretty</i>! Brian," purposely lingering over it, "with an
+'i' of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so glad I know yours now!" says this disgraceful
+little coquette, with a sigh of pretended relief. "You knew
+mine, and that wasn't fair, you know. Besides,"&mdash;with a rapid
+glance that might have melted an anchorite and delivered him
+from the error of his ways,&mdash;"besides, I may want to call you
+by it <i>some</i> day, and then I should be at a loss."</p>
+
+<p>Though by no means proof against so much friendliness,
+Mr. Desmond still continues to maintain an injured demeanor.
+Monica lays one little hand lightly on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you ask me to call you by it?" she says, with the
+prettiest reproach.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Monica," says the young man, seizing her hand and
+pressing it against his heart, "you know your power; be merciful.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+Darling," drawing her still nearer to him, "I don't think
+you quite understand how it is with me; but, indeed, I love
+you with all my heart and soul."</p>
+
+<p>"But in such a little time, how can it be true?" says
+Monica, all her gayety turning into serious wonderment.</p>
+
+<p>"'Love is a thing as any spirit free,'" quotes he, tenderly.
+"How shall one know when the god may come? It has
+nothing to do with time. I have seen you,&mdash;it little matters
+how often,&mdash;and now I love you. Dear heart, <i>try</i> to love me."</p>
+
+<p>There is something in his manner both gentle and earnest.
+Impressed by it, she whispers softly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>will</i> try."</p>
+
+<p>"And you will call me Brian?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no!&mdash;no, indeed!&mdash;not yet," entreats she, stepping
+back from him as far as he will allow her.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, not yet."</p>
+
+<p>"And you will go to the Barracks for this dance?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will do anything on earth you ask me. You know that
+too well, I fear, for my peace of mind."</p>
+
+<p>"And you won't be angry with me if I don't dance with
+you there?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I promise that, too. Ah! here is Miss Kit coming,&mdash;and
+without the roses,&mdash;after all."</p>
+
+<p>It is true she has no roses; she has, indeed, forgotten she
+even pretended to want them, and has been happy while away
+with her song and her own thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"I think, Monica, we ought, perhaps, to be thinking of
+coming home," she says, apologetically, yet with quite a
+motherly air. Has she not been mounting guard over and
+humoring these two giddy young people before her?</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think so too;" and the goodness of Kit, and something
+else, strike her.</p>
+
+<p>"If we are asked to this dance at Clonbree, and if we go,
+I should like Kit to go too," she says in a soft aside to Desmond,
+who says, "That is all right: I settled it with Cobbett
+yesterday," in the same tone; and then a little more energetically,
+as he sees the moments flying, he goes on, "Before you
+go, say one thing after me. It will be a small consolation
+until I see you again. Say, 'Brian, good-by.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by, Brian," she whispers, shyly, and then she draws
+her hand out of his, and, turning to the studiously inattentive
+Kit, passes her arm through hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by, Mr. Desmond! I trust we may soon meet
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+again," says the younger Miss Beresford, with rather a grand
+air, smiling upon him patronizingly.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so too," says Desmond, gravely, "and that next
+time you will graciously accord me a little more of your
+society."</p>
+
+<p>Quite pleased with this delicate protest against her
+lengthened absence, Kit bows politely, and she and Monica
+take their homeward way.</p>
+
+<p>Once Monica turns, to wave him a friendly adieu, and he
+can see again her soft, bare arms, her pretty baby-neck in her
+white dinner-gown, and her lovely, earnest eyes. Then she is
+gone, and her passing seems to him "like the ceasing of exquisite
+music," and nothing is left to him but the wailing of
+the rising night-wind, and the memory of a perfect girl-face
+that he knows will haunt him till he dies.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Terry is put in the Dock&mdash;And how the two Misses Blake baffle expectation,
+and show themselves in their true colors.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Monica and Kit reach the house in breathless haste. It is
+far later than they imagined when lingering in happy dalliance
+in the flower-crowned field below, and yet not really late for a
+sultry summer evening. But the Misses Blake are fearful of
+colds, and expect all the household to be in at stated hours;
+and the Misses Beresford are fearful of scoldings, carrying, as
+they do, guilty hearts within their bosoms.</p>
+
+<p>"Conscience makes cowards of us all;" and the late secret
+interview with Brian Desmond has lowered the tone of their
+courage to such an extent that they scarcely dare to breathe as
+they creep into their aunts' presence.</p>
+
+<p>The lamps are lighting in the drawing-room as they enter,
+though the windows are open, and <i>Dies pater</i>, the all-great, is
+still victorious over <i>Nox</i>. The Misses Blake both start and
+look up as they come in, and show general symptoms of relief
+which is not reciprocated by the culprits. Mrs. Mitchell, the
+nurse, who has followed almost on their heels, stands in the
+doorway, with bayonets fixed, so to speak, seeing there is every
+chance of an engagement. It may be as well to remark here
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+that Mitchell has not "got on" with the Misses Blake, having
+rooted opinions of her own not to be lightly laid aside. The
+Misses Blake's opinions have also a home in very deep soil, so
+that the "give-and-take" principle is not in force between
+them and the foreign nurse, as they term Jane Mitchell,
+though she was bred and born on Devonshire soil.</p>
+
+<p>"Mitchell," say the Misses Blake in confidence to each
+other, "is not altogether what one would desire in a servant
+assigned to the care of children. She is not <i>nice</i> in many
+ways; there is far too much of the fine lady about her," etc.</p>
+
+<p>"H'elderly ladies as 'asn't been to the h'altar," says Mrs.
+Mitchell in confidence to cook, "can't be supposed to know
+what is right and proper for motherless lambs." And so the
+war rages.</p>
+
+<p>Just now Mrs. Mitchell is plainly on the defensive, and
+eyes her baby&mdash;as she still calls Kit (having nursed her)&mdash;with
+all the air of one prepared to rush in and rescue her by
+bodily force, should the worst come to the worst.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Monica, what a late hour to be abroad!" says
+Miss Priscilla, reproachfully. "The dew falling, too, which is
+most unwholesome. For you, Kit, a mere child, it is really
+destruction. Nurse, as you are <i>there</i>," regarding the bony
+Mitchell with distrust and disfavor, "I think it as well to let
+you know I do not think this is a proper time for Miss
+Katherine to be in the open air. It is far too late."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't late, miss. It is only nine o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>"Nine o'clock! What is the woman thinking about?
+Nine! why, that means night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at this time of the year, miss."</p>
+
+<p>"At <i>any</i> time of year. With all the experience you <i>say</i>
+you have had, I wonder you do not consider it a most injurious
+hour for a child of Miss Katherine's age to be out of
+doors."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't hold with making a child puny, miss. Coddling
+up, and that sort, only leads to consumptions and assmas, in
+my humble opingion."</p>
+
+<p>"I must request that for the future you will show deference
+to <i>our</i> opinion, nurse; which is directly opposed to yours,"
+says Miss Priscilla, straightening herself.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I can manage my own young lady, miss," says
+Mitchell, undaunted<span class="s_corr" title=".">,</span> and now, indeed, thoroughly braced for
+conflict.</p>
+
+<p>"I have grave doubts about that, Mitchell, and at least you
+should not answer me in this wise."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If I brought my young lady safely all the way from Jerusalem,
+miss, I suppose I can take care of her 'ere."</p>
+
+<p>"Her ear?" questions Miss Priscilla, not meaning to be
+rude at all.</p>
+
+<p>"She means <i>here</i>," says Miss Penelope, in a stage whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says Miss Priscilla, rather shocked at her mistake,
+which has been accepted by Mitchell as a <a class="corr" name="TC_27" id="TC_27" title="delibirate">deliberate</a> insult.
+"Katherine, go upstairs with Mitchell, and change your shoes
+and stockings; they <i>must</i> be damp."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't consider Mitchell at all a nice person," says Miss
+Priscilla, when the door had closed upon that veteran; "but
+still I hope I did not offend her with that last thoughtless slip
+of mine. But really, over here in Ireland, we are not accustomed
+to the extraordinary language in which Mitchell indulges
+at times. She seems to me to be saving up her aspirates for
+a hypothetical dearth of that article in the future."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Priscilla is so pleased with this long word that she
+quite recovers her temper.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, from Jerusalem <i>is</i> a long way to bring a child,"
+says Miss Penelope, thoughtfully; and, indeed, this journey
+from Palestine has been, and probably always will be, Mrs.
+Mitchell's trump card when disputing with the mistresses of
+Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Priscilla has walked to the window, and is now gazing
+in thoughtful fashion over the fast darkening landscape. Perhaps
+her mind is travelling that long journey to Palestine, perhaps
+it is still occupied with the inimical Mitchell; be that as
+it may, she keeps her senses well about her, and a keen eye
+behind her spectacles, because presently she says aloud, in a
+tone calculated to attract attention,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What</i> is that in the meadow, creeping along beneath the
+ha-ha, Katherine?"&mdash;Kit has returned with dry shoes and
+stockings;&mdash;"come here, your eyes are sharper than mine!"
+which is a distinct libel upon her own orbs.</p>
+
+<p>"Where?" says Kit, recognizing the crouching form of
+Terry with a pang of terror. Is she to be compelled to inform
+upon her own brother? Perish the thought!</p>
+
+<p>"Over <i>there</i>," says Miss Priscilla, in an awful tone, pointing
+to where the luckless Terence is crawling home in the fond belief
+that he is defying all detection; whereupon Kit, with much
+presence of mind, looks scrutinizingly in just the opposite direction.
+"It is somebody carrying a gun. Good gracious! it is
+remarkably like Terence!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At this Monica starts perceptibly, and lets the book she is
+holding fall heavily to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is a poacher," says Kit, brightly, her general
+reading being deeply imbued with those characters.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," says Miss Priscilla, grimly. "Yet I feel sure it
+is your brother!" Then she throws wide the sash, and calls
+aloud to the culprit,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Terence! Terence, come here!"</p>
+
+<p>At this, Mr. Beresford loses his presence of mind, and
+stands bolt upright, gun in hand: the words have come to him
+distinctly across the soft green grass, and fallen upon his ears
+with dismal distinctness. Throwing up the sponge, he shoulders
+the offending weapon and marches upon the foe with head erect
+and banners flying. Even if death is before him (meaning the
+confiscation of the gun), he vows to himself he will still die
+game.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, it <i>is</i> Terence," says Miss Penelope, as he approaches;
+"but where <i>can</i> he have got the gun?"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>know</i>!" says Miss Priscilla, whereupon Monica feels
+positively faint.</p>
+
+<p>Feeling she is growing very pale, she rises hurriedly from
+her seat, and, going to the lower window, so stands that her
+face cannot be seen.</p>
+
+<p>If Terence is cross-examined, will he tell a lie about
+the obtaining of the gun? And if he does <i>not</i>, what will
+happen? what dreadful things will not be said and done by
+Aunt Priscilla? Her breath comes quickly, and with horror
+she finds herself devoutly hoping that Terence on this occasion
+<i>will</i> tell a lie.</p>
+
+<p>By this time Terence has mounted the balcony, and is
+standing in a somewhat defiant attitude before his inquisitors.</p>
+
+<p>"Where have you been, Terence?" began Miss Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"Shooting, aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"And where did you get the gun, Terence?"</p>
+
+<p>Silence.</p>
+
+<p>"You certainly had no gun yesterday, and none this morning,
+as far as I can judge. Now we want the truth from you,
+Terence, but we do not wish to coerce you. Take time, and
+give us an answer your heart can approve."</p>
+
+<p>Such an answer is evidently difficult to be procured at a
+moment's notice, because Terence is still dumb.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid your nature is not wholly free from deceit,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+Terence," says Miss Priscilla, sadly. "This hesitation on your
+part speaks volumes; and such unnecessary deceit, too.
+Neither your aunt Penelope nor I have any objection to your
+borrowing a gun if you find such a dangerous weapon needful
+to your happiness. But why not confide in us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible she would not be really angry if she knew?"
+thinks Monica, breathlessly. I regret to say that both Kit and
+Terence take another view of Miss Blake's speech, and believe
+it an artful dodge to extract confession.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;" says Terence, to gain time, and because speech of
+some kind at this moment is absolutely necessary&mdash;"I didn't
+think&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of <i>course</i> you didn't think, Terence, or you would not
+have recorded your poor aunts, in your secret thoughts, as
+hard-hearted and ungenerous. If you had told us openly that
+Mitson, the coast-guard, had lent you a gun (as I strongly suspect,
+and indeed felt sure from the first moment was the case),
+we should not have been at all angry, only naturally anxious
+that you should use an instrument of death with caution. But
+you have no confidence in us, Terence."</p>
+
+<p>Intense relief fills the breasts of the three Beresfords. Remorse
+that the trusting nature of the old ladies should be so
+abused touches Monica keenly, but of the other two I must
+again declare with grief that they feel nothing but a sense of
+delivery from peril, and no contrition at all for their past suspicions.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you might be angry, aunt," says Terence. He
+is looking very dirty indeed, and his hands are grimy, and altogether
+even Monica cannot bring herself to feel proud of
+him. There is, too, a covert desire for laughter about him
+that exasperates her terribly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not angry, my dear; only nervous. I hope you know
+how to load, and that. I remember a cousin of ours blowing
+off his first finger and thumb with a powder-horn."</p>
+
+<p>"This is a breech-loader, auntie," says Monica, softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh? One of those new-fangled things I have read of.
+Oh, well, my dear boy, I daresay there is more need for circumspection.
+Let me look at it. Ah! very handsome, indeed!
+I had no idea coast-guards were so well supplied; and
+yet I cling to the old guns that your grandfather used to
+use."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you shoot anything?" asks Miss Penelope, who has
+grown quite interested, and regards Terence with a glance of
+pride.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Only one thrush," says Terence, drawing the dilapidated
+corpse from his pocket, "and a sparrow, and one rabbit I fired
+at and wounded mortally, I know, but it got away into its hole
+and I lost it."</p>
+
+<p>"Rabbits!" says Miss Priscilla. "Am I to understand&mdash;nay,
+I hope I am <i>not</i> to understand&mdash;that you crossed the stile
+into Coole?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are plenty of rabbits in our own wood," says
+Terence; "more than I could shoot. I am glad you don't
+object to my having the gun, auntie."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't, my dear; but I wish you had been more ingenuous
+with us. Why now, Terence, <i>why</i> do you steal along a field
+with your back bent as though desirous of avoiding our observation,
+and with your gun <i>under</i> your coat, as if there was a
+policeman or a bailiff after you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was only trying to steal upon a crow, aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that <i>may be</i>, my dear, but there are ways of doing
+things. And why put your gun <i>under</i> your coat? I can't think
+such a fraudulent proceeding necessary even with a crow. Now
+look here, Terence," illustrating his walk and surreptitious
+manner of concealing his gun beneath his coat, "<i>does</i> this look
+nice?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I do it like <i>you</i>, auntie, it looks <i>very</i> nice," says Terence,
+innocently, but with a malevolent intention.</p>
+
+<p>"What a pity you missed the rabbit, Terry!" says Monica,
+hurriedly<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he is dead <i>now</i>, I'm certain; but I should have liked
+to bring him home. His leg was broken, and I chased him
+right through the rushes down below in the furze brake at
+Coole."</p>
+
+<p>Sensation!</p>
+
+<p>It is too late to redeem his error. "Murder wol out, that
+see we day by day," says Chaucer, and now, indeed, all the fat
+is in the fire. The two old ladies draw back from him and turn
+mute eyes of grief upon each other, while Kit and Monica stare
+with heavy reproach upon their guilty brother.</p>
+
+<p>The guilty brother returns their glance with interest, and
+then Miss Priscilla speaks.</p>
+
+<p>"So you went into Coole, after all," she says. "Oh, Terence!"</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't help it," says Terence, wrathfully. "I wasn't
+going to let the rabbit go for the sake of a mere whim."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>A mere whim!</i>" Words fail me to convey Miss Priscilla's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+indignation. "Are you destitute of heart, boy, that you talk
+thus lightly of a family insult? Oh! shame, shame!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm very sorry if I have made you unhappy," says Terence,
+who is really a very good boy and fond. "I didn't mean
+it, <i>indeed</i>."</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Priscilla appears quite broken-hearted.</p>
+
+<p>"To dream of bringing a rabbit of Coole into this house!"
+she says, with quite a catch in her voice that brings Miss Penelope
+into prominent play.</p>
+
+<p>"If, when you came to the stile that leads into Moyne," she
+says, "you had said to yourself, 'My good aunt, who loves me
+so dearly, would not wish me to enter this forbidden land,' you
+would, I <i>hope</i>, have paused, and come back here. But you did
+not. You went recklessly on, and trod upon ground where your
+foot is <i>unwelcome</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Aunt Penelope, do not talk like that," says Monica,
+entreatingly, slipping her arm around her.</p>
+
+<p>"And this to his poor old aunts who love him so fondly!"
+says Miss Penelope, in so dismal a voice that the two Misses
+Blake break into sobs.</p>
+
+<p>"It wouldn't seem so bad if he hadn't equivocated about
+it," says Miss Priscilla, presently. "But he purposely led us to
+believe that he had not set his foot on that detested land."</p>
+
+<p>"He has indeed been much to blame," says Miss Penelope.
+"Terence, what was it it said about <i>lying</i> in the Bible this morning?
+I am afraid your chapter to-day&mdash;that awful chapter
+about Ananias and Sapphira&mdash;did you little good."</p>
+
+<p>A growl from Terence.</p>
+
+<p>"He will be more careful for the future, auntie," says Monica,
+interpreting the growl after her own gentle fashion. "And
+now you will forgive him, won't you? After all, any one, even
+<i>you</i>, might forget about forbidden lands, if you were racing after
+a rabbit."</p>
+
+<p>The idea of the Misses Blake racing through rushes and
+gorse after a rabbit strikes Kit as so comical that she forgets
+everything, and laughs aloud. And then the Misses Blake,
+who are not altogether without a sense of fun, catching "the
+humor of it," laugh too, and, drying their eyes, give Terence to
+understand that he is forgiven.</p>
+
+<p>Just at this moment the door is opened, and Timothy enters,
+bearing not only an air of mystery with him, but a large envelope.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what is this at this time of night?" says Miss Priscilla,
+who is plainly under the impression that, once the lamps are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+lighted, it is verging on midnight. She takes the envelope
+from Timothy, and gazes at the huge regimental crest upon it
+with a judicial expression.</p>
+
+<p>"A sojer brought it, miss. Yes, indeed, ma'am. A-hossback
+he come, all the way from the Barracks at Clonbree."</p>
+
+<p>Redcoats at Rossmoyne are a novelty, and are regarded by
+the peasantry with mixed feelings of admiration and contempt.
+I think the contempt is stronger with Timothy than the admiration<span class="s_corr" title="">.</span></p>
+
+<p>"From the Barracks?" says Miss Priscilla, slowly, turning
+and twisting the letter between her fingers, while Monica's
+heart beats rapidly. It is, it <i>must</i> be the invitation; and what
+will be the result of it?</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed, miss. I asked him what brought him at
+this hour, ma'am; but he took me mighty short wid his answer,
+so I give up me questions."</p>
+
+<p>Never having been able during fifty years to make up his
+mind whether his mistresses should be addressed as maidens
+or matrons, Timothy has compromised matters by putting a
+"miss" and a "ma'am" into every sentence he dedicates to
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, an invitation from Captain Cobbett for Friday next&mdash;um&mdash;um&mdash;four
+to seven&mdash;um&mdash;um. All of us invited, even
+Kit," says Miss Priscilla, in a decidedly lively tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Me! am I asked?" cries Kit, excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed, you are specially mentioned. Very nice and
+attentive, I must say, of those young men, particularly when we
+have not shown them any kindness <i>as yet</i>. I thought that Mr.
+Ryde a very superior young fellow, with none of the discourteous
+antipathy to <i>age</i> that disfigures the manners of the
+youth of the present day. Penelope, my dear, perhaps you
+had better indite the answer to this. Yours is the pen of a
+ready writer."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," says Miss Penelope, rising slowly&mdash;Oh! <i>so</i>
+slowly! thinks Monica&mdash;and going towards the davenport.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the soldier outside, Timothy?" asks Miss Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, miss. He said he wanted a bit of writing from ye
+for the captain."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a long ride. Take him downstairs, Timothy, and
+give him some beer, while Miss Penelope prepares a reply."</p>
+
+<p>"Begging your pardon, miss, and with due respect to ye,
+ma'am, but he's that stiff in his manners, an' tight in his clothes,
+I doubt if he'd condescend to enter the kitchen."</p>
+
+<p>"Timothy," says Miss Priscilla, with much displeasure,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+"you have been having hot words with this stranger. What is
+it all about?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's times, miss, as we all knows, when a worm will
+turn, and though I'm not a worm, ma'am, no more am I a
+coward, an' a red coat don't cover more flesh than a black; an'
+I'm an ould man, Miss Priscilla, to be called a buffer!"</p>
+
+<p>It is apparent to every one that Timothy is nearly in tears.</p>
+
+<p>"A buffer?" repeats Miss Priscilla, with dignity blended
+with disgust: she treats the word cautiously, as one might
+something noxious. "What is a buffer?"</p>
+
+<p>Nobody enlightens her: though perhaps Terence might,
+were he not busily engaged trying to suppress his laughter behind
+a huge Japanese fan.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, Timothy," says Miss Priscilla, gravely, "as we
+all seem in ignorance about the real meaning of this extraordinary
+word, you are wrong in condemning it as an insult.
+It <i>may</i> be&mdash;er&mdash;a term of <i>endearment</i>."</p>
+
+<p>At this Terence chokes, then coughs solemnly, and finally,
+lowering the fan, shows himself preternaturally grave, as a set-off
+against all suspicions.</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't pin my faith to that, miss, if I was you," says
+Ryan, respectfully, but with a touch of the fine irony which is
+bred and born with his class in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but as we cannot explain this word, Timothy, and
+you cannot, perhaps the best thing for you to do will be to go
+to the originator of it and ask <i>him</i> what he meant by it," says
+Miss Penelope, with quite astonishing perspicacity for <i>her</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Shure I did that same, miss. 'Twas the first thing I said
+to him, ma'am. 'What do ye mane, ye spalpeen, ye thief o'
+the world,' says I, 'by miscalling a dacent man out of his name
+like that?' says I. I gave him all that, miss, and a dale more,
+though I've forgotten it be now, for the Ryans was always
+famous for the gift o' the gab!"</p>
+
+<p>"If you said all that to the poor marine, I think you gave
+him considerably more than you got," says Miss Penelope,
+"and so you may cry peace. Go down now, Timothy, and make
+it up with him over your beer."</p>
+
+<p>Timothy, though still grumbling in an undertone death and
+destruction upon the hated Sassenach, retires duteously, closing
+the door behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Penelope," says Miss Priscilla, with an air of relief,
+glancing at the pens and ink, at which Monica's heart fails
+her. She has no doubt whatever about the answer being a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+refusal, but a sad feeling that she dare make no protest renders
+her doubly sorrowful.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" says Miss Penelope, leaning back in her chair
+with pen well poised between her fingers, and a general air of
+pleased recollection full upon her, "it sounds quite like old
+times&mdash;doesn't it?&mdash;to be invited to the Barracks at Clonbree."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite," says Miss Priscilla, with an amused smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You remember when the Whiteboys were so troublesome,
+in our dear father's time, what life the officers stationed here
+then, threw into the country round. Such routs! such dances!
+such kettle-drums! You can still recollect Mr. Browne&mdash;can
+you not, Priscilla?&mdash;that fashionable young man!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> have the best right to remember him," returns Miss
+Priscilla, in a meaning tone. "It would be too ungrateful of
+you if you did not, considering what a life you led him."</p>
+
+<p>And at this the two old ladies break into hearty laughter
+and shake their heads reproachfully at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>know</i> you broke his heart," says Miss Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell us about it, auntie," says Kit, eagerly, who is always
+sympathetic where romance is concerned; but the old ladies
+only laugh the more at this, and Aunt Priscilla tells her how
+her Aunt Penelope was a very naughty girl in her time, and
+created havoc in the affections of all the young men that came
+within her reach.</p>
+
+<p>All this delights Aunt Penelope, who laughs consumedly
+and makes feeble protest with her hands against this
+testimony.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor fellow!" she says, sobering down presently, and
+looking quite remorseful. "It is unkind to laugh when his
+name is mentioned. He was killed in the Indian Mutiny, long
+afterwards, in a most gallant charge."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed," says Miss Priscilla. "Well, well, things
+<i>will</i> happen. Go on with the answer now, Penelope, as the
+man is waiting and it is <a class="corr" name="TC_28" id="TC_28" title="wofully">woefully</a> late."</p>
+
+<p>Monica trembles. But Kit starts into life.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>don't</i> refuse, Aunt Priscilla!" she cries, darting from
+her seat and throwing her arms round Miss Blake's neck.
+"<i>Don't</i>, now! I do so <i>want</i> to go, when I have got my invitation,
+and all."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;" begins Miss Priscilla; whereupon Kit, tightening
+her hold on her neck, with a view to staying further objection,
+nearly strangles her.</p>
+
+<p>"No 'buts,'" she says, entreatingly; "Remember how
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+disappointed I was about Madam O'Connor's, and be good to
+me now."</p>
+
+<p>"Bless the child!" breaks out Miss Priscilla, having
+rescued her windpipe and so saved herself from instant suffocation
+by loosening Kit's arms, and then drawing the child
+down upon her knee. "What is she talking about? who is
+going to refuse anything? Penelope, accept at once,&mdash;<i>at once</i>,
+or I shall be squeezed to death!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you <i>will</i> go?" exclaims Monica, joining the group
+near the davenport, and turning brilliant eyes upon her aunts.
+"Oh, I am so glad!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, we are dying to see the inside of the Barracks
+again, your aunt Penelope and I, especially your aunt Penelope,"
+says Miss Blake, with a sly glance at her sister, who is
+plainly expecting it, "because she has tender recollections
+about her last visit there."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, now, Priscilla!" says Miss Penelope, modestly, but
+with keen enjoyment of the joke. After which an acceptance
+of his kind invitation is written to Captain Cobbett, and borne
+to him by the destroyer of Timothy's peace.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Monica falls a prey to the green-eyed monster&mdash;How Mr. Kelly
+improves the shining hours&mdash;And how Brian Desmond suffers many
+things at the hands of his lady-love.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>For the next few days the sun is conspicuous by its absence,
+and Jupiter Tonans, with all his noisy train, is abroad. There
+is nothing but rain everywhere and at all hours, and a certain
+chill accompanying it, that makes one believe (with "Elia," is
+it not?) that "a bad summer is but winter painted green."</p>
+
+<p>The light is dimmed, the winds sigh heavily, all through
+these days, and on the hills around, "the hooded clouds, like
+friars, tell their beads in drops of rain."</p>
+
+<p>But on Thursday evening it clears a little,&mdash;not sufficiently
+to allow one to wander happily through shrubbery or garden,
+but enough to augur well for the morrow, when the much
+longed for dance at the Barracks is due.</p>
+
+<p>And, indeed, when Friday dawns all nature is glorious.
+O'er sea and land there floats a brightness indescribable, with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+no fleck or flaw upon its beauty. In every nook and glade and
+hollow is glad sunshine, and a soft rushing breeze that bids the
+heart rejoice, and uplift itself in joyous praise to the Great
+Power who calls the heavens His Throne.</p>
+
+<p>Birds are singing upon every bough, to give the day "good-morrow,"
+and the small streamlets, swollen by past rains, are
+chanting loud but soft harmonies to the water-pixies, as they
+dash headlong towards the river down below.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i16">"No tears<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dim the sweet look that Nature wears."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>but rather a smile is on leaf, and flower, and waving bracken.
+And on Monica, too, as, with glad eyes and parted lips, she
+steps lightly into the shadow of the old porch at Moyne. No
+sweeter presence ever honored it. Leaning against one of the
+pillars, she steps forward, and gazes almost gratefully at the
+merry sunbeams, as they creep up in homage to her feet and
+then go swiftly back again.</p>
+
+<p>She is dressed to-day in a pale blue batiste gown, that rivals
+in hue the delicate azure of the skies above her. Her large
+black hat is a mass of Spanish lace, her long gloves are of the
+same sombre shade, and so are her shoes, though relieved by
+buckles. With that smile upon her lips, and the subdued expectation
+in her eyes, she looks the personification of all that
+is tender, pure, and lovable.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ready?" asks Kit, joining her. "The carriage
+is coming round."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite."</p>
+
+<p>"All but your fan: where is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! true; I forgot it. It must be on my table. I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, do not stir. I will get it for you. It would be a
+shame to send you on any errand that might destroy your present
+pose, you look so like a cloud, or a thing out of one of
+Kate Greenaway's books."</p>
+
+<p>"It is very rude to call me a thing; it is disheartening,
+when I believed I was looking my best," says Monica, laughing.
+Somehow Kit's praises always please her.</p>
+
+<p>Then the carriage does come round, and they all get into it,
+and start for their seven-miles drive, a very slow seven miles,
+at the end of which they find themselves in the small town of
+Clonbree, mounting the steep hill that leads to the Barracks,
+which are placed on almost unsavory eminence,&mdash;all the narrow
+streets leading up to them being lined with close cabins and
+tiny cabins that are anything but "sweets to the sweet."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Entering the small barrack-yard and finding a door hospitably
+open, the Misses Blake go up a wooden staircase, and
+presently find themselves on the landing-place above, where
+they are welcomed effusively by Mr. Ryde, who is looking
+bigger and hotter and stouter than usual.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Cobbett in the largest room&mdash;there are but two
+available in these rustic barracks&mdash;is trying vainly to find a
+comfortable corner for old Lady Rossmoyne, who is both deaf
+and stupid, but who, feeling it her duty to support on all occasions
+(both festive and otherwise) the emissaries of her queen,
+has accepted this invitation and is now heartily sorry for her
+loyalty.</p>
+
+<p>She is sitting in durance vile upon a low chair, with a carpet
+seat and a treacherous nature, that threatens to turn upon her
+and double her up at any moment if she dare to give way to even
+the smallest amount of natural animation: so perforce the poor
+old woman sits still, like "patience on a monument smiling at
+grief," and that her own grief, too, which, of course, is harder
+to bear!</p>
+
+<p>"<i>So</i> glad you've come! We were quite in despair about
+you; but better late than never, eh?" says Mr. Ryde to Monica,
+with a fat smile. There is rather much of "too solid flesh"
+about his face.</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay," says Monica, very vaguely: she is looking
+anxiously round her, hoping, yet dreading to see Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>In the next room can be heard the sound of music. "My
+Queen" is being played very prettily upon a piano by somebody.
+Dancing is evidently going on, and Monica, who adores<span class="s_corr" title=","></span>
+it, feels her toes trembling in her shoes.</p>
+
+<p>"May I have the pleasure of this?" says Mr. Ryde. "I've
+kept it for you all along, you know. If you tell me <a class="corr" name="TC_29" id="TC_29" title="yu">you</a> have
+already given it away, I shall feel myself <span class="s_corr" title="aggrievedindeed">aggrieved indeed</span>."</p>
+
+<p>"Was there ever so silly a young man?" thinks Monica,
+and then she says aloud, "No, it is not promised," and lets
+him place his arm round her, and reluctantly mingles with the
+other dancers. To do him justice, he waltzed very well, this
+fat young marine, so it cannot be said that <a class="corr" name="TC_30" id="TC_30" title="has she">she has</a> altogether a
+bad time, and she certainly feels a little glow of pleasure as
+she pauses presently to recover her breath.</p>
+
+<p>As she does so, her eyes rest on Desmond. He, too, is
+dancing, and with Olga Bohun. He is whispering to his partner,
+who is whispering back to him in a somewhat pronounced
+fashion, and altogether he is looking radiantly happy, and anything
+but the disconsolate swain Monica has been picturing him
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+to herself. He is smiling down at Olga, and is apparently
+murmuring all sorts of pretty things into her still prettier ear,
+because they both look quite at peace with each other and all
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>A pang shoots through Monica's heart. He can be as
+happy, then, with one pretty woman as with another! She by
+no means, you will see, depreciates her own charms. All he
+wants is to have "t'other dear charmer away."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment she encounters his eyes, and answers his
+glad stare of surprise with a little scornful lowering of her lids.
+After which, being fully aware that he is still watching her in
+hurt amazement, she turns a small, pale, but very encouraging
+face up to Ryde, and says, prettily,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You said I was late, just now. Was I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very. At least it seemed so to me," says Ryde with
+heavy adoration in his glance.</p>
+
+<p>Feeling, rather than seeing, that Mr. Desmond has brought
+his fair companion to an anchor close behind her, Monica says,
+in a soft sweet voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't <i>mean</i> to be late. No, indeed! I hurried all I
+could; but my aunts are slow to move. I was <i>longing</i> to be
+here, but they would make no haste."</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>really</i> longed to be here?" asks he, eagerly. "Well,
+that <i>was</i> good of you! And now you have come you will be
+kind to me, won't you? You will give me all the dances you
+can spare?"</p>
+
+<p>"That would be a great many," says she, laughing a little.
+"You might tire of me if I said yes to that. The fact is, I
+know nobody here, and <i>certainly</i> there is no one I care to dance
+with."</p>
+
+<p>"You will have another tale to tell later on," returns he,
+gazing with unrepressed admiration at her charming face.
+"Before the avalanche of worshippers descends, promise me all
+the waltzes."</p>
+
+<p>"Are my dances, then, so necessary to you?" with a swift
+upward glance.</p>
+
+<p>"They are, at all events, the only ones I care for," returns
+he, clumsily, but heartily. "All the others will lie in the
+scale with duty."</p>
+
+<p>"'Every subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's
+soul is his own,'" quotes Monica, lightly. "Why dance unless
+you wish it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because my soul is <i>not</i> my own," responds he, with a
+sigh. "I am bound to dance with every undanceable woman
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+here to-day, or they will go home and revile me. You <i>ought</i>
+to be sorry for me if you aren't."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am," says Monica; "and so you shall have every
+waltz on the programme."</p>
+
+<p>With this she lets him take her in his arms again, and
+float away with her to the strains of the waltz then playing, and
+far away from Desmond's jealous ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I had no idea it was in her," says Mrs. Bohun, in a
+breathless sort of manner, when Monica has quite vanished.
+"All that was meant for you, you know; and how <i>well</i> she did
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>why</i> should it be meant for me? What have I done
+that she should so ill use me?" says Desmond, also breathless.
+"And you speak of her as if you admired her and she ought
+to be praised for her conduct when you have just heard from
+my own lips how devotedly I am attached to her!"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot help admiring genius when I see it," says Olga,
+with a gay laugh. "She made up her mind&mdash;naughty little
+thing!&mdash;to make you miserable a minute ago, and&mdash;she succeeded.
+What can compare with success! But in very truth,
+Brian," tapping his arm familiarly with her fan (an action
+Monica notes from the other side of the room), "I would see
+you a victor too, and in this cause. She is as worthy of you as
+you of her, and a fig for one's cousins and sisters and aunts,
+when Cupid leads the way."</p>
+
+<p>She has thrown up her head, and is looking full of spirit,
+when young Ronayne, approaching her, says, smiling,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"This is our dance, I think, Mrs. Bohun?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it? So far so good!" She turns again to Brian:</p>
+
+<p>"'Faint heart never won fair lady,'" she says, warningly.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot accuse myself of any feebleness of that sort,"
+says Desmond, gloomily. "As you see, it all rests with her."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps she is afraid of the family feud," says Olga,
+laughing. "One hears such a lot about this Blake-Desmond
+affair that I feel I could take the gold medal if examined about
+it. There!&mdash;what nonsense! Go and speak to her, and defy
+those dear old ladies at Moyne."</p>
+
+<p>"You were talking about that pretty Miss Beresford?" says
+Ronayne, as Brian moves away.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But, sir," archly, "dare you see beauty in any
+woman when I am by?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh that I could see you really jealous, and of <i>me</i>!"
+returns he, half sadly, looking at her with longing eyes. "If
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+I thought I could make your heart ache for even one short
+minute, I should be the happiest man alive."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Boy</i>, you mean! Oh, traitor! And would you have me
+miserable for your own gratification?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would be for yours later on. For that one moment you
+would gain a slave forever."</p>
+
+<p>"And unless I am wretched for that one moment, I cannot
+gain my slave?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know the answer to that only too well," returns he,
+with so much fervor that she refuses to continue the discussion.</p>
+
+<p>"Talking of jealousy," she says, lightly, with a glance at
+him, "it is the dream of my life to make Rossmoyne jealous,&mdash;to
+reduce him to absolute submission. He is so cold, so precise,
+so English, that it would be quite a triumph to drag him
+at one's chariot-wheels. Shall I be able to do it?" she turns
+up her charming face to his, as though in question. She is looking
+her very sweetest, and is tenderly aware of the fact; and,
+indeed, so is he.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so," he says, in answer to her, but slowly and
+reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"But I must have help," says Olga. "<i>Some</i> one must help
+me. You?&mdash;is it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I?" with strong emphasis. "What should I have to do
+with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much, yet I count upon you. Why, who do you
+think I am going to make him jealous about? Eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"How should I know?"</p>
+
+<p>"How shouldn't you? Why it is of you,&mdash;<i>you</i>!" with quite
+a delicious little laugh. "So you will have to dance round
+after me all day for the future until your mission is fulfilled,
+and try to look as if you <i>really</i> loved me."</p>
+
+<p>"You have mistaken your man," says Ronayne, quietly:
+"you must get some one else to help you in this matter. It is
+not for me, even if I did not love you; I should scorn so low a
+task."</p>
+
+<p>"Love is an idle word," she says, her eyes flashing.</p>
+
+<p>"It may be&mdash;to some. But I tell you no man's heart is of
+so poor value that it can be flung hither and thither at any
+one's pleasure,&mdash;no, not even at the pleasure of the woman he
+adores. You will seek some more complaisant lover to be your
+dupe on this occasion. I decline the office."</p>
+
+<p>"You forget how you speak, sir!" she says, proudly; yet
+even as she gives way to this angry speech a gleam of deepest
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+admiration so lights her eyes that she is obliged to let her lids
+fall over them to cover the tell-tales beneath; her breath comes
+and goes quickly.</p>
+
+<p>Something like relief comes to her when Lord Rossmoyne,
+stretching his long neck round the curtain that half shields the
+cushioned recess of the window where they are sitting, says,
+with considerable animation, for him,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! so I have found you, Mrs. Bohun."</p>
+
+<p>"You have indeed, and in good time. I am pining in prison,
+but you have come to deliver me."</p>
+
+<p>"If I may."</p>
+
+<p>"Such a dreary little spot, is it not? I don't know what
+could have induced me to enter it."</p>
+
+<p>"Ronayne possibly," says Rossmoyne, with an unpleasant
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear, no!" contemptuously: "I came here of my own
+free will. We all do foolish things at times, I have not danced
+this last because Mr. Ronayne prefers pleasant converse. I
+don't. I thought you would never come to seek me. What
+were you doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hunting for you, and thinking every minute an hour.
+These curtains"&mdash;touching them<span class="s_corr" title="''"></span>&mdash;"were jealous of you, and
+sought to hide you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't be so long next time," she says, looking up at
+him with a smile that a little more pressure would make tender
+and laying her hand on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>She moves away. Ronayne, drawing his breath somewhat
+savagely, sits down on the sill of the window and gazes blankly
+into the barrack-yard below. He has still her programme in
+his hand, and is crumpling it unconscionably, hardly knowing
+what he does. But, if disturbed in mind, it is always <i>such</i> a
+comfort to smash something, be it a piece of pasteboard or
+one's most intimate friend.</p>
+
+<p>She had forgotten her card, probably, and now it is almost
+useless. Ronayne's heart is full of bitterness, and he tries to
+swear to himself that for the future he will cleanse his heart of
+this coquette, who cares no more for him&mdash;nay, far less<span class="s_corr" title=", ">&mdash;</span>than
+she does for her little toy terrier. Yet, even as these stern resolves
+seek vainly to root themselves in his breast, his eyes
+turn <a class="corr" name="TC_31" id="TC_31" title="egain">again</a> to the room beyond, and make search for the siren
+who is his undoing. She is still, of course, with Rossmoyne,
+and is all smiles and pretty blushes, and is evidently both content
+and happy.</p>
+
+<p>"I am a fool!&mdash;a madman!" he says to himself; and even
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+as he says it his eyes light on Owen Kelly, who by chance is
+looking at him too.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing the room, the latter (as though drawn by the melancholy
+eyes that have met his) soon reaches the window where
+Ronayne stands disconsolate.</p>
+
+<p>"Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" he says gayly, but
+with so kindly an intonation that even the most pugnacious
+could not take umbrage at it.</p>
+
+<p>Now, Mr. Kelly's knowledge on all matters is so clear and
+precise that Ronayne does not dream of deceiving him in this
+matter.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you will laugh at me," he says, "but somehow
+I don't mind <i>your</i> ridicule much. It means only this, that I
+have just found out that she cares nothing at all for me."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>She</i>, being Mrs. Bohun? Well, my dear lad, if an elderly
+gentleman's experience is of any use to you, you may have it
+cheap. <i>I</i> believe she cares a great deal for you. Lookers-on
+see most of the game, and I would back you against Rossmoyne
+any day."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a very good fellow," says Ulic Ronayne, "the
+best I know; but I understand you. You are only saying that
+to console me."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not, in faith: I say it because I think it."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could think it."</p>
+
+<p>"Try. 'If at first you don't succeed,' you know follow out
+the inestimable Watts's advice, and 'try again.<span class="s_corr" title="&quot;">'</span> There's
+nothing like it: it gets to be quite a game in the long run. I
+thank my stars," laughing, "I have never been a slave to the
+'pathetic fallacy' called love; yet it has its good points, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"It hasn't," says Ronayne, gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"You terrify me," says Mr. Kelly, "because I feel positive
+my day is yet to come, and with all this misery before me I
+feel suicidal. Don't my dear fellow! don't look like that!
+Give her up; go and fall in love with some little girl of your
+own age or even younger."</p>
+
+<p>The "even" is offensive, but Ulic is too far gone in melancholy
+to perceive it.</p>
+
+<p>"It is too late for that kind of advice," he says: "I want
+her, and her only. I don't know how to describe it, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There are chords," quotes his friend gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," says the miserable Ronayne, quite as gravely;
+which so upsets the gravity of his companion that it is with
+difficulty he conceals his ill-timed mirth.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What is that mutilated article in your hand?" he asks at
+length, when he has conquered his muscles.</p>
+
+<p>"This&mdash;eh!&mdash;oh, her card, I suppose," says Ronayne, viciously.
+Yet even as he speaks he smooths out the crumpled
+card, and regards it with a dismal tenderness as being in part
+<i>her</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"You're engaged to her for the next," says Mr. Kelly,
+looking over his shoulder: "what an unfortunate thing! If I
+were you," mournfully, "I should go home. Get ill. Do
+<i>something</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"And so let her think I'm wasting in despair because she
+prefers another? No, I shan't," says Ronayne, with sudden
+animation. "I shall see it out with her. If she chooses to
+cancel this dance well and good, but I shall certainly remind
+her she promised it to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Rash boy!" says Kelly, with a sigh. "As you refuse to
+hearken to the voice of common sense, and afflict yourself with
+a megrim, I leave you to your fate."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he turns aside, and, having gone a step or two,
+finds himself face to face with Miss Beresford.</p>
+
+<p>"This dance is ours," he says, mendaciously, knowing well
+this is the first time they have met this evening.</p>
+
+<p>Monica laughs: to be angry with so sad a visaged man as
+Owen Kelly would be a cruelty.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad of it," she says, "because I do not want to
+dance at all; and I think you will not mind sitting with me
+and talking to me for a little while."</p>
+
+<p>"You remember me then?" he says, shifting his glass from
+one eye to the other, and telling himself she is as pretty as she
+is wise.</p>
+
+<p>"I think so," shyly, yet with a merry glance; "you are that
+Master O'Kelly, of Kelly Grove, county Antrim, who is the
+bright and shining light of the Junior Bar."</p>
+
+<p>"You do indeed know me," returns he, mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Thy modesty's a candle to thy merit,'" quotes she,
+wickedly, in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>At this he smiles sadly (a luxury he rarely permits himself),
+and, taking up her hand, lays it on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," he says, "I will sit with you, and talk with you,
+when, and where, and for as long as you like. The longer the
+greater bliss for me. The spaciousness of these halls, fair
+madam, as doubtless you have perceived, gives wide scope for
+choice of seats. In which secluded bower will it please you to
+efface yourself?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Monica glances from one small room to the landing-place,
+and from the landing-place to the other small room beyond,
+and naturally hesitates.</p>
+
+<p>"There is another stairs besides the one we ascended,"
+says Mr. Kelly. "I saw it when first I came: would <i>you</i> like
+to see it too?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should indeed," says Monica, grateful for the hint, and,
+going with him, suddenly becomes aware of a staircase, leading
+goodness knows whither, upon the third step of which she
+seats herself, after a rapid glance around and upwards that
+tells her nothing, so mysterious are the workings of a barracks.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Kelly seats himself beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it is my mission to amuse you," he says,
+calmly, "as I dare not make love to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" says Monica, quite as calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"For one thing, you would not listen to me; and for
+another, I don't want my head broken."</p>
+
+<p>Monica smiles, more because it is her duty to than for
+any other reason, because after the smile comes a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"I know few knights would tilt a lance for me," she says;
+and Kelly, glancing at her, feels a quick desire rise within him
+to restore sunshine to her perfect face.</p>
+
+<p>"One knight should be enough for any one, even the fairest
+ladye in the land," he says.</p>
+
+<p>"True; but what is to be for her who has none?" asks she,
+pathos in her eyes, but a smile upon her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"She must be a very perverse maiden who has <i>that</i> story to
+tell," returns he; and then, seeing she has turned her face
+away from him, he goes on quietly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You know every one here, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, no. The very names of most are unknown to
+me. Tell me about them, if you will."</p>
+
+<p>"About that girl over there, for instance?" pointing to a
+dingy-looking girl in the distance, whose face is as like a button
+as it well can be, and whose general appearance may be
+expressed by the word "unclean."</p>
+
+<p>"That is Miss Luker," says Kelly. "Filthy Lucre is, I
+believe, the name she usually goes by, on account of her
+obvious unpalatableness (my own word, you will notice), and
+her overwhelming affection for coin small and great."</p>
+
+<p>"She looks very untidy," says Monica.</p>
+
+<p>"She does, indeed. She is, too, an inveterate chatterbox.
+She might give any fellow odds and beat him; I don't
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+believe myself there is so much as one comma in her composition."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor girl! What an exertion it must be to her!"</p>
+
+<p>"Musn't it? Especially nowadays, when one <i>never</i> goes
+for much, real hard work of any kind being such a bore. That's
+her mother beside her. She is always beside her. Fat little
+woman, d'ye see?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a nice motherly-looking little woman she seems to
+be."</p>
+
+<p>"Horribly motherly! She has a birthday for every month
+in the year<span class="s_corr" title="?">!</span>"</p>
+
+<p>"How?" says Monica, opening her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't so much allude to her own natal day (which by
+this time I should say is obscure) as to her children's. They
+came to her at all seasons, from January to December. There
+are fourteen of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it <i>can't</i> be possible! Poor, <i>poor</i> soul!" says Monica,
+feeling quite depressed.</p>
+
+<p>"She isn't poor; she is very well off," says Mr. Kelly,
+obtusely. "Much better than she deserves. So don't grieve
+for her. She glories in her crime. Well, it's 'a poor heart
+that never rejoices,' you know: so I suppose she is right.
+There's Miss Fitzgerald: do you admire her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure I <i>ought</i>," says Monica, simply; "but I <i>don't</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"You have the courage of your opinions. Every one down
+here admires her tremendously. I agree with you, you know,
+but then," softly, "<i>I</i> am nobody!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you think I am jealous," says Monica. "But
+indeed I am not."</p>
+
+<p>"What a baby you are!" says Mr. Kelly. "<i>Who</i> could
+suppose you jealous of Bella Fitzgerald? 'Two stars keep not
+their motion in one sphere,' and I shouldn't think the fair Bella
+would have <i>much</i> motion if put in comparison with you. She
+always calls 'a spade a spade, and Branson's Essence of
+Coffee,' etc. In fact, she is material."</p>
+
+<p>"That means she has common sense. Why call her 'material'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind. It is quite <i>immaterial</i>," says Mr. Kelly,
+tranquilly, after which silence reigns triumphantly for a moment
+or two, until a new figure presents itself on a small platform
+below them.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! there is Desmond," says Kelly. "He looks," innocently,
+"as if he was looking for somebody."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I hope he will find her," remarks Miss Beresford, with
+some acerbity and a most unnecessary amount of color.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps he is looking for <i>me</i>," says Mr. Kelly, naively.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps so," dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"At all events, whoever it is, she, or he, or it, seems difficult
+of discovery. Did you ever see so woebegone a countenance
+as his?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think he looks quite happy enough," says Monica, without
+sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>Kelly lets his languid gaze rest on her for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"What has Desmond done to you?" he says at last, slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Done?" haughtily. "Nothing. What <i>could</i> he do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, I suppose,&mdash;as you say. By the bye, I have not
+seen you dancing with him this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"How is that?"</p>
+
+<p>It is an indisputable fact that some people may say with
+impunity what other people dare not say under pain of excommunication.
+Owen Kelly, as a rule, says what he likes to women
+without rebuke, and, what is more, without incurring their
+displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>"How is what?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought that day at Aghyohillbeg that you and Desmond
+were great friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Friends! when we have only seen each other two or three
+times. Is friendship the growth of an hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. But something else is." He looks at her <i>almost</i>
+cheerfully as he says this. "But neither you nor I, Miss Beresford,
+have anything to do with that flimsy passion."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Love!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Is</i> there such a thing?" says Monica, wistfully, whereupon
+Mr. Kelly says to himself, "Now, what on earth has that
+fellow been doing to her?" but aloud he says, in his usual subdued
+tones,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, I'm sure, but they say so, and perhaps they,
+whoever they may be, are right. If so, I think it is a dangerous
+subject to discuss with <i>you</i>. Let us skip it, and go on.
+You haven't told me why you are not dancing with Desmond."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Why</i> should I dance with Mr. Desmond?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it is not always easy to have a refusal ready, perhaps,
+or&mdash;&mdash;He has asked you?"</p>
+
+<p>She would have given a good deal at this instant to be able
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+to answer "No;" but the remembrance of how he pleaded with
+her for one waltz that evening at the end of the Moyne meadow
+comes between her and her desire. So she says, "Yes," instead<span class="s_corr" title="?">.</span></p>
+
+<p>"And you would none of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>No.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't my part to ask why," says Kelly, with quite a miserable
+air; "but still I cannot help wondering <span class="s_corr" title="&quot;"></span>how <i>any one</i>
+can dislike Desmond."</p>
+
+<p>No answer. Miss Beresford is looking straight before her,
+but her color is distinctly higher, and there is a determination
+about her not to be cajoled into speech, that is unmistakable.
+Having studied her for a little, Mr. Kelly goes on,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I never know whether it is Desmond's expression or manner
+that is so charming, therefore I conclude it is both. Have
+you noticed what a peculiarly lovable way he has with him?
+But of course not, as, somehow he has the misfortune to jar
+upon you. Yet very few hate him. You see, you are that excellent
+thing, an exception."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not hate him," says Monica; and, having thus unlocked
+her lips against her inclination, she feels Owen Kelly of
+Kelly's Grove has won the game; but she bears him no ill
+will for all that. "It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul!"</p>
+
+<p>"No! well, hate is a bitter word, and an unmannerly. I
+am sorry, then, that you dislike him."</p>
+
+<p>"Not even that."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean, you regard him with indifference!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, exactly that," says Monica, with slow deliberation.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry for it. He is a man upon whom both men and
+women smile,&mdash;a rare thing,&mdash;a very favorite of Fortune."</p>
+
+<p>"She is fickle."</p>
+
+<p>"She may well be dubbed so, indeed, if she deserts him at
+his sorest need. But as yet she is faithful, as she ought to be,
+to the kindest, the sincerest fellow upon earth."</p>
+
+<p>"Sincerest?"</p>
+
+<p>As this repetition, and the fine sneer that accompanies it,
+escape her, she becomes aware that Desmond himself has
+come to the foot of the stairs, and is gazing at her reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is fickle Fortune's favorite literally at our feet,"
+says Owen Kelly; and, before Monica can say anything, Brian
+has mounted the two steps that lie between him and her, and
+is at her side.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If I may not dance with you, may I at least talk to you
+for a moment or two?" he says, hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," with cold surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think three of us could sit together comfortably on
+this one step," says Mr. Kelly, with a thoughtful glance at its
+dimensions,&mdash;"not even if we squeezed up to each other ever
+so much; and I am afraid," mournfully, "Miss Beresford might
+not like that, either. Would you, Miss Beresford?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much," says Monica. "But why need you stir? Mr.
+Desmond has asked at the most for two moments; they will
+go quickly by: in fact," unkindly, "I should think they are
+already gone."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet he has not begun his '<i>talk</i>.' Make haste Desmond.
+Time, tide, and Miss Beresford wait for no man.
+Hurry! we are all on the tiptoe of expectation." As Mr. Kelly
+says all this in a breath, he encourages Desmond generously to
+"come on" by a wave of his hand; whereupon Brian, who is
+not in his sweetest mood, directs a glance at him that ought to
+annihilate any ordinary man, but is thrown away upon Kelly,
+who is fire-proof.</p>
+
+<p>"Some other time, then, as I disturb you now," says Brian,
+haughtily<span class="s_corr" title="-">, </span>addressing himself pointedly to Monica.</p>
+
+<p>"By no means," says his whilom friend, rising. "Take my
+place for your two moments,&mdash;not a second longer, remember!
+I feel with grief that Miss Beresford will probably hail the exchange
+of partners with rapture. 'Talk,' says Bacon, 'is but
+a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love;' and as she would
+not let me discourse on any topics tenderer than the solar
+system and the Channel Tunnel, I have no doubt she has found
+it very slow. Now, <i>you</i> will be the&mdash;er&mdash;other thing quite!"</p>
+
+<p>With this speech, so full of embarrassing possibilities, he
+bows to Monica, smiles at the gloomy Desmond, and finally
+withdraws himself gracefully from their view. Not without
+achieving his end, however: they both heartily wish him back
+again even while he is going.</p>
+
+<p>"What have I done?" asks Desmond, abruptly, turning
+to Monica, who is gazing in a rapt fashion at her large black
+fan.</p>
+
+<p>"Done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't answer me like that, Monica. I have offended
+you. I can see that. But how? Every moment of this
+wretched afternoon, until you came, I spent wondering when
+you would arrive. And yet when at last I <i>did</i> see you, you
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+would vouchsafe me neither smile nor glance. In fact, you
+looked as if you <i>hated</i> me!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Every</i> moment?" sardonically.</p>
+
+<p>"Every one."</p>
+
+<p>"Even those spent with Mrs. Bohun?" To save her life
+she could not call her "Olga" now.</p>
+
+<p>"With <i>her</i>?" staring in some surprise at his inquisitor.
+"Well, it certainly wasn't quite so bad&mdash;the waiting, I mean&mdash;then.
+Though still, with my mind full of you, I was&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You were indeed!" interrupting him hastily, with a <a class="corr" name="TC_32" id="TC_32" title="comtemptuous">contemptuous</a>
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I was," the surprise growing deeper.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder you are not ashamed to sit there and confess it,"
+says Miss Beresford, suddenly, with a wrathful flash in her eyes.
+"I shall know how to believe you again. To say one thing to
+me one day, and another thing to another person another day,
+and&mdash;&mdash;" Here she finds a difficulty in winding up this extraordinary
+speech, so she says, hurriedly, "It is <i>horrible</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is horrible?" bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>But she pays no heed to his question, thinking it doubtless
+beneath her.</p>
+
+<p>"At least," she says, with fine scorn, "you needn't be untruthful."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," says Mr. Desmond, desperately, "you are
+making the most wonderful remarks I ever heard in my life?
+There is no beginning to them, and I'm dreadfully afraid there
+will be no ending."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," scornfully, "you are afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"If I allow I am," says Desmond, humbly, "will it induce
+you to explain?"</p>
+
+<p>"You want no explanation," indignantly. "You know
+very well what you confessed a while ago,&mdash;that&mdash;that&mdash;'<i>you
+were</i>'! <i>There!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Where?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Flirting with Olga Bohun!"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"You did. You know you did. Oh, what perfidy! Only
+a moment since you declared it openly, shamelessly; and now
+you deny it! Why I wouldn't have believed it, even of <i>you</i>.
+How <i>can</i> you pretend to forget it?"</p>
+
+<p>But that there are tears born of real emotion in her great
+eyes, Mr. Desmond would assuredly believe she is making a
+vast joke at his expense, so innocent is he of any offence.</p>
+
+<p>"If by some unfortunate method," he says, calmly, "you
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+have metamorphosed any speech of mine into a declaration relative
+to a flirtation with Mrs. Bohun, you have done an uncommonly
+clever thing. You have turned a lie into truth. I never
+said even one spoony word to Olga Bohun in all my life<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>"Then why," in a still much-aggrieved tone, but with strong
+symptoms of relenting, "did you say you were?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't remember saying it at all," says poor Mr. Desmond,
+who has forgotten all about his interrupted remark.</p>
+
+<p>"Then what were you saying to Olga just as I came in?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! <i>that!</i>"&mdash;brightening into a remembrance of the past
+by the greatest good luck, or the quarrel might have proved a
+final one (which would have been a sad pity, as so many right
+good ones followed it). "You stopped me just now when I
+was going to tell you about it. When you came this evening I
+was dancing with Olga, and talking to her of <i>you</i>. It was some
+small consolation."</p>
+
+<p>"But you were smiling at her," says Monica, faltering,
+"and whispering to her&mdash;<i>whispering!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Of you. You believe me? Monica, look at me. Do you
+know I really think that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But this valuable thought is forever lost. Glancing at his
+companion, he sees a change come over the spirit of her face.
+Her eyes brighten, but not with pleasurable anticipation. Quite
+the reverse. She lays her hand suddenly upon his arm, and
+gazes into the landing-place beneath.</p>
+
+<p>"There is Aunt Priscilla!" she says, in an awestruck
+tone. "She has just come out of that room. She is, I <i>know</i>,"&mdash;a
+guilty conscience making a coward of her,&mdash;"looking for
+me. She may come here! Go, Go!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't leave you here alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you can; you can, indeed. Only try it. Mr. Desmond,
+<i>please</i> go." This she says so anxiously that he at once
+decides (though with reluctance) there is nothing left him
+but to obey.</p>
+
+<p>And, after all, Aunt Priscilla never looks up those stairs,
+but passes by them, dimly lit as they are, as though they had
+never been built; and Desmond, unknowing of this, goes
+sadly into the dancing-room, ostensibly in search of Kelly, but
+with his mind so full of his cross little love that he does not
+see him, although he is within a yard of him at one time.</p>
+
+<p>Now, Mr. Kelly, when he quitted the fateful staircase, had
+turned to his right, with a view to getting some friend to
+lounge against a doorway with him, but, failing in this quest,
+had entered the dancing-room, and edged round it by degree,&mdash;not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+so much from a desire for motion as because he was
+elbowed ever onwards by tired dancers who sought the friendly
+support of the walls.</p>
+
+<p>Reaching at length a certain corner, he determines to make
+his own of it and defend it against all assailants, be they men
+or Amazons.</p>
+
+<p>It is a charming corner, and almost impregnable; it is for
+this very reason also almost unescapable, as he learns to his cost
+later on. However, he comes to anchor here, and looks around
+him.</p>
+
+<p>He is quite enjoying himself, and is making private comments
+on his friends that I have no doubt would be rapturously
+received by them could they only hear them, when he
+wakes to the fact that two people have come to a standstill
+just before him. They are engaged in not only an animated
+but an amicable discussion, and are laughing gayly: as laughter
+is even more distinguishable in a crowd than the voice when
+in repose, Mr. Kelly is attracted by theirs, and to his astonishment
+discovers that his near neighbors are the deadly enemies
+of an hour agone,&mdash;<i>i. e.</i>, Mrs. Bohun and Ulic Ronayne.</p>
+
+<p>No faintest trace of spleen is to be discovered in their
+tones. All is once more sunshine. Past storms are forgotten.
+They have evidently been carrying on their discussion for a
+considerable time whilst dancing, because it is only the very
+end of it that is reserved for Mr. Kelly's delectation. He, poor
+man, is hemmed in on every side, and finds to his horror he
+cannot make his escape. This being so, he resigns himself
+with a grim sense of irony to the position allotted him by fate,
+and being a careful man, makes up his mind, too, to derive
+what amusement from it that he can.</p>
+
+<p>"So you see everything depends upon judgment," says the
+fair widow, fanning herself languidly, but smiling archly.</p>
+
+<p>"A good deal, certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Everything</i>, <i>I</i> say. Determination to succeed, and the
+power to do it, are strong in themselves; but judgment tempers
+all things. And how few possess all three!"</p>
+
+<p>"I, at least, am grateful for that. If every one was endowed
+with those three irresistible forces, I should have a bad
+chance. I should be but one among so many. Then it could
+only be decided by brute force."</p>
+
+<p>"What could?" asks she, turning a fair but amazed face
+up to his.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing!" returns he<span class="s_corr" title=".">,</span> with some confusion. "Only
+some silly thought of my own private brain,&mdash;not the part I
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+was devoting to your argument. Forgive me. You were
+saying&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That there is a tremendous amount of feebleness in most
+natures. The real clever thing is to be able to see when an
+opportunity for good arises, and then to grasp it. Most people
+can't see it, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"<a class="corr" name="TC_33" id="TC_33" title="Other's">Others</a> <i>can</i>!" says Mr. Ronayne. As he speaks he
+passes his arm round her pretty waist and smiles saucily into
+her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" exclaims she, smiling in turn, "am I an opportunity,
+then?"</p>
+
+<p>"The sweetest one I know, and so I seize it," says the audacious
+youth; while Mr. Kelly, behind, feels as if he was
+going to sink into the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't understand what the word means, you silly
+boy," says the widow, laughing gayly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I! I only wish I might parse and <i>spell</i> it with
+you," says Ronayne, his spirits rising; at which answer, I regret
+to say, pretty Mrs. Bohun laughs again merrily, and
+suffers him to lead her away into the dancing-circle without a
+rebuke, leaving Mr. Kelly limp with fear of discovery.</p>
+
+<p>Now, his imprisonment being at an end, he leaves his
+corner, and, braving the anger of the dancing people, walks
+straight through their midst to the door beyond, ready to endure
+anything rather than the eavesdropping, however innocent,
+of a moment past.</p>
+
+<p>Filled therefore with courage, he sallies forth, and on the
+landing outside encounters the two Misses Blake clothed for
+departure, with Monica and Kit beside them. Terence is
+still bidding adieu to Miss Fitzgerald whose tall charms have
+worked a way into his youthful affections.</p>
+
+<p>Desmond is standing at a little distance from this group;
+Mr. Ryde is in the midst of it. He is expostulating with
+Monica about the cruelty of her early departure, in a tone
+that savors of tenderness and rouses in Mr. Desmond's breast
+a hearty desire to kick him. Then Mr. Ryde carries on his
+expostulations to where Aunt Priscilla is standing; and Brian
+tries vainly to gain a last glance from Monica, if only to see
+whether the treaty of peace between them&mdash;interrupted a while
+ago&mdash;has been really signed or not.</p>
+
+<p>But Monica, either through wilfulness or ignorance of his
+near locality, or perhaps fear of Miss Priscilla, refuses to meet
+his longing eyes. For my part, I believe in the wilfulness.</p>
+
+<p>Kit, who is always like the cockles of ancient fame, "<i>alive
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+O</i>," sees his disconsolate face, his earnest, unrequited glance,
+and Monica's assumed or real indifference, and feels sad at
+heart for him. Deliberately, and with a sweet, grave smile,
+she holds out to him her small hand, and, regardless of consequences,
+gives his a hearty squeeze. Most thankfully he
+acknowledges this courtesy; whereupon, of her still further
+charity, she bestows upon him a glance from her dark eyes
+that speaks volumes and assures him he has in her a friend at
+court.</p>
+
+<p>Then all is over. The two Misses Blake go slowly and
+with caution down the steep staircase, Monica and Mr. Ryde
+(who grows more devoted every minute) following, Terence
+and Kit bringing up the rear.</p>
+
+<p>During the drive home the Misses Blake (who have
+thoroughly enjoyed themselves) are both pleasant and talkative.
+As the old horses jog steadily along the twilit road, they converse
+in quite a lively fashion of all they have heard and
+noticed, and laugh demurely over many a small joke.</p>
+
+<p>Kit of course, is in raptures. Her <i>first</i> party and <i>such</i> a
+success! She had danced one set of quadrilles and one polka!
+<i>two</i> whole dances! Ye gods, was there ever so happy a child!
+She chatters, and laughs, and rallies everybody so gayly that
+the old aunts are fain to die of merriment.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Monica, who might&mdash;an' she chose&mdash;have had two
+partners for every dance, is strangely silent and depressed.
+No word escapes her: she leans back with her pretty tired
+head pressed close against the cushions. Perchance little Kit
+notices all this; because when any one addresses Monica she
+makes answer for her in the most careless manner possible,
+and by her sharp wit turns the attention of all from the sister
+she adores; yet in her heart she is angry with Monica.</p>
+
+<p>Once only during this homeward drive something occurs
+to disturb the serenity of the Misses Blake. Kit, in one of
+her merry sallies, has touched upon Miss Fitzgerald; whereupon
+Aunt Priscilla, mindful of that late and lingering adieu
+of Terence, says, suddenly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And how do <i>you</i> like Miss Fitzgerald, Terence?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's delightful, aunt!" says the stricken Terence, enthusiastically.
+"Perfectly enchanting! You never met so
+nice a girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes! I think I have, Terence," says Miss Priscilla,
+freezingly. "I am, indeed, <i>sure</i> I have."</p>
+
+<p>"There's something about her right down fetching," says
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+Mr. Beresford, giving himself airs. "Something&mdash;er&mdash;<i>there</i>,
+but difficult to describe."</p>
+
+<p>"A 'je ne sais quoi young man,'" quotes the younger Miss
+Beresford, with a sneer. "She's tall enough to be one, at any
+rate. She is a horrid girl I think."</p>
+
+<p>"You're jealous," says Terence, contemptuously. "Because
+you know you will never be half as good to look at."</p>
+
+<p>"If I thought that," says Kit, growing very red, "I'd commit
+suicide."</p>
+
+<p>"Tut! You are too silly a child to be argued with," says
+Terence, in a tone that is not to be <a class="corr" name="TC_34" id="TC_34" title="born">borne</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Kit, rising in her seat, prepares for battle, and is indeed
+about to hurl a scathing rebuke upon him, when Miss Priscilla
+interrupts her.</p>
+
+<p>"What is this great charm you see in Miss Fitzgerald, Terence?"
+she asks slowly.<span class="s_corr" title="&quot;"></span></p>
+
+<p>"That is just what I cannot describe, aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think you couldn't, indeed!" puts in Kit, wrathfully.</p>
+
+<p>"But, as I said before, she is delightful."</p>
+
+<p>"She <i>may</i> be," says Priscilla, the most damning doubt in her
+tone. "She <i>may</i> be, my dear. Forbid that I should deny it!
+But there are some delightful people, Terence<span class="s_corr" title="">,</span> that are not good
+for us."</p>
+
+<p>Somehow, after this, conversation dwindles until it is gone.
+Terence sulks; Monica moons; Kit ponders; the Miss Blake
+snooze: and so at last home is reached.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Kit sees a Vision, and being exhorted thereto by it, pleads a certain
+cause with great success.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>It is ten o'clock, and as lovely a night as ever overhung
+the earth. The moon is at its fullest, the wind has fallen, all
+is calm as heaven itself, through which Dictynna's unclouded
+grandeur rolls.</p>
+
+<p>The Misses Blake, fatigued by their unusual dissipation,
+ordered an early rout an hour agone, whereby bedroom candlesticks
+were in demand at nine or half-past nine o'clock.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Now, in Monica's room Kit is standing by the open window
+gazing in rapt admiration at the dew spangled garden beneath.
+Like diamonds glitter the grass and the flowers beneath the
+kiss of the grass and the queen of night.</p>
+
+<p>Moonbeams are playing in the roses, and nestling in the
+lilies, and rocking to and fro upon the bosom of the stream.</p>
+
+<p>There is a peace unspeakable on all around. One holds
+one's breath and feels a longing painful in its intensity as one
+drinks in the beauty of the earth and sky. 'Twere <i>heaven</i> to
+be assured of love on such a night as this.</p>
+
+<p>Stars make the vault above so fine that all the world, me-thinks,
+should be in love with night and pay no worship to the
+garish sun. There is a rush of feeling in the air,&mdash;a promise
+of better things to come,&mdash;of hope, of glad desire, of sweet love
+perfected!</p>
+
+<p>"How lovely a night it is!" says Kit, leaning far out of the
+window, and gazing westward. She is at heart a born artist,
+with a mind, indeed, too full of strange, weird thoughts at
+times to augur well for the happiness of her future. Like many
+of her Irish race, she is dreamy, poetical,&mdash;intense at one moment,
+gay, wild impulsive the next.</p>
+
+<p>"See what a flood of light there is on everything!" she says.
+"'<i>Bathed</i> in moonlight,' what a good thought was that. Monica,
+when I am as old as you, in a very few short years I shall
+be a poet."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you won't, darling: you will be a musician. See
+what fairies lie beneath your fingers even now when you touch
+the piano or violin; be content, then, with your great gift, which
+most surely <i>is</i> yours. And to me, indeed, it seems a grander
+thing to thrill and enchain and draw to your feet all hearts by
+the power of harmony that dwells within you, than by the divine
+gift of song that poets have."</p>
+
+<p>"But their songs <i>are</i> harmony," says the child, turning
+quickly to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, the interpretation of it, but you have its very breath<span class="s_corr" title="-">.</span> No;
+search the world over, and you will find nothing so powerful
+to affect the souls of all as music."</p>
+
+<p>"Well some day I shall want to do something," says Kit,
+vaguely; and then she turns to the window again, and lets her
+mind wander and lose itself in a mute sonata to the fair Isis
+throned above.</p>
+
+<p>"It draws me," she says, presently, rising slowly and
+addressing Monica, but always with her gaze fixed upon the
+sleeping garden down below. "It is so bright,&mdash;so clear."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What, Kit?"</p>
+
+<p>"The moonlight. I must," restlessly, "go down into it for
+a little moment, or I shall not sleep through longing for
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"But the doors are closed, my dearest, and Aunt Priscilla
+is in bed, and so are the servants."</p>
+
+<p>"So much the better. I can draw the bolts myself without
+being questioned. You said just now," gayly, "I have a fairy
+beneath my fingers. I think I have a moon-fairy in my heart,
+because I love it so."</p>
+
+<p>"Stay here with me, then, and worship it sensibly from my
+window."</p>
+
+<p>"What! do you look for sense in 'moon-struck madness'?
+No; I shall go down to my scented garden. I have a fancy I
+cannot conquer to walk into that tiny flame-white path of moonlight
+over there near the hedge. Do you see it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Well, go, if Titania calls you, but soon return, and
+bring me a lily,&mdash;I, too, have a fancy, you see,&mdash;a tall lily,
+fresh with dew and moonshine."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have the tallest, the prettiest I can find," says
+Kit from the doorway, where she stands framed unknowingly,
+looking such a slender, ethereal creature, with eyes too large
+for her small face, that Monica, with a sudden pang of fear,
+goes swiftly up to her, and, pressing her to her heart, holds her
+so for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I know what you are thinking now," says Kit, with another
+laugh,&mdash;"that I shall die early."</p>
+
+<p>"Kit! Kit!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Isn't it strange? I can read most people's thoughts.
+But be happy about me. I look fragile, I know, but I shall
+not die until I am quite a respectable age. Not a hideous age,
+you will understand, but with my hair and my teeth intact. One
+keeps one's hair until forty, doesn't one?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I'm not forty," says Monica. "But
+hurry, hurry out of the garden, because the dew is falling."</p>
+
+<p>Down the dark staircase, through the darker halls, into the
+brilliant moonlight, goes Kit. The wind, soft as satin, plays
+about her pretty brows and nestles through her hair, rewarding
+itself thus for its enforced quiet of an hour ago. Revelling
+in the freedom she has gained, Kit enters the garden and
+looks lovingly around upon her companions,&mdash;the flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Who would sleep when beauty such as this is flung broadcast
+upon the earth, waiting for man to feast his slothful eyes
+upon it?
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lingeringly, tenderly, Kit passes by each slumbering
+blossom, or gazes into each drowsy bell, until the moonlit
+patch of grass she had pointed out to Monica is at last reached.
+Here she stands in shadow, glancing with coy delight at the
+fairyland beyond. Then she plunges into it, and looks a
+veritable fairy herself, slim, and tall, and beautiful, and more
+than worthy of the wand she lacks.</p>
+
+<p>Walking straight up her silver path, she goes to where the
+lilies grow, in a bed close by the hedge. But, before she
+comes to them, she notes in the hedge itself a wild convolvulus,
+and just a little beyond it a wild dog-rose, parent of all roses.
+She stays to pluck them, and then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Kit," says a voice subdued and low, but so distinct as to
+sound almost in her ear.</p>
+
+<p>She starts, and then looks eagerly around her, but nothing
+can she see. Was it a human voice, or a call from that old
+land that held great Zeus for its king? A message from
+Olympus it well might be, on such a night as this, when all
+things breathe of old enchantment and of mystic lore. Almost
+she fears yet hopes to see a sylvan deity peep out at her from
+the escalonia yonder, or from the white-flowered, sweetly-perfumed
+syringa in that distant corner,&mdash;Pan the musical, perhaps,
+with his sweet pipes, or a yet more stately god, the
+beautiful Apollo, with his golden lyre. Oh for the chance of
+hearing such godlike music, with only she herself and the pale
+Diana for an audience!</p>
+
+<p>Perchance the gods have, indeed, been good to her, and
+sent her a special messenger on this yellow night. Fear forgotten,
+in the ecstasy of this hope, the strange child stands
+erect, and waits with eager longing for a second summons.</p>
+
+<p>And it comes, but alas! in a fatally earthly tone that ruins
+her fond hope forever.</p>
+
+<p>"Kit, it is I. Listen to me," says some one, and then a
+hole in the hedge is cleared, and Mr. Desmond, stepping
+through it, enters the moonlit patch, flushed but shamelessly
+unembarrassed.</p>
+
+<p>Kit, pale with disappointment, regards him silently with no
+gentle glance.</p>
+
+<p>"And to think," she says, at length, with slow scorn, looking
+him up and down with measureless contempt,&mdash;"to think I
+was mad enough to believe for one long moment that you
+might be Apollo, and that your voice was a cry from Parnassus!"</p>
+
+<p>At which, I regret to say, Mr. Desmond gives way to most
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+unseemly mirth. "I never dreamed I should attain to such
+glory," he says. "I feel like 'the rapt one of the godlike forehead.'"</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>may</i>," says the younger Miss Beresford, who has
+awakened from the dim dusk of "faerie lands forlorn" to the
+clearer light of earth. "You may," witheringly, "<i>feel</i> like it,
+but you certainly don't <i>look</i> like it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not complete, I know that," says Mr. Desmond still
+full of unholy enjoyment. "I lack 'bright Apollo's lute strung
+with his hair;' but if you will wait a moment I will run back to
+Coole and get the nearest thing to it."</p>
+
+<p>He turns as if to fulfil his words, but Kit stops him.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go," she says, laughing gayly, now herself. "Even
+the very original lute would not transform you into a god.
+Stay if you want to. After all, now I am again in my senses,
+I daresay you are as good to talk to as a heathen deity."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," says Mr. Desmond, humbly. "They always
+thundered when they spoke: so think how imposing and convincing
+their arguments must have been!"</p>
+
+<p>"Horrid, <i>I</i> should think," says Kit. "And now tell me
+what brought you here?"</p>
+
+<p>This is abrupt, but, taking her in her own mood, Desmond
+answers, bluntly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Monica."</p>
+
+<p>"She <i>told</i> you to come?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. But I want to see her."</p>
+
+<p>"She has gone to her room."</p>
+
+<p>"Make her leave it again. Tell her I cannot rest until I
+see her; tell her anything; only bring her to me for even one
+short moment."</p>
+
+<p>"But it is some time since I left her: perhaps she is in
+bed."</p>
+
+<p>"But not asleep yet, surely. She loves <i>you</i>, Kit: induce
+her, then, to come to her window, that I may even catch
+a glimpse of her, if I may not speak with her. But she
+cannot be in bed; it is so early," says Mr. Desmond, desperately.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says Kit, relenting, and striving to forget the
+blank occasioned by the substitution of an ordinary Desmond
+for an extraordinary deity, "I'll see what can be done."</p>
+
+<p>"You will," eagerly, "really?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, really. I will stand your friend," say Kit, solemnly,
+feeling now that, even if the old gods have denied her an
+intimate acquaintance with them, still they have devoted her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+to the service of Cupid, and have secretly commanded her to
+help on the machinations of his naughty little highness.</p>
+
+<p>"Then will you tell her I want to see her&mdash;<i>here, now</i>&mdash;for
+only a bare second if she so wills it? Will you tell her this
+from me? Dear Kit, <i>sweet</i> Kit, I entreat you to do this."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! how sweet I am when you want me to do something
+for you!" says she, with a little smile. "There! I can see
+through you as clearly as though you were crystal; but I like
+you all the same. You must have some good in you to fall in
+love with my Monica."</p>
+
+<p>"Others can fall in love with her, too," returns he, with
+moody jealousy.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes! I saw that," says Kit, lifting her hands excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Who could fail to see it? Who could fail to love her?"
+says Desmond, sadly. Then, being in such very poor case,
+and looking sorrowfully for comfort from any source, however
+small, he says, nervously,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Kit, answer me truthfully&mdash;you have sworn to be my
+friend: tell me, then, which do <i>you</i> count the better man,&mdash;him,
+or me?"</p>
+
+<p>But that a sense of honor forbids him to pry into his love's
+secret thoughts, he would have asked whom <i>she</i> counted the
+better man.</p>
+
+<p>"You," says Kit, calmly. "I have no doubt about it. I
+<i>hate</i> fat men, and&mdash;and so does Monica. I have heard her say
+so, over and over again.<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Kit! what a dear little girl you are!" says Mr.
+Desmond, with grateful fervor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm glad you like me," says Kit, "because"&mdash;frankly&mdash;"I
+like you. It was very good of you to lend that
+gun to Terry; I haven't forgotten that, though, goodness
+knows, I only hope he won't do himself to death with it"
+(she delights in old-world phrases such as this); "and I like
+you, too, for loving Monica. Isn't she&mdash;" laying her hand
+upon his arm, and looking trustfully into his eyes,&mdash;"<i>isn't</i> she
+pretty?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is like an angel," says Desmond, feeling all his
+heart go out to the fragile, ethereal-looking child before him,
+as he listens to her praises of her sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Or a saint, perhaps. Monica is a saintly name. Was
+she not the mother of St. Augustine?" says Kit, quickly.
+After the old gods, passion for the saints, and their lilies and
+roses and fiery trials, animates her childish bosom. "Oh!
+and that reminded me," she says: "she told me to bring her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+in a lily, fresh with dew,&mdash;one of those lilies over there in that
+dark corner. Do you see them,&mdash;tall and white?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see. Let me pick one for her. Here, take it to her,
+and," laying his lips upon it, "<i>this</i> with it."</p>
+
+<p>"I will. And now let me run in and try my utmost to
+persuade her to come out here. But," doubtfully, as she
+remembers how Monica refused with studied coldness to meet
+his parting glance at the Barracks a few hours ago, "do not
+be too sure of her coming. She <i>may</i> refuse, you know. She
+is peculiar in many ways, and she thinks herself bound in
+honor to Aunt Priscilla not to look at you. But stay here,
+just in this spot, and think all the time that I am doing my
+very best for you."</p>
+
+<p>Her little face is so earnest as she says all this, so fearful
+that he may have to endure disappointment, that he is greatly
+touched. Pushing back her hair from her forehead with both
+hands, he lays a light but loving kiss upon her brow.</p>
+
+<p>"Go, my best friend. I trust all to you," he says, after
+which the slender sprite springs away from him, and, entering
+the shadows beyond, is soon lost to him.</p>
+
+<p>Reaching the house, she mounts the stairs with swift but
+silent footsteps, and, after a nervous hesitation before the door
+of her aunt Priscilla's room, finds herself once again face to
+face with Monica.</p>
+
+<p>That pretty cause of all this plotting is not in bed, as Kit
+had predicted might be the case. She is not even undressed.
+She has only exchanged her azure gown for a loose white
+morning robe, long and trailing, and lavishly trimmed at the
+throat and wrists with some rare old Mechlin lace that Aunt
+Penelope had given her a week ago, glad in the thought that
+it may perchance add another charm to the beauty of her
+darling.</p>
+
+<p>Her hair is rolled up in a small, soft knot behind; her
+face is a little pale; her eyes, large and luminous, have great
+heavy shadows lying beneath them, suggestive of fatigue and
+tiring thought. Altogether, she is looking as lovely as any
+heart can desire.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you have returned!" she says, as Kit enters. "How
+long you have been! I gave you up. I thought some pixy
+had become enamoured of you and had carried you off to his
+kingdom."</p>
+
+<p>"I was in danger of nothing so insignificant as a pixy.
+It was the great Apollo's self I feared," says Kit, with a sly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+humorous smile. "And here is your lily: <i>he</i> sent it to you
+with his love and a kiss."</p>
+
+<p>"Apollo?" smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes. Who else could it be at this hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yet there is something strange in your manner."</p>
+
+<p>"That is as it should be. On such a night as this, how
+could one escape a little touch of that <span class="s_corr" title="">'</span>moonstruck madness'
+I spoke of a while since? Go out yourself, walk through that
+moonlit garden just where I walked, to where in that corner
+over the rays melt into shadow, and try if there be nothing in
+it to make your heart beat faster.<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span></p>
+
+<p>"I could do it, and return calm as I am now."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are no true woman."</p>
+
+<p>"What! must a woman be so foolishly romantic as to
+tremble in the moonlight, to be true?"</p>
+
+<p>"Moonlights differ. There is a witchery abroad to-night.
+Go, and judge for yourself if there be not truth in my words."</p>
+
+<p>"I can see enough of it from this," says Monica, leaning
+her bare snowy arms&mdash;from which her loose sleeves have
+fallen&mdash;upon the window-ledge, and turning her eyes to the
+pale sky studded with bright stars, "to bewitch me, if indeed
+it has the power you ascribe to it."</p>
+
+<p>Foiled in her first effort to send her to Desmond's arms,
+Kit flings herself upon the ground beside her, and lays her
+arms upon her lap and looks lovingly but reproachfully into
+her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you were a little unkind to that dear Brian this
+evening," she says.</p>
+
+<p>"That dear Brian will recover from my cruel treatment, I
+make no doubt," says Monica, with affected lightness, though,
+in truth, remorse is gnawing at her heartstrings.</p>
+
+<p>"If he does, he will show his very good sense. He loves
+you: why, then, do you <i>flout</i> and scorn him?"</p>
+
+<p>In the ancient library below, the young ladies in the novels
+always <i>flouted</i> their lovers. Not having the faintest idea how
+they perform this arduous task, Kit still adopts the word as
+having a sonorous sound, and uses it now with&mdash;as she hopes&mdash;great
+effect.</p>
+
+<p>"I do <i>not</i> flout him," says Monica, indignantly. "But
+what am I to do? am I to make Aunt Priscilla wretched, then,
+because of him, and break her poor heart perhaps?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, bother her heart!" says the younger Miss Beresford,
+with more candor than decency: "think of <i>his</i> poor
+heart, if you like, wasting and wearing away because of your
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+unkindness. If <i>I</i> had a lover, that is not how I should treat
+him. I should do anything in the world he asked me. I
+should defy everybody in the world for him, and think them
+well lost. I should run away with him at a moment's notice
+if he asked me. <i>Now!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Kit!" says Monica, aghast at all this energy.</p>
+
+<p>"I should indeed," nothing daunted; "I shouldn't
+hesitate. And, at all events, I should be civil to him at all
+times. Why, the way you treated that wretched young man
+to-day at Clonbree Barracks was, I consider, shameful! And
+you call yourself, I dare say, soft-hearted. To <i>look</i> at you,
+one would think you couldn't be unkind if you tried; and yet
+the <i>barbarity</i> of your conduct to-day, to a person who literally
+worships the ground you walk on, was&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But what did I do?" interrupts poor Monica, trembling
+before this whirlwind.</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>didn't</i> you do? you mean. You would not even
+grant him one kind parting glance. I could have <i>cried</i> for him,
+he looked so sad and forlorn. I think he looked like suicide,&mdash;I
+do, indeed,&mdash;and I shouldn't wonder a bit if in the morning
+we heard&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Kit, don't! <i>don't!</i><span class="s_corr" title="">"</span> says Monica, in an agony, as this
+awful insinuation gains force with her.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I won't then," says the advocate, pretending to
+surrender her point by adroitly changing her front. A very
+Jesuit at soul is this small Kit. "After all, I daresay he will
+grow tired of your incivility, and so&mdash;forget you. Some one
+else will see how dear a fellow he is, and smile upon him, and
+then he will give you up."</p>
+
+<p>This picture, being in Monica's eyes even <i>more</i> awful than
+the former, makes great havoc in her face, rendering her eyes
+large and sorrowful, and, indeed, so suffused with the heart's
+water that she seems upon the very verge of tears. She turns
+these wet but lovely orbs upon her tormentor.</p>
+
+<p>"That would be the best thing he could do for <i>himself</i>," she
+says, so sadly that Kit insensibly creeps closer to her; "and
+as for me, it doesn't matter about me, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Monica, you like him, then," says Kit, suddenly, rising on
+her knees and looking into her sister's averted eyes. "I am
+sure of it: I know it now. Why did you not confide in me before?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it seems all so hopeless; even&mdash;if I loved him
+enough to marry him&mdash;<i>they</i> would never give in" (meaning,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+presumably, her aunts): "so why should he or I waste time
+over so impossible a theory?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should it be impossible? Why should you not be
+married?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because the fates are against us. Not," quickly, "that
+<i>that</i> so much matters: I don't want to marry <i>anybody</i>! But&mdash;but,"
+lowering her lids, "I do want him to <i>love</i> me."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child, talk sense if you talk at all," says the
+material Kit. "There never yet was a heroine in any novel
+ever read by me (and I have had a large experience) who
+didn't want to marry the man of her heart. Now just look at
+that girl of Rhoda Broughton's, in 'Good-by, Sweetheart!'
+We can all see she didn't die of any disease, but simply because
+she couldn't be wedded to the man she loved. <i>There's</i> a girl
+for you! give <i>me</i> a girl like that. If ever I fall in love with a
+man, and I find I can't marry him, I shall make a point of dying
+of grief. It is so graceful; just like what I have heard of
+Irving and Ellen Terry&mdash;I mean, Romeo and Juliet!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't bear to deceive Aunt Priscilla," says Monica.
+"She is so kind, so good."</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff and nonsense!" says Kit promptly. "Do you suppose,
+when Aunt Priscilla was young, she would have deserted&mdash;let
+us say&mdash;Mr. Desmond the elder, at the beck and call of
+any one? She has too much spirit, to do her credit. Though
+I must say her spirit is rather out of place now, at times."</p>
+
+<p>"What would you have me do, then?" asks Monica, desperately.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing," says Kit, airily,&mdash;"really <i>nothing</i>. I am
+too young, of course, to give advice," with a little vicious toss
+of her small head. "And of course, too, I know nothing of
+the world's ways," with another toss, that conveys to her auditor
+the idea that she believes herself thoroughly versed and
+skilled in society's lore, but that as yet she is misunderstood.
+"And it is not my place, of course, to dictate to an elder
+sister." This severely, and evidently intended as a slap at
+Monica because of some little rebuke delivered by her, the
+other day, on the subject of age. "But," with concentrated
+energy, "I would not be <i>brutal</i>, if I were you."</p>
+
+<p>"Brutal?" faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, <i>brutal</i>, to keep him waiting for you all this time in
+the shadow near the ivy wall!"</p>
+
+<p>Having discharged this shell, she waits in stony silence for
+a reply. She waits some time. Then
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Are you speaking of&mdash;of Mr. Desmond?" asks Monica,
+in a trembling voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He is standing there now, and has been, for&mdash;oh,
+for hours,&mdash;on the bare chance of gaining one word from you."</p>
+
+<p>"Now?" starting.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He said he would wait until I had persuaded you
+to go out. If I had such a lover, I know I should not keep
+him waiting for me all the evening <i>shivering</i> with cold."</p>
+
+<p>(It is the balmiest of summer nights.)</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! what shall I do?" says Monica, torn in two between
+her desire to be true to her aunt and yet not unkind to her
+lover.</p>
+
+<p>"As I said before," says the resolute Kit, turning her small
+pale face up to her sister, "I know I am not entitled to dictate
+to any one, but this I know, too, that if I were you, and <i>twenty</i>
+Aunt Priscillas were at my side, I should still&mdash;go to him!
+There!"</p>
+
+<p>She conquers. Monica rises slowly, and as a first move in
+the desired direction goes&mdash;need I say it?&mdash;to the looking-glass.
+Need I say, also, that she feels dissatisfied with her appearance?</p>
+
+<p>"Then I suppose I had better dress myself all over again,"
+she says, glancing with much discontent at the charming vision
+the glass returns to her.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" says Kit, decidedly. She has now arranged
+herself as Mistress of the Ceremonies, and quite gives herself
+airs. "Do not add even a touch to your toilet. You are
+quite too sweet as you are, and 'time presses'" (another quotation
+from one of her mouldy volumes).</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>this</i>," says Monica, plucking at her pretty loose gown,
+that hangs in limp artistic folds round her slight figure and is
+pranked out with costly laces.</p>
+
+<p>"It is perfect! Have you no eyes for the beautiful? There,
+go, you silly child; Nature has been so good to you, you now
+deride her prodigality, and make little of the gifts she has
+bestowed upon you. Go to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious!" says Monica, pausing to stare at her
+aghast. "Where did you learn all that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is in a book below; I learned it by heart, to say it to
+you some day, and now I have done it. There, be quick! He
+will be <i>gone</i> if you don't make haste. His patience by this time
+must be exhausted. Think what he has been enduring; I
+only hope he hasn't fainted from sheer fatigue, that's all!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Will you stay here till I come back," says Monica, nervously,
+"or will you come with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall stay here; and don't hurry on my account. I
+shall be quite happy with this lamp and your Chaucer. There,
+go now; and tell him I sent you. And," mischievously, "don't
+be civil to him, you know, but rate him soundly for presuming
+to disturb your worship at this hour."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! if any one sees me!" says Monica, quaking.</p>
+
+<p>"You will never get hanged for a big crime," returns Kit,
+laughing; and then Monica steps out lightly, fearfully, upon
+the corridor outside, and so, with her heart dying within her,
+creeps past her aunt's doors, and down the wide staircase, and
+through the hall, and at last into the silver moonlight!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Monica with faltering footsteps enters the mysterious moonlight,
+and how she fares therein.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>What a noise the tiny gravel makes beneath her feet, as
+she hurries rapidly towards the garden! How her heart beats!
+Oh that she were back again in her pretty safe room, with the
+naughty Kit to scold! Oh, if Aunt Priscilla were to rise, and,
+looking out of her bedroom window, catch a glimpse of her, as
+she hastes to meet the man she has been forbidden to know!
+A thousand terrors possess her. The soft beauty of the night
+is unseen, the rushing of sweet brooks in the distance is unheard.
+She hurries on, a little, lithe, frightened figure, with
+wide eyes and parted lips, to the rendezvous she has not sought.
+And what a little way it had seemed in the glad daylight, yet
+what a journey in the silent, fearsome night! There are real
+tears, born of sheer nervousness, in her beautiful eyes, as she
+runs along the garden path, and at last&mdash;<i>at last</i>&mdash;finds herself
+face to face with Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you have come!" cries he, gladly, going to meet her
+while yet she is a long way off.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." She can say no more, but her fear has departed
+at sight of him, and once more she grows calm, collected, and
+mistress of herself. She keeps well away from him, however,
+and holds out to him&mdash;that "white wonder"&mdash;her hand, from
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+a very great distance, as it seems to him. Does she distrust
+him, then? Thinking of this, Brian takes the extended hand,
+and holds it in a clasp that though tender is light, and refrains
+with much forbearance from pressing his lips to it.</p>
+
+<p>"To come <i>here</i>, and at this hour! It is madness!" says
+Monica, hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"A very blessed madness, then, and with method in it: it
+has enabled me to see <i>you</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do not talk like that. You ought not to see me at
+all. And, now, what is it? Kit said you wanted me sadly."</p>
+
+<p>"And so I do, and not only now but always."</p>
+
+<p>"If," reproachfully, "it is nothing pressing, would not to-morrow
+have done?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow never comes. There is nothing like to-day;
+and how could I have lived till to-morrow? I could not sleep,
+I could not rest, until I had seen you. My heart seemed on
+fire. Monica, how could you have treated me as you did to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>She is silent. The very fact of her not answering convinces
+him her coldness at the Barracks was intentional, and
+his tone takes an additional sadness as he speaks again.</p>
+
+<p>"You meant it then?" he says. "You would not throw me
+even one poor glance. If you could only look into my heart,
+and read how cruelly I felt your unkindness, you might&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what you mean," says Monica. "Why should
+you talk of unkindness? Why should I be kinder to you than to
+another?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of your grace alone; I know that," says the young man,
+humbly. He has paid court to many a town-bred damsel before
+this, and gained their smiles too, and their sighs; yet now
+he sues to this cold child as he never sued before, and knows
+his very soul is set on her good will.</p>
+
+<p>"Why must you choose me to love,&mdash;<i>me</i>, of all the world?"
+says Monica, tremulously: "it is wide, there are others&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I must. It is my fate, and I am glad of it.
+Whom worthier could I love?" says the lover, with fond, passionate
+reverence.</p>
+
+<p>"Many, no doubt. And why love at all? Let us be
+friends, then, if it is indeed decreed that our lives meet&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There could never be mere friendship between you and
+me. If your heart sleeps, at least your sense must tell you
+that."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then I could wish myself without sense. I want to know
+nothing about it<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span> Alas! how sad a thing is love!"</p>
+
+<p>"And how joyous! It is the one emotion to be fed and
+fostered. 'All others are but vanity.' I will persist in loving
+you until I die."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a foolish saying; and, even if you do, what will
+come of it all?" says Monica, with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Marriage, I trust," returns he, right cheerily. "Because,
+to give you another example of love's endurance, and to quote
+old Southey to you, I will tell you that he says,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4"><span class="s_corr" title="&quot;">'</span>It is indestructable;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its holy flame forever burneth:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.<span class="s_corr" title="&quot;">'</span><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>but not yet awhile, I hope."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a special pleader," says she, with a sudden smile.</p>
+
+<p>"For the cause that I plead I would that I were a more
+eloquent advocate."</p>
+
+<p>"You are eloquent enough," glancing at him for a moment,
+and then again turning away from him; "too eloquent," she
+says, with a little sigh.</p>
+
+<p>He is still holding her hands, but now he does not speak or
+answer her in any wise. A silence falls upon them, calm as
+the night. In "full orbed glory" the moon above sails through
+the skies.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A dewy freshness fills the silent air;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Breaks the serene of heaven."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"There is one thing I must say, Monica," says the young
+man at last, lifting her face gently with one hand until her eyes
+look into his own: "remember, my life is in your hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not overburden me," she answers, but in so low a
+voice that it can scarce be heard<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span> Yet <i>he</i> hears.</p>
+
+<p>"My darling, must I be a burden to you?" he says.
+"Monica, if this my courtship is hateful to you, or more than
+you can bear, dismiss me now, and I will go from you, no matter
+what it costs me."</p>
+
+<p>"You are no true lover, to talk like that," she says, with a
+shadowy smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I am lover enough to wish you no pain or weariness of
+spirit."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt you are too good for me," she answers with a little
+burst of feeling.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I must be a paragon indeed if that be so," returns he.
+"Oh, Monica, if you could only love me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>dare</i> not." Then, as though sorry for these words, she
+holds out her hands to him, and says, with a quick smile, "Oh,
+Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I knew," returns he sadly. "Yet if I were sure of
+one thing I should not despair. Monica, tell me you don't like
+Ryde."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't," says Monica. "He is very kind to me always.
+I am sure I ought to like him."</p>
+
+<p>"How has he been kind to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, in many ways."</p>
+
+<p>"He has brought you a cup of somebody else's tea, I suppose,
+and has probably trotted after you with a camp-stool; is
+that kindness?"</p>
+
+<p>"If one is hot or tired, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You are one of the most grateful specimen of your sex. I
+wish there was anything for which you might be grateful to me.
+But I am not great at the <i>petits soins</i> business."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't have thought so this afternoon," says Monica,
+maliciously, "when you were happy with Olga Bohun. But
+see, the moon has risen quite above the elms. I must go."</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet. There is something else. When am I to see
+you again?&mdash;when?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is as fate wills it."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> are my fate. Will it, then, and say to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" exclaims she, releasing her hands from his, "I
+cannot indeed. I <i>must</i> not. In being here with you now I
+am doing wrong, and am betraying the two people in the world
+who are most kind to me. How shall I look into their eyes
+to-morrow? No; I will not promise to meet you anywhere&mdash;<i>ever</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"How tender you are with them, and with me how cruel!"</p>
+
+<p>"You have many joys in your life, but they how few!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are wrong there. The world has grown useless to
+me since I met you. You are my one joy, and you elude me;
+therefore pity me too."</p>
+
+<p>"Who made you so gracious a courtier?" asks she, with a
+little shrug of her rounded shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you cast scorn upon me," says Desmond, half angrily,
+and as he says it the thought of Kit's word <i>flout</i> comes to
+her, and she smiles. It is an idle thought, yet it is with difficulty
+she cleaves to the less offensive smiles and keeps herself
+from laughing aloud.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why should I do that?" she says, a little saucily. Indeed,
+she knows this young man to be so utterly in her power&mdash;and
+power is so sweet when first acquired, and so prone to
+breed <a class="corr" name="TC_35" id="TC_35" title="tryanny">tyranny</a>&mdash;that she hardly turns aside to meditate upon
+the pain she may be causing him.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," a little sadly; then, "Monica<span class="s_corr" title="">,</span> you like
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I like you," says Miss Beresford, as she might have
+answered had she been questioned as to her opinion of an
+aromatic russet.</p>
+
+<p>Repressing a gesture of impatience, Desmond goes on
+calmly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Better than Ryde?"</p>
+
+<p>"Than Mr. Ryde?" She stops and glances at the gravel at
+her feet in a would-be thoughtful fashion, and pushes it to and
+fro with her pretty Louis Quinze shoe. She pauses purposely,
+and makes quite an affair of her hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Ryde," says he, impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"How can I answer that?" she says, at length, with studied
+deliberation, "when I know so little of either him&mdash;or
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>His indignation increases.</p>
+
+<p>"Knowing us both at <i>least</i> equally well, you must have
+formed by this time some opinion of us."</p>
+
+<p>"I should indeed," says the young girl, slowly, always with
+her eyes upon the gravel<span class="s_corr" title=";">;</span> "but unfortunately it never occurred
+to me,&mdash;the vital necessity of doing so, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>Though her head is still bent, he can detect the little
+amused smile that is curving her mobile lips. There can be
+small doubt but that she is enjoying his discomfiture immensely.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly there is no reason why <i>you</i> should waste a
+thought on either him or me," he returns, stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>"No; and yet I do waste one on&mdash;<i>you</i>&mdash;sometimes," says
+she, with a gleam of tenderness, and a swift glance from under
+her long lashes that somehow angers him intensely.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a coquette," he says, quietly. There is contempt
+both in his look and tone. As she hears it, she suddenly lifts
+her head, and, without betraying chagrin, regards him steadfastly.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so?" she says. "Sometimes I have <i>thought</i> it,
+but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The unmistakable hope her pause contains angers him
+afresh.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If you covet the unenviable title," he says, bitterly, "be
+happy. You can lay just claim to it. You are more than
+worthy of it."</p>
+
+<p>"You flatter me," she says, letting a glance so light rest
+upon him that it seems but the mere quiver of her eyelids.</p>
+
+<p>"I meant no flattery, believe me."</p>
+
+<p>"I do believe you: I quite understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite, I think," exclaims he, the sudden coldness of
+her manner frightening him into better behavior. "If&mdash;if I
+have said anything to offend you, I ask your forgiveness."</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing to forgive, indeed, and you have failed
+to offend me. But," slowly, "you have made me very sorry
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Sorry?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, for your most unhappy temper. It is quite the
+worst, I think, I have ever met with. <i>Good</i>-night Mr. Desmond:
+pray be careful when going through that hedge again;
+there are some rose-trees growing in it, and thorns do hurt so
+dreadfully."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, she gathers up her white skirts, and, without a
+touch of her hand, or even a last glance, flits like a lissome
+ghost across the moonlit paths of the garden, and so is gone.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Kit reads between the lines&mdash;How the Misses Blake show themselves
+determined to pursue a dissipated course, and how Monica is led astray
+by an apt pupil of Machiavelli.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Early next morning Bridget, Monica's maid, enters Kit's
+room in a somewhat mysterious fashion. Glancing all round
+the room furtively, as though expecting an enemy lying in
+ambush behind every chair and table, she says, in a low, cautious
+tone,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A letter for you, miss."</p>
+
+<p>As she says this, she draws a note from beneath her apron,
+where, in her right hand, it has been carefully hidden,&mdash;<i>so</i>
+carefully, indeed, that she could not have failed to create suspicion
+in the breast of a babe.</p>
+
+<p>"For me," says Kit, off her guard for once.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, miss."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Who brought it?"</p>
+
+<p>"A bit of a gossoon, miss, out there in the yard beyant.
+An' he wouldn't give me his name; but sure I know him well
+for a boy of the Maddens', an' one of the Coole people. His
+father, an' his gran'father before him, were laborers with the
+ould Squire."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, indeed!" says Kit. By this time she has recovered
+her surprise and her composure. "Thank you, Bridget," she
+says, with quite a grandiloquent air: "put it there, on that
+table. It is of no consequence, I dare say: you can go."</p>
+
+<p>Bridget&mdash;who, like all her countrywomen, dearly likes a
+love-affair, and is quite aware of young Mr. Desmond's passion
+for her mistress&mdash;is disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>"The gossoon said he was to wait for an answer, miss,"
+she says, insinuatingly. "An' faix," waxing confidential, "I
+think I caught sight of the coat-tails of Misther Desmond's
+man outside the yard gate."</p>
+
+<p>"You should never think on such occasions, Bridget; and
+coat-tails are decidedly <i>low</i>," says the younger Miss Beresford,
+with scathing reproof.</p>
+
+<p>"They weren't very low, miss. He wore one o' them cutaway
+coats," says Bridget, in an injured tone.</p>
+
+<p>"You fail to grasp my meaning," says Kit, gravely. "However,
+let it pass. If this note requires an answer, you can
+wait in the next room until I write it."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, miss," says the discomfited Bridget; and Kit,
+finding herself in another moment alone, approaches the table,
+and with a beating heart takes up the note. "It is&mdash;it <i>must</i>
+be from Brian!"</p>
+
+<p>The plot thickens; and <i>she</i> has been selected to act a foremost
+part in it! She is to be the confidante,&mdash;the tried and
+trusted friend; without her aid all the fair edifice Cupid is
+erecting would crumble into dust.</p>
+
+<p>And is there no danger, too, to be encountered,&mdash;perhaps
+to be met and overcome? If perchance all be discovered,&mdash;if
+Aunt Priscilla should suddenly be apprised of what is now
+going on beneath her very spectacles,&mdash;will not she,&mdash;Kit,&mdash;in
+her character of "guide, philosopher, and friend" to the
+culprits, come in for a double share of censure? Yes, truly
+there are breakers ahead, and difficulties to be overcome.
+There is joy and a sense of heroism in this thought; and she
+throws up her small head defiantly, and puts out one foot with
+quite a martial air, as it comes to her.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then she tears open the envelope, and reads as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Little Kit</span>,&mdash;Owing you all the love and allegiance
+in the world for having helped me once, I come to you again.
+How am I to pass this long day without a glimpse of <i>her</i>? It
+is a love-sick swain who doth entreat your mercy. Does
+any happy thought run through your pretty head? If so, my
+man is waiting for it somewhere; befriend me a second time.</p>
+
+<p class="sig sig1">
+"Ever yours,<br />
+"<span class="smcap">Brian.</span><span class="s_corr" title="">"</span><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Prompt action is as the breath of her nostrils to Kit. Drawing
+pen and ink towards her, without a moment's hesitation,
+she scribbles an answer to Desmond:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p>"We are going towards Ballyvoureen this afternoon, to
+take a pudding to old Biddy Daly: any one <i>chancing</i> to walk
+there also might meet us. Count upon me always.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span><span class="smcap">Kit.</span>"<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This Machiavellian epistle, which she fondly believes to be
+without its equal in the matter of depth, she folds carefully,
+and, enclosing it in an envelope void of address or anything
+(mark the astuteness of <i>that</i>!), calls to Bridget to return to
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"You will find the boy you mentioned as being by birth a
+Madden," she says, austerely, "and give him this; and you
+will refrain from gossiping and idle talking with him, which is
+not convenient."</p>
+
+<p>It would be impossible to describe the tone in which she
+says this. Bridget, much disgusted, takes the note silently,
+and with sufficient nervousness to make itself known. Indeed,
+she is so plainly impressed by Kit's eloquence that the latter's
+heart sings aloud for joy.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, miss," she says, in a very subdued voice, and goes
+away with indignant haste, to tell cook, as she passes through
+the kitchen, that "Faix, Miss Kit might be her own gran'mother,&mdash;she
+is so ould an' quare in her ways."</p>
+
+<p>Kit meantime goes in search of Monica, with a mind stored
+with crafty arguments for the beguiling of that unconscious
+maiden. Hearing voices in the morning-room, she turns in
+there, and finds the whole family in conclave.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Priscilla is speaking.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I certainly think hospitality of some sort should
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+be shown them," she is saying, with quite an excited flush on
+her dear old ugly face. "We cannot, of course, do much; but
+afternoon tea, now, and some pleasant people to meet them,&mdash;and
+strawberries,&mdash;and a little stroll round the gardens&mdash;eh?
+And, Penelope, you used to be a great hand at claret-cup in our
+dear father's time; and then there is tennis. I really think, you
+know<span class="s_corr" title="">,</span> it might be done."</p>
+
+<p>She quite bridles with pleasure at the bare anticipation. To
+entertain once more,&mdash;again to welcome guests beneath the old
+roof! For many years a nightly game of patience has been the
+sole dissipation the Misses Blake have known, and here of late
+days they have been going hither and thither to dances and
+garden-parties, and have acknowledged to themselves secretly
+that the change is sweet. And now they are actually discussing
+the idea of indulging in wild festivities on their own part!
+Surely these children from Jerusalem have much to answer for!</p>
+
+<p>"Is there going to be a party <i>here</i>, Aunt Priscilla?" asks
+Kit with enlarged eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear, we are debating the possibilities of it,&mdash;just
+the pros and cons," says Miss Priscilla, precisely. "Your
+aunt Penelope agrees with me that some attention is due to
+those young men in Clonbree Barracks."</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to ask Captain Cobbett and Mr. Ryde here!
+Oh, what fun!" cries Kit, seating herself, minus invitation, on
+Miss Priscilla's knee, and twining her arms round her neck.
+"Do you know, when with mother we didn't dare call our souls
+our own; but with you we are having real good old times!
+Aren't we, now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Kit!&mdash;my <i>dear</i> Kit!&mdash;you must not speak so of your
+lost mother," cry the old ladies in a breath, both greatly distressed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I shan't if you don't wish it; but it is true, for all
+that. And so you are really going to ask that big young man
+and his little captain to come here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your Aunt Penelope and I both feel that some hospitality
+should be shown to Her Majesty," says Miss Priscilla, pompously.</p>
+
+<p>"The Queen!" says Kit aghast. "You aren't going to ask
+<i>her</i> to Moyne are you? Windsor is a long way off, and she is
+pretty well on now, you know, and I don't believe she'd come."</p>
+
+<p>"Not personally. But we shall pay her the compliment
+through her trusty servants the marines. Not that we owe her
+much," says Miss Priscilla, shaking her head. "I cannot think
+she has behaved quite fairly towards us in many ways. Never
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+coming to see us, I mean, or sending the prince, or having a
+residence here, or that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Still," breaks in Miss Penelope, coming to Her Majesty's
+relief, with the evident and kindly desire of showing her up in
+a more favorable light, "I have always understood that in private
+life she is a most exemplary woman,&mdash;a blameless wife so
+long as she was allowed to be so, and a most excellent mother."</p>
+
+<p>"And grandmother," chimes in Miss Priscilla, gracefully, as
+though ashamed of her former acrimonious remarks. "From
+what I can glean from the papers, she seems quite devoted to
+those poor little motherless girls of Hesse."</p>
+
+<p>It is quite plain that the Misses Blake regard their sovereign
+more as Victoria and sister than queen and mistress.</p>
+
+<p>"She has sent these men to Clonbree to protect our lives
+and properties in these perilous times," goes on Miss Priscilla,
+in her clear, soft voice, "and so I think we are bound to show
+them any civility in our power."</p>
+
+<p>"More especially the life and property of old Desmond,<span class="s_corr" title="'">"</span>
+says Terry, at this moment, with a noble disregard of consequences.
+He is sitting at a distant window, tying flies, and
+makes this unfortunate remark without the faintest appearance
+of malice prepense. "They say he is running a regular rig
+with his tenants,&mdash;playing old Harry with 'em, in fact," he goes
+on, debonairly; "but they'll stop his little game for him with a
+bullet before long, I shouldn't wonder."</p>
+
+<p>As the forbidden name is thus cavalierly thrown into their
+midst, like a bomb, Monica flushes first a warm crimson and
+then turns cold with fright.</p>
+
+<p>The old ladies stiffen in their chairs, but never a word say
+they; they are too much overcome for ordinary rebuke. Kit,
+however, to whom any excitement is welcome, betrays an open
+admiration for the bold Terence and waits hopefully for what
+may come next.</p>
+
+<p>It is even worse than might be expected. Terence, either
+unaware or careless of the sensation he has produced, closes
+one eye to examine with pleased scrutiny the gaudy fly he has
+just completed, after which he says, with a suggestion of jocoseness
+that under the circumstances is perfectly abominable,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Aunt Priscilla, as Cobbett has been sent to look
+after old Desmond in particular, don't you think, if you entertain
+him, it will be to old Desmond, and <i>not</i> Her Majesty, you
+will be paying attention, after all?"</p>
+
+<p>He stops and smiles blandly. If, indeed, I said a <i>grin</i>
+illuminates his countenance, I might be nearer the truth. It is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
+apparent to everybody that he is <i>jesting</i> on this sacred subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Terry!" says Monica, with a little gasp.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" says Mr. Beresford, amiably, purposely misunderstanding
+the horror of her tone, and looking up as though
+thirsting for the remainder of her speech. It doesn't come.
+Monica, fearful of provoking him to further monstrosities, forbears
+from answer of any kind.</p>
+
+<p>"Terence," says Miss Priscilla, with slow solemnity, "I
+have frequently told you that we object to hearing that detested
+name mentioned in our presence. It offends both your aunt
+Penelope and me. I must again beg that for the future we
+may be spared a repetition of it."</p>
+
+<p>"When I was going to give Tim Daly a sound thrashing for
+his impertinence yesterday, you stopped me and bade me forgive
+my enemies," says Terence, calmly, questioningly. "Why
+don't you forgive old Desmond?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because&mdash;&mdash;That is quite another thing altogether. I
+mean&mdash;&mdash;I&mdash;&mdash;it seems to me&mdash;&mdash;No matter <i>what</i> it seems
+now; we can't discuss it," says Miss Priscilla, making a desperate
+effort to catch the horns of her dilemma and to escape
+from it.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us discuss our party instead," says Kit, cheerfully,
+who is really of the greatest use at times. "When is it to be,
+Aunt Pris?"</p>
+
+<p>"Next week, I suppose," says Miss Penelope, promptly,
+seeing that Miss Priscilla is still too agitated to reply. "And
+I think it would be rather nice to have tea in the orchard."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! how quite too lovely!" says Kit, clasping her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite too utterly consummately, preciously intense?"
+mutters Terence, <i>sotto voce</i>, regarding Kit sideways, who returns
+his rapturous glance with one full of ineffable disdain.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope Michael won't object," says Miss Penelope, nervously.
+Michael is the gardener, and they are all, without exception,
+afraid of him.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, my dear! why should he?" says Miss Priscilla.
+"It isn't because he has been here for years that he is to forbid
+us the use of our own grounds, and of late I consider there
+is great fault to be found with him. Long service should not
+generate neglect, and of late there has not been a good lettuce
+or a respectable dish of asparagus in the garden."</p>
+
+<p>"There wasn't even any thyme last week," says Kit, who
+maintains an undying feud with Michael. "He had to get
+some fresh plants from Cahirmore."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Time was made for slaves," says Terence, meditatively.
+"<i>You</i> aren't a slave, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should hope not," says Kit, icily.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you can't want time: so don't worry that poor old
+man in the garden about it. He hasn't a scythe, or a bald
+head, or a dismal forelock: so he <i>can't</i> know anything about
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"You are so clever," says the younger Miss Beresford, with
+unmixed scorn, "that I wonder something dreadful doesn't happen
+to you."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," says Terence.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, auntie, and whom shall we ask to meet these men
+of war?" says Kit, ignoring him,&mdash;publicly, to his great delight.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose Madam O'Connor and all her party, and the
+Frenches, and Lord Rossmoyne,&mdash;who I hear is still in the
+country,&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;Penelope, my dear, will you sit down and
+write the invitations now for Friday next, as I must get ready
+to go to the coast-guard station? That girl of Mitson's is ill,
+and wants to see me."</p>
+
+<p>Monica rising at this moment to leave the room, Kit follows
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"It is really <i>too</i> amazing," she says, when they find themselves
+in the hall. "To think of their blossoming into a real
+live party! I feel quite overcome."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," says Monica, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"There is only one drawback to it," says Kit, softly: "I
+am <i>so</i> sorry Brian can't be asked."</p>
+
+<p>Monica flushes furiously, and swerves away from her somewhat
+impatiently; but reply she makes none.</p>
+
+<p>"There are cobwebs in my brain," says Kit, raising her
+hands languidly to her head, with the oppressed air of one who
+is bravely struggling with a bad headache. "I think I shall
+go for a walk to Biddy Daly's to try and rout them. I promised
+her old mother a pudding the last day I was there, and to-day
+cook has it ready for me. Will you come with me, Monica?
+<i>Do.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Not <a class="corr" name="TC_36" id="TC_36" title="to day">to-day</a>, I think," says Monica, lazily.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you would! I do so <i>hate</i> going anywhere by myself.
+And, somehow, I am half afraid to go alone to-day, I feel&mdash;so&mdash;so
+faint. However," with a resigned sigh, "never mind;
+I dare say if I <i>do</i> drop in a deadly swoon, somebody will pick
+me up."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My dear Kit, if you feel like that, don't go," says Monica,
+naturally alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>"I have promised old Mrs. Daly; I must go," replies Kit,
+with the determination of a Brutus. "If I am not back in time
+for dinner, you will understand what has happened."</p>
+
+<p>This is awful<span class="s_corr" title="?">!</span> Monica turns quite pale.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I shall go with you," she says, hurriedly. "Is
+your head so very bad, darling? How bravely you carried it
+off in there!" pointing towards the morning-room they have
+just left. "However, it would be only like you to hide your
+worries from us, lest they should make us unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>At this, it must be allowed to her credit, Kit feels some
+strong twinges of remorse,&mdash;not enough, however, to compel
+confession.</p>
+
+<p>"It is really hardly worth talking about," she says, alluding
+to the headache; and this, at all events, is the strict truth.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Kit's plot is betrayed, and how a walk that begins gayly ends in gloom.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The road to Mrs. Daly's is full of beauty. On one side of
+it runs Coole, its trees rich with leafy branches; upon the other
+stretches a common, green and soft, with a grand glimpse of
+the ocean far down below it.</p>
+
+<p>"Why walk on the dusty road when those fields are green
+in there?" says Kit, pointing to Coole; and, after a faint
+hesitation, Monica follows her over the wall and into the dark
+recesses of the woods. The grass is knee deep in ferns and
+trailing verdure; great clumps of honeysuckle, falling from
+giant limbs of elm, make the air sweet. Some little way to
+their right&mdash;but where they cannot see because of the prodigality
+of moss and alder and bracken&mdash;a little hidden brook
+runs merrily, making</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Sweet music with th' enamell'd stones,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He overtaketh in his pilgrimage."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Some thought belonging to the past night coming to Kit,
+she turns to Monica with a little laugh.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How silent you have been about last night's adventure!"
+she says. "I watched you from your own window until the
+shadows caught you. You looked like a flitting spirit,&mdash;a&mdash;a
+bhoot."</p>
+
+<p>"A <i>boot</i>!" says Monica, very justly surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," loftily. Kit's educational course, as directed by
+herself, has been of the erratic order, and has embraced many
+topics unknown to Monica. From the political economy of the
+Faroe Isles, it has reached even to the hidden mysteries of Hindostan.</p>
+
+<p>"I must have struck you then as being in my liveliest mood,"
+says Monica, still laughing. "Terry told us yesterday he was
+as gay as old boots. As I looked like <i>one</i>, I suppose I was at
+least half as gay as he was. After all, there is nothing like
+leather, no matter how ancient."</p>
+
+<p>"There's an <i>h</i> in my bhoot," says Kit, with some disgust.
+"Really, the ignorance of some people&mdash;even the <i>nicest</i>&mdash;is, surprising."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why don't you take it out?" says Monica, frivolously.
+"Not that I know in the very least what harm a poor innocent
+letter could do there."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't understand," says Kit, pitifully.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't indeed," says Monica, unabashed.</p>
+
+<p>"A bhoot is an Indian ghost."</p>
+
+<p>"And you thought I looked like an Indian ghost! with a
+turban! and an Afghan! and a scimitar! Oh, Kit! Did I
+really look like the mahogany table beneath the silver moonbeams?
+and did my eyes glitter?"</p>
+
+<p>"What a goose you are!" says Kit, roaring with laughter.
+"No, you looked lovely; but I was reading an Indian story
+yesterday, and it came into my head."</p>
+
+<p>"You read too much," says Monica. "'Much learning will
+make you mad,' if you don't take care. Remember what Lord
+Bacon says, 'Reading maketh a full man.' How would <i>you</i>
+like to be a full woman,&mdash;like Madam O'Connor, for example?"</p>
+
+<p>"Francis Bacon never meant it in that sense," says Kit, indignantly.
+"I really <i>wonder</i> at you Monica."  And, having
+so scolded her idol, she relapses into silence for a considerable
+time.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! what lovely dog-roses!" says Monica, presently,
+<a class="corr" name="TC_37" id="TC_37" title="pionting">pointing</a> to a hanging spray of pink blossoms, satisfying as a
+happy dream. "I <i>must</i> get them."</p>
+
+<p>She springs up a mossy bank as she speaks, regardless of
+the blackberry branches that cross her path, barring her way,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
+and catching viciously at her skirts, as though to hinder her
+progress.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, take care!" cries Kit, forgetting all about Lord
+Bacon in her terror lest her pretty sister shall not show to the
+best advantage in her lover's eyes. "Your gown will be torn.
+Wait, wait, until I set you free from these dreadful thorns."</p>
+
+<p>"'Alas! how full of briers is this working-day-world,'" quotes
+Monica, gayly. "There, now I am all right, and I have got my
+pretty roses into the bargain. Are they not sweet?&mdash;<i>sweet?</i>"
+holding them right under Kit's nose.</p>
+
+<p>"They are, indeed. And, by the by, here we are," pointing
+to a low farmhouse in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>Reaching it, and finding the door as usual open, they enter
+what might be the hall in another house, but is here the kitchen.
+There is no leading up to it. From the moment you cross the
+threshold the kitchen lies before you.</p>
+
+<p>It is a large room, if it may so be called, with a huge fireplace
+in which a dozen fires might be stowed away and forgotten.
+Just now there is a flame somewhere in its blackmost
+depths that cannot possibly annoy these June visitors, as one
+has to search for it to find it.</p>
+
+<p>An old woman, infirm and toothless, yet with all the remains
+of great beauty, sits cowering over this hidden turf fire, mumbling
+to herself, it may be, of golden days now past and gone,
+when she had been the fairest colleen at mass or pattern, and
+had counted her lovers by the score. Yea, those were good
+old times, when the sky was ever blue and all the earth was
+young.</p>
+
+<p>Two young women, sitting near her, but farther from the
+chimney-nook, are gossiping idly, but persistently, in the soft,
+mellifluous brogue that distinguishes the county Cork.</p>
+
+<p>As the Beresford girls enter, these two latter women rise
+simultaneously and courtesy with deep respect. The youngest
+of them, who is so like the handsome old woman in the corner of
+the fireplace as to be unmistakably of kin to her, comes quickly
+forward to greet her visitors with the kindly grace and the
+absence of consciousness that distinguish the Irish peasantry
+when doing the honors of their own homes. This lack of <i>mauvaise
+honte</i> arises perhaps from the fact that they are so honestly
+glad to welcome a guest beneath their roof that they forget
+to be shy or backward.</p>
+
+<p>She makes a slight effort to pull down her tucked-up
+sleeves, and then desists, for which any one with a mind artistic
+should be devoutly grateful, as her arms, brown as they
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>
+are from exposure to the sun, are at least shaped to perfection.
+She is dressed in a maroon-colored skirt and body, the skirt
+so turned up in fishwife fashion (as <i>we</i> wore it some seasons
+ago) that a dark-blue petticoat beneath, of <a class="corr" name="TC_38" id="TC_38" title="come">some</a> coarse description,
+can be distinctly seen.</p>
+
+<p>Her throat is a little bare, arms, as I have said, quite so,
+far up above the elbows. She is stout and comely, with a
+beautiful laughing mouth, and eyes of deepest gray, merry as
+her lips. Outside, lying about, half naked in the warm sunshine,
+are three or four boys with the same eyes and mouth,
+undeniably her children.</p>
+
+<p>"Wisha! 'tis meself's glad to see ye," she says, with a
+beaming smile. "Good luck to yer faces. 'Tis a long time
+now, Miss Beresford, since ye came, or Miss Kit there."</p>
+
+<p>"I promised your mother a pudding, and I have brought
+it," says Kit.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at that, now! <span class="s_corr" title="">'</span>Tis a trouble we are to ye entirely.
+Mother, wake up a bit, an' thank Miss Kit for what she's brought
+ye."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye're too kind, asthore, too kind," mumbles the old woman
+in the corner, turning eyes that are still full of light upon the
+child, "to think of an ould 'ooman now in the grave as it
+might be. Ay, faix! An' the bells a-ringin' too. I can hear
+'em sometimes, when the wind's down&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, mother! the yard (churchyard) will be lonely
+for ye yet awhile," says Mrs. Daly, junior, cheerfully. "See,
+now! taste this: 'twill do ye good. An' you'll sit down, Miss
+Monica, I hope. Take care, honey, till I dust the chair for
+ye." This is dexterously done with the corner of her apron.
+"An' ye'll take a dhrop o' tay too, may be; oh, ye will now, if
+only to plase me, afther yer long walk, an' all to honor the ould
+woman."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, there is Mrs. Moloney!" says Kit, addressing the
+second younger woman, who is a thin little peasant with a somewhat
+discontented expression. "The sun blinded my eyes so
+that I could not see you at first. Have you heard from your
+boy at sea?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, miss. Praises be above! He's doin' well, he
+says; but it's belike I'll never see a sight of his <a class="corr" name="TC_39" id="TC_39" title="handsone">handsome</a> face
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nonsense, now, Mrs. Moloney, me dear! What are
+ye talkin<span class="s_corr" title=",">'</span> like that for?" says young Mrs. Daly, who seems to
+be the parish consoler. "Sure it's back he'll be wid ye before
+the new year."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I <i>hope</i> so," says Monica, softly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis hard to hope, miss, wid the rowling wind o' nights, an'
+the waves dashin' up on the beach."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye're an ould croaker," says Mrs. Daly, giving her a good-humored
+shake, "An' now sit down, Miss Monica an' Miss
+Kit, do, till I get ye the sup o' tay. Mrs. Moloney, me dear,
+jist give the fire a poke, an' make the kittle sing us a song.
+'Tis the music we want most now."</p>
+
+<p>It would have been considered not only a rudeness, but an
+act <i>hauteur</i>, to refuse this simple hospitality: so the girls seat
+themselves, and, indeed, to tell the truth, are rather glad than
+otherwise of this chance of securing their afternoon tea.</p>
+
+<p>"An' how are the old ladies up above?" says Mrs. Daly,
+meaning the Misses Blake.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite well, thank you," says Monica. "It was only
+yesterday Aunt Priscilla was saying she should come down and
+see old Mrs. Daly."</p>
+
+<p>"She's as welcome as the flowers in May whenever she
+comes," says the daughter-in-law. "D'ye hear that, mother?
+Miss Priscilla's comin' to see ye, some day soon. Ay, 'tis a
+good friend she always was to the poor, summer an' winter; an'
+isn't it wondherful now, Miss Monica, how she's kept her
+figure all through? Why," raising her hands with an expressive
+gesture of astonishment, "'twas Friday week I saw her, an' I
+said to meself, says I, she's the figure o' a young girl, I says.
+Ye'll take a taste o' this home-made cake, alanna."</p>
+
+<p>She is made happy forever by Kit's unmistakable enjoyment
+of this last-named luxury.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, she's an iligant figure even now," says Mrs. Moloney,
+in her depressing voice. "But time an' throuble is cruel hard
+on some of us. I had a figure meself when I was young," with
+a heartrending sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye were always slight, me dear, an' ye're slight now too,"
+says Mrs. Daly, tenderly. "I niver see the like o'ye for keepin'
+off the flesh. Why, I remember ye well as a slip o' a girl, before
+yer blessed babby was born, an' ye were a screed, me dear,&mdash;a
+screed."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I was always ginteel," says Mrs. Moloney, openly
+consoled. Still she sighs, and sips her tea with a mournful air.
+Mrs. Daly is drinking hers with much appreciation out of her
+saucer, it being considered discourteous to offer anything to a
+guest without partaking of the same one's self.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment a little cooing sound coming from the other
+corner of the fireplace makes itself heard. Instantly the old
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>
+woman stooping over the turf embers rouses herself, and, turning,
+puts out her withered hand lovingly towards what looks like
+a box covered with colored stuff of some sort. Young Mrs.
+Daly rises too, precipitately and, hurrying across the kitchen,
+bends over the box.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, she's awake sure enough!" says the old woman, who
+has quite brightened into life. "See how she looks at ye, Molly!
+The colleen of the world, she was! asthore machree-sthig."</p>
+
+<p>Many another fond name is muttered, such as "pulse o' my
+heart," and such like, before Mrs. Daly junior emerges from
+the supposed box, but <i>not</i> empty-handed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! it is the baby!" cry Monica and Kit, in a breath.
+"Oh! what a darling baby! and what red, red cheeks, just like
+a June rose!"</p>
+
+<p>It is the only daughter of the house, so the mother is of
+course inordinately proud of it. She places it, with quite a little
+flourish of triumph, in Monica's arms, to Kit's terrible but unspoken
+disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>"She grows prettier every day. She is really the sweetest
+baby I ever saw in my life!" says Monica, enthusiastically, to
+whom babies are an endless joy.</p>
+
+<p>The mother is pleased beyond doubt at these compliments,
+yet a shade of anxiety crosses her brow. To praise a child <i>too</i>
+much in the superstition of these simple folks, is to "overlook"
+it; and when a child is "overlooked" it dies. The smiles fades
+from Mrs. Daly's bonny face, and her mouth grows anxious.</p>
+
+<p>"You should say, 'God bless her,' miss, when ye give her
+the good word," says Mrs. Moloney, timidly, who is also bending
+over the beloved bundle, and notes the distress in her
+neighbor's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"God bless her!" says Monica with pretty solemnity, after
+which the mother's face clears, and sunshine is again restored
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>"I think she knows ye," she says to Monica. "See how
+she blinks at ye! Arrah! look, now, how she clutches at yer
+hand! Will ye come to yer mother now, darlin',&mdash;will ye?
+Sure 'tis starvin' ye must be, by this."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! don't take her yet," says Monica, entreatingly.</p>
+
+<p>A little figure with naked legs and feet, creeping into the
+doorway at this moment, draws near the baby as if fascinated.
+It is Paudheen, the eldest son of the house, and baby's <i>nurse</i>,&mdash;save
+the mark!</p>
+
+<p>"Come nearer, Paddy," says Monica, smiling at him with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
+sweet encouragement; but Paddy stops short and regards her
+doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, then, and kiss your little sister," continues Monica,
+gently; but Paddy is still obdurate, and declines to hearken to
+the charmer, charm she never so wisely. There is, indeed, a
+sad lack both of sweetness and light about Paddy.</p>
+
+<p>"An' what d'ye mane be standin' there, an' niver a word
+out o' ye in answer to the lady, ye ill-mannered caubogue?" cries
+his mother, deeply incensed. The laughter is all gone from her
+face, and her eyes are aflame. "What brought ye in at all, ye
+ugly spalpeen, if ye came without a civil tongue in yer <a class="corr" name="TC_40" id="TC_40" title="hand">head</a>?"</p>
+
+<p>"I came to see the baby an' to get me dinner," says the
+boy, with hanging head, his silence arising more from shyness
+than sullenness. The potatoes have just been lifted from the
+fire by Mrs. Moloney, and are steaming in a distant corner.
+Paudheen looks wistfully towards them.</p>
+
+<p>"Dickens a sign or taste ye'll get, then, if only to tache
+ye better manners. Be off, now, an' don't let me see ye
+agin."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm hungry," says the boy, tears coming into his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mrs. Daly!" says Monica, in a distressed tone.</p>
+
+<p>"A deal o' harm it will do him to be hungry, thin!" says
+the culprit's mother, with an angry voice, but with visible signs
+of relenting in her handsome eyes. "Be off wid ye now, I tell
+ye." This is the last burst of the storm. As the urchin
+creeps crestfallen towards the doorway her rage dies, its death
+being as sudden as its birth. "Come back here!" she cries,
+inconsistently. "What d'ye mane be takin' me at me word
+like that? Come back, I tell ye, an' go an' ate something, ye
+crathur. How dare ye behave as if I was a bad mother to
+ye?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy comes back, and, raising his bonny head, smiles at
+her fondly but audaciously.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at him, now, the blackguard," says the mother, returning
+the smile in kind. "Was there ever the like of him?
+Go an' ate yer praties now, and thank yer stars Miss Monica
+was here to say a good word for ye."</p>
+
+<p>Paddy, glad of his rescue, casts a shy glance at Monica,
+and then, going over to where his grandmother and the pot of
+potatoes rest side by side, sits down (close cuddled up to the
+old dame) to fill his little empty stomach with as many of those
+esculent roots as he can manage, which, in truth, is the poor
+child's only dinner from year's end to year's end. And yet it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+is a remarkable fact that, in spite of this scanty fare, the Irish
+peasant, when come to man's estate, is ever strong and vigorous
+and well grown. And who shall say he hasn't done his
+queen good service, too, on many a battle-field? and even in
+these latter days, when sad rebellion racks our land, has not
+his name been worthy of honorable mention on the plains of
+Tel-el-Kebir?</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think he <i>looks</i> like a bad boy, Mrs. Daly," says
+Monica, reflectively, gazing at the liberated Paddy.</p>
+
+<p>"Bad, miss, is it?" says the mother, who, having made her
+eldest born out a villain, is now prepared to maintain he is a
+veritable saint. "You don't know him, faix. Sure there
+niver was the like of him yet. He is a raal jewel, that gossoon
+o' mine, an' the light of his father's eyes. Signs on it, he'd die
+for Daly! There niver was sich a love betwixt father an' son.
+He's the joy o' my life, an' the greatest help to me. 'Tis he
+minds the pig, an' the baby, an' ould granny there, an' everything.
+I'd be widout my right hand if I lost him."</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought you said&mdash;&mdash;" begins Monica, mystified by
+this change from righteous wrath to unbounded admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Arrah, niver mind what I said, acushla," says the younger
+Mrs. Daly, with an emphatic wink. "Sure 'twas only to keep
+him in ordher a bit, I said it at all at all! But 'tis young he is
+yet, the crathur."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Very</i> young. Oh, Mrs. Daly, <i>look</i> at baby! See how she
+is trying to get at my hair!" Monica is beginning in a delighted
+tone,&mdash;as though to have one's hair pulled out by the
+roots is the most enchanting sensation in the world,&mdash;when
+suddenly her voice dies away into silence, and she herself
+stares with great open violet eyes at something that darkens
+the doorway and throws a shadow upon the assembled group
+within.</p>
+
+<p>It is Desmond!</p>
+
+<p>Kit, feeling as guilty as though she were the leading
+character in some conspiracy, colors crimson, and retires
+behind Mrs. Moloney. She lowers her eyes, and is as mute
+as death. But Monica speaks.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it you?" she says<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span> Which, of course, is quite the silliest
+thing she <i>can</i> say, as he is standing there regarding her
+with eyes so full of light and love that the cleverest ghost could
+not copy them. But then she is not sillier than her fellows,
+for, as a rule, all people, if you remark, say, "Is that you?"
+or "Have you come?" when they are actually looking into your
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+face and should be able to answer the question for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is," says Desmond, with such an amount of diffidence
+(I hope it wasn't assumed) as should have melted the
+heart of the hardest woman upon earth. Monica is <i>not</i> the
+hardest woman upon earth.</p>
+
+<p>Still, she makes him no further speech, and Desmond begins
+to wonder if he is yet forgiven. He is regarding her fixedly;
+but she, after that first swift glance, has turned her attention
+upon the baby on her knee, and is seemingly lost in
+admiration of its little snub nose. Why will she not look at
+him? What did he say to her last night that is so difficult to
+forgive? Can wrath be cherished for so long in that gentle
+bosom? Her face is as calm as an angel's; surely</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Ah! come in, Misther Desmond," says Mrs. Daly, hospitably.
+"I'm glad 'tis company I have before you the day.
+Maybe 'twill coax ye to come again. Where have you been this
+week an' more? Faix, ye were so long in comin', I thought
+'twas angry wid me ye were."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody is ever angry with a pretty woman like you,"
+says Desmond, saucily.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, now, hark to him!" says Mrs. Daly laughing heartily.
+"I wonder ye aren't ashamed of yourself. An' is the ould
+Squire hearty?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's as well as even <i>you</i> could wish him. How d'ye do,
+Kit? Won't you come and speak to me?"</p>
+
+<p>He has been afraid to shake hands with Monica up to this,
+but now she turns suddenly towards him and holds out to him
+one slender fair hand, the other being twined round the baby.
+She does this musingly.</p>
+
+<p>He grasps the little snowy hand with almost senile delight,
+and holds it for&mdash;as long as he dares. During this undefined
+period he tells himself what a perfect picture she is, with her
+clear, pale, beautiful face, and her nut-brown hair, and the tender
+sweetness of her attitude, as she bends over the smiling
+baby. Could any vaunted Madonna be half as lovely? At this
+moment a growing contempt for all the greatest masterpieces
+of the greatest masters permeates his being and renders him
+weak in faith.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't ye sit down, thin?" says Mrs. Daly. Being a
+woman, she grasps the situation at a glance, and places a chair
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+<a class="corr" name="TC_41" id="TC_41" title="or">for</a> him close to Monica. "What's the matther wid ye to-day,
+Misther Desmond, that ye haven't a word to give us?"</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to know what I'm thinking of," says Desmond,
+accepting the chair, and drawing it even a degree closer to
+Monica.</p>
+
+<p>"Faix, thin, I don't," says Mrs. Daly junior, her handsome
+face full of smiles. A love-affair is as good as a saint's day to
+an Irish peasant; and here she tells herself, with a glance at
+Monica, is one ready-made to her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm thinking what a lucky man Daly is," says Desmond,
+promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, git along wid ye now, an' yer blarney!" says Mrs.
+Daly, roaring with laughter; whilst even Mrs. Moloney the
+dismal, and the old granny in the corner, chime in merrily.</p>
+
+<p>And then the visit comes to a close, and they all rise and
+bid Mrs. Daly and the others "good-by;" and Monica, mindful
+of his late affliction, bestows a soft parting word upon the
+subdued Paddy.</p>
+
+<p>And now they are all in the open air again, and, turning
+down the boreen that leads to the Daly's homestead, reach the
+road that leads to Moyne. It is Desmond's way as well as
+theirs, so he accompanies the girls without remark.</p>
+
+<p>"What brought you to see the Dalys, to-day?" asks Monica,
+suddenly, without any ulterior meaning beyond the desire
+of making conversation; but to Kit's guilty soul this question<span class="s_corr" title=","></span>
+seems fraught with mischief.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I often go to see Daly. I want him to come fishing
+with me to-morrow: he's the best man about here for that, and
+trudges behind one for miles without complaining."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Daly!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I hope you enjoyed your visit to-day," says Kit,
+blithely, glancing at him mischievously from beneath her broad
+hat.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a drawback," says Brian, unthinkingly. "I
+went there full of hope, and, after all, she never offered me any
+of your pudding!"</p>
+
+<p>Tableau!</p>
+
+<p>Kit's agonized glance and Monica's questioning eyes awake
+Mr. Desmond to a knowledge of what he has done.</p>
+
+<p>"How did <i>you</i> hear of Kit's pudding?" asks Monica, looking
+keenly from <a class="corr" name="TC_42" id="TC_42" title="Brain">Brian</a> to Kit, and then back again.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!&mdash;the pudding," stammers Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"There! don't commit yourself," says Monica, in a tone
+that trembles. "Oh, Kit!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Both culprits are afraid to look at her. Does the tremble
+mean tears, or anger, or what? Perhaps horror at their
+duplicity, or contempt. Is she hopelessly angered?</p>
+
+<p>Then a suppressed sound reaches their ears, creating a
+fresh panic in their breasts. Is she positively <i>choking</i> with indignation?
+Cautiously, anxiously, they glance at her, and find,
+to their everlasting relief, that she is convulsed with laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"When next you meditate forming a brilliant plot such as
+this," she says to Kit, "I think I should look out a more trustworthy
+accomplice if I were you."</p>
+
+<p>"Catch me having a secret with <i>him</i> again," says Kit now
+her fears are appeased, turning wrathfully upon Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"I quite forgot all about it, I did, indeed," exclaims he,
+penitently. "Forgive me this time, and I'll promise never to
+do it again."</p>
+
+<p>"And I'll promise you you shan't have the chance," says
+Kit, with fervor.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Why</i> was I to be deceived?" says Monica. "I think I
+have been very basely treated. If you, Kit, desired a clandestine
+meeting with Mr. Desmond, I don't see why <i>I</i> was to be
+drawn into it. And it was a stupid arrangement, too: two is
+company, three trumpery. I know, if I had a lover, I should
+prefer&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Monica!" says Kit, indignantly; but Monica only laughs
+the more.</p>
+
+<p>"It is <i>my</i> turn now, you know<span class="s_corr" title="">,</span>" she says.</p>
+
+<p>"Kit had nothing to do with it: it was all my fault," says
+Desmond, laughing too. "If you must pour out the vials of
+your wrath on some one, let it be on me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, give him a good scolding, Monica," says Kit viciously,
+but with a lovely smile. <span class="s_corr" title="">"</span>I am going <a class="corr" name="TC_43" id="TC_43" title="-">to </a>pick to some ferns for Aunt
+Pen; when I return I hope I shall find that recreant knight
+of yours&mdash;I mean <i>mine</i>&mdash;at the point of death!"</p>
+
+<p>At this she flits away from them, like the good little thing
+she is, up a sloping bank, and so into the fields beyond, until
+Desmond and Monica are as much alone as if a whole sphere
+divided them from their kind. Dear little Kit! When her
+own time comes may she be as kindly dealt with!</p>
+
+<p>"You are angry with me still,&mdash;about last night," says Desmond,
+softly, "and, I own, with cause. But I was miserable
+when I called you a coquette, and misery makes a man unjust.
+I wrote to Kit this morning,&mdash;I was afraid to write to you,&mdash;and
+she was very good to me."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How good?" plucking a leaf from a brier, as she goes
+slowly<span class="s_corr" title="">,</span> <i>very</i> slowly&mdash;down the road<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span></p>
+
+<p>"She brought me <i>you</i>. Do you know, Monica, I have been
+as unhappy as a man can be since last I saw you,&mdash;a whole
+night and part of a day? Is it not punishment enough?"</p>
+
+<p>"Too much for your crime," whispers she, softly, turning
+suddenly towards him and letting her great luminous eyes rest
+with forgiveness upon his. She smiles sweetly, but with some
+timidity, because of the ardor of the glance that answers hers.
+Taking her hand with an impulsive movement impossible to restrain,
+Desmond presses it rapturously to his lips. Drawing it
+away from him with shy haste, Monica walks on in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"If I had written to you, and not to her, would you still
+have been here to-day?" asks he, presently.</p>
+
+<p>"I think not."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a cruel answer, is it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you have me belie my nature?" asks she, with
+quick agitation; "would you have me grow false, secret,
+deceitful? My aunts trust me: am I to prove myself unworthy
+of their confidence?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am less to you, then, than your aunts' displeasure!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are less to me than my conscience; and yet&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>With a violent effort, that betrays how far her thoughts
+have been travelling in company with his, she brings herself
+back to the present moment, and a recollection of the many
+reasons why she must not listen to his wooing. "Why should
+you believe yourself anything to me?" she asks, in a voice
+that quivers audibly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, why, indeed?" returns he, bitterly. There is such
+pain in his voice and face that her soul yearns towards him,
+and she repents<a class="corr" name="TC_44" id="TC_44" title=" her"></a> of her last words.</p>
+
+<p>"I am wrong. You <i>are</i> something to me," she says, in a
+tone so low that he can scarcely hear it. But lovers' ears are
+sharp.</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>mean</i> that, Monica?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," still lower.</p>
+
+<p>"Then why cannot I be <i>more</i> to you? Why am I to be
+denied a chance of forwarding the cause in which all my hopes
+are centred? Monica, say you will meet me somewhere&mdash;<i>soon</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"How can I?" she says, tremulously. Her voice is full of
+tears. She is altogether different from the coquettish, provoking
+child of last night. "You forget all I have just now said."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"At least tell me," says he, sadly, "that if you could you
+would."</p>
+
+<p>There is a pathetic ring in his tone, and tears rise to her
+eyes. Can anything be so hopeless as this love-affair of
+hers?</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I would," she says, almost desperately.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, darling&mdash;<i>darling</i>!" says the young man with passion.
+He holds her hands closely, and looks into her troubled eyes,
+and wishes he might dare take her into his arms and, pressing
+her to his heart, ask her to repeat her words again. But there
+is something in the calm purity of her beautiful face that repels
+vehemence of any sort; and as yet&mdash;although the dawn is near&mdash;her
+love has not declared itself to her own soul in all its
+strength.</p>
+
+<p>"I have at least one consolation," he says, at last, calling
+to mind the quietude that surrounds Moyne and its inhabitants,
+and the withdrawal from society that has obtained there for
+many years. "As you are not allowed to see me,&mdash;except on
+such rare occasions as the present when the Fates are kind,&mdash;you
+cannot at least see <i>any one else</i>,&mdash;often, that is."</p>
+
+<p>"Meaning?&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ryde."</p>
+
+<p>She laughs a little, and then colors.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Priscilla has asked him to come to Moyne next
+Friday," she says, looking at the ground: "she is giving an
+At Home on that day, for him and Captain Cobbett. She
+says she feels it is a duty to her queen to show some attention
+to her servants."</p>
+
+<p>In her tone, as she says this, there is a spice of that mischief
+that is never very far from any pretty woman.</p>
+
+<p>"He is to be invited to Moyne,&mdash;to spend an entire day
+with you!" says Desmond, thunderstruck by this last piece of
+news.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! only part of it," says Monica, meekly.</p>
+
+<p>"It is just as bad. It is disgraceful! Your aunts are
+purposely encouraging <i>him</i> to keep you away from me. Oh,
+<i>why</i>," wretchedly, "should this unlucky quarrel have arisen
+between our house and yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's your fault," says Monica.</p>
+
+<p>"Mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your uncle's, then. It is all the same," unjustly.</p>
+
+<p>"I really can't see <i>that</i>," says Mr. Desmond, very righteously
+<a class="corr" name="TC_45" id="TC_45" title="agrieved">aggrieved</a>; "that is visiting the sins of the uncles upon
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+the nephews with a vengeance! Monica, at least promise me
+you won't be civil to him."</p>
+
+<p>"To your uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! You know I mean Ryde."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't be rude to him."</p>
+
+<p>"You can. Why not? It will keep him from calling
+again."</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I daresay you <i>want</i> him to call again," says Desmond,
+angrily.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment, the gates of Moyne being in sight, and
+those of Coole long passed, Kit suddenly appears on the top of
+a high stone wall, and calls gayly to Desmond to come and
+help her alight.</p>
+
+<p>"And now go away too," she says: "you are forbidden
+goods, you know, and we must not be seen talking to you,
+under pain of death."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by," says Desmond, with alacrity, who is, in truth,
+sulky, and undesirous of further parley with his beloved.
+"Good-by, Miss Beresford."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by," says Monica, shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall see you again soon, no doubt," says Kit, kindly,
+in her clear, sweet treble.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it very improbable," returns he, raising his hat
+gravely and taking his departure.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, what <i>have</i> you been saying to that wretched young
+man, Monica?" says Kit, severely, standing still in the middle
+of the road, the better to bring her sister beneath the majesty
+of her eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. Nothing that any reasonable being could object
+to," declares Monica, with such an amount of vigor as startles
+Kit. "But of all the ill-tempered, bearish, detestable men I
+ever met in my life, <i>he is the worst</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Which unlooked for explosion from the gentle Monica has
+the effect of silencing Kit for the remainder of the walk.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How the Misses Blake discover a gigantic fraud&mdash;How Terence is again
+arraigned, and brought before the Court on a charge of duplicity&mdash;and
+how he is nearly committed for contempt.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Reaching home, they find the atmosphere there decidedly
+clouded. Miss Priscilla, who has returned from her drive just
+a moment before, is standing in the hall, gazing with a stern
+countenance upon the old-fashioned eight-day clock, in which
+two or three people might be safely stowed away. The clock
+regards her not at all, but ticks on loudly with a sort of exasperating
+obstinacy, as though determined to remind every one
+of the flight of time.</p>
+
+<p>"Who has wound this clock?" demands Miss Priscilla, in
+an awful tone. With a thrill of thankfulness the girls feel they
+can answer truthfully, "Not I."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" says Miss Penelope, timidly, advancing from
+the morning-room; "I did. You were so long out, Priscilla,
+and I feared&mdash;I mean, I thought it would save you the trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Trouble in winding a clock! What trouble could there
+be in that? And it is <i>never</i> wound until Saturday evening.
+For twenty years I have wound it on Saturday evening. A good
+eight-day clock nearly fifty years old can't bear being tampered
+with. Now, Penelope, why did you do that? You know that
+I can't endure old rules to be upset."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear Priscilla, I only thought as I was passing&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>thought</i>, Penelope; but I wish you <i>wouldn't</i> think.
+There are other things you ought to think about that you often
+neglect; and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Priscilla, is that just? I think&mdash;I <i>hope</i> I seldom
+neglect my duty; and I must say I didn't expect this from <i>you</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Here Miss Penelope dissolves into tears, to Monica's grief
+and dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Aunt Priscilla, I am sure Aunt Pen only meant to
+save you trouble," she says, earnestly, putting her arms round
+Miss Penelope, who sobs audibly on her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"And who says I thought anything else?<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span> says poor Miss
+Priscilla, fiercely, though her voice trembles with emotion: it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+is terrible to her to see her faithful friend and sister in tears
+of her causing. "Penelope, I meant nothing, but I have heard
+something that has grieved and disturbed me: so I must needs
+come home and avenge my ill-temper on the best creature in
+the world. Alas! I am a wicked woman."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, no," cries Miss Penelope. "My dear Priscilla,
+you will break my heart if you talk thus. My good soul, come
+in here and tell me what has happened to distress you."</p>
+
+<p>In truth it is quite plain now that something has happened
+during her drive to take Miss Priscilla's well-balanced mind off
+its hinges.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Terence?" she asks, looking from one to other
+of the group in the hall.</p>
+
+<p>"Here," says Terence himself, coming leisurely towards
+her from a side-passage.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in here with me," says Miss Priscilla; and they all
+follow her into the morning-room.</p>
+
+<p>Here she turns and faces the unconscious Terence with a
+pale, reproachful face.</p>
+
+<p>"When I tell you I have just come from Mitson the coast-guard,
+and that I thanked him for having lent you his gun, you
+will understand how I have been grieved and pained to-day,"
+she says, a tremor in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>Terence is no longer unconscious; and Monica feels that
+her heart is beating like a lump of lead.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! what is it, Priscilla?" asks Miss Penelope, greatly
+frightened.</p>
+
+<p>"A tale of craft and cunning," says Miss Priscilla in a
+hollow tone. "Mitson tells me he never lent him that gun.
+Terence has wilfully deceived us, his poor aunts, who love him
+and only desire his good. He has, I fear, basely mystified us
+to accomplish his own ends, and has indeed departed from the
+precious truth."</p>
+
+<p>"I never said Mitson did lend it to me," says Terence,
+sullenly: "you yourself suggested the idea, and I let it slide,
+that was all."</p>
+
+<p>"All! Is not prevarication only a <i>mean</i> lie? Oh, Terence,
+I am so deeply grieved! I know not what to say to you."</p>
+
+<p>The scene is becoming positively tragical. Already a
+sense of crime of the blackest and deepest dye is overpowering
+Terence.</p>
+
+<p>"Whom <i>did</i> you get that gun from, Terence?" asks Miss
+Priscilla, sternly.</p>
+
+<p>No answer.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Now, Terence, be calm," says Miss Penelope. "Sit down
+now, Terence, and collect yourself, and don't be untruthful
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"I have told no lie, aunt," says Terence, indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then tell your good Aunt Priscilla who gave you the
+gun."</p>
+
+<p>Dead silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Are we to understand that you <i>won't</i> tell us, Terence?"
+asks Miss Priscilla, faintly. She is now much the more nervous
+of the two old maids.</p>
+
+<p>Terence casts a hasty glance at Monica's white face, and
+then says, stoutly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to tell, and I <i>won't</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Terence!" exclaims the usually mild Miss Penelope,
+with great indignation, and is going to further relieve her
+mind, no doubt, when Miss Priscilla, throwing up her hands,
+checks her.</p>
+
+<p>"Let him alone, Penelope," she says, sadly. "Perhaps he
+has some good reason: let us not press him too far. Obduracy
+is better than falsehood. Let us go and pray that heaven may
+soften his heart and grant him a right understanding."</p>
+
+<p>With this the two old ladies walk slowly and with dignity
+from the room, leaving the criminal with his sisters.</p>
+
+<p>Monica bursts into tears and flings her arms round his neck.
+"You did it for <i>me</i>. I know it!&mdash;I saw it in your eyes," she
+says. "Oh, Terence, I feel as if it was all my fault."</p>
+
+<p>"Fiddlesticks!" says Mr. Beresford, who is in a boiling
+rage. "Did you ever hear anything like her? and all about a
+paltry thing like that! She couldn't behave worse if I had
+been convicted of murder. I'm convinced"&mdash;viciously&mdash;"it
+was all baffled curiosity that got up her temper. She was <i>dying</i>
+to know about that gun, and so I was determined I wouldn't
+gratify her. A regular old cat, if ever there was one."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! don't speak like that; I am sure they love you&mdash;and
+they were disappointed&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"They'll have to get through a good deal of disappointment,"
+says Terence, still fuming. "What right have they to
+make me out a Sir Galahad in their imaginations? I'd perfectly
+<i>hate</i> to be a Sir Galahad; and so I tell them." This is
+not strictly correct as the Misses Blake are out of hearing.
+"And as for their love, they may keep it, if it only means blowing
+a fellow up for nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Penelope was just as bad," says Kit. "I really"&mdash;with
+dignified contempt&mdash;"felt quite <i>ashamed</i> of her!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Miss Priscilla keeps a diary, in which she most faithfully records
+all that happens in every one of the three hundred and
+sixty-five days of every year.</p>
+
+<p>About this time there may be seen in it an entry such as
+follows:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Saturday, July 3.</i>&mdash;I fear Terence told a <span class="smcap">LIE</span>! He <i>certainly</i>
+equivocated! Penelope and I have done our best to discover
+the real owner of <span class="smcap">THE</span> gun, but as yet have failed. The
+secret rests with Terence, and to force his confidence would be
+unchristian; but it <i>may</i> transpire in <i>time</i>."</p>
+
+<p>After this <a class="corr" name="TC_46" id="TC_46" title="comes">come</a> sundry other jottings, such as&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Monday, July 5.</i>&mdash;Past four. Fanny Stack called. Penelope
+in the garden, as usual. All the trouble of entertaining
+falling upon <i>my</i> hands. Still, I do not repine. Providence is
+good; and Penelope of course, dear soul, should be allowed the
+recreation that pertains to her garden. And, indeed, a sweet
+place she makes of it."</p>
+
+<p>After this again comes a third paragraph:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Tuesday, July 6.</i>&mdash;Terence again most wilful, and Kit
+somewhat saucy; yet my heart yearns over these children. God
+grant they be guided by a tender hand along the straight and
+narrow way!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>It is the next day, July 7, and the two Misses Blake, standing
+in the dining-room, are discussing Terence again. They
+have had a great shock, these two old ladies, in the discovery
+of a duplicity that they in their simplicity have magnified fourfold.
+How is it possible they should remember how <i>they</i> felt
+thirty years ago?</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt we must keep a tight hand upon him, Penelope,"
+says Miss Priscilla, sorrowfully. "The rector is very lax. He
+goes to him day by day, but beyond Greek and Latin seems to
+imbibe little else. And <i>morals</i> are the groundwork of all, and
+surely superior to the languages spoken by those who believed
+in heathen gods. I wonder at the rector, I must say. But we
+must only make up for his deficiences by keeping a tight hand,
+as I said before, upon this unhappy boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but not <i>too</i> tight, Priscilla; that might only create a
+rebellious feeling and destroy all our chances of success. And
+we are bent on leading this poor dear boy (poor Katherine's
+boy, Priscilla) into the way of truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes; we must be cautious, <i>most</i> cautious, in our treatment,"
+says Miss Priscilla, nervously, "and very careful of his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+comings and goings, without <i>appearing</i> to be so! Dear me!
+dear me! I wonder if the greatness of our cause justifies so
+much deceit. It sounds jesuitical, my dear Penelope, say what
+we can."</p>
+
+<p>"The end justifies the means," says Miss Penelope, as
+solemnly as if this speech emanated from her throat as an original
+remark.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't<span class="s_corr" title="">!</span> my dear Penelope!" says Miss <a class="corr" name="TC_47" id="TC_47" title="Penelope">Priscilla</a>, with
+a shudder; "that is <i>their</i> principal argument."</p>
+
+<p>"Whose? The children's?" asks Miss Penelope, startled.</p>
+
+<p>"No; the Jesuits,&mdash;the Inquisitors,&mdash;those dreadful people
+we read of in 'Westward Ho,'" says Miss Priscilla, protestingly.
+"Still, I agree with you; secrecy is the part we have to
+play. We must keep one eye" (as if there was only one between
+them) "upon him without <i>seeming</i> to do so. And there
+he is,"&mdash;pointing through the <a class="corr" name="TC_48" id="TC_48" title="winddw">window</a> to where Terence may
+be seen coming slowly towards the window in which they stand
+in a most unhappy frame of mind.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder where he can have been for the past half-hour,"
+says Miss Priscilla presently, in a nervous whisper, though
+Terence is so far off that if she spoke at the top of her lungs
+he could not have heard her.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps if we ask him he may tell us," says Miss Penelope,
+equally nervous and decidedly with great doubt as to the
+success of her suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you ask him," says Miss Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"I am greatly wanting in <i>force</i> on occasions such as these,"
+says Miss Penelope, hurriedly. "No, no, my dear; you ask
+him. But be gentle with him, my dear Priscilla."</p>
+
+<p>"Why can't <i>you</i> do it?" persists Miss Blake, plainly
+anxious to shift the obnoxious task from her own shoulders to
+another's. "You have great influence with the children, I
+have remarked many times."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing to <i>yours</i>," says Miss Penelope, with an agitated
+wave of her hand. "I couldn't do it; indeed I <i>couldn't</i>, my
+dear Priscilla," openly quaking. "Don't ask me. <span class="s_corr" title="&quot;"></span>See, here
+he comes! Now be firm,&mdash;be <i>firm</i>, Priscilla, but lenient, <i>very</i>
+lenient: he is only a boy, remember, and even the great Luther
+was strangely wanting in principle when young."</p>
+
+<p>"It is my duty; I suppose I must go through with it," says
+poor Miss Priscilla, sighing; and then she throws wide the
+window and calls to Terence to come to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Where have you been, Terence?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the back gate, aunt."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But, my <i>dear</i> Terence, <i>why</i> at the back gate? Such a
+nice day for a good long wholesome walk! Why spend it at
+the back gate?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because&mdash;that is&mdash;I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear boy, be calm. Wait a moment now, Terence,
+and don't hurry yourself. There is no occasion for
+haste."</p>
+
+<p>"I was only going to say, aunt&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pause now, Terence: consider well before you speak.
+Though, indeed, there should be no need for consideration
+when only the simple but lovely truth is required. Truth is
+always lovely, Terence; it is a flower of great beauty. Collect
+yourself, now." (This is a favorite formula with the
+Misses Blake.) "Don't tell a lie, Terence!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I tell a lie?" says Terence, fiercely, feeling
+at this moment that death, when compared with nagging,
+would be sweet.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Terence, what a tone! and to your good aunt Penelope,
+who loves you! Such a tone as that, my dear, is unchristian.
+Now, we don't want to know what you were
+<i>doing</i> at the back gate. Why should you be afraid of us? Are
+we not your greatest friends? But what could you have been
+doing for half an hour at the back gate, Terence?"</p>
+
+<p>"I went up there with Michael, aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't ask you that, dear. I am afraid you have no
+confidence in us, Terence. I didn't ask you who went
+with you. Can't you say yes or no, Terence? Were you <i>long</i>
+at the gate?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"Was any one but Michael with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"Was it Adams?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you say anything but yes or no, Terence? Have
+you no command of the Queen's English, after all the money,
+too, your poor father wasted on your education,&mdash;and now the
+rector? Speak up, my dear child, and tell us everything
+honestly and nobly."</p>
+
+<p>"But there is nothing to tell, aunt, except that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, collect yourself, Terence; take time, my dear. <i>Now</i>,
+answer me: who was with you, besides Michael?"</p>
+
+<p>"Timothy, aunt."</p>
+
+<p>The hoary-headed butler being, like C&aelig;sar's wife, above
+suspicion, the Misses Blake are pulled up pretty short,&mdash;so
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+short, indeed, that they forget to ask if any one besides the respectable
+Timothy was at the obnoxious back gate. Perhaps
+had they known that the smith's son, and two or three other
+young men, had been there, and that all had been talking the
+most violent politics, their fears for Terence's morality would
+have increased rather than diminished.</p>
+
+<p>As it is, they are well pleased.</p>
+
+<p>"But why didn't you say that at once, my dear boy? We
+are so afraid of your mixing with evil companions."</p>
+
+<p>Terence thinks of the smith's son, and his unqualified opinion
+that all landlords and aristocrats and sovereigns should be
+"stamped out," and wonders if <i>he</i> would come under the category
+of evil companions, but he wisely refrains from speech.</p>
+
+<p>"And," says Miss Penelope, softly, "why didn't you tell us
+before leaving the house where you were going? I am sure, if
+you had, both your aunt Priscilla and I would have been delighted
+<i>to go with you</i>, busy though we were."</p>
+
+<p>This is the climax. Again in Terence's fevered imagination
+the smith's son arises, wielding his brawny brown arm like
+a sledge-hammer, as he noisily lays down the laws of extermination:
+he can see himself, too, joining in the fray, and defying
+the smith's son's opinion with an eloquence of which he
+had been only proud. He feels he is deceiving these two old
+ladies, and is angry with himself for doing it, and still more
+angry with them for making him do it.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad we have heard the truth at <i>last</i>, Terence," says
+Miss Priscilla. "There is nothing so mean or contemptible as
+a lie."</p>
+
+<p>"You are enough to make <i>any</i> fellow tell a lie," bursts out
+Terence, with miserable rage, "with your questionings and
+pryings!"</p>
+
+<p>At this awful speech, the two Misses Blake burst into tears,
+and Terence dashes in a fury from the room.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How the afternoon at Moyne proves a great success&mdash;How Olga Bohun is
+led into a half confession, and how Monica, growing restless, seeks a
+dubious solitude.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>"It is quite the loveliest old place in the world!" says
+Mrs. Bohun, in her soft plaintive voice, speaking very enthusiastically.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+"We ought to be more than grateful to you, dear
+Miss Blake, for letting us see it."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Priscilla reddens with suppressed satisfaction but
+says,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Tut tut, my dear! It is only a funny old-fashioned spot,
+after all," in quite an off-hand manner.</p>
+
+<p>It is Friday,&mdash;<i>the</i> Friday,&mdash;as the Misses Blake have been
+thinking of it for days, in fear and trembling, as being the date
+of their first hospitable venture for many years.</p>
+
+<p>All the Aghyohillbeg party, and the men from Clonbree
+Barracks, and some other neighbors, are strolling through the
+sweet antiquated gardens of Moyne, hedged with yews fantastically
+cut. The roses, white and red and yellow, are nodding
+their heads lazily, bowing and courtesying to the passing breeze.
+The stocks and mignonette are filling the air with perfume.
+Tall lilies are smiling from distant corners, and the little merry
+burn, tumbling over its gray boulders through the garden, is
+singing a loud and happy song, in which the birds in the trees
+above join heartily.</p>
+
+<p>The lazy hum of many insects makes one feel even more
+perceptibly how drowsy-sweet is all the summer air.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bohun has now flitted away with Monica, who in her
+white gown looks the prettiest flower of all, in this "wilderness
+of sweets," with the tall, infatuated Ryde and handsome young
+Ronayne in their train. Mrs. Bohun, who is in one of her most
+mischievous moods to-day, has taken it into her head to snub
+Lord Rossmoyne and be all that is of the sweetest to Ulic
+Ronayne, a proceeding her cousin, Mrs. Herrick, regards with
+<a class="corr" name="TC_49" id="TC_49" title="disma">dismay</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Not so, however, does Bella Fitzgerald regard it. She,
+tall, and with a would-be stately air, walks through the grounds
+at Lord Rossmoyne's side, to whom she has attached herself,
+and who, <i>faute de mieux</i>, makes himself as agreeable as he can
+to her, considering how he is inwardly raging at what he is
+pleased to term Olga's disgraceful behavior.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Priscilla has now been seized upon by Madam O'Connor
+and carried off for a private confab.</p>
+
+<p>"And you really <i>must</i> let her come to us for a week, my
+dear," says Madam O'Connor, in her fine rich brogue. "Yes,
+now, really I want her. It will be quite a favor. I can't withstand
+a pretty face, as you well know 'tis a weakness of mine,
+my dear, and she is really a pearl. Olga Bohun is talking of
+getting up tableaux or some such nonsense, and she wants your
+pretty child to help us."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I should like her to go to you. It is very kind of you,"
+says Miss Priscilla, but with unmistakable hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, what is it? Out with it, Priscilla!" says Madam
+O'Connor, bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Priscilla struggles with herself for yet another minute,
+and then says, quickly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"That young man Desmond,&mdash;will <i>he</i> be staying in your
+house?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not if you object, my dear," says Mrs. O'Connor, kindly;
+"though I do think it is a pity to thwart that affair. He is as
+nice and as pleasant a young fellow as I know, and would
+make a jewel of a husband; and money&mdash;say what you like,
+my dear Priscilla&mdash;is always something. It ranks higher than
+<i>revenge</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no revenge. It is only a just resentment."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll call it by any name you like, my dear, but I
+must say&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I must beg, Gertrude, you will not discuss this unhappy
+subject," says Miss Priscilla, with some agitation.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I won't, there. Then let it lie," says Madam O'Connor,
+good-humoredly. "And tell me, now, if I come over to
+fetch Monica on Monday, will she be ready for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite ready. But we have not consulted her yet," says
+Miss Priscilla, clinging to a broken reed.</p>
+
+<p>"Olga is talking to her about it. And, if she's the girl she
+<i>looks</i>, she'll be glad of a change, and the chance of a sweetheart,"
+says Madam O'Connor, gayly.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>"What lovely lilies!" says Mrs. Bohun, standing before a
+tall white group.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't!" says Owen Kelly, who has joined her and
+Monica. "Whenever I hear a lily mentioned I think of Oscar
+Wilde, and it hurts very much."</p>
+
+<p>"I like Oscar Wilde. He is quite nice, and <i>very</i> amusing,"
+says Olga.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if I could make my hair grow," says Mr. Kelly,
+meditatively. "He's been very clever about his; but I suppose
+somebody taught him."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I think long hair is dirty," says Mrs. Bohun, with
+an abstracted glance at Ronayne's lightly-shaven head.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as though tired of her sweet <i>role</i> and of its object
+(Ronayne) and everything, she turns capriciously aside, and,
+motioning away the men with her hand and a small frown, sits
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+down at Hermia Herrick's feet and plucks idly at the grasses
+near her.</p>
+
+<p>"So we are dismissed," says Kelly, shrugging his shoulders.
+Monica has disappeared long ago with the devoted
+Ryde. "Your queen has her tempers, Ronayne."</p>
+
+<p>"There are few things so cloying as perfection," says Ronayne,
+loyally.</p>
+
+<p>"I entirely agree with you,&mdash;so much so that I hope Providence
+will send me an ugly wife. She&mdash;I beg your pardon&mdash;Mrs.
+Bohun does pretty much what she likes with you, doesn't
+she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Altogether what she likes. She's been doing it for so
+long now that I suppose she'll go on to the end of the chapter.
+I hope it will be a long one. Do you know," says the young
+man, with a rather sad little laugh, "it sounds of course rather
+a poor thing to say, but I really think it makes me <i>happy</i>, being
+done what she likes with?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is only to oblige a friend that I should seek to understand
+such a hopelessly involved sentence as that," says Mr.
+Kelly, wearily. "But I have managed it. You're as bad a
+case as ever I came across, Ronayne, and I pity you. But,
+'pon my soul, I respect you too," with a flash of admiration:
+"there is nothing like being thoroughly in earnest. And so I
+wish you luck in your wooing."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a very good fellow, Kelly," says Ronayne gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time, Olga, tiring of tearing her grasses to
+pieces, looks up at Hermia.</p>
+
+<p>"How silent you are!" she says.</p>
+
+<p><span class="s_corr" title="">"</span>I thought that was what you wanted,&mdash;silence. You have
+been talking all day. And, besides, if I speak at all, it will be
+only to condemn."</p>
+
+<p>"<a class="corr" name="TC_50" id="TC_50" title="Neverheless">Nevertheless</a> speak. Anything is better than this ghastly
+quiet; and, besides, frankly, I need not mind you, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"You are flirting disgracefully with that Ronayne boy."</p>
+
+<p>"What harm, if he <i>is</i> a boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is not such a boy as all that comes to; and, if you
+don't <i>mean</i> it, you are overkind to him."</p>
+
+<p>"He is my baby," says Olga, with a little laugh; "I often
+tell him so. Why should I <i>not</i> be kind to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if you are <i>bent</i> on it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am bent on nothing. You do run away so with things!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you might do better."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not going to do anything," says the widow. She
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+throws off her hat, and ruffles up all her pretty pale gold hair
+with impatient fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! if you can <i>assure</i> me of that!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to assure you of anything."</p>
+
+<p>"So I thought. That is why I say you might do better."</p>
+
+<p>"I might do worse, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps. But still I cannot forget there was Wolverhampton
+last year. A title is not to be despised; and he was
+devoted to you, and would, I think, have made a good husband<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay. He was fool enough for anything. And I
+liked him, rather; but there was something in him&mdash;wasn't
+there, now, Hermia?&mdash;something positively enraging at times."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose, then, your fancy for young Ronayne arises
+from the fact that there is <i>nothing</i> in him," says Hermia,
+maliciously: "that's his charm, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bohun laughs.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose there is very much in him," she says:
+"that in itself is such a relief. Wolverhampton was so overpowering
+about those hydraulics. Ulic isn't a savant, certainly,
+and I don't think he will ever set the Liffey afire, but he is
+'pleasant too to think on.' Now, mind you, I don't believe I
+care a pin about Ulic Ronayne,&mdash;he is younger than I am, for
+one thing,&mdash;but still I don't care to hear him abused."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not abusing him," says Hermia. "It was you said
+he was no savant, and would be unlikely to set the Liffey afire."</p>
+
+<p>"For which we should be devoutly grateful," says Olga,
+frivolously. "Consider, if he <i>could</i>, what the consequences
+would be, both to life and property. Poor young man! I
+really think Government ought to give him a pension because
+he <i>can't</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"And what about all the other young men?" asks Hermia.
+And then she yawns.</p>
+
+<p>Here Monica&mdash;who has been absent with Mr. Ryde for
+the best part of an hour&mdash;comes up to them, and presently
+Terence, with the Fitzgeralds, and Miss Priscilla and Lord
+Rossmoyne.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard a story yesterday I want to tell you," says
+Terence, gayly, singling out Miss Fitzgerald and Olga, and
+sinking upon the grass at the former's feet. He is such a
+handsome merry boy that he is a favorite with all the women.
+Miss Priscilla stands near him; the others are all conversing
+together about the coming plays at Aghyohillbeg.</p>
+
+<p>"It is about the curate," says Terence, gleefully. "You
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
+know, he is awful spoons on the ugliest French girl, and the
+other day he wanted to run up to Dublin to get her a ring, or
+something, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Terence, dear, surely that is not the way to pronounce
+that word," says Miss Priscilla, anxiously; "such a
+vulgar pronounciation&mdash;'bu-ut.' How you drawled it! How
+ugly it sounds&mdash;'bu-ut!' Now put your lips together like mine,
+so, and say 'but,' <i>shortly</i>. Now begin your story again, and
+tell it nicely."</p>
+
+<p>Terence begins again,&mdash;<i>very</i> good humoredly, thinks
+Olga,&mdash;and has almost reached the point, when Miss Priscilla
+breaks in again:</p>
+
+<p>"Now, not so fast, my dear Terence. I really cannot
+follow you at all. I don't even understand what you are at.
+Gently, my dear boy. Now begin it all over again, and be
+more explicit."</p>
+
+<p>But the fun is all out of Terence by this time, though Olga
+is so convulsed with laughter that it might have been the best
+story on record, which somewhat astonishes though it consoles
+Terence, as when his funny incident is related in a carefully
+modulated voice, and with a painful precision, it strikes even
+him as being hopelessly uninteresting. However, Mrs. Bohun
+certainly enjoys it,&mdash;or something else, perhaps: fortunately,
+it never occurs to Terry to ponder on the "something
+else."</p>
+
+<p>"Hermia, Olga, come now, my dears. You can't stay here
+for <i>ever</i>, you know," cries Madam O'Connor's loud but cheery
+voice. "It is nearly seven. Come, I tell you, or the Misses
+Blake, our good friends here, will think we mean to take up
+our residence at Moyne for good."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, now, Gertrude!" says Miss Priscilla, much shocked.
+But Madam O'Connor only laughs heartily, and gives her a
+little smart blow on the shoulder with her fan. Olga laughs
+too, gayly, and Hermia lets her lips part with one of her rare
+but perfect smiles. If she likes any one besides Olga and her
+children, it is bluff and blunt old Gertrude O'Connor.</p>
+
+<p>One by one they all walk away, and presently Moyne is
+lying in the dying sunshine, in all its usual quietude, with
+never a sound to disturb the calm of coming eve but the light
+rustling of the rising breeze among the ivy-leaves that are
+clambering up its ancient walls.</p>
+
+<p>Kit and Terry are indoors, laughing merrily over the day,
+and congratulating themselves upon the success it has certainly
+been.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I do think, Penelope, they all enjoyed themselves,"
+says Miss Priscilla, in high glee; "and your claret-cup, my
+dear, was superb."</p>
+
+<p>But Monica has stolen away from them all. The strange
+restlessness that has lain upon her all day is asserting itself
+with cruel vigor, and drives her forth into the shadows of the
+coming night.</p>
+
+<p>All day long she has struggled bravely against it; but,
+now that the enforced necessity for liveliness is at an end, she
+grows dreamy, <i>distraite</i>, and feels an intense longing for
+solitude and air.</p>
+
+<p>Again she walks through the now deserted garden, where
+the flowers, "earth's loveliest," are drooping their sweet heads
+to seek their happy slumbers. Past them she goes with
+lowered head and thoughts engrossed, and so over the lawn
+into the wood beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Here Coole and Moyne are connected by a high green
+bank, that in early spring is studded and diamonded with
+primroses and now is gay with ferns. Not until she has
+reached this boundary does she remember how far she has
+come.</p>
+
+<p>She climbs the bank, and gazes with an ever-growing longing
+at the cool shade in the forbidden land, at the tall, stately
+trees, and the foxgloves nodding drowsily.</p>
+
+<p>It is a perfect evening, and as yet the god of day&mdash;great
+Sol&mdash;is riding the heavens with triumphant mirth, as though
+reckless of the death that draweth nigh. Shall he not rise
+again to-morrow morn in all his awful majesty, and so defy
+grim Mars? It is, indeed, one of those hours when heaven
+seems nearest earth, "as when warm sunshine thrills wood-glooms
+to gold," and "righteousness and peace have kissed
+each other," and Nature, tender mother, smiles, and all the
+forest deeps are by "a tender whisper pierced."</p>
+
+<p>Conscience forbidding her, she abstains <a class="corr" name="TC_51" id="TC_51" title="fron">from</a> entering those
+coveted woods, and, with a sigh, seats herself upon the top of
+the green bank.</p>
+
+<p>"Monica!" says a voice close to her, yet not close to her,&mdash;mysteriously,
+far up in mid-air, right over her head. She
+starts! Is the great wood peopled with satyrs, ouphs, or
+dryads?
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The marvellous history of how Monica finds the green-eyed monster in a
+beech-tree&mdash;and how, single-handed, she attacks and overcomes him.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>It is not a tender voice. It is not even a gentle or coldly
+friendly voice. It is, when all is told, a distinctly angry voice,
+full of possible reproaches and vehement upbraidings.</p>
+
+<p>Monica, raising her head with extreme nervousness, had
+just time to see Mr. Desmond in the huge fir-tree above her,
+before he drops at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth were you doing up there?" asks she,
+thinking it wise to adopt the offensive style, so as to be first in
+the field, feeling instinctively that a scolding is coming and that
+she deserves it.</p>
+
+<p>"Watching <i>you</i>," returns he, sternly, nothing dismayed by
+her assumption of injured innocence, so her little ruse falls
+through.</p>
+
+<p>"A charming occupation, certainly!" says Miss Beresford,
+with fine disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"I climbed up into that tree," says Mr. Desmond, savagely,
+"and from it saw that you had spent your entire day with that
+idiot, Ryde."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think," says Miss Beresford, with awful calm,
+"that it was a <i>gentlemanly</i> thing to climb into that tree, like a
+horrid schoolboy, and spy upon a person?&mdash;<i>do you?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't," vehemently, "but I was driven to it. I don't
+care what is gentlemanly. I don't care," furiously, "what you
+think of me. I only know that my mind is now <i>satisfied</i> about
+you, and that I know you are the most abominable flirt in the
+world, and that you ought to be ashamed of yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm not," with great self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>"The more to your discredit! That only means that you
+are bent on doing it again."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall certainly always talk to any man who talks to me.
+That is," cuttingly, "any man who knows how to conduct himself
+with propriety."</p>
+
+<p>"Meaning&mdash;<i>I</i> don't, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Certainly</i> you don't."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if it comes to that," says Desmond, in tones of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+deepest desperation, and as if nothing is left to expect but the
+deluge in another moment.</p>
+
+<p>And, in effect, it comes. Not, as one has been taught to expect,
+in sudden storm, and wind, and lightning, but first in soft
+light drops, and then in a perfect downpour, that bursts upon
+them with passionate fury.</p>
+
+<p>As they are standing beneath a magnificent beech, they get
+but a taste of the shower in reality, though Desmond, seeing
+some huge drops lying on Monica's thin white gown, feels his
+heart smite him.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, take this," he says, roughly, taking off his coat and
+placing it round her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you," says Miss Beresford, stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>"You must," returns he, and, to his surprise, she makes no
+further resistance. Perhaps she is cowed by the authority of
+his manner; <i>perhaps</i> she doesn't like the raindrops.</p>
+
+<p>Encouraged, however, by her submission to a further daring
+of fortune, he says, presently,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You might have given Cobbett a turn, I think, instead of
+devoting yourself all day to that egregious ass."</p>
+
+<p>"He prefers talking to Hermia. I suppose you don't want
+me to go up to people and ask them to be civil to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some other fellow, then."</p>
+
+<p>"You would be just as jealous of him, whoever he was."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not jealous at all," indignantly. "I only object to
+your saying one thing to <i>me</i> and another to <i>him</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the one thing I say to you?"</p>
+
+<p>This staggers him.</p>
+
+<p>"You must find me a very monotonous person if I say
+only one thing to you always."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't found you so."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it&mdash;whatever it is&mdash;must be one of the most eloquent
+and remarkable speeches upon record. <i>Do</i> tell it to
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Monica," says Mr. Desmond, cautiously
+evading a reply: "what I want to know is&mdash;what you <i>see</i> in
+Ryde. He is tall, certainly, but he is fat and effeminate, with
+<span class="s_corr" title="&quot;">'</span>a forehead villanous low.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Your own is very low," says Miss Beresford.</p>
+
+<p>"If I thought it was like <i>his</i>, I'd make away with myself.
+And you listen to all his stories, and believe them every one.
+I don't believe a single syllable he says: I never met such a
+bragger. To listen to him, one would think he had killed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+every tiger in Bengal. In my opinion, he never even saw
+one."</p>
+
+<p>"'Les absents ont toujours tort,<span class="s_corr" title="">'</span>" quotes she, in a low,
+significant tone.</p>
+
+<p>This is the finishing stroke.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you <i>defend</i> him," he says, as savagely almost as one
+of those wild beasts he has just mentioned. "In your eyes he
+is a hero, no doubt. I daresay all women see virtue in a man
+who <span class="s_corr" title="&quot;">'</span>talks as familiarly of roaring lions as maids of thirteen
+do of puppy-dogs.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think maids of thirteen, as a rule, talk much of
+puppy-dogs. I'm sure Kit doesn't," says Monica, provokingly.
+"And really, to do Mr. Ryde justice too, I never heard
+him mention a roaring lion. Perhaps you are thinking of
+Artemus Ward's lion that goes about <span class="s_corr" title="&quot;">'</span>seeking whom he may
+devour somebody.'" She smiles in a maddening fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"I am thinking of Ryde," says Desmond. "I am thinking,
+too, how mad I was when I thought you liked me better
+than him. I <i>did</i> think it, you know; but now I am <i>desillusionnee</i>.
+It is plain to me you are infatuated about this fellow,
+who is <span class="s_corr" title="&quot;">'</span>perfumed like a milliner' and hasn't two ideas in his
+head."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't think where you find all your quotations," says
+Monica, who is now seriously annoyed; "but I must ask you
+not to worry me any further about Mr. Ryde."</p>
+
+<p>"You are madly in love with him," says Desmond, choking
+with rage. Upon which Miss Beresford loses the last
+remnant of her patience, and very properly turns her back on
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The rain has ceased, but during its reign has extinguished
+the dying sun, which has disappeared far below the horizon.
+A great hush and silence has followed the petulant burst of
+storm, and a peace unspeakable lies on all the land. There
+is a little glimpse of the ocean far away beyond the giant firs,
+and one can see that its waves are calm, and the fishing-boats
+upon its bosom scarcely rock.</p>
+
+<p>The grass is bending still with the weight of the past rain,
+and a plaintive dripping from the trees can be heard,&mdash;a refreshing
+sound that lessens the sense of heat. The small
+birds stir cosily in their nests, and now and then a drowsy
+note breaks from one or another; a faint mist, white and intangible,
+rises from the hills, spreading from field to sky, until</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The earth, with heaven mingled, in the shadowy twilight lay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the white sails seemed like spectres in a cloud-land far away."<br /></span>
+</div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></div>
+
+<p>"Ah! you don't like me to say that," says Desmond, unappeased
+by the beauty of the growing night; "but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do not say <a class="corr" name="TC_52" id="TC_52" title="auother">another</a> word," says Monica, imperiously.
+The moon is rising slowly&mdash;slowly,&mdash;and so, by the by, is her
+temper. "I forbid you. Here," throwing to him his coat;
+"I think I have before remarked that the rain is <i>quite</i> over. I
+am sorry I ever touched anything belonging to you."</p>
+
+<p>Desmond having received the coat, and put himself into it
+once more, silence ensues. It does, perhaps, strike him as a
+hopeful sign that she shows no haste to return home and so
+rid herself of a presence she has inadvertently declared to be
+hateful to her, because presently he says, simply, if a little
+warmly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There is no use in our quarreling like this. I won't give
+you up without a further struggle, to <i>any</i> man. So we may as
+well have it out now. Do you care for that&mdash;for Ryde?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you had asked me that before,&mdash;sensibly,&mdash;you might
+have avoided making an exhibition of yourself and saying
+many rude things. I don't in the least mind telling you," says
+Miss Beresford, coldly, "that I <i>can't bear</i> him."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Monica! is this <i>true</i>?" asks he, in an agony of
+hope.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite true. But you don't deserve I should say it."</p>
+
+<p>"My darling! My 'one thing bright' in all this hateful
+world! Oh!" throwing up his head with an impatient
+gesture, "I have been so wretched all this evening! I have
+suffered the tortures of the&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, you musn't say naughty words," interrupts she, with
+an adorable smile. "You are glad I have forgiven you?"</p>
+
+<p>This is how she puts it, and he is only too content to be
+friends with her on any terms, to show further fight.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>More</i> than glad."</p>
+
+<p>"And you will promise me never to be jealous again?"</p>
+
+<p>This is a bitter pill, considering his former declaration that
+jealousy and he had nothing to do with each other; but he
+swallows it bravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Never. And you&mdash;you will never again give me cause,
+darling, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I gave you no cause now," says the darling, shaking her
+pretty head obstinately. And he doesn't dare contradict her.
+"You behaved really badly," she goes on, reproachfully, "and
+at such a time, too,&mdash;just when I was dying to tell you <i>such</i>
+good news."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good?&mdash;your aunts&mdash;" eagerly, "have relented&mdash;they&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! oh, <i>dear</i>, no!" says Miss Beresford. "They
+are harder than ever against you. Adamant is a <i>sponge</i> in comparison
+with them. It isn't that; but Madam O'Connor has
+asked me to go and stay with her next Monday for a week!&mdash;there!"</p>
+
+<p>"And me too?"</p>
+
+<p>"N&mdash;o. Aunt Priscilla made it a condition with regard to
+my going that you shouldn't be there."</p>
+
+<p>"The&mdash;&mdash;And Madam O'Connor gave in to such abominable
+tyranny?"</p>
+
+<p>"Without a murmur."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought she had a soul above that sort of thing," says
+Mr. Desmond, with disgust. "But they are all alike."</p>
+
+<p>"Who?&mdash;women?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to tell me I am like Aunt Priscilla and Madam
+O'Connor?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Old</i> women, I mean," with anxious haste, seeing a cloud
+descending upon the brow of his beloved.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>"And, after all, it <i>is</i> good news," says Brian, brightening,
+"because though I can't stop in the house for the week, still
+there is nothing to prevent my riding over there every one of
+the seven days."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I thought," says Monica, ingenuously,
+with a sweet little blush.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you wished for me, then?"</p>
+
+<p>She refuses to answer this in any more direct manner than
+her eyes afford, but says, quickly, doubtfully,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It won't be deceiving Aunt Priscilla, your coming there to
+visit, will it? She must know she cannot compel Madam
+O'Connor to forbid you the house. And she knows perfectly
+you are an intimate friend of hers."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she does. She is a regular old tyrant,&mdash;a
+Bluebeard in petticoats; but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; you must not abuse her," says Monica: so he
+becomes silent.</p>
+
+<p>She is standing very close to the trunk of the old beech,
+half leaning against it upon one arm which is slightly raised.
+She has no gloves, but long white mittens that reach above her
+elbow to where the sleeves of her gown join them. Through
+the little holes in the pattern of these kindly mittens her white
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+arms can be seen gleaming like snow beneath the faint rays of
+the early moon. With one hand she is playing some imaginary
+air upon the tree's bark.</p>
+
+<p>As she so plays, tiny sparkles from her rings attract his notice.</p>
+
+<p>"Those five little rings," says Desmond, idly, "always remind
+me of the five little pigs that went to market,&mdash;I don't
+know why."</p>
+
+<p>"They didn't all go to market," demurely. "One of them,
+I <i>know</i>, stayed at home."</p>
+
+<p>"So he did. I remember now. Somehow it makes me feel
+like a boy again."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, according to Hood, you must be nearer heaven than
+you were a moment ago."</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't," says Desmond, turning, and looking into her
+beautiful eyes. "My heaven has been near me for the last
+half-hour." If he had said <i>hour</i> he would have been closer to
+the truth.</p>
+
+<p>A soft, lovely crimson creeps into her cheeks, and her eyes
+fall before his for a moment. Then she laughs,&mdash;a gay, mirthful
+laugh, that somehow puts sentiment to flight.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on about your little pigs," she says, glancing at him
+with coquettish mirth.</p>
+
+<p>"About your rings, you mean. I never look at them that
+I don't begin this sort of thing." Here, seeing an excellent
+opportunity for it, he takes her hand in his. "This little turquoise
+went to market, this little pearl stayed at home, this little
+emerald got some&mdash;er&mdash;cheese&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, it wasn't," hastily. "It was roast beef<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>"So it was. Better than cheese, any day. How stupid of
+me! I might have known an emerald&mdash;I mean a pig&mdash;wouldn't
+like cheese."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose it would like roast beef a bit better," says
+Monica; and then her lips part and she bursts into a merry
+laugh at the absurdity of the thing. She is such a child still
+that she finds the keenest enjoyment in it.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," with dignity, "and permit me to tell you,
+Miss Beresford, that open ridicule is rude. To continue: <i>this</i>
+little pearl got none, and this little plain gold ring got&mdash;he got&mdash;what
+on earth did the little plain gold pig&mdash;I mean, ring&mdash;get?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nothing.</i> Just what <i>you</i> ought to get for such a badly-told
+story. He only cried, <span class="s_corr" title="&quot;">'</span>Wee.<span class="s_corr" title="">'</span>"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, indeed. He shan't cry at all. I won't have tears
+connected with you in any way."</p>
+
+<p>She glances up at him with eyes half shy, half pleased, and
+with the prettiest dawning smile upon her lips.</p>
+
+<p>He clasps the slender fingers closer, as though loath to part
+with them, and yet his tale has come to a climax.</p>
+
+<p>"If I have told my story so badly, perhaps I had better tell
+it all over again," he says, with a base assumption of virtuous
+regret.</p>
+
+<p>"No. I would not give you that trouble for the world,"
+she says, mischievously, and then the dawning smile widens,
+brightens into something indescribable, but perfect.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Monica, I do think you are the sweetest thing on
+earth," says the young man, with sudden fervid passion; and
+then all at once, and for the first time, he puts out his arms
+impulsively and draws her to him. She colors,&mdash;still smiling,
+however,&mdash;and after a brief hesitation, moves slowly but decidedly
+back from him.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't <i>hate</i> me to touch you, do you?" asks he, rather
+hurt.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, indeed!" hurriedly. "Only&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Only what, darling?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly know what," she answers, looking bewildered.
+"Perhaps because it is all so strange. Why should you love
+<i>me</i> better than any one?&mdash;and yet you do," anxiously, "don't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>The innocently-expressed anxiety makes his heart glad.</p>
+
+<p>"I adore you," he says, fervently; and then, "Did no one
+ever place his arm round you <i>before</i>, Monica?"</p>
+
+<p>He finds a difficulty in even asking this.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," with intense surprise at the question, and a soft,
+quick glance that is almost shamed. "I never had a lover in
+my life until I met you. No one except you ever told me I was
+pretty. The first time <i>you</i> said it I went home (when I was out
+of your sight," reddening, "I ran all the rest of the way) and
+looked at myself in the glass. Then," naively, "I knew you
+were right. Still I had my doubts; so I called Kit and told
+her about it; and she," laughing, "said you were evidently
+a person of great discrimination, so I suppose she agreed with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"She could hardly do otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet sometimes," says Monica, with hesitation and a downcast
+face, "I have thought it was all mere fancy with you, and
+that you don't love me <i>really</i>."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My sweetheart, what a cruel thing to say to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"But see how you scold me! Only now," nervously plucking
+little bits of bark from the trunk of the tree, "you accused
+me of dreadful things. Yes, sometimes I doubt you."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder where I leave room for doubt? Yet I must convince
+you. What shall I swear by, then?" he asks, half <a class="corr" name="TC_53" id="TC_53" title="laughinn">laughing</a>:
+"the chaste Diana up above&mdash;the lovers' friend&mdash;is in
+full glory to-night; shall I swear by her?"</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="s_corr" title="">'</span>Oh, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, lest
+that thy love prove likewise variable,'" quotes she archly;
+"and yet," with a sudden change of mood, and a certain sweet
+gravity, "I do not mistrust you."</p>
+
+<p>She leans slightly towards him, and unasked, gives her
+hand into his keeping once again. She is full of pretty
+tender ways and womanly tricks, and as for the best time for
+displaying them, for this she has a natural talent.</p>
+
+<p>Desmond, clasping her hand, looks at her keenly. His
+whole heart is in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me that you love me," he says, in a low unsteady
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"How can I? I don't know. I am not sure," she says,
+falteringly; "and," shrinking a little from him, "it is growing
+very late. See how the moon has risen above the firs. I must
+go home."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me you love me first."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>must</i> not love you; you know that."</p>
+
+<p>"But if you might, you could?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye&mdash;es."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I defy all difficulties,&mdash;aunts, and friends, and lovers.
+I shall win you in the teeth of all barriers, and in spite of
+all opposition. And now go home, my heart's delight, my best
+beloved. I have this assurance from you, that your own lips
+have given me, and it makes me confident of victory."</p>
+
+<p>"But if you fail," she begins, nervously; but he will not
+listen to her.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no such word," he says, gayly. "Or, if there is,
+I never learnt it. Good-night, my love."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night." A little frightened by his happy vehemence
+she stands well away from him, and holds out her hands in
+farewell. Taking them, he opens them gently and presses
+an impassioned kiss on each little pink-tinged palm. With a
+courteous reverence for her evident shyness, he then releases
+her, and, raising his hat, stands motionless until she has sprung
+down the bank and so reached the Moyne fields again.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then she turns and waves him a second and last good
+night. Returning the salute, he replaces his hat on his head,
+and thrusting his hands deep in his pockets, turns towards
+Coole&mdash;and dinner. He is somewhat late for the latter, but
+this troubles him little, so set is his mind upon the girl who has
+just left him.</p>
+
+<p>Surely she is hard to win, and therefore&mdash;<i>how</i> desirable!
+"The women of Ireland," says an ancient chronicler, "are the
+coyest, the most coquettish, yet withal the coldest and virtuousest
+women upon earth." Yet, allowing all this, given time
+and opportunity, they may be safely wooed. What Mr. Desmond
+complains of bitterly, in his homeward musings to-night,
+is the fact that to him neither time nor opportunity is afforded.</p>
+
+<p>"She is a woman therefore to be won;" but how is his
+courtship to be sped, if thorns are to beset his path on every
+side, and if persistent malice blocks his way to the feet of her
+whom he adores?</p>
+
+<p>He reaches home in an unenviable frame of mind, and is
+thoroughly unsociable to Owen Kelly and the old squire all the
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning sees him in the same mood; and, indeed, it
+is about this time he takes to imagining his little love as being
+a hapless prisoner in the hands of two cruel ogres (I am afraid
+he really does apply the term "ogres" to the two old ladies of
+Moyne), and finds a special melancholy pleasure in depicting
+her as a lonely captive condemned to solitary confinement and
+dieted upon bread and water.</p>
+
+<p>To regard the Misses Blake in the light either of ogres or
+witches required some talent; but Mr. Desmond, at this period
+of his love-affair, managed it.</p>
+
+<p>He would go about, too, singing,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Oh, who will o'er the downs so free,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>taking immense comfort out of, and repeating over and over
+again, such lines as&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I sought her bower at break of day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Twas guarded safe and sure;"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Her father he has locked the door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her mother keeps the key;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But neither bolt nor bar shall keep<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My own true love from me,"&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>until bars, and bolts, and locks, and keys seemed all real.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How, after much discussion, the devoted, if mistaken, adherents of Thalia
+gain the day&mdash;and how, for once in his life, Owen Kelly feels melancholy
+that is not assumed.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>"I wish you would all attend," says Olga Bohun, just a little
+impatiently, looking round upon the assembled group, with
+brows uplifted and the point of a pencil thrust between her
+rose-red lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Thrice-blessed pencil!" murmurs Mr. Kelly, in a <i>very</i>
+stage whisper. "Man is the superior being, yet he would not
+be permitted to occupy so exalted a position. Are you a stone,
+Ronayne, that you can regard the situation with such an insensate
+face?" Mr. Ronayne is at this moment gazing at Mrs.
+Bohun with all his heart in his eyes. He starts and colors.
+"I cannot help thinking of that dear little song about the innocent
+daisy," goes on Mr. Kelly, with a rapt expression. "But
+I'd 'choose to be a <i>pencil</i>, if I might be a flower<span class="s_corr" title="">.</span>'"</p>
+
+<p>"Now <i>do</i> let us decide upon something," says Olga, taking
+no heed of this sally, and frowning down the smile that is
+fighting for mastery.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; now you are all to decide upon something at once,"
+says Mr. Kelly, gloomily. "There is a difficulty about the
+right way to begin it, but it must be done; Mrs. Bohun says
+so. There is to be no deception. I shall say one, two, three,
+and away, and then every one must have decided: the defaulter
+will be spurned from the gates. Now, one, two&mdash;&mdash;Desmond,"
+sternly "you are not deciding!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am, indeed," says Desmond, most untruthfully. He is
+lying on the grass at Monica's feet, and is playing idly with her
+huge white fan.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not doing it properly. I daresay Miss Beresford
+is making you uncomfortable; and I am sure you are trying to
+break her fan. Come over here and sit by me, and you will
+be much happier."</p>
+
+<p>"Penance is good for the soul. I shall stay here," says
+Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"If we mean to get up tableaux, we certainly ought to set
+about them at once," says Herrick, indolently.</p>
+
+<p>"There doesn't seem to be any work in anybody<span class="s_corr" title=".">,</span>" says
+Olga, in despair.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Try me," says Lord Rossmoyne, bending over her chair.
+He has only just come, and his arrival has been unannounced.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! <i>thank</i> you!"&mdash;with a brilliant smile. "Now you <i>do</i>
+look like business."</p>
+
+<p>It is Monday, and four o'clock. Aghyohillbeg lying basking
+in the sunshine is looking its loveliest,&mdash;which is saying a great
+deal. The heat is so intense on this sweet July day that every
+one has deserted the house and come out to find some air,&mdash;a
+difficulty. They have tried the grass terraces, in vain, and now
+have congregated beneath a giant fir, and are, comparatively
+speaking, cool.</p>
+
+<p>Just before luncheon Madam O'Connor brought Monica
+home in triumph with her from Moyne, to find Desmond, handsome
+and happy, on her doorstep, waiting with calm certainty
+an invitation to that meal. He got it, and to dinner likewise.</p>
+
+<p>"We have set our hearts on tableaux, but it is <i>so</i> difficult
+to think of any scene fresh and unhackneyed," says Olga, gazing
+plaintively into Lord Rossmoyne's sympathetic face.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't give way," says Mr. Kelly, tenderly. "It must be
+a poor intellect that couldn't rise superior to such a demand
+as that. Given one minute, I believe even I could produce an
+idea as novel as it would be brilliant<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have your minute," says Olga, pulling out her
+watch. "Now&mdash;begin&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Time's up," she says, presently, when sixty seconds have
+honestly expired.</p>
+
+<p>"You might have said that thirty seconds ago, and I should
+not have objected," says Mr. Kelly, with an assured smile.</p>
+
+<p>"And your idea."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>The Huguenots!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Need I say that every one is exceedingly angry?</p>
+
+<p>"Ever heard it before?" asks Mr. Kelly, with aggressive
+insolence; which question, being considered as adding insult
+to injury, is treated with silent contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you it was not to be done," says Olga, petulantly
+addressing everybody generally.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't agree with you. I see no reason why it should
+fall to the ground," says Miss Fitzgerald, warmly, who is determined
+to show herself off in a gown that has done duty
+for "Madame Favart," and the "Bohemian Girl," and "Maritana,"
+many a time and oft.</p>
+
+<p>"I have another idea," says Mr. Kelly, at this opportune
+moment.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If it is as useful as your first, you may keep it," says
+Olga, with pardonable indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"I am misunderstood," says Mr. Kelly, mournfully, but
+with dignity. "I shall write to Miss Montgomery and ask
+her to make another pathetic tale about me. As you are bent on
+trampling upon an unknown genius,&mdash;poor but proud&mdash;I shall
+<i>not</i> make you acquainted with this last beautiful thought which
+I have evolved from my inner consciousness."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say that! <i>do</i> tell it to us," says Monica, eagerly,
+and in perfect good faith. She <a class="corr" name="TC_54" id="TC_54" title="knowns">knows</a> less of him than the
+others, and may therefore be excused for still believing in
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Miss Beresford. <i>You</i> can soar above a mean
+desire to crush a rising power. You have read, of course, that
+popular poem by our poet-laureate, called 'Enid.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says Monica, staring at him.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean the poem in which he has so faithfully depicted
+the way in which two escaped lunatics would be sure to behave
+if left to their own devices. Considered as a warning to us to
+keep bolts and bars on Colney Hatch and Hanwell, it may be
+regarded as a delicate attention. Dear Tennyson! he certainly
+is a public benefactor. There is a scene in that remarkable
+poem which I think might suit us. You remember where,
+after much wild careering in the foreground, the principal
+idiots decide upon riding home together, pillion fashion?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I think so," says Monica, who plainly doesn't, being
+much confused.</p>
+
+<p>"'Then on his foot she sat her own and climbed,'&mdash;and
+then she threw her arms round him in a most unmaidenly
+fashion, if I recollect aright; but of course mad people <i>will</i> be
+vehement, poor souls; they can't help it. Now, supposing we
+adopted that scene, wouldn't it be effective? One of Madam
+O'Connor's big carriage-horses, if brought forward,&mdash;I mean
+the one that kicked over the traces, yesterday,&mdash;would, I firmly
+believe, create quite a sensation, and in all probability bring
+down the house."</p>
+
+<p>"The stage, certainly," says Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you approve of it," says Kelly, with suspicious gratitude.
+"Then let us arrange it at once. Miss Beresford might
+throw her arms round Ryde, for example: that would be
+charming."</p>
+
+<p>Desmond looking at this moment as if he would willingly
+murder him, Mr. Kelly is apparently satisfied, and sinks to rest
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>
+with his head upon his arm once more. No one else has heard
+the suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you might help me, instead of giving voice to insane
+propositions," says Olga, reproachfully, turning her eyes
+upon Mr. Kelly's bowed form,&mdash;he is lying prostrate on the
+grass,&mdash;which is shaking in a palsied fashion. "I really <i>did</i>
+believe in <i>you</i>," she says, whereupon the young man, springing
+to his feet, flings his arms wide, and appeals in an impassioned
+manner to an unprejudiced public as to whether he has not
+been racking his brain in her service for the last half-hour.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I wish you would go and rack it in somebody else's
+service," says Mrs. Bohun, ungratefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Hear her!" says Mr. Kelly, gazing slowly round him.
+"She still persists in the unseemly abuse. She is bent on
+breaking my heart and driving sleep from mine eyelids. It is
+ungenerous, the more so that she knows I have not the courage
+to tear myself from her beloved presence. You, Ronayne, and
+you, Rossmoyne, can sympathize with me:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'In durance vile here must I wake and weep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all my frowzy couch in sorrow steep.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Fancy a frowzy couch saturated with tears! you know," <a class="corr" name="TC_55" id="TC_55" title="rereproachfully">reproachfully</a>
+to Olga, "<i>you</i> wouldn't like to have to lie on it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do come and sit down here near me, and be silent,"
+says Olga, in desperation.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not have a play?" says Captain Cobbett, who with
+Mr. Ryde has driven over from Clonbree.</p>
+
+<p>"'The play's the thing,'" says Brian Desmond, lazily;
+"but when you are about it, make it a farce."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>no</i>!" says Miss Fitzgerald, with a horrified gesture;
+"<i>anything</i> but that! Why not let us try one of the good old
+comedies?&mdash;'The School for Scandal,' for example?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What!</i>" says Mr. Kelly, very weakly. He is plainly
+quite overcome by this suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why not?" demands the fair Bella, with just a
+<i>soupcon</i> of asperity in her tone,&mdash;as much as she ever allows
+herself when in the society of men. She makes up for this
+abstinence by bestowing a liberal share of it upon her maid
+and her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"It's&mdash;it's such a naughty, naughty piece," says Mr. Kelly,
+bashfully, beating an honorable retreat from his first meaning.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! One can strike out anything distasteful."</p>
+
+<p>"Shades of Farren&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;Who would be Lady Teazle?"
+says Olga.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I would," says Bella, modestly.</p>
+
+<p>"That is more than good of you," says Olga, casting a
+curious glance at her from under her long lashes. "But I
+thought, perhaps&mdash;&mdash;You, Hermia, would you not undertake
+it? You know, last season, they said you were&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, dear, thanks. No, <i>indeed</i>," with emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"Cobbett does Joseph Surface to perfection," breaks in
+Mr. Ryde, enthusiastically.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I say now, Ryde! Come, you know, this is hardly
+fair," says the little captain, coyly, who is looking particularly
+pinched and dried to-day, in spite of the hot sun. There is a
+satisfied smirk upon his pale lips, and a poor attempt at self-depreciation
+about his whole manner.</p>
+
+<p>"You know you <span class="s_corr" title="took'em">took 'em</span> by storm at Portsmouth, last year,&mdash;made
+'em laugh like fun. You should see him," persists
+Ryde, addressing everybody generally.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you mean the part of Charles Surface," says
+Ronayne, in some surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"No. Joseph: the sly one you know," says Ryde chuckling
+over some recollection.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it never occurred to me that Joseph's part might be
+termed a <i>funny</i> one," says Mr. Kelly, mildly; "but that shows
+how ignorant all we Irish are. It will be very kind of you,
+Cobbett, to enlighten us,&mdash;to show us something <i>good</i>, in fact."</p>
+
+<p>"Really, you know, you flatter me absurdly," says Cobbett,
+the self-depreciation fainter, the smirk broader.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Rossmoyne, whose good temper is not his strong point,
+glances angrily at him, smothers an explosive speech, and
+walks away with a sneer.</p>
+
+<p>"And Sir Peter,&mdash;who will kindly undertake Sir Peter?"
+asks Olga, with a smile that is faintly sarcastic. "Will you,
+Owen?" to Mr. Kelly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ask me. I could not act with Cobbett and Miss
+Fitzgerald. I mean, I should only disgrace them," says Kelly,
+who is a member of a famous dramatic club in Dublin, and who
+has had two offers from London managers to tread the boards.
+"I feel I'm not up to it, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"I suspect you are not," says Hermia Herrick, with a sudden
+smile that lights up all her cold impassive face. Kelly,
+catching it, crawls lazily over to her, along the grass, Indian
+fashion, and finding a fold of her gown lays his arm on it, and
+his head on his arm, and relapses into silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Ryde has done it," says Captain Cobbett.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!" says Olga, raising questioning eyes to the big
+marine standing behind Monica's chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye&mdash;es. We&mdash;er&mdash;do a good deal of that sort of thing in
+<i>our</i> country," says Ryde, with conscious worth. "I have done
+Sir Peter once or twice; and people have been good enough
+not to&mdash;" with a little laugh&mdash;"<i>hiss</i> me. I have a style of my
+own; but&mdash;er&mdash;&mdash;" with an encouraging glance at the other
+men, "I daresay there are many here who could do it as I do
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Not <i>one</i>, I am convinced," says Desmond, promptly; and
+Monica laughs softly.</p>
+
+<p>"We must think it over. I don't believe anything so important
+could be got up without deep deliberation&mdash;&mdash;" Olga is
+beginning, when Kelly, by a movement of the hand, stops her.</p>
+
+<p>"Do let it go on to its bitter end," he says, in a whisper,
+with most unusual animation for him. "Mrs. Herrick, help me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not, Olga?" says Hermia, in a low tone. "The
+principal characters are willing; we have not had a real laugh
+for some time: why throw away such a <i>perfect</i> chance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! <i>that</i>&mdash;&mdash;" says Olga.</p>
+
+<p>Here a slight diversion is caused by the appearance of a
+footman, tea tray, a boy<span class="s_corr" title="">,</span> a gypsy table, a maid, a good deal of
+fruit, maraschino, brandy, soda, <i>and</i> Madam O'Connor. The
+latter, to tell the truth, has been having a siesta in the privacy
+of her own room, and has now come down, like a giant refreshed,
+to see how her guests are getting on.</p>
+
+<p>"Well<span class="s_corr" title="">,</span> I hope you're all happy," she says, jovially.</p>
+
+<p>"We are mad with perplexity," says Olga.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, then, darling?" says Madam. "Hermia,
+like a good child, go and pour out the tea."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you all about it," says Brian, who is a special favorite
+of Madam O'Connor's, coming over to her and stopping
+behind her chair to whisper into her ear.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever he says makes her laugh immoderately. It is
+easy to bring smiles to her lips at any time,&mdash;her heart having
+kept at a standstill whilst her body grew old,&mdash;but now she
+seems particularly fetched.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, my dear Olga, let them have their own way," she
+says merrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. Let us consider it settled," says Mrs. Bohun.
+"But I <i>should</i> like some tableaux afterwards, as a wind-up."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, certainly," says Ronayne. "What do you think,
+Madam?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have set my mind on them," says his old hostess, gayly.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>
+"You are such a handsome boy, Ulic, that I'm bent on seeing
+you in fancy clothes; and so is somebody else, I daresay.
+Look at the children, how they steal towards us; were there
+ever such demure little mice? Come here, Georgie, my son, I
+have peaches and pretty things for you."</p>
+
+<p>The kind old soul holds out her arms to two beautiful children,
+a boy and a girl, who are coming slowly, shyly towards
+her. They are so like Hermia Herrick as to be unmistakably
+hers. The boy, coming straight to Madame O'Connor, climbs
+up on her lap and lays his bonny cheek against hers; but the
+girl, running to her mother, who is busy over the tea-tray,
+nestles close to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Gently, my soul," say Hermia, in a soft whisper. Though
+she still calmly pours out the tea, with Kelly beside her, she
+lets the unoccupied hand fall, to mingle with the golden tresses
+of the child. As her hand meets the little sunny head, a marvellous
+sweetness creeps into her face and transfixes it to a
+heavenly beauty. Kelly, watching her, marks the change.</p>
+
+<p>Going round to the child, he would have taken her in his
+arms,&mdash;as <a class="corr" name="TC_56" id="TC_56" title="in">is</a> his habit with most children, being a special favorite
+in every nursery; but this little dame, drawing back from
+him, repels him coldly. Then, as though fearing herself ungracious,
+she slowly extends to him a tiny, friendly hand, which
+he accepts. The likeness between this grave baby and her
+graver mother is so remarkable as to be almost ludicrous.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you haven't given Mr. Kelly even one kiss to-day,"
+says her mother, smiling faintly, and pressing the child closer
+to her. "She is a cold little thing, is she not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose she inherits it," says Owen Kelly, without lifting
+his eyes from the child's fair face.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Herrick colors slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you let me get you some tea, Fay?" says Mr. Kelly,
+addressing the child almost anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you," says the fairy, sweetly but decidedly.
+"My mammy will give me half hers. I do not like any other
+tea."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not in favor to-day," says Kelly, drawing back and
+shrugging his shoulders slightly, but looking distinctly disappointed.
+It may be the child sees this, because she comes impulsively
+forward, and, standing on tiptoe before him, holds
+her arms upwards towards his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to kiss you now," she says, solemnly, when he has
+taken her into his embrace. "But no one else. I only want
+to kiss <i>you</i> sometimes&mdash;and <i>always</i> mamma."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am content to be second where mamma is first. I am
+glad you place me with her in your mind. I should like to be
+always with mamma," says Kelly. He laughs a little, and
+kisses the child again, and places her gently upon the ground,
+and then he glances at Hermia. But her face is impassive as
+usual. No faintest tinge deepens the ordinary pallor of her
+cheeks. She has the sugar tongs poised in the air, and is apparently
+sunk in abstruse meditation.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I wonder who takes sugar and who doesn't," she
+says, wrinkling up her pretty brows in profound thought. "I
+have been here a month, yet cannot yet be sure. Mr. Kelly,
+you must call some one else to our assistance to take round
+the sugar, as you can't do everything."</p>
+
+<p>"I can do <i>nothing</i>," says Kelly, in a low tone, after which
+he turns away and calls Brian Desmond to come to him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Desmond asserts himself, and shows himself a better man than his
+rival&mdash;And how a bunch of red roses causes a breach, and how a ring
+heals it.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>"Then it is decided," says Olga. "'The School for Scandal'
+first, and tableaux to follow. Now for <i>them</i>. I suppose
+four altogether will be quite sufficient. We must not try the
+patience of our poor audience past endurance."</p>
+
+<p>"It will be past that long before our tableaux begin," says
+Ulic Ronayne, in a low tone. He is dressed in a tennis suit of
+white flannel, and is looking particularly handsome.</p>
+
+<p>Olga makes a pretty little <i>moue</i>, but no audible response.</p>
+
+<p>"I have two arranged," she says, "but am distracted about
+three and four. Will anybody except Mr. Kelly come to my
+assistance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you're jealous because you didn't think of 'Enid' and
+the carriage-horse yourself," returns that young man, with ineffable
+disdain,&mdash;"or that Dolly Varden affair."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that last might do,&mdash;modified a little," says Olga,
+brightening. "Mr. Ryde is enormous enough for anything.
+Quite an ideal Hugh."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite," says Ronayne, with a smile.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then it has arranged itself; that is, if you agree, dear?"
+says Olga, turning to Monica.</p>
+
+<p>"It shall be as you wish. I mean, I know nothing about
+it," gently; "but I shall like to help you if I can."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean you don't object to the subject,&mdash;or Mr. Ryde?"
+says Olga, kindly, unaware that Mr. Ryde has come away from
+the tea-table and is now close behind her. Monica, however,
+sees him, and smiles courteously.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," she says, as in duty bound.</p>
+
+<p>And then the fourth is found and grasped, and all trouble
+is at an end.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>So</i> glad I can now take my tea in peace," says Olga, with
+a sigh of profound relief. "<i>Who</i> would be stage-manager?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you don't do much of this kind of thing in Ireland,
+I daresay," says Mr. Ryde.</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of thing?" asks Olga, sweetly, who doesn't
+like him. "Tea-drinking?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;acting&mdash;er&mdash;and that."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I'm quite at sea about the '<i>that</i>,'" says Olga,
+shaking her blonde head. "Perhaps we do a good deal of it,
+perhaps we don't. Explain it to me."</p>
+
+<p>("Awful stoopid people!&mdash;not a word of truth about their
+ready wit," says Mr. Ryde to himself at this juncture.)</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well&mdash;er&mdash;let us confine ourselves to the acting," he
+says, feeling somehow at a loss. "It is new to you here, it
+seems."</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly have never acted in my life," begins Monica;
+"but&mdash;&mdash;<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bohun interrupts her.</p>
+
+<p>"We are a hopelessly benighted lot," she says, making Ryde
+a present of a beautiful smile. "We are sadly behind the
+world,&mdash;<i>rococo</i>"&mdash;shrugging her shoulders pathetically&mdash;"to the
+last degree. You, Mr. Ryde, have opened up to us possibilities
+never dreamt of before; touches of civilization hitherto unknown."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think in your case a very little tuition would be
+sufficient," says Ryde, with such kindly encouragement in his
+tone that Ronayne, who is at Olga's feet, collapses, and from
+being abnormally grave breaks into riotous laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"You must teach us stage effects,&mdash;is that the proper term?&mdash;and
+correct us when we betray too crass an ignorance, and&mdash;above
+all things, Mr. Ryde," with an arch glance, "you must
+promise not to lose your temper over the <i>gaucheries</i> of your
+Dolly Varden."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Whose Dolly Varden?" asks Desmond, coming up at this
+instant laden with cups of tea.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Ryde's."</p>
+
+<p>"He is to be Hugh to Miss Beresford's Dolly," says
+Ronayne.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, isn't it good of Monica? she has consented to take
+the part," says Olga, who is really grateful to her for having
+helped her out of her difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Have</i> you?" says Desmond, turning upon Monica with
+dilated eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Is that tea for me?" returns she, calmly, with great
+self-possession, seeing that sundry eyes are upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"For you, or any one," replies he. Tone can convey far
+more meaning than words. The words just now are correct
+enough, but the tone is uncivil to the last degree. Monica,
+flushing slightly, takes a cup from him, and Olga takes the
+second.</p>
+
+<p>There is a short silence whilst they stir their tea, during
+which Madam O'Connor's voice can be distinctly heard,&mdash;it
+generally <i>can</i> above every tumult. She is discoursing enthusiastically
+about some wonderful tree in her orchard, literally
+borne down by fruit.</p>
+
+<p>"You never saw such a sight!" she is saying,&mdash;"laden
+down to the ground. The finest show of pears in the country.
+I was telling Williams he would do well to prop it. But I suppose
+it will ruin the tree for the next two years to come."</p>
+
+<p>"What, the propping?" says Rossmoyne.</p>
+
+<p>"No, the enormous produce, you silly boy!" says his hostess,
+with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Monica, who is growing restless beneath Desmond's angry
+regard, turns to her nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I should like to see it," she says, softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Allow me to take you to it," says Ryde, quickly, coming
+to her side.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Beresford is coming with <i>me</i>," interposes Desmond.
+His face is pale, and his eyes flash ominously.</p>
+
+<p>"That is for Miss Beresford to decide."</p>
+
+<p>"She <i>has</i> decided," says Desmond, growing even paler, but
+never removing his eyes from his rival's. He is playing a dangerous
+game, but even in the danger is ecstasy. And, as Monica
+continues silent, a great joy fills his soul.</p>
+
+<p>"But until"&mdash;begins the Englishman, doggedly&mdash;"I hear&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Bohun's cup is causing her embarrassment. See to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
+it," interrupts Desmond, unemotionally. And then, turning to
+Monica, he says, "Come," coldly, but with such passionate entreaty
+in his eyes that she is borne away by it, and goes with
+him submissively across the lawn, until she has so far withdrawn
+herself from her companions that a return would be undignified.</p>
+
+<p>They go as far as the entrance to the orchard, a good quarter
+of a mile, in silence, and then the storm breaks.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't have that fellow holding you in his arms," says
+Desmond, pale with grief and rage, standing still and confronting
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you said you would never be jealous again,"
+says Monica, who has had time to recover herself, and time,
+too, to grow angry.</p>
+
+<p>"I also said I hoped you would never give me cause."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Bohun has arranged this tableau."</p>
+
+<p>"Then disarrange it."</p>
+
+<p>"But how?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say you won't act with Ryde."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't expect me to make myself laughable in that
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"Then <i>I'll</i> do it."</p>
+
+<p>"And so make me laughable in another way. I can't see
+what right you have to interfere," she breaks out suddenly,
+standing before him, wilful but lovely. "What are you to me,
+or I to you, that you should order me about like this?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are all the world to me,&mdash;you are <i>my wife</i>," says the
+young man, in a solemn tone, but with passionately angry eyes.
+"You can refuse me if you like, but I shall go to my grave
+with your image only in my heart. As to what I am to <i>you</i>,
+that is quite another thing,&mdash;less than nothing, I should say."</p>
+
+<p>"And no wonder, too, considering your <i>awful</i> temper,"
+says Monica, viciously; but her tone trembles.</p>
+
+<p>At this he seems to lose heart. A very sad look creeps into
+his dark eyes and lingers there.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, do what you like about these wretched tableaux,"
+he says, so wearily that Monica, though victorious, feels inclined
+to cry. "If they give you a moment's pleasure, why should
+I rebel? As you say, I am nothing to you. Come, let us go
+and look at this famous pear-tree."</p>
+
+<p>But she does not stir. They are inside the orchard,
+standing in a very secluded spot, with only some green apples
+and an ivied wall to see them. Her eyes are downcast, and
+her slender fingers are playing nervously with a ribbon on her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>
+gown. Her lips have taken a remorseful curve. Now, as
+though unable to restrain the impulse, she raises her eyes to
+his for a brief second, but, brief as it is, he can see that they
+are full of tears<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span></p>
+
+<p>"Brian," she says, nervously.</p>
+
+<p>It is the first time she has ever called him by his
+Christian name, and he turns to her a face still sad indeed,
+but altogether surprised and pleased.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, that is good of you," he says.</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing good about me," says Monica, tearfully.
+"I am as horrid as I well can be, and you are&mdash;&mdash;Brian, I
+will give up that tableau. I will not be Dolly Varden; no,
+not if Mr. Ryde went on his <i>knees</i> to me."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, <i>dear</i> love!" says Mr. Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you indeed love me," says Monica, softly, "in spite
+of all I do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I love you <i>because</i> of all you do. What is there not
+commendable in every action of yours? I love you; I live
+always in the hope that some day you will be more to me than
+you are to-day. A presumptuous hope perhaps," with a rather
+forced smile, "but one I <i>will</i> not stifle. I suppose every one
+lives in a visionary world at times, where some 'not impossible
+she' reigns as queen. I dare say you think my queen <i>is</i> impossible,
+yet you little know what dreams have been my playmates,
+night and day."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I your queen?" sweetly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, darling."</p>
+
+<p>"And you are glad I have given up this tableau?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what I should have done if you hadn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, now you will do something for me," says Miss
+Beresford, promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Anything," with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"Then to-morrow you are to come here <i>without</i> the roses
+I heard you promising Miss Fitzgerald this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>Her tone is quite composed, but two little brilliant flecks
+of color have risen hurriedly and are now flaunting themselves
+on either pretty cheek. She is evidently very seriously in earnest.</p>
+
+<p>"She asked me for them: she will think it so ungenerous,
+so rude," says Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"Not ungenerous. She will never think you that, or rude
+either," says Monica, gauging the truth to a nicety. "<i>Careless</i>
+if you will, but no more; and&mdash;I <i>want</i> you to seem careless
+where she is concerned."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But why, my dearest?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I don't like her; she always treats me as
+though I were some insignificant little girl still in short petticoats,"
+says Miss Beresford, with rising indignation. "And
+because&mdash;because, too&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She pauses in some confusion.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on: because what?" with gentle encouragement.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, because I know she wants to <i>marry</i> you,"
+says Monica, vehemently, but in a choked voice.</p>
+
+<p>"What an extraordinary idea to come into your head!"
+says Desmond, in a choked tone also, but from a different
+emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you laughing at?" severely. "At me?"</p>
+
+<p>"My darling, it seems so absurd, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>forbid</i> you to laugh," in a tone replete with anger but
+highly suggestive of tears. "Don't do it."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll never laugh again, my pet, if it offends you so dreadfully."</p>
+
+<p>"But your eyes are laughing; I can see them. I can
+see a great deal more than you think, and I know that hateful
+girl has made up her mind to marry you as soon as ever she
+can."</p>
+
+<p>"That will be never."</p>
+
+<p>"Not if you go on bringing her roses and things."</p>
+
+<p>"What harm can a simple rose do?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you are going to look at it in that light, I shall say no
+more. But in a very little time you will find she has married
+you, and <i>then</i> where will you be?"</p>
+
+<p>Her jealousy is too childishly open to be misunderstood.
+Mr. Desmond's spirits are rising with marvellous rapidity;
+indeed, for the past two minutes he feels as if he is treading
+on air.</p>
+
+<p>"As you won't have me, I don't much care <i>where</i> I shall
+be," he says with the mean hope of reducing her to submission
+by a threat. In this hope he is doomed to be disappointed,
+as she meets his base insinuation with an unlowered
+front.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, <i>go</i> and marry her," she says, calmly, as if church,
+parson, and Miss Fitzgerald are all waiting for him, in anxious
+expectation, round the corner.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I shan't," says Desmond, changing his tactics without
+a blush. "Catch me at it! As you persist in refusing me,
+I shall never marry, but remain a bachelor forever, for your
+sweet sake."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then say you will not bring those roses to-morrow. Or,
+better still, say you will bring them, and"&mdash;all women, even
+the best are cruel&mdash;"give them to me <i>before</i> her."</p>
+
+<p>"My darling! what an unreasonable thing to ask me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I daresay! when people don't <i>love</i> people they
+always think everything they do unreasonable."</p>
+
+<p>This rather involved sentence seems to cut Mr. Desmond
+to the heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, if you say that, I must do it," he says.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't do it on my account," with a wilful air.</p>
+
+<p>"No, on my own, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, remember I don't ask you to do it," with the most
+disgraceful ingratitude. "Do as you wish about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Your wishes are mine," he says, tenderly. "I have had
+no divided existence since that first day I saw you,&mdash;how long
+ago it seems now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Very long. Only a few weeks in reality, but it seems to
+myself that I have known and&mdash;liked you all my life."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet that day when I saw you on the hay-cart is hardly two
+months old," says Desmond, dreamily.</p>
+
+<p>As a breath of half-forgotten perfume, or a long-lost chord
+fresh sounded, brings back the memories of a lifetime, so does
+this chance remark of his now recall to her a scene almost gone
+out of mind, yet still fraught with recollections terrible to her
+self-love.</p>
+
+<p>"Two months,&mdash;only two?&mdash;oh, it must be more," she says,
+with a pang. Surely time ought to lessen the feeling of shame
+that overpowers her whenever she thinks of that fatal day.</p>
+
+<p>"So wearisome a time, my own?" asks he, reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it is not that. It is only&mdash;&mdash;. Oh, Brian, that day
+you speak of, when I was on that horrid hay-cart, did you&mdash;I
+mean&mdash;did I&mdash;that is&mdash;did I look very ungraceful?"</p>
+
+<p>The word she is dying to say is <i>dis</i>graceful, but she dares
+not.</p>
+
+<p>"Ungraceful?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Terry says that when we were passing you that
+day I was&mdash;was," with a desperate rush, "kicking up my
+heels?"</p>
+
+<p>She is trembling with shame and confusion. Crimson has
+sprung to her cheeks, tears to her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe a word of it," says Mr. Desmond, comprehending
+the situation at last. "But, even supposing you
+were,&mdash;and, after all, that is the sort of thing <i>every one</i> does on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
+a bundle of hay,"&mdash;as though it is quite the customary thing for
+people generally to go round the world seated on hay-carts,&mdash;"I
+didn't see you&mdash;that is, your heels, I mean; I saw only
+your face,&mdash;the prettiest face in the world. How could I look
+at anything else when I had once seen that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Brian!" turning to him impetuously, and laying both her
+hands upon his shoulders, "I do think you are the dearest
+fellow on earth."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Monica! am I the dearest to you?" He has twined
+his arms round her lissome figure, and is gazing anxiously into
+her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,&mdash;yes, <i>certainly</i>." And then, with a <i>naivete</i> indescribable,
+and with the utmost composure, she says,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I think I should like to give you a kiss!"</p>
+
+<p>Is the blue dome still over his head, or has the sky fallen?
+The thing he has been longing for, with an intensity not to be
+portrayed, ever since their first meeting, but has not dared to
+even <i>hint</i> at, is now freely offered him, as though it were a
+thing of naught.</p>
+
+<p>"Monica!" says her lover, the blood rushing to his face,
+"do you <i>mean</i> it?" He tightens his clasp round her, yet still
+refrains from touching the sweet lips so near his own. A feeling
+of honest manliness makes him hesitate about accepting
+this great happiness, lest, indeed, he may have misunderstood
+her. To him it is so great a boon she grants that he hardly
+dares believe in its reality.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do," says Miss Beresford, distinctly offended.
+"I&mdash;at least, I <i>did</i>. I don't now. I always want to kiss people
+when I feel fond of them; but you don't, evidently, or else,
+perhaps, you aren't really fond of me at all, in spite of all you
+have said. Never mind. Don't put yourself out. It was
+merely a passing fancy on my part."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't let it pass," exclaims her lover, anxiously.
+"Darling <i>life</i>, don't you know I have been longing, <i>longing</i> to
+kiss you for weeks past, yet dared not, because something in
+your eyes forbade me? And now, to have you of your own
+accord really willing to give my dear desire seems too much."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure that it is that, or&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My angel, what a question!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yet perhaps you think&mdash;&mdash;Don't kiss me just to oblige
+me, you know. I don't care so much about it as all <i>that</i>,
+but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She finds it impossible to finish the sentence, because&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p><hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Dexterously, but gently, she draws herself away from him,
+and stands a little apart. Looking at her, he can see she is
+troubled. He has opened his lips to speak, but by a gesture
+she restrains him.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it now," she says. This oracular speech is accompanied
+by a blush, vivid as it is angry, and there are large
+tears in her eyes. "I should not have asked <i>you</i> to kiss <i>me</i>.
+That was your part, and you have taught me that I usurped it.
+Yet I thought only that I was fond of you, that you were my
+friend, or like Terry, or&mdash;" here the grievance gains sound,
+"you <i>should</i> not have kissed me like that."</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't suppose I was going to kiss you as Terry
+might?" asks he, with just indignation. "He is your brother;
+I am&mdash;not."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know anything about it, except this, that it will be
+a very long time before you have the chance of doing it again.
+I can't bear being <i>hugged</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I am very sorry," says Mr. Desmond, stiffly. "Let me
+assure you, however, that I shall never cause you such offence
+again until you wish it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then say never at once," says Monica, with a pout.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good," says Desmond. It may now be reasonably
+supposed that he has met all her requirements, and that she
+has no further complaints to bring forward; but such is not
+the case.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like you when you talk to me like that," she says,
+aggressively, and with a spoiled-child air, glancing at him from
+under her sweeping lashes.</p>
+
+<p>"How am I to talk to you, then?" asks he, in despair.</p>
+
+<p>"You know very well how to talk to Miss Fitzgerald,"
+retorts she, provokingly, and with a bold attempt at a frown.
+Yet there is something about her naughty little face, a hidden,
+mocking, mischievous, yet withal friendly smile as it were, that
+disarms her speech of its sting and gives Brian renewed hope
+and courage.</p>
+
+<p>He takes her hand deliberately and draws it unrepulsed
+through his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go up this walk," he says, "and leave all angry
+words and thoughts behind us.<span class="s_corr" title="."></span>"</p>
+
+<p>He makes a movement in the direction indicated, and finds
+that she moves with him. He finds, too, that her slender fingers
+have closed involuntarily upon his arm. Plainly, she
+is as glad to be at peace with him as he with her.</p>
+
+<p>Coming to a turn in the path, shaded by two rugged old
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
+apple-trees now growing heavy with their green burden, Desmond
+stands still, and, putting his right hand in his pocket, draws out
+something from it. As he does this he colors slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"You wear all your rings on your right hand," he says, with
+loving awkwardness, "and it seems to me the other poor little
+fingers always look neglected. I&mdash;I wish you would take this
+and make it a present to your left hand."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>This</i>" is a thick gold band, set with three large diamonds
+of great brilliancy in gypsy fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! not for me!" says Monica, recoiling, and clasping
+her hands behind her back, yet with her eyes firmly fastened
+upon the beautiful ring.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not for you? Some day I shall give you all I possess;
+now I can give you only such things as this."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I must not take it," says Monica; but even as she
+utters the half-hearted refusal she creeps unconsciously closer
+to him, and, laying her hand upon his wrist, looks with childish
+delight and longing at the glittering stones lying in his palm.</p>
+
+<p>"But I say you must," says Desmond, taking a very superior
+tone. "It is yours, not mine. I have nothing to do with it.
+It was never meant for me. See," taking up her hand and
+slipping the ring on her engaged finger, "how pretty your little
+white hand makes it look!"</p>
+
+<p>It is always a difficult thing to a woman to bring herself to
+refuse diamonds, but doubly difficult once she has seen them
+positively adorning her own person.</p>
+
+<p>Monica looks at the ring, then sighs, then turns it round and
+round mechanically, and finally glances at Desmond. He returns
+the glance by passing his arm round her shoulders, after
+which there is never another word said about the ownership of
+the ring.</p>
+
+<p>"But it will put my poor little pigs in the shade, won't it?"
+says Monica, looking at her other hand, and then at him archly.
+"Oh! it is lovely&mdash;<i>lovely</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I might have chosen you a prettier one, had I run
+up to Dublin and gone to Waterhouse myself," says Desmond;
+"but I knew if I went I could not possibly get back until to-morrow
+evening, and that would mean losing two whole days of our
+precious seven."</p>
+
+<p>This speech pleases Monica, I think, even more than the
+ring.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you did not go," she says, softly.</p>
+
+<p>"So am I&mdash;especially as&mdash;&mdash;" Here he pauses, and then
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>
+goes on again hurriedly. "If I had gone, Monica, you would
+not have forgotten me?"</p>
+
+<p>"How could I forget you in two little days?"</p>
+
+<p>"They would have been two very big days to me. But tell
+me, if I were to go away from you for a far longer time&mdash;say
+for a whole month&mdash;would you still be faithful? Should I find
+you as I left you,&mdash;indifferent to others at least, if not wholly
+mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I change?"</p>
+
+<p>"Darling, there are so many reasons." He draws his
+breath quickly, impatiently. "Some day, you may meet some
+one else&mdash;more suited to you, perhaps, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never do that." She interrupts him slowly, but
+decidedly.</p>
+
+<p>"You are sure?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>The answer in words perhaps is meagre; but he, looking
+into the depths of her soft eyes, sees a surer answer there, and
+is satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>The shadows are growing longer and slower. They do not
+dance and quiver now in mad glee, as they did an hour agone.</p>
+
+<p>"I think we must go back," says Monica, with unconcealed
+regret.</p>
+
+<p>"What! you will throw me again into temptation? into the
+very arms of the fair Bella?" says Desmond, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Reflect, I beg of you, before it is too late."</p>
+
+<p>"After all," says Monica, "I don't think I have behaved
+very nicely about her. I don't think now it would be a&mdash;a
+pretty thing to make you give me the roses before her. No,
+you must not do that; and you must not manage to forget them,
+either. You shall bring the handsomest you can find and give
+them to her,&mdash;but <i>publicly</i> Brian, just as if there was nothing
+in it, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing like adhering to the strict truth," says
+Brian. "There shall be nothing in my roses, I promise you,&mdash;except
+perfume."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How gossip grows rife at Aghyohillbeg&mdash;How Hermia parries the question,
+and how Olga proves unkind.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>"She's <i>disgracefully</i> ugly!&mdash;I saw her quite close," says
+Mr. Kelly, in an injured tone. "I wonder what on earth
+Madam O'Connor means by asking her here, where she can be
+nothing but a blot upon a perfect landscape; all the rest of us
+are so lovely."</p>
+
+<p>It is four o'clock, and hopelessly wet. The soft rain patters
+on the leaves outside, the grass and all the gardens are drowned
+in Nature's tears. There can be no lounging on sunny
+terraces, no delicious dreaming under shady beech-trees, this
+lost afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>Giving in to the inevitable with a cheerful resignation
+worthy of record, they have all congregated in the grand old
+hall, one of the chief glories of Aghyohillbeg.</p>
+
+<p>Through a vague but mistaken notion that it will add to
+their comfort and make them cosier and more forgetful of&mdash;or
+at least more indifferent to&mdash;the sunshine of yesterday, they
+have had an enormous fire of pine logs kindled upon the hearth.
+When too late, they discover it to be a discomfort; but, with a
+stoicism worthy a better cause, they decline to acknowledge
+their error, and stand in groups round the aggressive logs,
+pretending to enjoy them, but in reality dying of heat.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the fragrant pieces of pine roar and crackle
+merrily, throwing shadows up the huge chimney, and casting
+bright gleams of light upon the exquisite oaken carving of the
+ancient chimney-piece that reaches almost to the lofty ceiling
+and is now blackened by age and beautiful beyond description.</p>
+
+<p>Olga, in a sage-green gown, is lying back listlessly in a
+deep arm-chair; she has placed an elbow on either arm of it,
+and has brought her fingers so far towards each other that
+their tips touch. Hermia Herrick, in a gown of copper-red, is
+knitting languidly a little silk sock for the child nestling silently
+at her knee.</p>
+
+<p>Monica, in plain white India muslin, is doing nothing,
+unless smiling now and then at Brian Desmond be anything,
+who is lying on a bear-skin rug, looking supremely happy and
+full of life and spirits. He has come over from Coole very
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+early, being generously urged so to do by Madam O'Connor
+when parting with him last night. Ryde is not on the field, so
+the day is his own.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Fitzgerald is looking rather handsome, in a dress of
+the very tiniest check, that is meant for a small woman only,
+or a child, and so makes her appear several sizes larger than
+she really is. Ulic Ronayne, standing leaning against the
+chimney-piece as close to Olga as circumstances will permit, is
+silent to a fault; and, indeed, every one but Mr. Kelly has
+succumbed to the damp depression of the air.</p>
+
+<p>They have had only one distraction all day,&mdash;the arrival of
+another guest, a distant cousin of their hostess, who has been
+lauding her for a week or so. On inspection she proves to be
+a girl of nineteen, decidedly unprepossessing in appearance,&mdash;in
+fact, as Mr. Murphy, the butler, says to Mrs. Collins, the
+housekeeper, "as ugly as if she was bespoke."</p>
+
+<p>A tall girl oppressed by freckles and with hair of a deep&mdash;well,
+let us emulate our polite French neighbors and call it
+<i>blond ardent</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is she?" asks Lord Rossmoyne, who arrived about
+an hour ago, to Ulic Ronayne's discomfiture.</p>
+
+<p>"She's a fraud!" says Mr. Kelly, indignantly,&mdash;"a
+swindle! Madam assured us, last night, a charming girl was
+coming, to turn all heads and storm all hearts; and to-day,
+when we rushed in a body to the window and flattened our
+noses against the panes to see her, lo! a creature with red hair
+and pimples&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; freckled, my dear Owen," interrupts Olga,
+indolently.</p>
+
+<p>"It is all the same at a distance! general effect fatal in
+both cases," says Mr. Kelly, airily. "It makes one positively
+uncomfortable to look at her. I consider her being thrust
+upon us like this a deliberate insult. I think if she continues
+I shall leave."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>don't</i>," says Desmond, in a tone of agonized entreaty.
+"How <i>should</i> we manage to get on without you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Badly, badly, I know that," regretfully. "But it is a
+question of breaking either your hearts or mine. Some of us
+must go to the wall; it would be unfair to the world to make
+it me."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe you will go far," says Mrs. Herrick, slowly.
+Kelly glances at her quickly, but she does not lift her eyes
+from the little sock, and her fingers move rapidly, easily as
+ever.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"London or Paris," he says,&mdash;"the city of fogs or the city
+of frogs. I don't know which I prefer."</p>
+
+<p>"Better stay where you are," says Brian.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I really didn't think her so very plain," says Bella
+Fitzgerald, who thinks it pretty to say the kind thing always.
+"A large mouth <i>is</i> an affliction, certainly; and as for her
+complexion&mdash;but really, after all, it is better to see it as it is
+than painted and powdered, as one sees other people."</p>
+
+<p>This is a faint cut at Olga, who is fond of powder, and who
+has not scrupled to add to her charms by a little touch of rouge
+now and then when she felt pallor demanded it.</p>
+
+<p>"I think a little artificial aid might improve poor Miss
+Browne," says Hermia Herrick. Miss Browne is the new
+arrival.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't. I think it is an abominable thing to cheat
+the public like that," says Miss Fitzgerald, doggedly: "nobody
+respectable would do it. The <i>demi-monde</i> paint and
+powder."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Do</i> they? how do you know, dear?" asks Olga Bohun,
+sweetly.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Fitzgerald, feeling she has made a <i>faux-pas</i>, colors
+violently, tries to get herself out of it, and flounders helplessly.
+Lord Rossmoyne is looking surprised, Ulic Ronayne and Desmond
+amused.</p>
+
+<p>"Every one says so," says the fair Bella, at last, in a voice
+that trembles with anger: "you know very well they do."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't, indeed, my dear Bella. My acquaintance with&mdash;er&mdash;that
+sort of person has been limited: I quite envy you
+your superior knowledge."</p>
+
+<p>Here Olga laughs a little, low, rippling laugh that completes
+her enemy's defeat. After the laugh there is a dead
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I think somebody ought to remove the poor little child,"
+says Mr. Kelly, in a low, impressive tone, pointing to Mrs.
+Herrick's little girl. At which everybody laughs heartily, and
+awkwardness is banished.</p>
+
+<p>"Browne?&mdash;I knew an Archibald Browne once: anything
+to this girl?" asks Lord Rossmoyne, hurriedly, unwilling to
+let silence settle down on them again.</p>
+
+<p>"Big man with a loose tie?" asks Ulic.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye-es. There was something odd about his neck, now I
+remember," says Rossmoyne.</p>
+
+<p>"That was her father. He had an idea he was like Lord
+Byron, and always wore his necktie flying in the wind."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He couldn't manage it, though," says Mr. Kelly, with as
+near an attempt at mirth as he ever permits himself. "It
+always flew the wrong way. Byron's, if you call to mind his
+many portraits, always flew over his left shoulder; old Browne's
+wouldn't. By the bye," thoughtfully, "Byron must have had
+a wind of his own, mustn't he? our ordinary winds don't
+always blow in the same direction, do they?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would that a wind could arise to blow you in some
+direction, when you are in such an idle mood as now," says
+Mrs. Herrick, in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>"If it would blow me in <i>your</i> direction, I should say amen
+to that," in a voice as subdued as her own.</p>
+
+<p>"May the Fates avert from me a calamity so great!"</p>
+
+<p>"You will have to entreat them very diligently, if you hope
+to escape it."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you so very determined, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Although I feel I am mocked by the hope within
+me, still I shall persist."</p>
+
+<p>"You waste your time."</p>
+
+<p>"I am content to waste it in such a cause. Yet I am sorry
+I am so distasteful to you."</p>
+
+<p>"That is not your fault. I forgive you that."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, then, you can't forgive in me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not more than I can't forgive in another. 'God made
+you all, therefore let you all pass for men.' I don't deal more
+hardly with you than with the rest, you see. You are only one
+of many."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the unkindest thing you ever said to me. And
+that is saying much. Yet I, too, will beseech the Fates in my
+turn."</p>
+
+<p>"To grant you what?"</p>
+
+<p>"The finding of you in a gentler mind."</p>
+
+<p>The faintest flicker of a smile crosses her lips. She lays
+her knitting on her knee for an instant, that she may the more
+readily let her <a class="corr" name="TC_57" id="TC_57" title="taper">tapered</a> fingers droop until they touch the pale
+brow of the child at her feet; then she resumes it again, with
+a face calm and emotionless as usual.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Browne's girl can't owe her father much," Desmond
+is saying <i>apropos</i> of something both lost and gone before, so
+far as Kelly and Mrs. Herrick are concerned.</p>
+
+<p>"About a hundred thousand pounds," says Ronayne. "She
+is quite a catch, you know. No end of money. The old fellow
+died a year ago."</p>
+
+<p>"No, he didn't; he demised," says Kelly, emerging from
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
+obscurity into the light of conversation once more. "At least,
+so the papers said. There is a tremendous difference, you
+know. A poor man dies, a rich man demises. One should always
+bear in mind that important social distinction."</p>
+
+<p>"And the good man! What of him?" <a class="corr" name="TC_58" id="TC_58" title="say">says</a> Desmond, looking
+at his friend. "What does Montgomery say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that is very mysterious," says Kelly, with bated
+breath. "According to Montgomery, 'the good man <i>never</i>
+dies.' Think of that! <i>Never</i> dies. He walks the earth forever,
+like a <a class="corr" name="TC_59" id="TC_59" title="superanuated">superannuated</a> ghost, only awfuller."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever seen one?" asks Olga, leaning forward.</p>
+
+<p>"What? a man that never died? Yes, lots of 'em. Here's
+one," laying his hand upon his breast.</p>
+
+<p>"No. A man that never will die?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can I answer such a question as that? Perhaps
+Ronayne, there, may be such a one."</p>
+
+<p>"How stupid you are! I mean, did you ever meet a man
+who <i>couldn't</i> die?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never,&mdash;if he went the right way about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, according to your showing, you have never seen a
+good man." She leans back again in her chair, fatigued but
+satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid they are few and far between," says Hermia.</p>
+
+<p>"Now and again they <i>have</i> appeared," says Mr. Kelly, with
+a modest glance. "Perhaps I shall never die."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't make us more unhappy than we need be," says Mrs.
+Herrick, plaintively.</p>
+
+<p>"How sad that good men should be so scarce!" says Miss
+Fitzgerald, with a glance she means to be funny, but which is
+only dull.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't make trite remarks, Bella," says Mrs. Bohun,
+languidly. "You know if you did meet one he would bore you
+to death. The orthodox good man, the oppressive being we
+read about, but never see, is unknown to me or you, for which
+I, at least, am devoutly grateful."</p>
+
+<p>"To return to old Browne," says Ulic: "he wasn't good, if
+you like. He was a horrid ill-tempered, common old fellow,
+thoroughly without education of any kind."</p>
+
+<p>"He went through college, however, as he was fond of
+boasting whenever he got the chance."</p>
+
+<p>"And when he didn't get it he made it."</p>
+
+<p>"In at one door and out at the other, that's how he went
+through Trinity," says Mr. Kelly. "Oh, how I hated that dear
+old man, and <i>how</i> he hated me!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You admit, then, the possibility of your being hated?"
+says Mrs. Herrick.</p>
+
+<p>"I have admitted that ever since&mdash;I met&mdash;<i>you</i>! But old
+Browne bore me a special grudge."</p>
+
+<p>"And your sin against him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never fathomed it. 'The atrocious crime of being a
+young man,' principally, I think. Once, I certainly locked him
+up in his own wine-cellar, and left him there for six hours,
+under the pretence that I believed him to be a burglar, but
+nothing more. He quite disliked being locked in the cellar, I
+think. It was very dark, I must admit. But I'm not afraid of
+the dark."</p>
+
+<p>"<a class="corr" name="TC_60" id="TC_60" title="Taat's">That's</a> a good thing," says Madam O'Connor, entering,
+"because it will soon envelop you. Did any one ever see so
+dark an evening for the time of year? Well, I do think that
+fire looks cheerful, though it <i>is</i> warm. Has Mary Browne come
+down yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Come here, Madam; here's a cosey seat I have been
+keeping sacred for you for the past hour. Why have you
+denied us the light of your countenance all this weary time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Get out with you now, and your fine compliments to an
+old woman!" says Madam, laughing. "If I were <i>your</i> sweetheart,
+Owen, I'd never believe a word out of your lips."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Herrick, laying down her knitting, raises her head,
+and looks full into Kelly's eyes. As she does so, a smile,
+lovely as it is unexpected, warms all her statuesque face into
+perfect beauty.</p>
+
+<p>"And this to me!" says Kelly, addressing his hostess, and
+pretending to be blind to Mrs. Herrick's glance. "All the
+afternoon I have been treated by your sex with the most consummate
+cruelty. With their tongues they have been stabbing
+me as with so many knives. But yours is the unkindest cut of
+all. It is, in fact, the&mdash;er&mdash;carving-knife!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! here's the tea," says Olga, in a pleased tone.
+"Madam, <i>please</i> let me pour it out to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, my love, and thank you too."</p>
+
+<p>"And may I to-morrow evening?" asks Monica, with childish
+eagerness and a quick warm blush.</p>
+
+<p>"You may, indeed, my pretty one; and I hope it won't be
+long before you pour me out my tea in your own house."</p>
+
+<p>Monica laughs, and kisses her, and Desmond, who is standing
+near them, stoops over Madam O'Connor and tells her he
+would like to kiss her too,&mdash;first, for her own sake, and
+secondly, for that sweet hope of hers just uttered.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit of it," says she, in return, in a tone as sprightly
+as it was twenty years ago, though too low for Monica to hear.
+"Your first and second reasons are all humbug. Say at once
+you want to kiss me because you think this child's caress still
+lingers on my lips. Ah ha!&mdash;you see I know more than you
+think, my lad. And hark you, Brian, come here till I whisper
+a word in your ear; I'm your friend, boy, in the matter, and I
+wish you luck, though Priscilla Blake kill me for it; that's what
+I want to say."</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't desire a better friend," says Brian gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>"And where on earth <i>is</i> Mary Browne?" says Madam
+O'Connor. "She is such a nice girl, though hardly a Venus.
+Owen, my dear, I want you to take her down to dinner, and to
+make yourself charming to her."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be only too pleased," says Mr. Kelly, faintly;
+and then he sinks back in his chair and covers his face with
+his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"We were talking about Miss Browne's father; he was
+quite a millionaire, wasn't he?" says Lord Rossmoyne, who is
+standing at the tea-table beside Olga. He is a very rich man
+himself, and has, therefore, a due regard for riches in others.</p>
+
+<p>"He was,&mdash;and the most unpleasant person I ever met in
+my life, into the bargain," says Madam O'Connor. "I'm sure
+the life he led that poor Mary!&mdash;I never felt more relieved at
+anything than at the news of his death."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel as if I could weep for Mary," says Mr. Kelly, in an
+aside to Mrs. Herrick, who takes no notice of him. "I wonder
+if she has got a little lamb," he goes on, unrebuked.</p>
+
+<p>"What about the lamb?" says Madam, whose ears are
+young as ever.</p>
+
+<p>"I was only conjecturing as to whether your cousin Mary
+had a little lamb," says Mr. Kelly, genially. "The old Mary
+had, you know. A dear little animal with its</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Fleece as white as snow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And everywhere that Mary went<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lamb was sure to go.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>You recollect, don't you? What does Miss Browne do with
+hers? Has she got it upstairs in her room, now? After all,&mdash;though
+the idea is sweetly pretty,&mdash;I think there might be
+certain places into which it would be awkward to have even the
+whitest lamb trotting after one. Eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose Miss Browne is rich enough to indulge in any
+vagaries that may occur to her," says Bella Fitzgerald.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing like money," says Olga, with a sigh; at
+which Lord Rossmoyne looks hopeful, and young Ronayne
+despondent.</p>
+
+<p>"Like leather, you mean," says Owen Kelly: "that's the
+real thing to get hold of."</p>
+
+<p>"Some people would do <i>anything</i> for money," says Miss
+Fitzgerald, with a spiteful glance in Olga's direction. "They
+would sell themselves for it." Here she turns her cold eyes
+upon Ronayne, who is standing erect, handsome, but unmistakably
+miserable.</p>
+
+<p>"They could hardly sell themselves for a more profitable
+article," says Olga, with a fine shrug of her soft shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"So <i>they</i> think. Cr&oelig;sus, we know, was, and is, allpowerful."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," says Olga, with a little silvery laugh; "you forget
+my dear Bella. Read it up again, and you will see that
+Cr&oelig;sus was once conquered by Cyrus. What became of his
+power then?"</p>
+
+<p>Her lashes cover her eyes for a moment, and when she
+lifts them again they are fixed on Ronayne. By some coquettish
+art she gives him to understand in this single glance that he
+is Cyrus, Lord Rossmoyne Cr&oelig;sus. He can conquer the rich
+lord if he will.</p>
+
+<p>"How idle you are, Mr. Ronayne!" she says aloud. "Come
+here directly and help me. You know I cannot do without
+<i>your</i> help<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span>" There is the most delicate emphasis possible upon
+the pronoun. Obedient to her command, he comes, as Rossmoyne,
+armed with the cups, crosses the hall to Hermia and
+Miss Fitzgerald.</p>
+
+<p>"Did your eyes speak true just now?" he asks, bending
+over her under pretext of helping her with the cups.</p>
+
+<p>"What is truth?" asks she, in turn, with a swift upward
+glance<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span> "Who knows aught of her? She lies buried in a
+deep well, does she not? Who shall drag her forth?"</p>
+
+<p>She smiles, yet in a somewhat constrained fashion, that
+assorts ill with the inborn self-possession that as a rule characterizes
+her. She glances at him hurriedly. How young and
+handsome and earnest he looks! How full of tenderest entreaty!
+There is, too, a touch of melancholy in his dark eyes
+that never came to the birth (she is fain to acknowledge to herself
+with a pang of remorse) until that day when first they
+look on her.</p>
+
+<p>He loves her,&mdash;that she knows; but Rossmoyne loves her
+too; and though Ronayne's rent-roll is by no means to be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+despised, still it counts but as a small one beside that of Rossmoyne's.</p>
+
+<p>And Hermia is right! a title <i>is</i> of use in the world; and
+nothing is so lasting or so satisfactory as a respectable book at
+one's banker's. A good match (Hermia again) is the one
+thing to be desired; it covers all sins. Advice such as this
+coming from Mrs. Herrick is thoroughly disinterested, as the
+late lamented Mr. Herrick, having behaved to her like a brute
+during their mercifully short married life, had died in the odor
+of sanctity, leaving her complete mistress of all his enormous
+wealth, and quite free to make a second marriage of her <i>own</i>
+choosing.</p>
+
+<p>With her (Olga), however, the case is widely different; she
+is indeed without encumbrances so far as children may so be
+termed, and she has sufficient means to enable her to get her
+gowns and things from Paris, but there her independence ends.</p>
+
+<p>As she runs over all this hurriedly in her mind, the desire
+for riches grows upon her. Yes, there is certainly a great deal
+of good in Rossmoyne, besides his income; and perhaps a solid
+sternness is preferable to an airy gayety of manner (this with
+an irrepressible leaning towards the "airy gayety"); and&mdash;and&mdash;what
+a <i>pity</i> it is that Rossmoyne is not Ulic!&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I will," says Ronayne, alluding to her last remark, in a
+low but determined tone. "Olga, tell me I am more to you
+than Rossmoyne."</p>
+
+<p>"The boy you are!" says Olga, with an adorable smile that
+reaches him through the flickering flashes of the firelight.
+"The baby!" He is bending over her, and with a light caressing
+touch she brushes back the hair from his temples. "In
+a year, nay, in a month, once we are separated, you will see
+some other face, newer, more desirable, and forget you ever
+cared for mine."</p>
+
+<p>"If I could believe that, I might find peace. Yet, for all
+that peace could give me, I would not so believe it. I am yours
+forever, boy <a class="corr" name="TC_61" id="TC_61" title="through">though</a> you deem me; and, yet, is one ever a boy
+again when one has once truly loved?"</p>
+
+<p>"How often have you truly loved?" with an attempt at
+lightness that is down-trodden by the intensity of her regard<span class="s_corr" title="">.</span></p>
+
+<p>"As often as I have seen you. Nay, more than that, every
+moment since I first saw you; because night and day, whether
+absent or present, I have been yours in heart and soul."</p>
+
+<p>"You have fatigued yourself!&mdash;A long two months!" laughingly.</p>
+
+<p>"A short two months."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There has been no time for fickleness."</p>
+
+<p>"There never will be, so far as I am concerned. So sure
+am I of that, that I do not mind praying that Cupid's curse
+may light upon me if ever I prove unfaithful. You know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have but small acquaintance with cursing of any sort."</p>
+
+<p>"Then learn this one,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'They that do change old love for new,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pray gods they change for worse!'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Will you repeat that after me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait until I finish my tea; and&mdash;unkind as you are&mdash;you
+will give me a little bit of cake, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would give you everything I possess, if I could."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't possess this cake, you know: it is Madam
+O'Connor's."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Olga, why will you always press me backwards? Am
+I never to be nearer to you than I am now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how you could conveniently be very much
+nearer," says Mrs. Bohun, <a class="corr" name="TC_62" id="TC_62" title="wiih">with</a> a soft laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"After all, I suppose I come under the head of either madman
+or fool," says Ronayne, sadly. "You are everything to
+me; I am less than nothing to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Is Lord Rossmoyne to come under the head of 'nothing'?
+How rude!" says Olga.</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought of him. I was thinking only of how hopelessly
+I love you."</p>
+
+<p>"Love! How should such a baby as you grasp even the
+meaning of that word?" says Olga, letting her white lids droop
+until their long lashes lie upon her cheeks like shadows, while
+she raises her cup with indolent care to her lips. "Do you
+really think you know what it means?"</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'The dredeful joy, alway that flit so yerne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All this mene I by Love,'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>quotes he, very gently; after which he turns away, and, going
+over to the fireplace again, flings himself down dejectedly at
+Monica's feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you tired, Mr. Ronayne?" says Monica, very gently.
+Something in his beautiful face tells her that matters are not
+going well with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Tired? no," lifting his eyes to her with a smile that belies
+his words. "It is good of you to ask, though. I wish," earnestly,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+"you would not call me 'Mr. Ronayne.' I can't bear it
+from any one I like. Desmond tell her to call me Ulic."</p>
+
+<p>It strikes both Monica and Brian as peculiar that he should
+appeal to the latter as to one possessed of a certain influence
+over the former. It strikes Miss Fitzgerald in the same light
+too, who has been listening to his impetuous entreaty.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing there is something wrong with him, something that
+might be termed excitement in his manner, Desmond whispers
+to Monica to do as he desires.</p>
+
+<p>"He is unhappy about something; let him feel you are his
+friend," he says, in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Come a little farther from the fire, Ulic,&mdash;a little nearer
+to me," says Monica, in a tone of shy friendliness, "and I think
+you will be more comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>He is more than grateful, I think, though he says nothing
+only he moves a good deal closer to her, and lays his head
+against her knee in a brotherly fashion,&mdash;need I say unrebuked?</p>
+
+<p>Something in this little scene sends the blood rushing with
+impatient fervor through Olga's veins. But that she knows
+Monica well, and that the girl is dear to her, she could have
+hated her heartily at this moment, without waiting to analyze
+the motive for her dislike. As it is, she gives the reins to her
+angry spirit, and lets it drive her where it will. She laughs
+quite merrily, and says some pretty playful thing to Lord Rossmoyne
+that all the world can hear,&mdash;and Ronayne, be assured,
+the first of all.</p>
+
+<p>Desmond, with a subdued touch of surprise in his eyes,
+turns to look at her. But the night has darkened with sullen
+haste<span class="s_corr" title=","></span>&mdash;tired, perhaps, of the day's ill temper&mdash;and standing
+as he does within the magic circle of the firelight, he finds a
+difficulty in conquering the gloom beyond. This makes his
+gaze in her direction the more concentrated; and, indeed, when
+he has separated her features from the mist of the falling night,
+he still finds it impossible to pierce the impenetrable veil of indifference
+that covers her every feature.</p>
+
+<p>His gaze thus necessarily prolonged is distasteful to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Brian, don't keep staring at the teapot in that mean fashion,"
+she says, playfully, yet with a latent sense of impatience
+in her tone. "It is unworthy of you. Go up to Madam
+O'Connor <i>nobly</i>, cup in hand, and I daresay&mdash;if you ask her
+prettily&mdash;she will grant me permission to give you a cup of
+tea."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Desmond, recovering from his revery with a start accepts
+the situation literally.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you, Madam?" he says, meekly. "<i>Do.</i>" His tone
+is of the most abject. There is a perceptible trembling about
+his knee-joints. "Is <i>this</i> the 'air noble'?" he says to Olga, in
+an undertone. "Have I caught it?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll catch it in a minute in real earnest, if you don't
+mend your manners," says Madam, with a laugh. "Give him
+his tea, Olga, my dear, though he doesn't deserve it."</p>
+
+<p>"Sugar?" says Olga, laconically.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, please," mendaciously.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you shan't have even one lump, if only to punish
+you for all your misconduct."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought as much," says Brian, taking his cup thankfully.
+"Fact is, I can't bear sugar but I knew you would drop it in, in
+an unlimited degree, if I said the other thing. Not that I have
+the vaguest notion as to how I have misconducted myself. If
+I knew, I might set a watch upon my lips."</p>
+
+<p>"Set it on your <i>eyes</i>," says Olga, with meaning.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment a light footfall is heard, and somebody
+comes slowly across the hall. A merry tongue of fire, flaming
+upwards, declares it to be the plain Miss Browne.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. O'Connor has just passed into an adjoining room.
+Olga is busy with her tray and with her thoughts. Mrs. Herrick,
+partly turned aside, and oblivious of the approaching
+guest, is conversing in low tones with Lord Rossmoyne.</p>
+
+<p>No one, therefore, is ready to give the stranger welcome
+and put her through the ceremony of introduction. Awkwardness
+is impending, when Monica comes to the rescue. Her
+innate sense of kindly courtesy conquering her shyness, she
+rises from her seat, and going up to Miss Browne, who has
+come to a standstill, lays her hand softly upon hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Come over here and sit by me," she says, nervously, yet
+with such a gracious sweetness that the stranger's heart goes
+out to her on the spot, and Brian Desmond, if it be possible,
+falls more in love with her than ever.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," says Miss Browne, pressing gratefully the
+little hand that lies on hers; and then every one wakes into
+life and says something civil to her.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later the dressing-bell rings, and the scene is
+at an end.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Mrs. Herrick grows worldly-wise and Olga frivolous&mdash;How Mr. Kelly
+tells a little story; and how, beneath the moonlight, many things are
+made clear.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Dinner has come to an end. The men are still dallying
+with their wine. The women are assembled in the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>Olga, having drawn back the curtains from the central window,
+is standing in its embrasure, looking out silently upon the
+glories of the night. For the storm has died away; the wind
+is gone to sleep; the rain has sobbed itself to death; and now
+a lovely moon is rising slowly&mdash;slowly&mdash;from behind a rippled
+mass of grayest cloud. From out the dark spaces in the vault
+above a few stars are shining,&mdash;the more brilliantly because of
+the blackness that surrounds them. The air is sultry almost
+to oppressiveness, and the breath of the roses that have twined
+themselves around the railings of the balcony renders the calm
+night full of sweetest fragrance.</p>
+
+<p>Even as she gazes, spellbound, the clouds roll backward,
+and stars grow and multiply exceedingly, until all</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">"the floor of heaven<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Madam O'Connor is talking to Miss Browne of certain
+family matters interesting to both. Miss Fitzgerald has gone
+upstairs, either to put on another coating of powder, or else to
+scold her long-suffering maid. Her mother has fallen into a
+gentle, somewhat noisy snooze.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden similar thought striking both Monica and Mrs.
+Herrick at the same moment, they rise, and make a step towards
+the window where Olga is standing all alone.</p>
+
+<p>Hermia, laying her hand on Monica's arm, entreats her by
+a gesture to change her purpose; whereon Monica falls back
+again, and Hermia, going on, parts the curtains, and, stepping
+in to where Olga is, joins her uninvited.</p>
+
+<p>"Dreaming?" she says, lightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Who would not dream on such a night as this? the more
+beautiful because of the miserable day to which it is a glorious
+termination. See, Hermia, how those planets gleam and glitter,
+as though in mockery of us poor foolish mortals down below."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't feel a bit more foolish than I did this morning,"
+says Hermia. "Do you, dear? You were giving yourself a
+great deal of credit for your common sense then<span class="s_corr" title="">.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>"'Common sense,'&mdash;worldly wisdom,&mdash;how I hate the
+sound of all that jargon!" says Olga, petulantly. "Let us
+forget we <i>must</i> be wise, if only for one night. The beauty of
+that silent world of flowers beyond has somehow entered into
+me. Let me enjoy it. 'How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon
+that bank' down there! Watch it. Can you see how the roses
+quiver beneath its touch, as though stirred by some happy
+dream?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is indeed a perfect night!" says Hermia, looking at
+her in some surprise. There is a suspicion of excitement in
+Olga's manner&mdash;arising, as it were, from the desire to hide one
+emotion by the betrayal of another&mdash;that strikes her listener as
+strange.</p>
+
+<p>"How softly the air beats upon one's face!" says Mrs.
+Bohun, leaning a little forward. "The night is, as you say,
+perfect. Yet I don't know what is the matter with me: the
+more I feel the loveliness of all around, the sadder my heart
+seems to grow."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" says Hermia, lifting her brows, "am I to learn
+now that you&mdash;the gayest of all mortals&mdash;have at last succumbed
+to the insufferable dreariness of this merry world?"</p>
+
+<p>"You run too fast. I am a little perplexed, perhaps; but
+I have not succumbed to anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Or any <i>one</i>, I hope, unless it be to your advantage. You
+are playing a silly game, Olga."</p>
+
+<p>"The world would be lost unless it had a fool to sport with
+now and then."</p>
+
+<p>"But why should <i>you</i> be the one to pander to its pleasures?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who more fitting? I am tired of hearing you apply that
+word 'silly' to me, morning<span class="s_corr" title="">,</span> noon, and night."</p>
+
+<p>"It is too late to believe it possible that you and I should
+quarrel," <a class="corr" name="TC_63" id="TC_63" title="said">says</a> Mrs. Herrick, in a perfectly even tone: "so don't
+try to get up an imaginary grievance. You know you are
+dearer to me than anything on earth, after the children."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't scold me any more," says Olga, coaxingly.</p>
+
+<p>"I never scold; I only reason."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! but that is so much worse," says Olga. "It means
+the scolding, and a lot more besides. Do anything but reason
+with me, my dear Hermia."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>will</i> say that I think you are throwing yourself away."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Where? Over the balcony?"&mdash;wilfully. "I assure you,
+you misjudge me: I am far too great a coward."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not too great a coward to contemplate the committing
+of a much more serious <i>betise</i>. To-night his attentions
+were specially marked, and you allowed them."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't think what you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you deny that Mr. Ronayne paid you very marked
+attention to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Marked! Where did he make his impression, then?
+He didn't <i>pinch</i> me, if you mean that."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you can follow your own wishes, dearest, and I
+shall neither gain nor lose; but it does seem a pity, when you
+might be a countess and have the world at your feet. I know
+few so altogether fitted to fill the position, and still you reject
+it. You are pretty, clever, charming,&mdash;everything of the most
+desirable."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I?" She steps into the drawing-room, and brings
+herself by a swift step or two opposite a huge mirror let into
+one of the walls. Standing before it, she surveys herself
+leisurely from head to foot, and then she smiles.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about the 'clever,'" she says; "but I am
+<i>sure</i> I am pretty. In town last season&mdash;do you remember?&mdash;my
+hair created quite a furore, it is so peculiarly light. Ever
+so many people wanted to paint me. Yes, it was all very
+pleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think it will be as pleasant to live <i>here</i> all your
+days, and find no higher ambition than the hope that your
+ponies may be prettier than Mrs. So-and-so's?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember that fancy ball, and how the prince
+asked who I was, and all the rest of it? He said one or two
+very pretty things to me. He, like you, said I was charming.
+Do you know," naively, "I have never got over the feeling of
+being <i>obliged</i> to any one who pays me a compliment? I am
+obliged to <i>you</i> now."</p>
+
+<p>"And to the prince <i>then</i>. But you won't see many princes
+if you stay in Ireland, I fancy: they don't hanker after the
+soil."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Ireland!" says Mrs. Bohun.</p>
+
+<p>"And compliments, I should say, will be almost as scarce."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! now, <i>there</i> you are wrong: <i>they</i> fly beneath these
+murky skies. We absolutely revel in them. What true Irishman
+but has one ripping freely from his mouth on the very
+smallest chance? And then, my dear Hermia, consider, are
+we not the proud possessors of the blarney-stone?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I wish, dearest, you would bring yourself to think seriously
+of Rossmoyne."</p>
+
+<p>"I do think seriously of him. It would be impossible to
+think of him in any other way, he is so dull and pompous."</p>
+
+<p>"He would make an excellent husband<span class="s_corr" title="?">!</span>"</p>
+
+<p>"I have had enough of husbands. They are very unsatisfactory
+people. And besides&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rossmoyne has a temper."</p>
+
+<p>"And forty thousand a year."</p>
+
+<p>"Not good enough."</p>
+
+<p>"If you are waiting for an angel, you will wait forever. All
+men are&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Hermia! really, I <i>can't</i> listen to such naughty words,
+you know. I really wonder at you!"</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't going to say anything of the kind," says Hermia,
+with great haste, not seeing the laughter lurking in Olga's dark
+eyes. "I merely meant that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't explain!&mdash;<i>don't!</i>" says Olga; "I couldn't endure
+any more of it." And she laughs aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Rossmoyne is very devoted to you. Is there anything
+against him, except his temper?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, his beard. <i>Nothing</i> would induce me to marry a man
+with hair all over his face. It isn't <i>clean</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Give him five minutes and a razor, and he might do away
+with it."</p>
+
+<p>"Give him five minutes and a razor, and he might do away
+with himself too," says Olga, provokingly. "Really. I <a class="corr" name="TC_64" id="TC_64" title="thinh">think</a>
+one thing would please me just as much as the other."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, then, you are bent on refusing him?" says Hermia,
+calmly. With very few people does she ever lose her temper;
+with Olga&mdash;never.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so sure of that, at all," says Olga, airily. "It
+is quite within the possibilities that I may marry him some time
+or other,&mdash;sooner or later. There is a delightful vagueness
+about those two dates that gives me the warmest encouragement."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pity you cannot be serious <i>sometimes</i>," says Mrs.
+Herrick, mildly.</p>
+
+<p>A little hand upon her gown saves further expostulation.
+A little face looking up with a certainty of welcome into hers
+brings again that wonderful softness into Hermia's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it you, my sweetest?" she says, fondly. "And where
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>
+have you been? I have watched in vain for you for the last
+half-hour, my Fay."</p>
+
+<p>"I was in the dining-room. But nurse called me; and now
+I have come to say good-night," says the child.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, then, and God bless you, my chick. But
+where is my Georgie?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm here," says Georgie, gleefully, springing upon her in
+a violent fashion, that one would have believed hateful to the
+calm Hermia, yet that is evidently most grateful to her. She embraces
+the boy warmly, and lets her eyes follow him until he is
+out of sight. Then she turns again to the little maiden at her
+side.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go with Georgie," says the child.</p>
+
+<p>"So you shall. But first tell me, what have you got in your
+hand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something to go to bed with. See, mammy! It is a
+pretty red plum," opening her delicate pink fist, for her mother's
+admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you get it, darling?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the dining-room."</p>
+
+<p>"From Lord Rossmoyne?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. From Mr. Kelly. I would not have the one Lord
+Rossmoyne gave me."</p>
+
+<p>Olga laughs mischievously, and Mrs. Herrick colors.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" she says.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I like Mr. Kelly best."</p>
+
+<p>"And what did you give him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Not even a kiss?" says Olga.</p>
+
+<p>"No," somewhat shamefacedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Her mother's own daughter!" says Olga, caressing the
+child tenderly, but laughing still. "A chilly mortal."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, my own," says Hermia, and the child, having
+kissed them both again, runs away.</p>
+
+<p>Olga follows her with wistful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I almost wish I had a baby!" she says.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You?</i> Why, you can't take care of yourself! You are
+the least fitted to have a child of any woman that I know.
+Leave all such charges to staid people like me. Why, you
+are a baby at heart, yourself, this moment."</p>
+
+<p>"That would be no drawback. It would only have created
+sympathy between me and my baby. I would have understood
+all her bad moods and condoned all her crimes."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If you had been a mother, you would have had a very
+naughty child."</p>
+
+<p>"I should have had a very happy child, at least." Then
+she laughs. "Fancy me with a dear little baby!" she says,&mdash;"a
+thing all my own, that would rub its soft cheek against mine
+and love me better than anything!"</p>
+
+<p>"And rumple all your choicest Parisian gowns, and pull
+your hair to pieces. I couldn't fancy it at all."</p>
+
+<p>Here the door opens to admit the men, the celestial half-hour
+after dinner having come to an end. With one consent
+they all converge towards the window, where Olga and Hermia
+are standing with Monica, who had joined them to bid good-night
+to little Fay. Miss Fitzgerald, who had returned to the
+drawing-room freshly powdered, seeing how the tide runs,
+crosses the room too, and mingles with the group in the window.</p>
+
+<p>"How long you have been! We feared you dead and
+buried," she says to Kelly, with elephantine playfulness.</p>
+
+<p>"We have, indeed. I thought the other men would never stir.
+Why did you not give me the chance of leaving them? The
+faintest suggestion that <i>you</i> wanted me would have brought me
+here <i>hours</i> ago."</p>
+
+<p>"If I had been sure of that, I should have sent you a message;
+it would have saved me a lecture," says Olga, flashing a
+smile at Hermia.</p>
+
+<p>"I should disdain to send a message<span class="s_corr" title=".">,</span>" says the proud Bella,
+"I would not <i>compel</i> any man's presence. 'Come if you will;
+stay away if you won't,' is <i>my</i> motto; and I cannot help thinking
+I am right."</p>
+
+<p>"You are, indeed, quite right. Coercion is of small avail
+in <i>some</i> cases," says Olga, regarding her with the calm dignity
+of one who plainly considers the person addressed of very inferior
+quality indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"A woman can scarcely be too jealous of her rights nowadays,"
+says Miss Fitzgerald. "If she has a proper knowledge
+of her position, she ought to guard it carefully."</p>
+
+<p>"A fine idea finely expressed!" says Kelly, as though smitten
+into reverence by the grandeur of her manner.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what is a man's proper position?" says Olga
+lazily.</p>
+
+<p>"He will always find it at a woman's feet," says Miss Fitzgerald,
+grandly, elated by Kelly's apparent subjection.</p>
+
+<p>That young man looks blankly round him. Under tables
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+and chairs and lounges his eyes penetrate, but without the desired
+result.</p>
+
+<p>"So sorry I can't see a footstool anywhere!" he says, lifting
+regretful eyes to Miss Fitzgerald; "but for that I should
+be at your feet from this until you bid me rise."</p>
+
+<p>"Hypocrite!" says Olga in his ear; after which conversation
+becomes more general; and presently Miss Fitzgerald
+goes back to the fire under the mistaken impression that probably
+one of the men will follow her there.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>one</i>&mdash;whoever he is&mdash;<i>doesn't</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," says Mr. Kelly, in a low tone, to the
+others, "the ugly girl's awfully nice! She is a pleasant deceit.
+'She has no winsome looks, no pretty frowning,' I grant
+you; but she can hold her own, and is <i>so</i> good-humored."</p>
+
+<p>"What a lovely night!" says Monica, gazing wistfully into
+the misty depths of the illuminated darkness beyond. "I want
+to step into it, and&mdash;we have not been out all day."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why not go now?" says Hermia, answering her
+glance in a kindly spirit.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! <i>will</i> you come?" says Monica, brightening into glad
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go as far as the fountain in the lower garden,"
+says Olga: "it is always beautiful there when the moon
+is up."</p>
+
+<p>"Avoid the grass, however; wet feet are dangerous," says
+Lord Rossmoyne, carefully.</p>
+
+<p>"You will die an old bachelor," retorts Olga, saucily, "if
+you take so much 'thought for the morrow.'"</p>
+
+<p>"It will certainly not be my fault if I do," returns Rossmoyne,
+calmly, but with evident meaning.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Bohun, bring your guitar," says Desmond, "and we
+will make Ronayne sing to it, and so imagine ourselves presently
+in the land of the olive and the palm."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we ask the others to come with us?" says Monica,
+kindly, glancing back into the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Browne, for example," suggests Owen Kelly. If he
+hopes by this speech to arouse jealousy in anybody present, he
+finds himself, later on, mightily mistaken.</p>
+
+<p>"If she is as good a sort as you say, I daresay she would
+like it," says Olga. "And, besides, if we leave her to Bella's
+tender mercies she will undoubtedly be done to death by the
+time we return."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do go and rescue her," says Mrs. Herrick, turning to
+Kelly. Her tone is almost appealing.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps Miss Fitzgerald will come too," says Monica,
+somewhat fearfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be afraid," says Olga. "<i>Fancy</i> Bella running the
+risk of having a bad eye or a pink nose in the morning! She
+knows much better than that."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell Miss Browne to make haste," says Mrs. Herrick,
+turning to Kelly. "Because we are impatient,&mdash;we are longing
+to precipitate ourselves into the moonlight. Come, Olga;
+come, Monica; they can follow."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Browne, however, on being appealed to, shows so
+honest a disregard for covering of any sort, beyond what
+decency had already clothed her with, that she and Kelly catch
+up with the others even before the fountain is reached.</p>
+
+<p>It is, indeed, a fairy dell to which they have been summoned,&mdash;a
+magic circle, closed in by evergreens with glistening
+leaves. "Dark with excessive light" appears the scene; the
+marble basin of the fountain, standing out from the deep background,
+gleams snow-white beneath Diana's touch. "The
+moon's an arrant thief." Perchance she snatches from great
+Sol some beauties even rarer than that "pale fire" he grants
+her&mdash;it may be, against his will. So it may well be thought,
+for what fairest day can be compared with a moonlit night in
+languorous July?</p>
+
+<p>The water of the fountain, bubbling ever upwards, makes
+sweet music on the silent air; but, even as they hark to it, a
+clearer, sweeter music makes the night doubly melodious.
+From bough to bough it comes and goes,&mdash;a heavenly harmony,
+not to be reproduced by anything of earthly mould.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O nightingale, that on yon gloomy spray<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Warbles at eve, when all the woods are still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Clear from the depths of the pine woods beyond, the notes
+ascend, softly, tenderly. Not often do they enrich our Irish
+air, but sometimes they come to gladden us with a music that
+can hardly be termed of earth. The notes rise and swell and
+die, only to rise and to slowly fade again, like "linked sweetness
+long drawn out."</p>
+
+<p>Seating themselves on the edge of the fountain, they
+acknowledge silently the beauty of the hour. Olga's hand,
+moving through the water, breaks it into little wavelets on
+which the riotous moonbeams dance.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are your bangles, Olga? you used to be famous
+for them?" asks Desmond, idly.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I have tired of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor bangles!" says Ulic Ronayne, in a low tone heard
+only by her.</p>
+
+<p>"What a heavy sigh!"</p>
+
+<p>"A selfish one, too. More for myself than for the discarded
+bangles. Yet their grievance is mine."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought they suited you," says Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you? Well, but they had grown so common; every
+one used to go about laden with them. And then they made
+such a tiresome tinkle-tinkle all over the place."</p>
+
+<p>"What place?" says Lord Rossmoyne, who objects to
+slang of even the mildest description from any woman's lips,
+most of all from the lips of her whom he hopes to call his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be stupid!" <a class="corr" name="TC_65" id="TC_65" title="say">says</a> this prospective wife, <a class="corr" name="TC_66" id="TC_66" title="wth">with</a> considerable
+petulance.</p>
+
+<p>"You are fickle, I doubt," goes on Rossmoyne, unmoved.
+"A few months ago you raved about your bangles, and had
+the prettiest assortment I think I ever saw. Thirty-six on each
+arm, or something like it. We used to call them your armor.
+You said you were obliged to wear the same amount exactly
+on each arm, lest you might grow crooked."</p>
+
+<p>"I know few things more unpleasant than having one's
+silly remarks brought up to one years afterwards," says Olga,
+with increasing<a class="corr" name="TC_67" id="TC_67" title=" in"></a> temper.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Months</i> not <i>years</i>," says Rossmoyne, carefully. Whereupon
+Mrs. Bohun turns her back upon him, and Mrs. Herrick
+tells herself she would like to give him a good shake for so
+stupidly trying to ruin his own game, and Ulic Ronayne feels
+he is on the brink of swearing with him an eternal friendship.</p>
+
+<p>"Bangles?" breaks in Owen Kelly, musingly. "Harmless
+little circular things women wear on their wrists, aren't
+they? But awkward too at times,&mdash;amazingly awkward. As
+Olga has feelingly remarked, they <i>can</i> make a marvellously
+loud tinkle-tinkle at times. I know a little story about bangles,
+that ought to be a warning against the use of them. Would
+any one like to hear my little story? It is short, but very
+sweet."</p>
+
+<p>Every one instantly says "Yes," except Olga, who has
+drawn herself together and is regarding him with a stony
+glare.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there was once on a time a young woman, who had
+some bangles, and a young man; she had other things too,
+such as youth and beauty, but they weren't half so important as
+the first two items; and wherever she and her bangles went,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+there went the young man too. And for a long time nobody
+knew which he loved best, the beauteous maiden or the gleaming
+bangles. Do I make myself clear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wonderfully so, for <i>you</i>," says Mrs. Herrick.</p>
+
+<p>"Well one day the young man's preference was made
+'wonderfully so' too. And it was in this wise. On a certain sunny
+afternoon, the young woman found herself in a conservatory
+that opened off a drawing-room, being divided from it only by
+a hanging Indian curtain; a <i>hanged</i> Indian curtain she used to
+call it ever afterwards; but that was bad grammar, and bad
+manners too.<span class="s_corr" title="'">"</span></p>
+
+<p>"I feel I'm going to sleep," says Desmond, drowsily. "I
+hope somebody will rouse me when he has done, or pick me
+out of the water if I drop into it. Such a rigmarole of a story
+I never heard in my life."</p>
+
+<p>"Caviare can't be appreciated by the general; it is too
+strong for you," says Mr. Kelly, severely. "But to continue&mdash;&mdash;Anything
+wrong with you, my dear Olga?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing!" says Mrs. Bohun, with icy indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Well. In this conservatory my heroine of the bangles
+found herself; and here, too, as a natural consequence, was
+found the young man. There was near them a lounge,&mdash;skimpy
+enough for one, but <i>they</i> found it amply large for <i>two</i>.
+Curious fact in itself, wasn't it? And I think the young man
+so far forgot himself as to begin to make violent&mdash;&mdash;and just
+as he was about to emb&mdash;&mdash;the young woman, whose name was&mdash;&mdash;,
+she very properly, but with somewhat mistaken haste,
+moved away from him, and in so doing set all her bangles a-tinkling.
+Into full cry they burst, whereupon the curtain was
+suddenly drawn back from the drawing-room side, giving the
+people there a full view of the conservatory <i>and</i> its&mdash;contents!
+The <i><a class="corr" name="TC_68" id="TC_68" title="denoument">denouement</a></i> was full of interest,&mdash;positively thrilling! I
+should advise all true lovers of a really good novel to obtain
+this book from their libraries and discover it for themselves."</p>
+
+<p>Here Mr. Kelly stops, and looks genially around.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I shall take to writing reviews," he says, sweetly.
+"I like my own style."</p>
+
+<p>A dead silence follows his "little story," and then Mrs.
+Herrick lifts her eyes to his.</p>
+
+<p>"'I wonder that you will still be talking, Signor Benedick:
+nobody marks you,'" she quotes, with a touch of
+scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> do, my dear Lady Disdain, or else you would not
+have addressed me that <a class="corr" name="TC_69" id="TC_69" title="comtemptuous">contemptuous</a> remark."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"An absurd story, altogether!" says Olga, throwing up
+her head, a smile lightening her eyes as they meet Kelly's. At
+her tone, which is more amused than annoyed, Ronayne lets
+his hand fall into the water close to hers, and doubtless finds
+its cool touch (the water's, I mean, of course) very refreshing,
+as it is fully five minutes before he brings it to the surface
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"True, nevertheless," says Kelly. "Both the principals
+in my story were friends of mine. I knew&mdash;indeed, I may
+safely say I <i>know</i>&mdash;them well."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you said '<i>were</i>,'" says Olga, shaking her
+blonde head at him. Lord Rossmoyne, by this time, is looking
+as black as a thunder-cloud.</p>
+
+<p>"A questionable friend you must be, to tell tales out of
+school," says Mrs. Herrick.</p>
+
+<p>"I defy any one to say I have told anything," says Kelly,
+with much-injured innocence. "But I am quite prepared to
+hear my actions, as usual, grossly maligned. I am accustomed
+to it now. The benefit of the doubt is not for <i>me</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't a doubt," says Hermia.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on. I must try to bear it,"&mdash;meekly. "I know I am
+considered incapable of a pure motive."</p>
+
+<p>"Was it you drew back the curtain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, really, yes, I believe it was. I wanted my friend,
+you see, and I knew I should find him with the bangles. Yes;
+it was I drew the curtain."</p>
+
+<p>"Just what I should have expected from you," says Mrs.
+Herrick.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Thank you! Now at last you are beginning to see
+things in their true light, and to take my part," says Mr.
+Kelly, with exaggerated gratitude. "Now, indeed, I feel I
+have not lived in vain! You have, though at a late hour, recognized
+the extraordinary promptitude that characterizes my
+every action. While another might have been hesitating, I
+drew the curtain. I am seldom to be found wanting, I may,
+indeed, always be discovered just where&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>aren't</i> wanting," interrupts Mrs. Herrick, with a
+sudden smile.</p>
+
+<p>"How can <i>that</i> be," says Kelly, with reproachful sadness,
+"when I am generally to be found near you?"</p>
+
+<p>At this Hermia gives in, and breaks into a low soft
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"But I wish you had not told that story of Olga and Mr.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>
+Ronayne," she says, in a whisper, and with some regret. "You
+saw how badly Rossmoyne took it."</p>
+
+<p>"That is partly why I told it. I think you are wrong in
+trying to make that marriage: she would be happier with
+Ronayne."</p>
+
+<p>"For a month or two, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, make it <i>three</i>," says Kelly, satirically. "Surely the
+little winged god has so much staying power."</p>
+
+<p>"A few weeks ago you told me you did not believe in
+him at all."</p>
+
+<p>"I have changed all that."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! <i>you</i> can be fickle too."</p>
+
+<p>"A man is not necessarily fickle because when he discovers
+the only true good he leaves the bad and presses towards
+it. I think, too, his mentor," in a lowered tone, "should
+be the last to misjudge him."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing is so lasting, at least, as riches," says Mrs.
+Herrick, with a chastened but unmistakable desire to change
+his mood. "Olga with unlimited means and an undeniable
+place in the world of society would be a happier Olga than as
+the wife of a country gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't agree with you; but you know best&mdash;<i>perhaps</i>.
+You speak your own sentiments, of course. A title is indispensable
+to you too, as well as to her?"</p>
+
+<p>His tone is half a question.</p>
+
+<p>"It counts," she says, slowly, trifling with firm though slender
+fingers with the grasses that are growing in the interstices
+of the marble.</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw!" says Kelly. Rising with a vehemence foreign
+to him, he crosses to where Ulic Ronayne is standing alone.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Olga drowns a faithful servant&mdash;How Mr. Kelly conjures up a ghost&mdash;And
+how Monica, beneath the mystic moonbeams, grants the gift
+she first denies.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>"Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" he says, lightly, laying
+his hand on Ulic's shoulder. The latter turns to him with
+a bright smile that renders his handsome face quite beautiful.
+Seeing its charm, Kelly asks himself, in half-angry fashion,
+how Olga can possibly hesitate for one moment between him
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+and Rossmoyne. "But they are all alike heartless," he decides,
+bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am feeling neither pale nor wan," says Ronayne, still
+smiling. "It must be the moon, if anything. Look here,
+Kelly, something to-night has told me that it will all come right
+in the end. I shall gain her against the heaviest odds."</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean Rossmoyne, he's the heaviest mortal I know,"
+says Kelly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he <i>isn't</i> suited to her, is he?" There is a strange
+excitement in Ronayne's manner. "Putting me out of the
+question altogether, I don't believe he could make her happy.
+If I thought he could, of course I should then go away somewhere,
+and find contentment in the thought of hers; but&mdash;&mdash;<i>you</i>
+don't think she would do well to marry him do you Kelly?"
+He has controlled his features to an almost marvellous calm,
+but the agony of his question in his eyes cannot be hid.</p>
+
+<p>"I think the woman who could even <i>hesitate</i> between you
+and him must be a fool and worse," says Kelly, whose temper
+is not his own to-night. "He is a pedantic ass, more in love
+with himself than he can ever be with anything else. While
+you&mdash;&mdash;Look here, Ronayne; I wonder if any woman is
+<i>worth</i> it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>she</i> is," says Ronayne, with tender conviction. "I
+don't think she is at all like other people; do you? There's
+something different&mdash;something <i>special</i>&mdash;about her."</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay," says Kelly, gently, which is rather good of
+him, considering his frame of mind.</p>
+
+<p>"You're an awfully kind sort of fellow, Kelly, do you know?"
+says Ronayne, slipping his arm through his. "You are the only
+one I ever talk to about <i>her</i>. And I suppose I must bore you,
+though you don't say it. It's the most generous thing I know,
+your sympathizing with me as you do. If you were in love
+yourself, I could understand it. But you are not, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no; of course not," says Mr. Kelly.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that your guitar, Mrs. Bohun? I wish you would sing
+us something," says Miss Browne at this moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't sing much,&mdash;and never out of doors, it hurts my
+throat so," says Olga, smiling at her; "but if any else will
+sing, I will gladly play to them."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Ronayne,&mdash;Ulic,&mdash;come here," says Monica, half shyly,
+but very sweetly. "You can sing, I know."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes come here," says Olga, turning to him, and away
+from Lord Rossmoyne, who is talking to her in low, short,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+angry tones. But the latter, laying his hand on her arm, half
+compels her to turn to him again.</p>
+
+<p>"Let some one else accompany him if he <i>must</i> sing," he
+says; "<i>any</i> one but you."</p>
+
+<p>"No one else can."</p>
+
+<p>"I object to your doing it."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't when you hear him; he sings <i>so</i> sweetly," with
+the prettiest, most enthusiastic smile. "You really should
+hear him."</p>
+
+<p>"You persist, then? you compel me to believe the worst,&mdash;to
+regard you as implicated in that story of Kelly's.<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span></p>
+
+<p>"I compel you to nothing. And as for the story, I thought
+it very amusing: didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>No!</i>" says Rossmoyne, with subdued fury.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, I often said you lacked humor?" says
+Mrs. Bohun, with a little airy laugh; "and now I am sure of
+it. I thought it intensely comic; such a situation! I should
+like to have seen your face when the curtain was drawn, if
+<i>you</i> had been the young man."</p>
+
+<p>"I must beg you to understand that such a situation
+would be <i>impossible</i> to <i>me</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I am to understand, then, that you would not 'emb&mdash;&mdash;'
+that was what he said, wasn't it?&mdash;a woman if you loved
+her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not without permission, certainly," very stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear!" says Olga; "what a stupid man! Well, I
+shouldn't think you would do it <i>often</i>. And so you wouldn't
+have liked to be that particular young man?"</p>
+
+<p>This is a poser; Lord Rossmoyne parries the thrust.</p>
+
+<p>"Would <i>you</i> have liked to be that young woman,&mdash;who, as
+it appears to me, wasn't at all particular?" he asks, in turn.</p>
+
+<p>"That is no answer to my question," says Olga, who is
+angry with his last remark. "Are you afraid to say what you
+mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Afraid! No. To give publicity to a thing means always
+to vulgarize it: therefore, on consideration, I should not have
+cared to be that young man."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I should have thought otherwise," says Olga, in an
+indescribable tone. "Well, there must be consolation for you
+in the thought that you never can be.&mdash;Mr. Ronayne," calling
+to Ulic lightly, "are you coming, or must I sit fingering my
+lyre in vain?"</p>
+
+<p>Ulic, coming slowly up to her, stands beside her, as she
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+seats herself again upon the marble edge of the fountain, and
+runs her fingers gracefully over its strings.</p>
+
+<p>His voice, a rich sweet tenor, breaks upon the air, blends
+with the beauty of the night, and sinks into it until all seems
+one great harmony. "<span class="s_corr" title="">'</span>Tis I" is the song he has chosen, and a
+wonderful pathos that borders on despair enriches every note.
+He has forgotten every one but her, the pretty dainty creature
+who holds his heart in the hollow of her small hand. She
+must hear the melancholy that is<span class="s_corr" title=","></span> desolating and thereby perfecting
+his voice; but, if so, she gives no sign. Once only
+her fingers tremble, but she corrects herself almost before her
+error is committed, and never after gives way to even the
+faintest suspicion of feeling.</p>
+
+<p>Through the glade the music swells and throbs. Mary
+Browne, drawing instinctively nearer, seems lost in its enchantment.
+Monica, looking up with eyes full of tears into Desmond's
+face, finds his eyes fixed on her, and, with a soft, childish
+desire for sympathy, slips her hand unseen into his. How
+gladly he takes and holds it need not here be told.</p>
+
+<p>As he comes to the last verse, Ronayne's voice grows
+lower; it doesn't tremble, yet there is in it something suggestive
+of the idea that he is putting a terrible constraint upon
+himself:</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"If regret some time assail thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the days when first we met,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thy weary spirit fail thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thine eyes grow dim and wet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Oh, 'tis I, love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">At thy heart, love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Murmuring, 'How couldst thou forget?<span class="s_corr" title="">'</span>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The music lingers still for a moment, ebbs, and then dies
+away. Ronayne steps back, and all seems over. How Olga
+has proved so utterly unmoved by the passionate protest is
+exercising more minds than one, when suddenly she rises and
+with a swift movement bends over the fountain. Another
+moment, and she has dropped the guitar into the water. Some
+little silver ornament upon its neck flashes for an instant in
+the moonlight, and then it is gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Olga!" says Hermia, making an involuntary step
+towards her.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never play on it again," says Olga, with a gesture
+that is almost impassioned. An instant, and it is all over,&mdash;her
+little burst of passion, the thought that led to it,&mdash;everything!
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I hate it!" she says, with a petulant laugh. "I am glad
+to be rid of it. Somebody made me a present of it whom I
+learned to detest afterwards. No, Owen, do not try to bring
+it to life again: let it lie down there out of sight where I
+may learn to forget it."</p>
+
+<p>"As you will, madame," says Owen Kelly, who has been
+fruitlessly fishing for the drowned guitar.</p>
+
+<p>"It is curious how hateful anything, however pretty, can
+become to us if we dislike the giver of it," says Mary Browne,
+pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says Hermia, quickly, glancing at her with a sudden
+gleam in her eyes,&mdash;of gratitude, perhaps. A moment ago
+there had been a certain awkwardness following on Olga's
+capricious action; now these few careless, kindly words from
+this ugly stranger have dispelled it. And is she so plain, after
+all? The fastidious Hermia, gazing at her intently, asks herself
+this question. Surely before that bright and generous
+gleam in her eyes her freckles sink into insignificance.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew you would like her," says Mr. Kelly, at this
+moment, speaking low in Hermia's ear.</p>
+
+<p>When a woman is startled she is generally angry. Mrs.
+Herrick is angry now, whether because of his words, or the fact
+that she did not know he was so close to her, let who will decide.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very, very clever," she says, glancing at him from
+under drooping lids, and then turning away.</p>
+
+<p>"So they all tell me," returns he, modestly.</p>
+
+<p>Rossmoyne, crossing the brilliant moonlit path that divides
+him from the group round Hermia, seats himself beside her,
+thereby leaving Olga and Ulic Ronayne virtually alone.</p>
+
+<p>"You will regret that guitar to-morrow," says Ronayne,&mdash;"at
+least not the thing itself (I can replace that), but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I regret nothing," says Mrs. Bohun, carelessly,&mdash;"unless
+I regret that you have taken an absurdly ill-tempered action so
+much to heart. I am ill-tempered, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't," says Ronayne.</p>
+
+<p>"So courteous a liar must needs obtain pardon. But let us
+forget everything but this lovely night. Was there ever so
+serene a sky? see how the stars shine and glimmer through
+the dark interstices of the blue-gray clouds!"</p>
+
+<p>"They remind me of something,&mdash;of some words," says
+Ronayne, in a low voice. "They come to me now, I hardly
+know why, perhaps because of the night itself, and perhaps because&mdash;"
+he hesitates.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Olga is staring dreamily at the studded vault above her.</p>
+
+<p>"About the stars?" she asks, without looking at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">'A poet loved a star,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And to it whispered nightly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Being so fair, why art thou, love, so far,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or why so coldly shine who shin'st so brightly?<span class="s_corr" title="">'</span><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The poet was presumptuous, it seems to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Was he? I don't know. All things come to him who
+knows how to wait."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's waiting?" says Kelly's voice from the other side
+of the fountain; "and for what?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Toujours</i> Owen," says Mrs. Bohun, with a shrug of her
+pretty shoulders. "Well, no one even in this life is altogether
+without a taste of purgatory: mine (this is a delicate compliment
+to you, Owen, so listen to it) might have been worse.
+Do you know I have sometimes thought&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She has really!" interrupts Mr. Kelly, turning with cheerful
+encouragement to the others. "You wouldn't think it to
+look at her, would you? but I know her intimately, and can
+vouch for the truth of her words. Go on, my dear Olga."</p>
+
+<p>But "my dear Olga" has turned aside, and declines to take
+any notice of his remark beyond a faint grimace.</p>
+
+<p>"She's very shy," says Mr. Kelly, in an explanatory aside,
+"and <i>so</i> retiring. Can't bear to hear herself publicly praised,
+or feel herself the centre of attraction. Let us haste to change
+the subject." This with many becks, and nods, and wreathed
+smiles,<span class="s_corr" title="&quot;"></span> meant to explain the delicacy of the feeling that
+prompts him to this course. "By the by, Desmond, doesn't
+this fairy-like spot, and the moonlight, and the pathos of the
+silent night, and everything, remind you forcibly of old
+O'Connor?"</p>
+
+<p>"But I always heard&mdash;&mdash;" begins Monica, in a voice of
+much amazement; then she stops confusedly and presently
+goes on again, but in a different key. "Was The O'Connor,
+then, &aelig;sthetic?" she says.</p>
+
+<p>At this even Lord Rossmoyne, who was in the lowest depths
+of despair, gives way to open mirth.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no, not exactly," says Ulic Ronayne. "There was
+a fatal healthiness about his appearance that disagreed with
+that idea. But he certainly was fond of this little place; he
+put up the fountain himself, had it brought all the way from
+Florence for the purpose; and he had a trick of lying here on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+his face and hands for hours together, grubbing for worms,&mdash;or
+studying the insect world I think he used to call it."</p>
+
+<p>"I have always thought," says Mr. Kelly, in a tone of reflective
+sadness, "what an uncomfortable position that must
+be."</p>
+
+<p>"What must be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lying on one's face and hands. What becomes of the
+rest of one? Does one keep one's heels in the air whilst doing
+it? To me it sounds awful! Yet only last week I read in
+the papers of a fellow who was found on a road on his face and
+hands, and the doctors said he must have been in that position
+<i>for hours!</i> Fancy&mdash;<i>your</i> nose, for instance, Rossmoyne, in the
+mud, and your heels in the air, <i>for hours</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Lord Rossmoyne, having vainly tried to imagine his dignified
+body in such a position, looks distinctly offended.</p>
+
+<p>"No, <i>nobody</i> would like it," says Kelly, pathetically, answering
+his disgusted look exactly as if it had been put into
+words. "There is a shameful frivolity about it not to be countenanced
+for a moment. Yet good and wise men have been
+said to do it. Fancy the Archbishop of Canterbury, now,
+balancing himself on his nose and his palms! Oh! it <i>can't</i> be
+true!"</p>
+
+<p>His voice by this time is positively piteous, and he looks
+earnestly around, as though longing for some one to support
+his disbelief.</p>
+
+<p>"You are really excelling yourself to-night," says Mrs.
+Herrick, in a delicately disdainful tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I? I am glad," humbly, "that <i>you</i> have had an opportunity
+of seeing me at my poor best."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," says Desmond, suddenly, "if, when old
+O'Connor revisits the earth at the witching hour, he comes in
+the attitude so graphically described by Kelly? In acrobat
+fashion, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>At this Monica breaks into laughter so merry, so full of
+utterly childish <i>abandon</i> and enjoyment, that all the others
+perforce join in it.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! fancy a ghost standing on his head!" she says, when
+she can speak.</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't fancy it at all," says Mr. Kelly, gloomily. "I
+<i>won't</i>. Far from it. And I should advise you, Miss Beresford,
+to treat with less frivolity a subject so fraught with terror,&mdash;especially
+at this time of night. If that 'grand old man' were to
+appear now," with a shuddering glance behind him, "what
+<i>would</i> become of us all?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"An unpleasant idea!" says Miss Browne,&mdash;"so unpleasant,
+indeed, that I think I should like to go for a little walk
+somewhere,&mdash;<i>any</i>where, away from the scene of the late Mr.
+O'Connor's nightly visitations."</p>
+
+<p>"Come to the end of the shrubbery, then," says Desmond,
+"and look at the sea. It should be worth the trouble on such
+a night as this. Come you too, Olga."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like it, but my head aches so," says Mrs. Bohun,
+plaintively. And, indeed, she is very pale. "It is either the
+moonlight which oppresses me, or&mdash;I don't know what. No!
+I shall go indoors, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I shall go with you," says Mrs. Herrick, regarding
+her with a certain anxiety. "But you," turning to Mary
+Browne, "must not miss a glimpse of the coast by moonlight.
+Mr. Kelly will show it to you."</p>
+
+<p>She slips her arm through Olga's, and turns towards the
+house; Ulic Ronayne accompanies them; but Lord Rossmoyne
+and Owen Kelly move in the contrary direction with Miss
+Browne. Monica and Desmond have gone on before; and
+even when the others arrive at the point in the shrubbery from
+which a glimpse of the ocean can be distinctly seen, these last
+two people are not to be discovered anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>Yet they are not so distant as they seem. Desmond has
+led Monica to a rather higher spot, where the desired scene
+can be more vividly beheld, and where too they can be&mdash;oh,
+blessed thought!&mdash;<i>alone</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Through a belt of dark-green fir-trees, whose pale tips are
+touched with silver by the moon, can be seen the limitless
+ocean, lying in restless waiting in the bay below.</p>
+
+<p>A sort of enforced tranquillity has fallen upon it,&mdash;a
+troubled calm,&mdash;belied by the hoarse, sullen roar that rises
+now and again from its depths, as when some larger death-wave
+breaks its bounds, and, rushing inland, rolls with angry
+violence up the beach. Soft white crests lie upon the great
+sea's bosom, tossing idly hither and thither, glinting and
+trembling beneath the moon's rays, as though reluctantly
+subdued by its cold influence.</p>
+
+<p>Across the whole expanse of the water a bright path is
+flung, that has its birth in heaven, yet deigns to accept a resting-place
+on earth,&mdash;a transitory rest, for there in the far distance
+on the horizon, where the dull grays of sea and sky have
+mingled, it has joined them, and seems again to have laid hold
+of its earliest home.</p>
+
+<p>The birds are asleep in their sea-bound nests; the wind
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+has died away. There is nothing to break the exquisite stillness
+of the night, save the monotonous beating of the waves
+against the rocks, and the faint rippling murmur of a streamlet
+in the ash-grove.</p>
+
+<p>The whole scene is so rich with a beauty mystical and
+idealistic that Monica draws instinctively nearer to Desmond,
+with that desire for sympathy common to the satisfied soul,
+and stirs her hand in his.</p>
+
+<p>Here, perhaps, it will be as well to mention, once for all,
+that whenever I give you to understand that Desmond is alone
+with Monica you are also to understand, without the telling,
+that he has her hand in his. What pleasure there can be for
+two people in standing, or sitting, or driving, as the case may
+be, for <i>hours</i>, palm to palm (this is how the poetical one expresses
+it), I leave all true lovers to declare. I only know for
+certain that it is a trick common to every one of them, rich
+and poor, high and low. I suppose there is consolation in the
+touch,&mdash;a sensation of nearness. I know, indeed, one young
+woman who assured me her principal reason for marrying Fred
+in a hurry (Fred was her husband) lay in the fact that she
+feared if she didn't she would grow left-handed, as he was
+always in possession of the right during their engagement.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you like it," says Desmond, looking down upon her
+tenderly,&mdash;alluding to the charming view spread out before
+them,&mdash;the dark firs, the floating moon, the tranquil stars, the
+illimitable ocean, "of Almightiness itself the immense and
+glorious mirror."</p>
+
+<p>Monica makes no verbal answer, but a sigh of intensest
+satisfaction escapes her, and she turns up to his a lovely face
+full of youth and heaven and content. Her eyes are shining,
+her lips parted by a glad, tremulous smile. She is altogether
+so unconsciously sweet that it would be beyond the power of
+even a Sir Percivale to resist her.</p>
+
+<p>"My heart of hearts!" says Desmond, in a low, impassioned
+tone.</p>
+
+<p>Her smile changes. Without losing beauty, it loses something
+ethereal and gains a touch of earth. It is more pronounced;
+it is, in fact, amused.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder where you learned all your terms of endearment,"
+she says, slowly, looking at him from under her curling
+lashes.</p>
+
+<p>"I learned them when I saw you. They had their birth
+then and there."</p>
+
+<p>An eloquent silence follows this earnest speech. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
+smile dies from Monica's lips, and a sudden thoughtfulness
+replaces it.</p>
+
+<p>"You never called any one your 'heart of hearts' before,
+then?" she asks, somewhat wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Never&mdash;<i>never</i>. You believe me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." Her lids drop. Some inward thought possesses
+her, and then&mdash;with a sudden accession of tenderness very
+rare with her&mdash;she lifts her head, and lays her soft, cool cheek
+fondly against his.</p>
+
+<p>"My beloved!" says the young man, in a tone broken by
+emotion.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he does not take her in his arms; some fear
+lest she may change her mind and withdraw her expression of
+affection deters him; and when at last he does press her to
+his heart, it is gently and with a careful suppression of all
+vehemence.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps no man in all the world is so calculated to woo and
+win this girl as Desmond. Perhaps there is no woman so formed
+to gain and keep him as Monica.</p>
+
+<p>Holding her now in a light but warm clasp, he knows he
+has his heaven in his arms; and she, though hardly yet awake
+to the full sweetness of "Love's young dream," understands at
+least the sense of perfect rest and glad content that overfills
+her when with him.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you thinking of?" she says, presently.</p>
+
+<p>"'Myn alderlevest ladye deare,'" quotes he, softly.</p>
+
+<p>"And what of her?"</p>
+
+<p>"'That to the deth myn herte is to her holde,'&mdash;yes, for
+ever and ever," says Desmond, solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very glad of that," says <a class="corr" name="TC_70" id="TC_70" title="Mouica">Monica</a>, simply; and then
+she raises herself from his embrace and looks straight down to
+the sea again.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment voices, not approaching but passing near
+them, reach their ears.</p>
+
+<p>"They are going in," says Monica, hurriedly, and with a
+regret that is very grateful to him. "We must go too."</p>
+
+<p>"Must we?" reluctantly. "Perhaps," brightening, "they
+are only going to try the effect higher up."</p>
+
+<p>"No. They are crossing the gravel to the hall door."</p>
+
+<p>"They are devoid of souls, to be able to quit so divine a
+view in such hot haste. Besides, it is absurdly early to think
+of going indoors yet. By Jove, though!" looking at his watch,
+"I'm wrong: it is well after eleven. Now, who would have
+thought it?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure you mean <i>eleven</i>?" with flattering incredulity.</p>
+
+<p>"Only too sure. <i>Hasn't</i> the time gone by quickly? Well,
+I suppose I must take you in, which means candles and bed
+for you, and a dreary drive home for Kelly and me, and not a
+chance of seeing you alone again."</p>
+
+<p>"This time last week you couldn't have seen me at all,"
+says Miss Beresford.</p>
+
+<p>"True. I am ungrateful. And altogether this has been
+such a delightful evening,&mdash;to me at least: were," doubtfully,
+"<i>you</i> happy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very, <i>very</i> happy," with earnest, uplifted eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Darling love!&mdash;I am afraid I must give you up to Mrs.
+O'Connor now," he goes on, presently, when an ecstatic thought
+or two has had time to come and go. "But, before going, say
+good-night to me here."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Brian."</p>
+
+<p>He has never attempted to kiss her since that first time
+(and last, <i>so far</i>) in the orchard; and even now, though her
+pretty head is pressed against him, and her face is dangerously
+close to his, he still refrains. He has given her his word and
+will not break it; but perhaps he cannot altogether repress the
+desire to expostulate with her on her cruelty, because he gives
+voice to the gentle protest that rises to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"That is very cold good-night," he says. "You would say
+quite as much as that to Kelly or any of the others."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't call Mr. Kelly by his Christian name."</p>
+
+<p>"No; but you would, Ronayne."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I shan't again, if you don't like it."</p>
+
+<p>"That has nothing at all to do with what I mean. I only
+think you might show me a little more favor than the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, then, <i>dear</i> Brian. Now, I certainly shouldn't
+dream of calling Mr. Ronayne dear Ulic."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. I should hope not, indeed! But still&mdash;&mdash;there
+is something else that you might do for <i>me</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Beresford draws herself a little&mdash;<i>a very</i> little&mdash;away
+from him, and, raising her head, bestows upon him a glance
+that is a charming combination of mischief and coquetry. A
+badly-suppressed smile is curving the corner of her delicate
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>"What a long time it takes you to <i>say</i> it!" she says,
+wickedly.</p>
+
+<p>At this they both break into low, soft laughter,&mdash;<i>delicious</i>
+laughter!&mdash;that must not be overheard, and is suggestive of a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+little secret existing between them, that no one else may
+share.</p>
+
+<p>"That is an invitation," says Desmond, with decision.
+"I consider you have now restored to me that paltry promise
+I made to you the other day in the orchard. And here I
+distinctly decline ever to renew it again. No, there is no use
+in appealing to me: I am not to be either softened or coerced."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says Miss Beresford, "listen to me." She stands
+well back from him this time, and, catching up the tail of her
+white gown, throws it negligently over her arm. "If you <i>must</i>
+have&mdash;you know what!&mdash;at least you shall earn it. I will race
+you for it, but you must give me long odds, and then, if you
+catch me before I reach that laurel down there, you shall have
+it. Is that fair?"</p>
+
+<p>Plainly, from her exultant look, she thinks she can win.</p>
+
+<p>"A bargain!" says Desmond. "And, were you Atalanta
+herself, I feel I shall outrun you."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>So</i> presumptuous! Take care. 'Pride goeth before destruction,
+and a haughty spirit before a fall,' and you may
+trip."</p>
+
+<p>"I may not, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," moving cautiously away from him, "when I come
+to that branch there, and say one, two, three, you&mdash;will&mdash;&mdash;<i>Now!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>At this, before he is half prepared, she cries, "one, two,
+three," with scandalous haste, and rushes away from him down
+the moonlit path. Swift and straight as a deer she flies, but,
+alas! just as the goal is all but reached, she finds the race is
+not to her, and that she is a prisoner in two strong arms!</p>
+
+<p>"Now, who was presumptuous?" says Desmond, gazing
+into her lovely face. Her head, with a touch of exhaustion
+about it, is thrown back against his chest; through her parted
+lips her breath is coming with a panting haste, born of excitement
+and her fruitless flight. He bends over her, lower, and
+lower still. She feels herself altogether in his power.</p>
+
+<p>"As you are strong, be merciful," she whispers, faintly.
+A warm flood of crimson has dyed her cheeks; her smile has
+faded; she struggles slightly, and then all in one moment
+Desmond becomes aware that tears have sprung into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly he releases her.</p>
+
+<p>"Darling, forgive me," he says, anxiously. "See how your
+heart is beating now, and all for nothing! Of course I shall
+let you off your bargain. What do you take me for? Do you
+think I should make you unhappy for all the world could offer?
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+Take those tears out of your eyes this instant, or I shall be
+seriously angry with you."</p>
+
+<p>Monica laughs, but in a rather nervous fashion, and lets
+her lover dry her eyes with his own handkerchief. Then she
+sits down with him upon a rustic seat close by, wishing to be
+quite mistress of herself again before encountering the glare
+of the drawing-room lamps and the still more searching light of
+her friends' eyes.</p>
+
+<p>For a full minute not a word is spoken by either of them
+She is inwardly troubled; he is downcast. Presently she rises
+with a little restless movement.</p>
+
+<p>"No, do not stir just yet," she says. "I only want to pick
+some of that syringa behind you, it is so sweet.<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span></p>
+
+<p>Disinclined for action of any sort, he obeys her. She slips
+away behind him, and he sits there waiting listlessly for her
+return, and thinking, somewhat sadly, how small <a class="corr" name="TC_71" id="TC_71" title="away">a way</a> he has
+made with her, and that she is almost as shy with him now as
+on that day by the river when first they met.</p>
+
+<p>And then something marvellous happens that puts all his
+theories and regrets and fears to flight forever. Two soft
+arms&mdash;surely the softest in this wide glad world&mdash;steal round
+his neck; a gold-brown head is laid against his; a whisper
+reaches him.</p>
+
+<p>"You were very good to me about <i>that</i>!" says somebody,
+tremulously; and then two warm childish lips are laid on his,
+and Monica is in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what it was that frightened you?" says Desmond,
+in a tender whisper, drawing her down on his knees and
+enfolding her closely as though she were in form the child that
+verily at heart she still is. "Tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know." She has twined her bare beautiful arms
+around him, and is rubbing her cheek softly up and down
+against his in a fresh access of shyness.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you do, my dearest."</p>
+
+<p>"It was only this; that when I found I couldn't get away
+from you, I was frightened. It was very foolish of me, but
+whenever I read those stories about prisoners of war, and
+people being confined in dungeons, and that, I always know
+that if I were made a captive I should <i>die</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely your lover's arms cannot be counted a prison,
+my life!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if they held me when I wanted to get away."</p>
+
+<p>"But," reproachfully, "would you want to get away?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She hesitates, and, lifting one arm, runs her fingers coaxingly
+through the hair fashion has left him.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to go away now, at all events," she temporizes
+sweetly. Then, a moment later, "But I <i>must</i>, nevertheless.
+Come," nervously, "we have been here a long time, and
+Madam O'Connor will be angry with me; and besides," pityingly,
+"you have all that long drive home still before you."</p>
+
+<p>"I forgot all about the time," says Desmond, truthfully.
+"You are right: we must go in. Good-night again, my own."</p>
+
+<p>Without waiting for permission this time, he stoops and
+presses his lips to hers. An instant later he knows with a
+thrill of rapture that his kiss has been returned.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Mary Browne makes confession, though not by creed a Romanist;
+and how those who receive it are far removed from being holy fathers!&mdash;Moreover,
+I would have you see there is more acting off the stage
+than on it.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Monica's week at <a class="corr" name="TC_72" id="TC_72" title="Aghyohillberg">Aghyohillbeg</a> is drawing to a close.
+The day has dawned that is to usher in at even the famous
+representation of "The School for Scandal," as given by Miss
+Fitzgerald, Captain Cobbett, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The whole house is topsy-turvy, no room being sacred from
+the actors and actresses (save the mark!), and all the servants
+are at their wit's end. There have been men down from the
+Gayety Theatre, Dublin, who have seen about the stage, and
+there have been other men from the village of Rossmoyne to
+help in the decoration of the ballroom, and between these two
+different sets of men an incessant war has been raging for
+many days.</p>
+
+<p>Now at last the house is comparatively quiet, and, as four
+o'clock strikes, Madam O'Connor finds herself in her own
+special den (the only spot that has not been disturbed), with
+a tea-equipage before her, and all her ladies-in-waiting round
+her.</p>
+
+<p>These ladies, for the most part, are looking full of suppressed
+excitement, and are in excellent spirits and irreproachable
+tea-gowns. Mary Browne, who has developed into a
+general favorite, is making some laughing remark about Lord
+Rossmoyne, who, with all the other men, is absent.</p>
+
+<p>"D'ye know what it is, Mary?" says Madam O'Connor, in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+her unchecked brogue; "you might do something else with
+Rossmoyne besides making game of him."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" says Mary Browne.</p>
+
+<p>"Marry him, to be sure. A young woman like you, with
+more money than you know what to do with, ought to have a
+protector. Faith, you needn't laugh, for <a class="corr" name="TC_73" id="TC_73" title="its">it's</a> only common
+sense I'm talking. Tenants, and the new laws, will play the
+mischief with your soft heart and your estate, if you don't get
+some one to look after them both."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" says Mary Browne.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's Rossmoyne, as I said before, actually going
+a begging for a wife. Why not take him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care about beggars," says Miss Browne, with a
+slight smile. "I am not one of those who think them picturesque."</p>
+
+<p>"He isn't a beggar in any other sense than the one I have
+mentioned. He is a very good match. Think of it, now."</p>
+
+<p>"I am thinking. Indeed, ever since my first day here I
+been thinking how deeply attached he is to Mrs. Bohun.
+Forgive me, Mrs. Bohun<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>Olga laughs lightly. There is something about this plain
+girl that repels the idea of offence.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth put that idea into your head?" says her
+hostess, opening her eyes, who talks too much both in season
+and out of it to be able to see all the by-play going on around
+her. "You aren't setting your cap at him, are you, Olga my
+dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, no," says Olga, still laughing. "How could so
+absurd a notion have got into <i>any</i>body's head?"</p>
+
+<p>"How, indeed?" says Monica, gayly.</p>
+
+<p>"There's Owen Kelly, then; though he isn't as well off as
+Rossmoyne, still he will be worth looking after by and by,
+when the old man drops off. He's as good hearted a fellow
+as ever lived, when you know what he's at,&mdash;which isn't often,
+to do him justice. It struck me he was very civil to you last
+night."</p>
+
+<p>"He was," says Miss Browne, whose merriment is on the
+increase. "But I never met any one who wasn't civil to me:
+so I found him commonplace enough. Ah! if he had only
+been uncivil, now!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there he is, at all events," says Madam O'Connor,
+sententiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope he's comfortable," says Miss Browne, kindly,
+"I shan't try to make him less so, at least. Why don't you
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
+recommend Mr. Desmond or Mr. Ronayne to my notice?<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span>
+with a mischievous glance at Monica and Olga Bohun.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid they are done for," says Madam, laughing now
+herself. "And I only hope that handsome boy Ronayne
+isn't laying up sorrow for himself and living in a fool's paradise.
+Indeed, Olga, pretty as you are, I'll be very angry with
+you if I hear you have been playing fast and loose with him."</p>
+
+<p>The old lady shakes her head grimly at Mrs. Bohun, who
+pretends to be crushed beneath her glance.</p>
+
+<p>"To prevent you offering me any more suitors," says Mary
+Browne, steadily, but with a rising blush, "I may as well tell
+you that I am engaged to be married."</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious, my dear! then why didn't you say so before?"
+says Madam, sitting bolt upright and letting her <i>pince-nez</i>
+fall unheeded into her lap.</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't know; but I daresay because you took it
+for granted I wasn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Mary," says Mrs. Herrick, speaking for the first time, and
+for the first time, too, calling Miss Browne by her Christian
+name, "tell us all about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, <i>do</i>," says Monica, and all the women draw their
+chairs instinctively a degree closer to the heroine of the hour,
+and betray in her a warm interest. After all, what can equal
+a really good love-affair?</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, my dear," says Madam<span class="s_corr" title=","></span> O'Connor, who is always
+full of life where romance is concerned. "I hope it is a good
+marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"The best in the world, for me," says Mary Browne, simply,
+"though he hasn't a penny in the world but what he
+earns."</p>
+
+<p>As she makes this awful confession, she isn't in the least
+confused, but smiles brightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mary, I must say I wouldn't have believed it of
+you," says Madam.</p>
+
+<p>"I would," says Monica, hastily laying her hand on one of
+Mary's. "It is just like her. After all, what has money got
+to do with it? Is he <i>nice</i>, Mary?"</p>
+
+<p>"So nice!" says Mary, who seems quite glad to talk
+about him, "and as ugly as myself," with a little enjoyable
+laugh, "so we can't call each other bad names; and his name
+is Peter, which of course will be considered another drawback,
+though I like the name myself. And we are very fond of
+each other&mdash;I have no doubt about that: and that is all, I
+think."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No, it is not all," says Madam O'Connor, severely. "May
+I ask when you met this young man?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must take the sting out of your tone at once, Gertrude,"
+says her cousin, pleasantly, "by telling you that we were engaged
+long <i>before</i> poor Richard died." (Richard was the scampish
+brother by whose death she inherited all.)</p>
+
+<p>"Then why didn't you marry him?" says Madam.</p>
+
+<p>"I was going to,&mdash;in fact, we were going to run away,"
+says Miss Browne, with intense enjoyment at the now remote
+thought,&mdash;"doesn't it sound absurd?&mdash;when&mdash;when the news
+about Dick reached us, and then I could not bring myself to
+leave my father, no matter how unpleasant my home be."</p>
+
+<p>"What is he?" asks Olga, with a friendly desire to know.</p>
+
+<p>"A doctor. In rather good practice, too, in Dublin. He
+is very clever," says Miss Browne, telling her story so genially,
+so comfortably, that all their hearts go out to her, and Madam
+O'Connor grows lost in a revery about what will be the handsomest
+and most suitable thing to give "Peter" as a wedding-present.
+As she cannot get beyond a case of dissecting-knives,
+this revery is short.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps if you saw some one else you might change your
+mind," she says, a new thought entering her head (of course
+there would be a difficulty about offering dissecting-knives to a
+barrister or quiet country gentleman).</p>
+
+<p>"I have had five proposals this year already," says Miss
+Browne, quietly, "but, if I could be a princess by doing so, I
+would not give up Peter."</p>
+
+<p>"Mary Browne, come here and give me a kiss," says
+Madam O'Connor, with tears in her eyes. "You are the best
+girl I know, and I always said it. I only hope your Peter
+knows the extent of his luck."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Browne having to leave the room some few minutes later
+Olga raises herself from the lounging position she has been in,
+with her hands clasped behind her head, and says, slowly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think she is so plain, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"Neither do I," says Monica, eagerly, "there is something
+so sweet about her expression."</p>
+
+<p>"I am perfectly certain that man Peter is awfully in love
+with her," says Mrs. Herrick solemnly, "and that without
+the <a class="corr" name="TC_74" id="TC_74" title="slighest">slightest</a> thought of her money."</p>
+
+<p>"What would he think of her money for?" says Madam
+O'Connor, testily, who had firmly believed him a fortune-hunter
+only two minutes ago. "Isn't she a jewel in herself?"</p>
+
+<p>"By the bye, where is our Bella all this time?" says Olga,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+suddenly. "It now occurs to me that of course we have been
+missing her all this time."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," says Monica, mysteriously: "she is <i>asleep</i>,&mdash;<a class="corr" name="TC_75" id="TC_75" title="gerting">getting</a>
+herself up for her Lady Teazle. I was running along
+the corridor, outside her room, half an hour ago, when her
+mother came out on tiptoe and implored me to go gently, lest
+I should wake her."</p>
+
+<p>"Gentle dove," says Mrs. Herrick.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall go and dance the <i>can-can</i> up and down that corridor
+this moment," says Mrs. Bohun, rising to her feet with fell
+determination in her eye.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you had all better go to your rooms and get ready
+for dinner. It is painfully early to-night," says Madam, "on
+account of all this nonsense of Olga's. But no dressing mind,
+as I have told the men to come as they are. There will be
+plenty of that by and by."</p>
+
+<p>One by one they all dwindle away at the word of command,
+Olga, true to her word, making such a clatter as she passes
+Miss Fitzgerald's door as might readily be classed with those
+noises popularly supposed to be able to wake the silent dead.
+Whether it wakes Miss Fitzgerald is unknown to all save her
+mother and her maid.</p>
+
+<p>It makes Monica laugh, however who, sitting in her own
+room, is gazing with dreamy delight at the pretty <a class="corr" name="TC_76" id="TC_76" title="grown">gown</a> Miss
+Priscilla has ordered from Mrs. Sim's for her all the way from
+Dublin, and which has been spread upon her bed by Olga's
+maid, Mrs. Bohun having insisted on sharing that delightful
+<span class="s_corr" title="youngperson">young person</span> with her ever since her first night at Aghyohillbeg.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Aunt Priscilla will not be here to-night to see her favorite
+niece dressed in her charming present.</p>
+
+<p>At the last moment, not two hours agone, had come a letter
+from Moyne to Madame O'Connor telling how Miss Penelope
+had been seized by a bad neuralgic headache and was in such
+pain that Miss Priscilla could not find it in her heart to leave
+her. Kit, escorted by Terence, would arrive, however, in time
+for the opening act; and it would be impossible to say how
+disappointed the two old ladies were (which indeed was the
+strict truth), and they hoped all would be successful, etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>With a remorseful pang, Monica acknowledges to herself
+now that she had felt a secret gladness when first the news had
+been retailed to her by Madame O'Connor. A sense of being
+under an obligation to that dire neuralgic headache, is oppressing
+her. It is wicked of her, and most cruel, but the secret
+exultation cannot be denied.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And see how the case stands. Poor Aunt Penelope in vile
+suffering, Aunt Priscilla enduring bitter disappointment,&mdash;for
+she had, as Monica well knew, set her heart on witnessing
+these theatricals,&mdash;and Monica herself actually glad and light
+at heart <i>because</i> of the misfortunes that have befallen them.
+Alas! how fiendish it all sounds!</p>
+
+<p>And again, to add to the iniquity of it, for how slight a cause
+has she welcomed the discomfiture of her best friends! For
+a few dances with their enemy, a freedom for happy smiles and
+unrestrained glances,&mdash;<i>all</i> to be made over to the enemy. For
+how, with Miss Priscilla's reproachful angry eyes upon her,
+could she have waltzed or smiled or talked with a Desmond?</p>
+
+<p>And what is to be the end of it all? A vague feeling of
+terror compasses her round about as she dwells on her forbidden
+lover. Will she have to give him up at the last?&mdash;it
+must be either him or Aunt Priscilla; and she owes so much to
+Aunt Priscilla; while to him&mdash;oh, no! she owes him nothing;
+of course he is only&mdash;only&mdash;and yet&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>A bell sounds in the distance; she starts and glances at the
+tiny clock upon her chimney-piece. Yes, it is almost six, and
+dinner will be ready in ten minutes. And afterwards comes
+"The School for Scandal," and after that the tableaux, and
+after that again dancing,&mdash;delights threefold for happy eighteen.
+Her spirits rise; her fears fall; self-contempt, remorse, regret,
+all sink into insignificance, and with a beating heart she coils
+afresh her tinted hair, and twines some foreign beads about her
+slender throat to make herself a shade more lovable in the eyes
+of the man she must not encourage, and whose very existence
+she has been forbidden to acknowledge.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The curtain has risen, has fallen and risen again, and now
+has descended for the last time. A flutter&mdash;is it rapture or relief?&mdash;trembles
+through the audience. "The School for Scandal"
+has come to a timely end!</p>
+
+<p>I selfishly forbear from giving my readers a lengthened account
+of it, as they (unless any of the Aghyohillbeg party takes
+up this book) have <a class="corr" name="TC_77" id="TC_77" title="merci">mercy</a>&mdash;that is, unfortunately, been debarred
+by fate from ever witnessing a performance such as this,
+that certainly, without servile flattery, may be termed unique.
+Words (that is, <i>my</i> words) would fail to give an adequate idea
+of it, and so from very modesty I hold my pen.</p>
+
+<p>"It was marvellous," says Sir Mark Gore, who is paying a
+flying visit to Lord Rossmoyne. He says this with the profoundest
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+solemnity, and perhaps a little melancholy. His expression
+is decidedly pensive.</p>
+
+<p>"It was indeed wonderful," says the old rector, in perfect
+good faith.</p>
+
+<p>And wonderful it was indeed. Anything so truly remarkable,
+I may safely declare, was never seen in this or any other
+generation.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Fitzgerald's Lady Teazle left nothing to be desired,
+save perhaps an earlier fall of the curtain, while Captain Cobbett's
+Joseph Surface was beyond praise. This is the strict
+truth. He was indeed the more happy in his representation of
+the character in that he gave his audience a Joseph they never
+had seen and never would see again on any stage, unless Captain
+Cobbett could kindly be induced by them to try it on some
+other occasion.</p>
+
+<p>A few ignorant people, indeed, who plainly found such a
+splendid rendering of the part too much for their intellectual
+capacity, were seized with a laughter profane, if smothered,
+whenever the talented captain made his appearance, giving the
+rest of the company (who could see them shaking behind their
+fans) to understand that they at least were "not for Joe,"&mdash;that
+is, Captain Cobbett's Joe. But the majority very properly
+took no notice of these Philistines, and indeed rebuked them
+by maintaining an undisturbed gravity to the very end.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Peter (Mr. Ryde) was most sumptuously arrayed. Nothing
+could exceed the magnificence of his attire. Upon an
+amateur stage, startling habiliments copied from a remote
+period are always attractive, and Mr. Ryde did all he knew in
+this line, giving even to the ordinary Sir Peter of our old-fashioned
+knowledge certain garments in vogue quite a century
+before he could possibly have been born. This gave a charming
+wildness to his character, a devil-may-care sort of an air,
+that exactly suited his gay and festive mood. After all, why
+should Sir Peter be old and heavy? why indeed?</p>
+
+<p>The effect was altogether charming. That there were a
+few disagreeable people who said they would have liked to
+know what he was <i>at</i> (<i>such</i> a phrase, you know!), what he <i>meant</i>,
+in fact, and who declared that, as a mere simple matter of
+choice, they liked to hear a word now and again from an actor,
+goes without telling. There are troublesome people in every
+grade of society,&mdash;gnats that <i>will</i> sting. Silence is golden, as
+all the world knows; and Mr. Ryde is of it: so of course he
+forgot his part whenever he could, and left out all the rest!
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This he did with a systematic carefulness very praiseworthy
+in so young a man.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, therefore, you will see that the affair was an
+unprecedented success; and if some did go away puzzled as to
+whether it was a burlesque or a tragedy, nobody was to blame
+for their obtuseness. There certainly are scenes in this admirable
+comedy not provocative of laughter; but such was the
+bad taste of Madam O'Connor that she joined in with the
+Philistines mentioned farther back, and laughed straight through
+the piece from start to finish, until the tears ran down her
+cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>She said afterwards she was hysterical, and Olga Bohun,
+who was quite as bad as she, said, "<i>no wonder</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Now, however, it is all over, and the actors and actresses
+have disappeared, to make way for the gauze, the electric light,
+and the tableaux; whilst the audience is making itself happy
+with iced champagne and conversation, kind and otherwise
+(very much otherwise), about the late performance.</p>
+
+<p>Olga Bohun, who is looking all that the heart of man can
+desire in white lace and lilies, leaving the impromptu theatre,
+goes in search of Hermia, who, with Owen Kelly, is to appear
+in the opening tableau. She makes her way to the temporary
+green-room, an inner hall, hidden from the outer world by means
+of a hanging velvet curtain, and with a staircase at the lower
+end that leads to some of the upper corridors. Here she finds
+Ulic Ronayne, Miss Browne, Monica, Desmond, and Kelly.</p>
+
+<p>She has barely time to say something trivial to Miss Browne,
+when a pale light appearing at the top of the staircase attracts
+the attention of all below. Instinctively they raise their eyes
+towards it, and see a tall figure clad in white descending the
+stairs slowly and with a strange sweet gravity. Is it an angel
+come to visit them, or Hermia Herrick?</p>
+
+<p>It resolves itself into Hermia at last, but a beautiful Hermia,&mdash;a
+lovely apparition,&mdash;a woman indeed still, but "with something
+of an angel-light" playing in her dark eyes and round her
+dusky head. Always a distinguished-looking woman, if too
+cold for warmer praise, she is now at least looking supremely
+beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>She is dressed as Galatea, in a clinging garment of the
+severest Greek style, with no jewels upon her neck, and with
+her exquisite arms bare to the shoulder. One naked sandalled
+foot can be seen as she comes leisurely to them step by step.
+She is holding a low Etruscan lamp in one hand upon a level
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>
+with her head, and there is just the faintest suspicion of a smile
+about her usually irresponsive lips.</p>
+
+<p>No one speaks until her feet touch the hall, when a little
+murmur, indistinct, yet distinctly admiring, arises to greet her.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I don't look foolish," she says, with as much nervousness
+in her tone as can possibly be expected from her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Hermia, you are looking too lovely," says Olga, with
+a burst of genuine enthusiasm. "Is she not, Owen?"</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Kelly makes no reply.</p>
+
+<p>A slight tinge of color deepens Mrs. Herrick's complexion
+as she turns to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Mr. Kelly!" she says, the amused flicker of a smile
+flitting over her face, which has now grown pale again. "What
+a situation! There! don't sully your conscience: I will let
+you off your lie. That is where an old friend comes in so useful,
+you see."</p>
+
+<p>"At all events, I don't see where the lie would come in.
+But, as you do, of course I shall say nothing," says Kelly.</p>
+
+<p>"What a Pygmalion!" says Olga, in high disgust. "And
+what a speech! Contemptible! I don't believe any Galatea
+would come to life beneath <i>your</i> touch. It would be cold as the
+marble itself!"</p>
+
+<p>So saying, she moves away to where Monica is standing,
+looking quite the sweetest thing in the world, as</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A nun demure, of lowly port."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"She has prophesied truly," says Kelly, in a low tone, turning
+to Mrs. Herrick. "I fear <i>my</i> Galatea will never wake to
+life for <i>me</i>."</p>
+
+<p>A subdued bell tinkles in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>"Our summons," says Mrs. Herrick, hastily, as though
+grateful to it; and presently she is standing upon a pedestal,
+pale motionless, with a rapt Pygmalion at her feet, and some
+Pompeian vases and jugs (confiscated from the drawing-room)
+in the background.</p>
+
+<p>And then follow the other tableaux, and then the stage is
+deserted, and, music sounding in the distant ballroom, every
+one rises and makes a step in its direction, the hearts of some
+of the younger guests beating in time to it.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?" says Ulic Ronayne, seeing Olga
+about to mount the stairs once more.</p>
+
+<p>"To help the others to get into civilized garb,&mdash;Hermia and
+Monica, I mean. Lady Teazle I consider capable of looking
+after herself."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"H'm! you say that? I thought Miss Fitzgerald was a
+friend of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you thought like the baby you are. No! Women,
+like princes, find few real friends. But one in a hundred can
+fill that character gracefully, and Bella is <i>not</i> that one."</p>
+
+<p>She turns to run up the stairs. "Well, don't be long," says
+Mr. Ronayne.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be ready in a minute," she says; and in twenty-five
+she really <i>is</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Monica, who has had Kit to help her,&mdash;such an admiring,
+enthusiastic, flattering Kit,&mdash;is soon redressed, and has run
+down stairs, and nearly into Desmond's arms, who, of course,
+is waiting on the lowest step to receive her. She is now waltzing
+with him, with a heart as light as her feet.</p>
+
+<p>Hermia's progress has been slow, but Miss Fitzgerald's
+slowest of all, the elaborate toilet and its accessories taking some
+time to arrange themselves; she has been annoyed, too, by
+Olga Bohun, during the earlier part of the evening, and consequently
+feels it her duty to stay in her room for a while and
+take it out of her maid. So long is she, indeed, that Madam
+O'Connor (most attentive of hostesses) feels it her duty to
+come upstairs to find her.</p>
+
+<p>She <i>does</i> find her, giving way to diatribes of the most virulent,
+that have Olga Bohun for their theme. Mrs. Fitzgerald,
+standing by, is listening to, and assisting in, the defamatory
+speeches.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey-day! what's the matter now?" says Madam, with a
+<i>bonhommie</i> completely thrown away. Miss Fitzgerald has given
+the reins to her mortification, and is prepared to hunt Olga to
+the death.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it is disgraceful the license Mrs. Bohun allows her
+tongue," she says, angrily, still smarting under the speech she
+had goaded Olga into making her an hour ago. "We have
+just been talking about it. She says the most wounding things,
+and accuses people openly of thoughts and actions of which
+they would scorn to be guilty. And this, too, when her own
+actions are so hopelessly faulty, so <i>sure</i> to be animadverted
+upon by all decent people."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, indeed," chimes in her mother, as in duty bound.
+Her voice is feeble, but her manner vicious.</p>
+
+<p>"The shameful way in which she employs nasty unguents of
+all kinds, and tries by every artificial means to heighten any
+beauty she may possess, is too absurdly transparent not to be
+known by all the world," goes on the irate Bella. "Who run
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+may read the rouge and veloutine that cover her face. And as
+for her lids, they are so blackened that they are positively <i>dirty</i>!
+Yet she pretends she has handsome eyes and lashes!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear, she may well lay claim to her lashes. All
+the <a class="corr" name="TC_78" id="TC_78" title="Egyptain">Egyptian</a> charcoal in the world could not make them long
+and curly. Nature is to be thanked for them."</p>
+
+<p>"You can defend her if you like," says Bella, hysterically,
+"but to my mind her conduct is&mdash;is positively <i>immoral</i>. It is
+cheating the public into the belief that she has a skin when she
+hasn't."</p>
+
+<p>"But I'm sure she has: we can all see it," says Madam
+O'Connor, somewhat bewildered by this sweeping remark.</p>
+
+<p>"No, you can't. I defy you to see it, it is so covered with
+pastes and washes, and everything; she uses every art you can
+conceive."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, supposing she does, what then?" says Madam,
+stoutly. She is dressed in black velvet and diamonds, and is
+looking twice as important and rather more good-humored than
+<a class="corr" name="TC_79" id="TC_79" title="nsual">usual</a>. "I see nothing in it. My grandmother always rouged,&mdash;put
+on patches as regularly as her gown. Every one did it
+in those days, I suppose. And quite right, too. Why shouldn't
+a woman make herself look as attractive as she can?"</p>
+
+<p>"But the barefaced fashion in which she hunts down that
+wretched young Ronayne," says Mrs. Fitzgerald, "is dreadful!
+You can't defend that, Gertrude. I quite pity the poor lad,&mdash;drawn
+thus, <i>against his will</i>, into the toils of an enchantress."
+Mrs. Fitzgerald pauses after this ornate and strictly original
+speech, as if overcome by her own eloquence. "I think he
+should be warned," she goes on presently. "A woman like
+that should not be permitted to entrap a mere boy into a marriage
+he will regret all his life afterwards, by means of abominable
+coquetries and painted cheeks and eyes. It is horrible!"</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought you were such a fool, Edith," says Madam
+O'Connor, with the greatest sweetness.</p>
+
+<p>"You may think as you will, Gertrude," responds Mrs.
+Fitzgerald, with her faded air of juvenility sadly lost in her
+agitation, and shaking her head nervously, as though afflicted
+with a sudden touch of palsy that accords dismally with her
+youthful attire. "But I shall cling to my own opinions. And
+I utterly disapprove of Mrs. Bohun."</p>
+
+<p>"For me," says Bella, vindictively, "I believe her capable
+of <i>anything</i>. I can't bear those women who laugh at nothing,
+and powder themselves every half-hour."</p>
+
+<p>"You shouldn't throw stones, Bella," says honest Madam
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
+O'Connor, now nearly at the end of her patience. "Your
+glass house will be shivered if you do. Before I took to censuring
+other people I'd look in a mirror, if I were you."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand you," says Miss Fitzgerald, turning
+rather pale.</p>
+
+<p>"That's because you won't look in a mirror. Why, there's
+enough powder on your right ear to whiten a Moor!"</p>
+
+<p>"I never&mdash;&mdash;" begins Bella, in a stricken tone; but
+Madam O'Connor stops her.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! sure I'm looking at it," she says.</p>
+
+<p>This hanging evidence is not to be confuted. For a moment
+the fair Bella feels crushed; then she rallies nobly, and,
+after withering her terrified mother with a glance, sweeps from
+the room, followed at a respectful distance by Mrs. Fitzgerald,
+and quite closely by Madam, who declines to see she has given
+offence in any way.</p>
+
+<p>As they go, Mrs. Fitzgerald keeps up a gentle twitter, in
+the hope of propitiating the wrathful goddess on before.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I still think young Ronayne should be warned;
+she is very designing, very, and he is very soft-hearted." She
+had believed in young Ronayne at one time, and had brought
+herself to look upon him as a possible son-in-law, until this terrible
+Mrs. Bohun had cast a glamour over him. "Yes, yes,
+one feels it quite one's duty to let him know how she gets herself
+up. His eyes should be opened to the rouge and the
+Egyptian eye-stuff."</p>
+
+<p>While she is mumbling all this, they come into a square
+landing, off which two rooms open. Both are brilliantly lighted
+and have been turned into cosey boudoirs for the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>In one of them, only half concealed by a looped curtain
+from those without, stand two figures, Olga Bohun and the
+"poor lad" who is to have his eyes opened.</p>
+
+<p>They are as wide open at present as any one can desire,
+and are staring thoughtfully at the wily widow, who is gazing
+back just as earnestly into them. Both he and Olga are standing
+very close together beneath the chandelier, and seem to be
+scanning each other's features with the keenest scrutiny.</p>
+
+<p>So remarkable is their demeanor, that not only Bella but
+her mother and Madam O'Connor refrain from further motion,
+to gaze at them with growing curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing sentimental about their attitude; far from it;
+nothing even vaguely suggestive of tenderness. There is only
+an unmistakable anxiety that deepens every instant.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You are sure?" says Olga, solemnly. "Certain? Don't
+decide in a hurry. Look again."</p>
+
+<p>He looks again.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, <i>perhaps</i>! A <i>very</i> little less would be sufficient," he
+says, with hesitation, standing back to examine her countenance
+more safely.</p>
+
+<p>"There! see how careless you can be<span class="s_corr" title="">,</span>" says Olga, reproachfully.
+"Now, take it off with this, but lightly, <i>very</i> lightly."</p>
+
+<p>As she speaks, she hands him her handkerchief, and, to the
+consternation of the three watchers outside, he takes it, and
+with the gentlest touch rubs her cheeks with it, first the one,
+and then the other.</p>
+
+<p>When he had finished this performance, both he and she
+stared at the handkerchief meditatively.</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt you have taken it <i>all</i> off," she says, plaintively.
+"I couldn't have put more than that on, and surely the handkerchief
+has no need of a complexion; whilst I&mdash;&mdash;It must be
+all gone now, and I was whiter than this bit of cambric when I
+put it on. Had I better run up to my room again, or&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. You are all right; indeed you are. I'd say so at
+once if you weren't," says Ronayne, reassuringly. "You are
+looking as lovely as a dream."</p>
+
+<p>"And my eyes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are beautifully done. No one on earth could find you
+out," says Ulic, comfortably; after which they both laugh merrily,
+and, quitting the impromptu boudoir, go down to the ballroom.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Fitzgerald shows a faint disposition to sob, as they
+pass out of sight. Madam O'Connor is consumed with laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I should trouble myself to open 'that poor
+young Ronayne's' eyes, if I were you, Edith," she says, with
+tears of suppressed amusement in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"He is lost!" says Mrs. Fitzgerald, with a groan; but
+whether she means to Bella or to decency never transpires.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Madam O'Connor <a class="corr" name="TC_80" id="TC_80" title="tell">tells</a> how lovers throve in the good old days when
+she was young; and Brian Desmond thrives with his love in these our
+days, when he and she are young.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The day is near; the darkest hour that presages the dawn
+has come, and still every one is dancing, and talking, and
+laughing, and some are alluring, by the aid of smiles and waving
+fans, the hearts of men.</p>
+
+<p>Kit Beresford, in spite of her youth and her closely-cropped
+head,&mdash;which, after all is adorable in many ways,&mdash;has secured,
+all to her own bow, a young man from the Skillereen Barracks
+(a meagre town to the west of Rossmoyne<span class="s_corr" title="">)</span>. He is a <i>very</i> young,
+young man, and is by this time quite <i>bon comarade</i> with the
+sedate Kit, who is especially lenient with his shortcomings, and
+treats him as though he were nearly as old as herself.</p>
+
+<p>Monica is dancing with Mr. Ryde. To do him justice, he
+dances very well; but whether Monica is dissatisfied with him,
+or whether she is tenderly regretful of the fact that at this
+moment she might just as well&mdash;or rather better&mdash;be dancing
+with another, I cannot say; but certainly her fair face is clothed
+with a pensive expression that heightens its beauty in a considerable
+degree.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at that girl of Priscilla Blake's," says Madam
+O'Connor, suddenly, who is standing at the head of the room,
+surrounded, as usual, by young men. "Look at her. Was
+there ever such a picture? She is like a martyr at the stake.
+That intense expression suits her."</p>
+
+<p>Brian Desmond flushes a little, and Kelly comes to the
+rescue.</p>
+
+<p>"A martyr?" he says. "I don't think Ryde would be
+obliged to you if he heard you. I should name him as the martyr,
+if I were you. Just see how hopelessly silly&mdash;I mean, sentimental&mdash;he
+looks."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet I think she fancies him," says Lord Rossmoyne, who
+is one of those men who are altogether good, respectable, and
+dense.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" says Madam O'Connor, indignantly. "What
+on earth would she fancy that jackanapes for, when there are
+good men and true waiting for her round every corner?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As she says this, she glances whole volumes of encouragement
+at Desmond, who, however, is so depressed by the fact
+that Monica has danced five times with Ryde, and is now dancing
+with him again, that he gives her no returning glance.</p>
+
+<p>At this apparent coldness on his part, the blood of all the
+kings of Munster awakes in Madam O'Connor's breast.</p>
+
+<p>"'Pon my conscience," she says, "I wouldn't give a good
+farthing for the lot of you, to let that girl go by! She came
+into Rossmoyne on the top of a hay-cart, I hear,&mdash;more luck to
+her, say I; for it shows the pluck in her, and the want of the
+sneaking fear of what he and she will say (more especially <i>she</i>)
+that spoils half our women. When I was her age I'd have done
+it myself. Rossmoyne, get out of that, till I get another look
+at her. I like her face. It does me good. It is so full of life
+<i>et le beaute du diable</i>," says Madame O'Connor, who speaks
+French like a native, and, be it understood, Irish too.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>We</i> like to look at her, too," says Owen Kelly.</p>
+
+<p>"To look, indeed! That would be thought poor comfort in
+my days when a pretty woman was in question, and men were
+men!" says Madam, with considerable spirit. "If I were a
+young fellow, now, 'tis in the twinkling of an eye I'd have her
+from under her aunt's nose and away in a coach and four."</p>
+
+<p>"The sole thing that prevents our <i>all</i> eloping with Miss
+Beresford on the spot is&mdash;is&mdash;the difficulty of finding the coach
+and four and the blacksmith," says Mr. Kelly, with even a
+denser gloom upon his face than usual. Indeed, he now
+appears almost on the verge of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"We never lost time speculating on ways and means in
+<i>those</i> days," says Madame O'Connor, throwing up her head.
+"Whoo! Times are changed indeed since my grandfather
+played old Harry with the countrymen and my grandmother's
+father by running away with her without a word to any one,
+after a big ball at my great grandmother's, and that, too, when
+she was guarded as if she was the princess royal herself and
+had every man in the South on his knees to her."</p>
+
+<p>"But how did he manage it?" says Desmond, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Faith, by making the old gentleman my great-grandfather
+as drunk as a fiddler, on drugged potheen," says Madam
+O'Connor, proudly. "The butler and he did it between them;
+but it was as near being murder as anything you like, because
+they put so much of the narcotic into the whiskey that the old
+man didn't come to himself for three days. That's the sort of
+thing for <i>me</i>," says Madam, with a little flourish of her shapely
+hand.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"So it would be for me, too," says Kelly, mournfully.
+"But there's no one good enough to risk my neck for, now you
+have refused to have anything to do with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Get along with you, you wicked boy, making fun of an
+old woman!" says Madam, with her gay, musical laugh.
+"Though," with a touch of pride, "I won't deny but I led the
+lads a fine dance when I was the age of that pretty child yonder."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder you aren't ashamed when you think of all the
+mischief you did," says Desmond, who delights in her.</p>
+
+<p>"Divil a bit!" says Madam O'Connor.</p>
+
+<p>"Still, I really think Ryde affects her," says Rossmoyne,
+who, being a dull man, has clung to the first topic promulgated.</p>
+
+<p>"That's nothing, so long as she doesn't affect him," says
+Kelly, somewhat sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"But perhaps she does; and I daresay he has money.
+Those English fellows generally have a reversion somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a penny," says Mr. Kelly. "And, whether or no, I
+don't believe she would look at him."</p>
+
+<p>"Not she," says Madam O'Connor.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that. And, even allowing what you say to
+be true, women are not always to be won by wealth" (with a
+faint sigh), "and he is a very good-looking fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he?" says Desmond, speaking with an effort. "If
+flesh counts, of course he is. <span class="s_corr" title="&quot;"></span>'Let me have men about me
+that are fat; sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights.'
+To look at Ryde, one would fancy he slept well, not only by
+night but by day."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel as if I was going to be sorry for Ryde presently,"
+says Mr. Kelly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he's not the man for Monica," says Madam O'Connor,
+with conviction. "See how sorrow grows upon her lovely
+face. For shame! go and release her, some one, from her
+durance vile. Take heart of grace, go in boldly, and win her,
+against all odds."</p>
+
+<p>"But if she will not be won?" says Desmond, smiling, but
+yet with an anxious expression.</p>
+
+<p>"'That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man if with his
+tongue he cannot win a woman,'" quotes Madam, in a low
+voice, turning to Desmond with a broad smile of the liveliest
+encouragement; "and as for you, Desmond, why, if I were a
+girl, I'd be won by yours at once."</p>
+
+<p>Desmond laughs.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry I'm beneath your notice now."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Where's your uncle? Couldn't even my letter coax him
+here to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not even that. He has gone nowhere now for so many
+years that I think he is afraid to venture."</p>
+
+<p>"Tut!" says Madam, impatiently; "because <i>he</i> jilted a
+woman once is no reason why the rest of us should jilt <i>him</i>."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>It is an hour later, and all the guests have gone except indeed
+Kit, who has been sent upstairs tired and sleepy to share
+Monica's room, and Terence and Brian Desmond, who with
+his friend Kelly are struggling into their top-coats in the hall.
+The rain is descending in torrents, and they are regarding
+with rather rueful countenances the dog-cart awaiting them
+outside, in which they had driven over in the sunny morning
+that seems impossible, when Madam O'Connor sweeps down
+upon them.</p>
+
+<p>"Take off those coats at once," she says. "What do you
+mean, Brian? I wouldn't have it on my conscience to send a
+rat out of my house on such a night as this, unless under cover."
+Her conscience is Madam's strong point. She excels in it.
+She ofttimes swears by it! Her promise to Miss Priscilla that
+Desmond shall not sleep beneath her roof during Monica's
+stay is forgotten or laid aside, and finally, with a smile of satisfaction,
+she sees the two young men carried off by Ronayne
+for a final smoke before turning in.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't feel a bit sleepy myself," says Monica, who is
+looking as fresh and sweet as if only now just risen.</p>
+
+<p>"Neither do I," says Olga. "Come to my room, then, and
+talk to me for a minute or two."</p>
+
+<p>They must have been long minutes, because it is quite an
+hour later when a little slender figure, clad in a pretty white
+dressing-gown, emerges on tiptoe from Mrs. Bohun's room and
+steals hurriedly along the deserted corridor.</p>
+
+<p>Somebody else is hurrying along this corridor, too. Seeing
+the childish figure in the white gown, he pauses; perhaps he
+thinks it is a ghost; but, if so, he is a doughty man, because
+he goes swiftly up to it with a glad smile upon his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"My darling girl," he says, in a subdued voice, "I thought
+you were in the middle of your first happy dream by this."</p>
+
+<p>Monica smiles, and leaves her hand in his.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not such a lazy-bones as you evidently thought me,"
+she says. "But I must hurry now, indeed. All the world is
+abed, I suppose; and if Kit wakes and finds me not yet come,
+she will be frightened."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Before you go, tell me you will meet me somewhere to-morrow.
+You," uncertainly, "<i>are</i> going home <a class="corr" name="TC_81" id="TC_81" title="to morrow">to-morrow</a>, are
+you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But&mdash;but&mdash;<i>how</i> can I meet you? I have almost
+given my word to Aunt Priscilla to do nothing&mdash;clandestine&mdash;or
+that; and how shall I break it? You are always tempting
+me, and"&mdash;a soft glance stealing to him from beneath her
+lashes&mdash;"I should <i>like</i> to see you, of course, but so much duty
+I owe to her."</p>
+
+<p>"Your first duty is to your husband," responds he, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>She turns to him with startled eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that?" she asks.</p>
+
+<p>"I am," boldly; "or at least I soon shall be: it is all the
+same."</p>
+
+<p>"How sure you are of me!" she says, with just the faintest
+touch of offence in her tone that quickens his pulses to fever-heat.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Sure!</i>" he says, with a melancholy raised by passion into
+something that is almost vehemence. "Was I ever so <i>unsure</i>
+of anything, I wonder? There is so little certainty connected
+with you in my mind that half my days are consumed by doubts
+that render me miserable! Yet I put my trust in you. Upon
+your sweetness I build my hope. I feel you would not willingly
+condemn any one to death, and what could I do but die if
+you now throw me over? But you <i>won't I think</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," says Monica, impulsively, tears in her eyes and
+voice. Tremblingly she yields herself to him, and let him hold
+her to his heart in a close embrace. "How could you think
+that of me? Have you forgotten that I <i>kissed</i> you?"</p>
+
+<p>Plainly she lays great stress upon that rash act committed
+the other night beneath the stars.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Forget it!</i>" says Desmond, in a tone that leaves nothing
+to be desired. "You are mine, then, now,&mdash;now and forever,"
+he says, presently.</p>
+
+<p>"But there is always Aunt Priscilla," says Monica, nervously.
+Her tone is full of affliction. "Oh, if she could <i>only</i>
+see me now!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she <i>can't</i>, that's one comfort; not if she were the
+hundred-eyed Argus himself."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel I am behaving very badly to her," says Monica,
+dolorously. "I am, in spite of myself, deceiving her, and to-morrow,
+when it is all over,&mdash;&mdash;"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It shan't be over," interrupts he, with considerable vigor.
+"What a thing to say!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall feel <i>so</i> guilty when I get back to Moyne. Just as
+if I had been doing something dreadful. So I have, I think.
+How shall I ever be able to look her in the face again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know? It is the simplest thing in the world.
+You have only to fix your eyes steadily on the tip of her nose,
+and there you are!"</p>
+
+<p>This disgraceful frivolity on the part of her lover rouses
+quick reproach in Monica's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think it is a nice thing to laugh at one," she says,
+very justly incensed. "I wouldn't laugh at <i>you</i> if you were unhappy.
+You are not the least help to me. What <i>am</i> I to say
+to Aunt Priscilla?"</p>
+
+<p>"'How d'ye do?' first; and then&mdash;in an <i>airy</i> tone, you
+know&mdash;'I am going to be married, as soon as time permits, to
+Brian Desmond.' No, no," penitently, catching a firmer hold
+of her as she makes a valiant but ineffectual effort to escape
+the shelter of his arms, "I didn't mean it. I am sorry, and
+I'll never do it again. I'll sympathize with <i>anything</i> you say, if
+you will promise not to desert me."</p>
+
+<p>"It is you," reproachfully, "who desert me, and in my hour
+of need. I don't think," wistfully, "I am so <i>very</i> much to
+blame, am I? I didn't <i>ask</i> you to fall in love with me, and
+when you came here all this week to see Madam O'Connor I
+couldn't possibly have turned my back upon you, could I?"</p>
+
+<p>"You could; but it would have brought you to the verge of
+suicide and murder. Because, as you turned, I should have
+turned too, on the chance of seeing your face, and so on, and on
+until vertigo set in, and death ensued, and we were both buried
+in one common grave. It sounds awful, doesn't it? Well, and
+where, then, will you come to meet me to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"To the river, I suppose," says Monica.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," says Desmond, after a short pause, "I
+shall have to leave you soon? Not now; not until October,
+perhaps; but whenever I do go it will be for a month at least."</p>
+
+<p>"A <i>month</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"A whole long month!"</p>
+
+<p>"The longest month I shall have ever known," sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly didn't think you would go and do a thing like
+<i>that</i>," says his beloved, with much severity.</p>
+
+<p>"My darling, I can't help it; but we needn't talk about it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
+just yet. Only it came into my head a moment ago, that it
+would be very sweet to get a letter from you while I was away:
+a letter," softly, "a letter from my own wife to her husband."</p>
+
+<p>Monica glances at him in a half-perplexed fashion, and then,
+as though some thought has come to her for the first time, and
+brought merriment in its train, her lips part, and all her lovely
+face breaks into silent mirth.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asks he, a little&mdash;just a very little&mdash;disconcerted.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing; nothing, really. Only it <i>does</i> seem so funny
+to think I have got a husband," she says, in a choked whisper,
+and then her mirth gets beyond her control, and, but that Brian
+presses her head down on his chest, and so stifles it, they might
+have had Miss Fitzgerald out upon them in ten seconds.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" whispers the embryo husband, giving her a little
+shake. But he is laughing, too.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't feel as if I honored you a bit," says Miss Beresford;
+"and as to the 'obey,' I certainly shan't do that."</p>
+
+<p>"As if I should ask you!" says Desmond. "But what of
+the <i>love</i>, sweetheart?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, as it is yours, you ought to be the one to answer <i>that</i>
+question," retorts she, prettily, a warm flush dyeing her face.</p>
+
+<p>"But why must you leave me?" she says, presently.</p>
+
+<p>"The steward has written to me once or twice. Tenants
+nowadays are so troublesome. Of course I could let the whole
+thing slide, and the property go to the dogs; but no man has a
+right to do that. I am talking of my own place now, you understand,&mdash;<i>yours</i>,
+as it will be soon, I hope."</p>
+
+<p>"And where is&mdash;<i>our</i> place?"</p>
+
+<p>The hesitation is adorable, but still more adorable are the
+smile and blush that accompany it.</p>
+
+<p>"In Westmeath," says Brian, when some necessary preliminaries
+have been gone through. "I hope you will like it. It
+is far prettier than Coole in every way."</p>
+
+<p>"And I think Coole lovely, what I've seen of it," says
+Monica, sweetly.</p>
+
+<p>Here the lamp that has hitherto been lighting the corridor,
+thinking, doubtless (and very reasonably, too), that it has done
+its duty long enough, flickers, and goes out. But no darkness
+follows its defection. Through the far window a pale burst of
+light rushes, illumining in a cold and ghostly manner the spot
+on which they stand. "The meek-eyed morn, mother of
+dews," has come, and night has slipped away abashed, with
+covered front.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Together they move to the window and look out upon the
+awakening world; and, even as they gaze enraptured at its
+fairness, the sun shoots up from yonder hill, and a great blaze
+of glory is abroad.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Over the spangled grass<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Swept the swift footsteps of the lovely light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turning the tears of Night to joyous gems."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Oh, we have delayed too long," says Monica, with a touch
+of awe engendered by the marvellous and mystic beauty of the
+hour. "Good-night, good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, rather a fair good-morrow, my sweet love," says Desmond,
+straining her to his heart.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How The Desmond's mind is harrassed by a gentle maiden and two ungentle
+roughs; and how the Land League shows him a delicate attention.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>"By the by," says old Mr. Desmond, looking at his nephew
+across the remains of the dessert, "You've been a good deal
+at Aghyohillbeg of late: why?"</p>
+
+<p>It is next evening, and, Monica being at Moyne and inaccessible,
+Brian is at Coole. Mr. Kelly is walking up and
+down on the gravelled walk outside, smoking a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"Because Miss Beresford was there," says Brian, breaking
+a grape languidly from the bunch he holds in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What!</i>" says Mr. Desmond, facing him.</p>
+
+<p>"Because Miss Beresford was there."</p>
+
+<p>"What am I to understand by that?"</p>
+
+<p>"That she was there, I suppose," says Brian, laughing,
+"and that I am head over ears in love with her."</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you say such a thing as that to me?" says the
+squire, pushing back his chair and growing a lively purple.
+"Are you going to tell me next you mean to marry her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly do," says Brian; "and," with a glance of
+good-humored defiance at the squire, "I'm the happiest man
+in the world to-day because she last night told me she'd have
+me."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You shan't do it!" says the squire, now almost apoplectic.
+"You shan't do it!&mdash;do you hear? I'm standing in your
+poor father's place, sir, and I <i>forbid</i> you to marry one of that
+blood. What! marry the daughter&mdash;of&mdash;of&mdash;" something in his
+throat masters him here,&mdash;"the niece of Priscilla Blake, a
+woman with a tongue! Never!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear George, you wouldn't surely have me marry a
+woman <i>without</i> one?"</p>
+
+<p>"I <a class="corr" name="TC_82" id="TC_82" title="lhink">think</a> all women would be better without them; and as
+for Priscilla Blake's, I tell you, sir, Xantippe was an angel to
+her. I insist on your giving up this idea at once."</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly shan't give up Miss Beresford, if that is what
+you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll disinherit you!" roars the squire. "I will, I
+swear it! I'll marry myself. I'll do something desperate!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, you won't," says Brian, laughing again; and going
+over to the old man, he lays his hands upon his shoulders and
+pushes him gently back into his chair. "When you see her you
+will adore her, and she sent her love to you this morning, and
+this, too," laying a photograph of Monica before the Squire,
+who glances at it askance, as though fearful it may be some
+serpent waiting to sting him for the second time; but, as he
+looks, his face clears.</p>
+
+<p>"She is not like her mother," he says, in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>"I never met such a remorseful old beggar," thinks Desmond,
+with wonder; but just at this moment a servant enters with a
+message to the squire; so the photograph is hastily withdrawn,
+and the conversation&mdash;or rather discussion&mdash;comes to an end.</p>
+
+<p>"Two of the tenants are asking to see you, sir," says the
+butler, confidentially.</p>
+
+<p>"What two?"</p>
+
+<p>"Donovan, from the East, and Moloney, from the Bog Road,
+sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well; show Moloney into the library, and tell Donovan
+to wait downstairs until I send for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Moloney, come to pay your rent?" says the squire,
+cheerfully, entering the library and gazing keenly at the man
+who is awaiting him there. He is a fellow of ordinary build,
+with a cringing, servile expression and shifting eyes. He smiles
+apologetically, and shuffles uneasily from one foot to the other
+as he feels the squire's eye upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir; I can't bring it, sir. I'd be in dhread o' my life
+wid the boys to do it."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't know who the gentlemen in question you designate
+as 'the boys' may be," says the squire, calmly. "I can only
+tell you that I expect my rent from you, and intend to get it."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I come to spake about, yer honor. But the
+Land League is a powerful body, an' secret too; look at the
+murdher o' Mr. Herbert and that English Lord in Faynix Park,
+and the rewards an' all, an' what's come of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"A good deal of hanging will come of it, I trust," says The
+Desmond, hopefully. "In the mean time, I am not to be detered
+from doing my duty by idle threats. I thought you, Moloney,
+were too respectable a man to mix yourself up with this
+movement."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm only a poor man, sir, but my life is as good to me as
+another's; an' if I pay they'll murdher me, an' what'll become
+o' me then? An' besides, I haven't it, sir; 'tis thrue for me.
+How can I be up to time, wid the crop so bad this year."</p>
+
+<p>"It is as good a year as I have ever known for crops," says
+Desmond. "I will have no excuses of that sort: either you
+pay me or turn out; I am quite determined on this point."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye wouldn't give me an abatement, yer honor?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not a penny. Not to men such as you, who come
+here to demand it as a right and are very well to do. There
+are others whose cases I shall consider; but that is my own affair,
+and I will not be dictated to. On Monday you will bring
+me your rent, or give up the land."</p>
+
+<p>"I think ye're a bit unwise to press matthers just now,"
+says the man, slowly, and with a sinister glance from under
+his knitted brows. "I don't want to say anything uncivil to ye,
+sir, but&mdash;I'd take care if I were you. The counthry is mad hot,
+an', now they think they've got Gladstone wid 'em, they wouldn't
+stick at a trifle."</p>
+
+<p>"The trifle being my assassination," says old Desmond, with
+a laugh. He draws himself up, and, in spite of his ugly face,
+looks almost princely. "Tut, man! don't think, after all these
+years among you, I am to be intimidated: you should know me
+better."</p>
+
+<p>The man cowers before the haughty glance the old squire
+casts upon him, and retreats behind his cringing manner once
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought ye might take into considheration the fact that
+I'm of yer own religion," he says cunningly.</p>
+
+<p>"That you are a Protestant does not weigh with me one
+inch. One tenant is as worthy of consideration as another;
+and, to tell the truth, I find your Roman Catholic brethren far
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>
+easier to deal with, I will have no whining about differences
+of that sort. All I require is what is justly due to me; and that
+I shall expect on Monday. You understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye're a hard man," says Moloney, with an evil glance.</p>
+
+<p>"I expected you to say nothing else. All the kindness of
+years is forgotten because of one denial. How often have I let
+you off your rent entirely during these twenty years we have
+been landlord and tenant together! There, go! I have other
+business to attend to. But on Monday, remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye won't see me that day or any other," says the fellow,
+insolently, sticking his hat on his head with a defiant gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. That is your own lookout. You know the
+consequences of your non-arrival. Denis," to the footman,
+"show this man out, and send Donovan here."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Donovan, what is it?" says Desmond, a few minutes
+later, as the library door again opens to admit the other
+malcontent. He is a stout, thick-set man, with fierce eyes and
+a lowering brow, and altogether a very "villanous countenance."
+He has mercifully escaped, however, the hypocritical meanness
+of the face that has just gone. There is a boldness, a reckless,
+determined daring about this man, that stamps him as a
+leading spirit among men of evil minds.</p>
+
+<p>"I've come here to spake to ye to-night, Misther Desmond,
+as man to man," he says, with a somewhat swaggering air.</p>
+
+<p>"With all my heart," says The Desmond; "but be as fair
+to me as I have ever been to you and yours, and we shall come
+to amicable terms soon enough."</p>
+
+<p>"As to fairness," says the man, "I don't see how any landlord
+in Ireland can spake of it without a blush."</p>
+
+<p>Strange to say, the aggressive insolence of this man fails to
+rouse in Mr. Desmond's breast the anger that the servile humility
+of the last comer had brought into active being.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Donovan," he says, "I've been a good landlord
+to you; and I expect you, therefore, to be a good tenant
+to me. You hint that I, along with the rest, have dealt unfairly
+with my people; but can you prove it? You can lay to my
+charge no tales of harshness. In famine times, and when potatoes
+failed, in times of misfortune and sickness, I have always
+stood your friend, and the friend of every man, woman, and
+child on my estate; yet now what harvest do I reap, save grossest
+ingratitude? yet what more can I hope for in this most unhappy
+time, when blood is unrighteously poured upon the land,
+and the laws of God and my queen are set at naught?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There is a touch of passionate old-world grandeur in the
+squire's face and manner that works a sense of admiration in
+Donovan's breast. But it quickly gives way to the carefully-cultivated
+sense of injury that has been growing within him for
+months.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye can talk, there's no doubt," he mutters; "but words
+go for little; and the fact is, I've got no rent to pay ye."</p>
+
+<p>His tone conveys the idea that he <i>has</i> the rent, but deliberately
+refuses to pay it.</p>
+
+<p>"You will bring it on Monday, or I shall evict you," says
+the Squire quietly. "You hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hear," says the man, with an evil frown. "But ye can't
+have it all yer own way now, Misther Desmond. There's
+others have a voice in the matther."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care for innuendoes of that sort, or for any insolence
+whatever; I only mean you to fully know that I must
+live as well as you, and that therefore I must have my rents."</p>
+
+<p>"I know well enough what ye mane," says the man, with
+increasing insolence. "But I'd have you know this, that maybe
+before long ye'll whistle another tune. There's them I
+could mention, as has their eye upon ye, an' will keep it
+there till justice is done."</p>
+
+<p>"Meaning, until I give up Coole itself to the mob," says
+the squire, with a sneer.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, <i>even</i> that, it may be," says the man, with unswerving
+defiance.</p>
+
+<p>"You dare to threaten me?" says The Desmond, throwing
+up his head haughtily, and drawing some steps nearer to his
+tenant.</p>
+
+<p>"I only say what is likely to prove truth before long," returns
+the man, sturdily, and giving in an inch. "That we'll
+have no more tyranny, but will have a blow for our rights, if
+we swing for it."</p>
+
+<p>"You can shoot me when and where you like," says Desmond,
+with a shrug. "But I am afraid it will do you no good."</p>
+
+<p>"It will be a lesson to the others," says the man between
+his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"To <i>you</i> others,&mdash;yes; because it will make my heir somewhat
+harder on you than I am. The Desmonds never forgive.
+However, that is more your lookout than mine. A last word,
+though: if you were not the consummate idiots this last revolt
+has proved you, you would see how you are being led astray by
+a few demagogues (a butcher's boy, perchance, or an attorney's
+clerk pushed by you from absolute obscurity into a Parliament
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+ashamed to acknowledge them), who will save their skins at the
+expense of yours at the last, and who meanwhile thrive royally
+upon the moneys you subscribe!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's a damned lie for ye," says Donovan losing his temper
+altogether<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span></p>
+
+<p>At this outbreak The Desmond rises slowly, and, ringing
+the bell, calmly pares his nails until a servant comes in answer
+to his summons.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask Mr. Brian to come here for a moment," he says,
+calmly, not lifting his eyes from the fourth finger of his left
+hand, upon the nail of which he is just now employed.</p>
+
+<p>Brian lounging in, in a few moments, his uncle pockets his
+penknife, and, waving his hand lightly in Donovan's direction,
+says, gravely,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"This man, Donovan, will be one of your tenants, some
+time, Brian,"&mdash;plainly, he has forgotten all about his determination
+to marry again, and so dispossess his nephew of Coole and
+other things, or else one glance at Monica's portrait (in which
+she had appeared so <i>unlike</i> her mother) has done wonders: "it
+is therefore as well you should learn his sentiments towards his
+landlord, especially as he is apparently the mouthpiece of all
+the others. Oblige me, Donovan, by repeating to Mr. Brian
+all you have just said to me."</p>
+
+<p>But the man is far too clever a lawyer to commit himself
+before a third party<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span></p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing to say," he answers, sullenly, "but this,
+that times are hard an' money scarce, an'&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We will pass over all that. It is an old story now; and,
+as you decline to speak, I will just tell you again, I intend to
+have my rent on Monday, and if I don't I shall evict you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay! as you evicted Ned Barry last month, throwing him
+on the open road, with his wife beside him, an' a baby not a
+month old."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! the child was six months old, and Barry was
+better able to pay than any tenant I have, and more willing,
+too, until this precious Land League tampered with him. He
+has proved he had the money since, by paying a sum to Sullivan
+yonder for board and lodging that would have kept him in
+his own house for twice the length of time he has been there.
+I know all about it: I have made it my business to find it out."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye're mighty well informed entirely," says Donovan with
+a wicked sneer.</p>
+
+<p>"If you can't keep a civil tongue in your head, you had
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>
+better leave this room," says Brian, flushing darkly and making
+a step towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are <i>you</i>, to order me about?" says the man, with a
+fierce glance. "Ye're not my master yet, I can tell ye, an'
+maybe <i>ye never will be</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Leave the room," says Brian, white with rage, pointing
+imperiously to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Curse ye!" says the man; yet, warned by the expression
+on Brian's face, he moves in a rebellious manner to the door,
+and so disappears.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>"They are the most unpleasant peasantry in the world,"
+says the squire, some hours later,&mdash;the words coming like a
+dreary sigh through the clouds of tobacco-smoke that curl upwards
+from his favorite meershaum.</p>
+
+<p>He and Brian and Owen Kelly are all sitting in the library,
+the scene of the late encounter, and have been meditating
+silently upon many matters, in which perhaps Love has the
+largest share, considering his votaries are two to one, when the
+squire most unexpectedly gives way to the speech aforesaid.</p>
+
+<p>"The women are very handsome," says Mr. Kelly.</p>
+
+<p>"Handsome is as handsome does," says the squire with a
+grunt.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't the Protestant tenants pay?" asks Owen, presently,
+who is in a blissful state of ignorance about the tenant-right
+affair generally.</p>
+
+<p>"They're just the worst of the lot," says old Desmond, testily:
+"they come whimpering here, saying they would gladly
+pay, but that they are afraid of the others, and won't I let them
+off? and so forth."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," says Brian, dreamily,&mdash;it is very late, and he
+is in a gently, kindly, somnolent state, born of the arm-chair
+and his pipe,&mdash;"I wonder if one was to give in to them
+entirely, would they be generous enough to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If you can't talk sense," interrupted his uncle, angrily,
+"don't talk at all. I am surprised at you, Brian! Have you
+seen or noticed nothing all these years, have you been blind to
+the state of the country, that you give sound to such utter
+trash? Pshaw! the weakly sentiment of the day sickens
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose one was to humor them. I am not alluding
+to you, my dear George," to his uncle,&mdash;"I know you have
+humored them considerably,&mdash;but I mean landlords generally:
+would not peace be restored? That fellow Donovan to-day
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>
+was beyond doubt impertinent to the last degree; but of course
+he meant nothing: they would, I should think, hesitate, in their
+own interest, before falling foul of you."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't understand them as I do," says the squire,
+slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"I still think peace, and not war, should be instilled into
+them," says Brian. "Too many landlords are harsh and unyielding
+in an aggravated degree, when a little persuasion and
+a few soft words would smooth matters. They, of course, are
+visited with the revenge of the League, whilst such as you
+escape."</p>
+
+<p>These complacent words are still upon his lips, he has had
+time to lean back in his chair with the languid air of one who
+has given to the world views not admitting of contradiction,
+when a sharp whirring noise is heard, followed by a crash of
+broken glass and the dull thud of a bullet that has found its
+home in the wall right opposite the squire. Right opposite
+Brian, too, for they had been side by side with Owen Kelly,
+fortunately not <i>quite</i>, but very nearly, opposite.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment nobody quite knows what has happened, so
+sudden is the thing; and then they spring to their feet, full of
+the knowledge that a bullet has been fired into their midst.</p>
+
+<p>It had passed right over The Desmond's shoulder, close to
+his ear, <i>between</i> him and Brian, and had grazed the sleeve of
+Kelly's coat, who, as I have said, was sitting <i>almost</i> opposite.</p>
+
+<p>With an oath Brian rushes to the window, tears open the
+shutters, throws up the sash, and jumps down into the garden,
+followed by Kelly and the Squire.</p>
+
+<p>It is a dark night, murky and heavy with dense rain-laden
+clouds, and so black as to render it impossible to see one's
+hand before one. Search after a while is found to be impossible
+and the cowardly would-be <a class="corr" name="TC_83" id="TC_83" title="assassins">assassin</a> so far is safe from arrest.
+Dispirited and indignant, they return to the room they left, to
+<a class="corr" name="TC_84" id="TC_84" title="disscuss">discuss</a> the outrage.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, who will preach to me of peace again?" says the
+squire turning to Brian a face pale with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Not I," says Brian, with a face pale as his own, and eyes
+that burn fiercely with the wrath of an incomplete revenge.</p>
+
+<p>"I <a class="corr" name="TC_85" id="TC_85" title="retrace">retract</a> every foolish word I said a few minutes since.
+Henceforth it shall be war to the knife between me and my
+tenantry, as well as yours."</p>
+
+<p>"War to the bullet would be more in harmony," says Mr.
+Kelly, seriously. He has extracted the bullet in question from
+the wall with the aid of a stout penknife, and is now regarding
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>
+it mournfully as it lies in the palm of his hand. "Don't you
+think they take a very unfair advantage of you?" he says,
+mildly. "They come here and shoot at you; why don't you
+go to their cabins and shoot at them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let them keep their advantage," says Brian, disdainfully.
+"We shall conquer at last, no matter how many lives it costs
+us."</p>
+
+<p>"At all events, they won't get a glimpse of the white
+feather <i>here</i>," says the squire, who is looking quite ten years
+younger. There is nothing like a row for an Irishman, after
+all.</p>
+
+<p>"Still, I think I wouldn't sit with my back to that window
+any more, if I were you," suggests Mr. Kelly, meekly, seeing
+the squire has sunk into his usual seat again.<span class="s_corr" title="&quot;"></span></p>
+
+<p>"It will be a bad winter, I fear," says the squire shaking
+his head.</p>
+
+<p>"A lively one, no doubt. I quite envy you. I should
+rather like to stay here and see you through it. My dear sir,
+if you and that enormous chair are inseparables, let me entreat
+you to move it at least a <i>little</i> to the left."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<span class="s_corr" title="">'</span>I love it, I love it, and who shall dare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To chide me from loving this old arm-chair?'<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>quotes the squire, with quite a jolly laugh. "Eh? well, Kelly,
+this is hardly a pleasant time to ask a fellow on a visit, and I
+expect you'll be glad to get back to more civilized parts; but
+we'll write and tell you how we're getting on, my lad, from time
+to time. That is, as long as we are alive to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall hear of our mishaps," says Brian laughing too.</p>
+
+<p>"It is rather inhospitable of you not to take the hint I have
+thrown out," says Kelly, with a faint yawn. "<i>Won't</i> you ask
+me to spend this winter with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"My <i>dear</i> fellow, you really mean it?" says Brian, looking
+at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I really mean it. Excitement of the sort I have
+been treated to to-night seldom comes in my way. I should
+like to see this affair through with you."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a brave lad!" says the squire; "but there is always
+a risk in this kind of thing, and it is quite probable you
+will have the roof burned over your head one of these dark nights
+to come. You will have to chance that if you stay, as I intend
+to persevere with these blackguardly tenants and fight it out
+with them to the last."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"To the very last," says Brian, regarding his friend
+meaningly.</p>
+
+<p>"That's why I'm staying," returns his friend, languidly.
+Which is half, but not the whole, truth, as the fact that Mrs.
+Bohun and her cousin Hermia are going to spend the winter at
+Aghyohillbeg has a good deal to do with it too.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How rations fall short in the enemy's camp; and how Monica, armed with
+a strange ammunition, marches into the hostile land.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>"Did ye hear, miss? Oh, faix, there's terrible news,
+ma'am!" says old Timothy, trotting into the breakfast-room
+at Moyne the following morning, his face pale with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"You alarm me, Ryan! what is it?" says Miss Priscilla,
+laying down her fork.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's beyant everything, ma'am! Oh, the blackguards
+o' the world! It was last night, miss, it happened. The ould
+squire, there below, was sittin' in his library, as paceable as ye
+plaze, ma'am, when they fired a bullet at him, an' shot him
+an' wounded Misther Brian&mdash;&mdash;No, be the powers, I b'lave I'm
+wrong; they kilt Misther Brian an' wounded the Squire; an'
+there's the greatest commotion ye iver see down below, miss."</p>
+
+<p>For one awful moment Monica thinks she is going to faint.
+A mist rises between her and Timothy's face; his voice sounds
+far away, in the next county as it were, and then ceases altogether.
+Then a sharp sting of pain rushing through her veins
+rouses her, and sends the blood back with a tumultuous haste
+to cheek and neck and brow. The pain is short but effective,
+and is, indeed, nothing more than a pinch of a pronounced
+type, administered by the watchful Kit, with a promptitude
+very creditable to her.</p>
+
+<p>"He is exaggerating," says the astute Kit, in a subdued
+whisper apparently addressed to her plate. "Don't believe
+him; take courage; and, at all events, remember their eyes
+are upon you!" Her tone is great with mystery and kindly
+encouragement. More revived by it than even by the pinch,
+Monica takes heart of grace, and listens with maddening impatience
+for what is yet to come. Glancing at Miss Priscilla,
+she can see that her aunt is as pale as death, and that her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+hands are trembling excessively. Miss Penelope is looking
+with anxiety at her, whilst trying to elicit the truth from Ryan.</p>
+
+<p>"Collect yourself, Ryan," she says, severely. "Who was
+killed?"</p>
+
+<p>"No one outright, I'm tould, miss,&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then who is wounded?"</p>
+
+<p>"The bullet went right through them, miss."</p>
+
+<p>"Through <i>both</i>! But that is impossible. I must beg you
+again to collect yourself, Timothy; all this is most important,
+and naturally Miss Blake&mdash;that is, <i>we</i>&mdash;are much upset about
+it. Through whom did the bullet go?"</p>
+
+<p>"The ould squire an' his nephew, miss."</p>
+
+<p>"Through their bodies?" cries Miss Penelope, throwing
+up hope and both her hands at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>"No, ma'am, jist between them, as it might be between you
+an' Miss Priscilla now." He illustrates the real truth as he
+says this.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless me, man! sure they weren't touched at all so," says
+Miss Penelope.</p>
+
+<p>"No more they were, miss. Sorra a bit, praise be&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then why did you say they were killed?" says Terence,
+indignantly, who has been stricken dumb by the appalling fate
+of his dear Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"An' sure how much nearer could they be to it? What
+saved thim, but maybe the hitch of a chair? Oh! wirrasthrue
+this day!" says old Ryan, beginning to cry.</p>
+
+<p><span class="s_corr" title="">"</span>Timothy sit down directly. Terence get him a glass of
+whiskey," says Miss Penelope. "Now, don't excite yourself,
+Timothy; you know it is very bad for you at your age. Take
+time, now. Collect yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>"Have the assassins been discovered?" asks Miss Priscilla,
+in a trembling tone.</p>
+
+<p>"No, miss. But I'm tould the polis is very eager afther
+'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Was nobody hurt, Timothy?"</p>
+
+<p>"No one, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>Here Monica, feeling the relief greater than she can support,
+gives way to a dry but perfectly audible sob.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be afeard, miss, dear," says old Ryan, with heartfelt
+but most ill-judged sympathy: "the <i>young gentleman</i> is all
+right. Not a single scratch on him, they say; so you needn't
+be cryin' about him, honey."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Monica is in no wise anxious about Mr. Brian Desmond,"
+says Miss Priscilla, recovering from her nervousness
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>
+with as much haste as though she had been subjected to an
+electric shock. "She is only distressed&mdash;as I am&mdash;by these
+lawless proceedings."</p>
+
+<p>"An' we hear they're boycotted, too, ma'am," says old
+Ryan, still oppressed with news that must be worked off. "John
+Bileman, the Protestant baker in the village they always dealt
+wid, has been forbidden to give 'em another loaf, and the
+butcher is threatened if he gives 'em a joint, an' the Clonbree
+butcher has been telegraphed to also, miss, an' there's the world
+an' all to pay!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that they are going to treat him as they did
+Mr. Bence Jones?" says Miss Penelope, indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Troth, I believe so, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"Will Mr. Brian have to milk the cows?" says Terence,
+at which astounding thought both he and Kit break into merry
+laughter until checked by Monica's reproachful gaze. How
+<i>can</i> they laugh when Brian may be <i>starving</i>?<span class="s_corr" title="&quot;"></span></p>
+
+<p>"Faix, it's awful, miss; an' the ould man to be wantin' for
+things now,&mdash;he that allus kep' a fine table, to spake truth of
+him, and liked his bit an' sup amazin', small blame to him.
+I'm thinkin' 'tis hungry enough he'll be now for the future,
+the crathur! Oh, wirra! wirra!" says Timothy, sympathetically,
+as he shambles towards the door.</p>
+
+<p>When he is gone, Miss Priscilla turns upon Terence and
+Kit.</p>
+
+<p>"I must say, I think your mirth at such a time most unseemly,"
+she says. "I am glad Monica takes no part in it.
+Terence, did you go up to the widow Driscoll with my message
+this morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, aunt."</p>
+
+<p>She had evidently expected him to say "no," because her
+tone is considerably mollified when she speaks again.</p>
+
+<p>"Was she pleased, do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"She said so, perhaps?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what <i>did</i> she say? I wish, my dear boy, you would
+try to be a little less reticent."</p>
+
+<p>"She said, 'Her duty to you, aunt, and her very coarse
+veins were worse than ever.<span class="s_corr" title="&quot;'">'"</span></p>
+
+<p>"Varicose, Terence&mdash;varicose!"</p>
+
+<p>"She said very coarse, aunt, and I suppose she knows
+more about them than any one else."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He has a very sweet face, and it is more than usually so as
+he says all this.</p>
+
+<p>"And her son, how is he, poor soul?" asks Miss Penelope,
+as Miss Priscilla withdraws, beaten, into the background.</p>
+
+<p>"His duty to you, too, and 'he is better, but has been
+much afflicted with the egg-cups for the last two days.'"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>The what!</i>" says Miss Penelope, shifting her <i>pinceneze</i>
+uneasily, and looking perplexed in the extreme.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Terry! how can you be so silly?" says Kit, with
+another merry laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"How am I silly?" with an impassible countenance.
+"Young Driscoll is silly, of course, and evidently looks upon
+part of the breakfast-ware as enemies of some sort. But that
+is not <i>my</i> fault.<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span></p>
+
+<p>"Hiccoughs he must have meant, my dear," says Miss
+Priscilla, hastily. "Dear&mdash;dear&mdash;dear! what a terrible shock
+he&mdash;they&mdash;must have got last night at Coole!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>When day is deepening into eventide, Monica, finding Kit
+alone, kneels down beside her, and lays her cheek to hers.</p>
+
+<p>All day long she has been brooding miserably over her
+lover's danger, and dwelling with foolish persistency upon future
+dangers born of her terrified imagination.</p>
+
+<p>She had been down to their trysting-place at the river,
+hardly hoping to find him there, yet had been terribly disappointed
+when she had <i>not</i> found him, Brian at that very moment
+being busy with police and magistrates and law generally.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, ducky?" says Kit, very tenderly, laying down
+her book and pressing her pretty sister close to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Kit," says Monica, with tearful eyes, "<i>do</i> you think it is
+all true that Timothy said this morning about their&mdash;their
+<i>starving</i> at Coole? Oh Kit, I can't bear to think he is <i>hungry</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is dreadful! I don't know what to think," says Kit.
+"If nobody will sell them anything, I suppose they have nothing
+to eat."</p>
+
+<p>At this corroboration of her worst fears, Monica dissolves
+into tears.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't eat my chicken at lunch, thinking of him," she
+sobs. "It stuck in my throat.<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span></p>
+
+<p>"Poor sweet love!&mdash;it <i>was</i> dry," says Kit, expanding into
+the wildest affection. She kisses Monica fondly, and (though
+you would inevitably have suffered death at her hands had you
+even hinted at it) is beginning to enjoy herself intensely
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>.
+Once again this luckless couple look to <i>her</i> for help. She is to
+be the one to raise them from their "Slough of Despond,"&mdash;difficult
+but congenial task! "Then you have been existing
+on lemon tart and one glass of sherry since breakfast time?"
+she says, with the deepest commiseration. "Poor darling! I
+saw it; I noticed you ate nothing <i>except</i> the tart. You liked
+that, didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't," says Monica. "I <i>hated</i> it. And I was a cruel,
+cold-hearted wretch to <i>touch</i> it. But it was sweet&mdash;and&mdash;I&mdash;it&mdash;somehow
+disappeared."</p>
+
+<p>"It did," says Kit, tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Kit, help me!"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean you want to take him something wherewith to
+stave off the pangs of hunger," says the younger Miss Beresford,
+with that grandeur of style she usually affects in moments
+of strong excitement, and with the vigor that distinguishes her<span class="s_corr" title="">.</span>
+"I see; certainly." She grows abstracted. "There's a leg
+of mutton hanging in the larder, with some fowl, and a quarter
+of lamb," she says, presently. "But I suppose if we took
+<i>them</i>, Aunt Priscilla would put us in the hue and cry."</p>
+
+<p>"It mustn't be thought of. No, no; think of something
+else."</p>
+
+<p>"Bread, then. Ordinary, of course, very ordinary, but yet
+the staff of life."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>couldn't</i> take him anything so nasty as mere bread,"
+says Monica, in despair. "But, if cook would make us a
+cake&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A big one, with currants! The very <i>thing</i>!" says Kit,
+with decision. "And she will never betray us. Reilly, in
+little affairs of this kind,&mdash;though sadly wanting where soups
+are concerned,&mdash;is quite all she ought to be."</p>
+
+<p>"When will it be baked? He <i>must</i> get it to-night," says
+Monica, who is evidently afraid her lover, if not succored, will
+die of want before morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave all to me," says Kit, flitting away from her through
+the gathering gloom to seek the lower region and its presiding
+goddess.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving all to Kit means that when dinner is over, about
+half-past eight, the two Misses Beresford may be seen crossing
+the boundary that divides Moyne from Coole with anxious
+haste and a hot cake.</p>
+
+<p>This last is hugged to Monica's breast, and is plainly causing
+her the greatest inconvenience. It is a <i>huge</i> cake, and has
+to be carried parcelwise, being much too big for the smaller
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>
+basket they had, and much too small for the bigger. But
+Monica&mdash;though it is heavy beyond description (though, I hope,
+light in every other way for the sake of Reilly's reputation)
+and still appallingly <i>hot</i>&mdash;trudges along with it bravely, resisting
+all Kit's entreaties to be allowed to share the burden.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>"Who are those coming towards us through the elms down
+there?" says Mr. Kelly, suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>He and Brian Desmond are sitting upon a garden seat outside
+the dining-room windows, enjoying an after dinner cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"There?" says Brian, following his glance. "Eh?&mdash;What?"
+There is a second pause, then, rising to his feet with
+much <a class="corr" name="TC_86" id="TC_86" title="preciptancy">precipitancy</a>, he flings his cigar to the winds, and, before
+Owen has time to recover from his astonishment at these proceedings,
+is well out of sight. A turn in the lawn has hidden
+Brian and the advancing figures from his view.</p>
+
+<p>"Monica!" says Desmond, as he reaches her; "what has
+brought you here at this hour? My darling! how pale and
+tired you look!"</p>
+
+<p>"She has been much perturbed," says Kit, solemnly. She
+has been meditating this remark for some time.</p>
+
+<p>"We heard all about last night," murmurs Monica, with a
+sweet troubled face, out of which her eyes look into his, full of
+a tender pathos, like violets drowned. "And you were not at
+the river this afternoon, and so I came here to find you,
+and&mdash;&mdash;" Her voice trembles <a class="corr" name="TC_87" id="TC_87" title="ominiously">ominously</a>.</p>
+
+<p>"I was obliged to be with the sergeant and the other
+men all day," says Desmond, hurriedly. "Do not blame me,
+my <i>love</i>. When I went to the river towards evening it was then
+of course too late. I meant to go up to Moyne when the moon
+was up&mdash;&mdash;But what have you got there, dearest?" pointing
+to the enormous thing she is still holding tightly to her breast.</p>
+
+<p>She colors and hesitates; seeing which, the faithful Kit
+comes once more to the rescue.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a cake!" she says, with a nod of her sleek head.
+"We knew of you being boycotted, and we thought you would
+be hungry, so we brought it to you. But," eyeing him with disfavor,
+and as one might who feels herself considerably <i>done</i>,
+"you are evidently not. You are looking just the same as
+ever, and not a bit <i>pinched</i> or <i>drawn</i>, as people are when they
+are found starved in garrets."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I was afraid you would get nothing to eat," says
+Monica, timidly. There is in her lovely eyes a certain wistfulness
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>
+suggestive of the idea that she hopes her cake has not
+been made in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Desmond, seeing it, grasps the situation.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> hungry," he says; and I hope, and think, the gentle
+lie will be forgiven him. "We have had nothing in the house
+all day but bread, and that is not appetizing."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>There!</i>" says Monica, turning to Kit with sparkling eyes,
+"I <i>told</i> you he wouldn't like bread."</p>
+
+<p>"But," goes on Desmond, with a view to making her future
+happier, "to-morrow all will be right again. We know of a
+few faithful people who will smuggle us in all we may require.
+So do not be unhappy about me again. Sweetheart, what a
+terrible weight you have been carrying!"</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> a fine one, isn't it?" says Kit. "But give it to me
+now, Monica," taking the cake from her, "while you talk to
+Brian: when you are ready to come home, I can give it to
+him."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, this inestimable child withdraws herself and
+Monica's offering to a safe distance, and pretends for the remainder
+of the interview an absorbing interest in some wild
+flowers growing near.</p>
+
+<p>"I have only a moment to stay," says Monica, nervously.
+"I shall be missed; and now I have <i>seen</i> you safe and unhurt,"
+with a very sweet smile, "I shall be able to sleep. But all day
+long I have been haunted by timid thoughts," she sighs.</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt it was a sorry day for you, that first one when we
+met," says Desmond, remorsefully. "I have brought you only
+trouble. By and by you will regret you ever knew me."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not say that. I have no regrets,&mdash;none! Even if&mdash;if&mdash;we
+cannot be&mdash;" reddening vividly, "more to each other
+than we are now, I can still be happy in the thought that you
+love me and are near me, and that I can sometimes, in spite
+of <i>every one</i>&mdash;" with a recklessness that sits very funnily upon
+her&mdash;"see you."</p>
+
+<p>"But we shall be more to each other, Monica," says the
+young man, earnestly. "We shall be all in all to each other.
+No human being has the right to separate two hearts for the
+sake of a mere whim."</p>
+
+<p>"There are so many things. But now, indeed, I must go.
+Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, my own. But I shall go with you as far as
+the boundary fence."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>"But indeed I shall!" and of course he has his own way,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
+and parts from her and Kit there, and answers her parting injunction
+"to take care of himself for <i>her</i> sake"&mdash;this last very
+low&mdash;with a lingering lover's kiss, and watches the two slight
+figures with a beating heart, until they are out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>Then, picking up the cake, he goes back again to where
+Mr. Kelly is still awaiting him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a><a class="corr" name="TC_88" id="TC_88" title="CHAPTEK">CHAPTER</a> XXVII.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Monica's gift receives due attention, and is thoroughly appreciated;
+and how a torpedo falls into a morning-room at Moyne.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>"Well," says Kelly, "was it Miss Beresford?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and her sister. I saw them back to the boundary
+fence, but they would let me go no farther. It was rather&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth have you got there?" says his friend,
+sticking his eyeglass in his eye, and staring with bent head and
+some suspicion at the mysterious thing in Desmond's arms.</p>
+
+<p>"This! oh, ah! yes." Then, desperately, "Kelly, if you
+laugh at it I'll never forgive you."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Kelly drops the eyeglass and looks afflicted.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, do I <i>ever</i> laugh?" he says.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it&mdash;it's <i>a cake</i>!" says Brian, who (in spite of the
+warning just delivered to his friend) is now indulging in wild
+mirth and can scarcely speak for laughter. "She&mdash;Monica&mdash;heard
+we were boycotted, and, thinking we were starving, the
+dear angel! she brought this up herself to us."</p>
+
+<p>"Desmond, I'm ashamed of you," says Kelly, who has not
+moved a muscle of his face. "Such an action as hers calls
+for reverence,&mdash;not this unseemly gayety."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not the action I'm laughing at," says Brian, still convulsed;
+"it's the <i>cake</i><span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span> The action is divine&mdash;the cake hot!"
+Here he sinks upon the garden-seat again, as if exhausted, and
+dries his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I see nothing to laugh at in that, either. It seems an
+excellent cake, and, as you say, <i>hot</i>," says Mr. Kelly, prodding
+it meditatively with his finger,&mdash;"a merit in a cake of this sort,
+I should say; and nicely browned, too, as far as I can see.
+I can see, too, that it is quite the biggest cake I ever made
+acquaintance with. <i>Another</i> merit! Did she carry it herself
+all the way?"</p>
+
+<p>"All the way, poor darling! and just because she was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>
+afraid we should be hungry." Mr. Desmond's laughter has
+subsided, and he now looks rather absent. "It quite weighed
+her down," he says, in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor child! I said yesterday, you remember, that I
+thought her one of the nicest girls I have met. The cake has
+finished me. I think her now <i>the</i> nicest." He says this with
+a cheerful conscience. Between girls and widows a deep
+margin lies.</p>
+
+<p>"But what are we to do with it?" says Brian, regarding the
+cake, which is now lying upon the garden seat, with a puzzled
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>"Say a repentant tenant&mdash;no, that sounds like tautology&mdash;say
+a remorseful tenant brought it to you."</p>
+
+<p>"That wouldn't do at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Then say you found it in the garden."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, Kelly! they don't <i>grow</i>. Think of something
+more plausible."</p>
+
+<p>"Give me time, then." As he speaks he absently breaks
+off a piece of the cake and puts it in his <a class="corr" name="TC_89" id="TC_89" title="mouths">mouth</a>. Desmond,
+in quite as abstracted a manner, does likewise. Silence ensues.</p>
+
+<p>"I think the idea was so sweet," says Desmond, presently,
+his thoughts being (as they should be) with Monica.</p>
+
+<p>"As honey and the honeycomb!" says Mr. Kelly, breaking
+off another piece, with a far-off, rapt expression.</p>
+
+<p>"She said she couldn't be happy, thinking we were hungry.
+Her dear heart is too big for her body."</p>
+
+<p>"Her cake is certainly," says Mr. Kelly: here he takes a
+third enormous pinch out of it, and Desmond follows his example.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't tell her we had had dinner," says Brian. "It
+would have taken the gloss off it."</p>
+
+<p>"Off this?" pointing to the smoking structure between
+them. "I don't believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"No, the deed."</p>
+
+<p>Another silence.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a capital cake," says Mr. Kelly, pensively, who has been
+eating steadily since the first bite. "After all, give me a good
+sweet, home-made cake like this! Those bought ones aren't
+to be named in the same day with it. There is something so
+light and wholesome about a cake like this."</p>
+
+<p>"Wholesome!" doubtfully: "I don't know about that.
+What <i>I</i> like about it is that it is hot and spongy. But, look
+here, you haven't yet said what we are to do with it."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I think we are doing uncommonly well with it," says Kelly,
+breaking off another piece.</p>
+
+<p>"But what are we to do with the remains, provided we leave
+any, which at present seems doubtful?"</p>
+
+<p>"Keep, them, of course. You ought to, considering she
+gave it you whole as a present."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right: no one shall touch a crumb of it save you
+and me<span class="s_corr" title=".">,</span>" says Mr. Desmond, as though inspired. "Let us
+smuggle it up to my room and keep it there till it is finished."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel as if I was at school again with a plum-cake and a
+chum," says Mr. Kelly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, come and follow me up with it now, and distract my
+uncle's attention if we meet him."</p>
+
+<p>"To <i>my</i> room or yours?" insinuatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"To <i>mine</i>," firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd take the greatest care of it, if you like to trust it to me,"
+with what Kit would certainly have termed "an obliging air."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt you," sardonically. "But certainly <i>not</i><span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span> It
+was given to me, and I feel myself bound to look after it."</p>
+
+<p>"Pity we can't have it petrified," says Mr. Kelly, thoughtfully.
+"Then you might hang it round your neck as a trophy."
+At this they both laugh, and finally the trophy, after much difficulty
+is satisfactorily stored away.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>It is a fortnight later, and desolation has overtaken Monica.
+Brian has passed out of her active life, has ceased from that
+seeing and hearing and that satisfaction of touch that belong
+to a daily intercourse with one beloved. Only in thought can
+she find him now. He has gone upon that threatened journey
+to those detested estates of his in Westmeath.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday he went; and to-day as she wakes it seems to her
+that a cold and cruel mist has wrapped her world in its embrace.
+We never know how we prize a thing until we lose it (N. B.&mdash;Mark
+the novelty of this idea;) and now, for the first time, Monica
+finds herself fully awake to the fact of how necessary Desmond
+is to her everyday happiness.</p>
+
+<p>She had gone down to the river-side to bid him farewell,
+and had been calm, almost careless, throughout the interview,&mdash;<i>so</i>
+calm that the young man's heart dies within him, and a
+latent sense of hope deferred had made it sick.</p>
+
+<p>But just at the very last she had given way, and had <a class="corr" name="TC_90" id="TC_90" title="flnng">flung</a>
+herself into his embrace, and twined her arms around his neck,&mdash;dear,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>
+clinging arms&mdash;and had broken into bitter weeping.
+And&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be long, Brian! don't be <i>long</i>!" she had sobbed,
+with deep entreaty, and with such a tender passion as had shaken
+all her slender frame.</p>
+
+<p>So they had "kissed and kissed," and parted. And Desmond,
+though sad as man may be at the thought that he should
+look upon her face no more for four long weeks, still left her
+with a gladder heart than he had ever known. Her tears were
+sweet to him, and in her grief he found solace for his own.</p>
+
+<p>And, indeed, as the days flew by, they found the pain of
+absence was checkered by dreams of the reunion that lay before
+them; and each day, as it was born, and grew, and died,
+and so was laid upon the pile of those already gone, was a sad
+joy to them, and counted not so much a day lost as one gained.</p>
+
+<p>"We take no note of time but from its loss." This loss in
+the present instance was most sweet to Monica and her lover.
+To them Time was the name of a slow and cruel monster,
+whose death was to be desired.</p>
+
+<p>And now the monster is slain, and to-day Brian will return
+to Coole. A few lines full of joyful love and glad expectancy
+had been brought to her yesterday by the sympathetic Bridget,
+who affected an ignorance about the whole matter that utterly
+imposed on Monica, who would have found a bitterness in sharing
+her heart's secret with her maid. Yet Bridget knows quite
+as much about it as she does<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span> To Kit alone has Monica unburdened
+her soul, and talked, and talked, and talked, on her
+one fond topic, without discovering the faintest symptom of
+fatigue in that indefatigable person.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, to-day he comes! Monica had risen with the lark,
+unable to lie abed with the completion of a sweet desire lying
+but a few short hours away from her, and had gone through the
+morning and afternoon in a dreamy state of tender anticipation.</p>
+
+<p>Yet surely not short, but of a terrible length, are these hours.
+Never has the old clock ticked with such maddening deliberation;
+yet&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"Be the day weary, or never so long,<br />
+At length it ringeth to evensong;"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>and at last the old clock, tick it never so slowly, must bring
+round the hour when she may go down to the river to meet her
+love again.</p>
+
+<p>But the relentless Fates are against her, and who shall interfere
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>
+with their woven threads? As though some vile imp
+of their court had whispered in Miss Priscilla's ear the whole
+story of her forbidden attachment, she keeps Monica in the
+morning-room with her, copying out certain recipes of a dry
+nature, that could have been copied just as well to-morrow, or
+next year, or <i>never</i>.</p>
+
+<p>As the hour in which she ought to meet her lover comes and
+goes by, the poor child's pulses throb and her heart beats
+violently. Kit has gone to the village, and so cannot help her.
+All seems lost. Her eyes grow large and dark with repressed
+longing, her hand trembles.</p>
+
+<p>"There, that will do, dear child; thank you," says Miss
+Priscilla, gratefully, folding up the obnoxious papers and
+slipping them into the davenport.</p>
+
+<p>It is now quite half an hour past the time appointed by Desmond
+in his letter. Monica, rising impetuously, moves towards
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the writing at an end?" Miss Penelope's voice comes
+to her from the other end of the room, with a plaintive ring in
+it. It casts despair upon the hopes that <a class="corr" name="TC_91" id="TC_91" title="is">are</a> kindling afresh within
+her bosom. "Dear, dear! I'm so glad! Monica, come to
+me, and help me with this wool. It has got so entangled that
+only bright eyes like yours," with a loving smile, "can rescue
+it from its hopeless state."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Monica! after one passionate inclination to rebel, her
+courage fails her, and she gives in, and taking the tangled
+skein of wool (that reminds her in a vague, sorrowful fashion
+of her own <a class="corr" name="TC_92" id="TC_92" title="hapeless">hapless</a> love story) between her slender fingers,
+bends over it.</p>
+
+<p>Her cheeks are aflame. Her eyes are miserable but tearless.
+It all seems too cruel. There sits Aunt Priscilla at the davenport,
+with a smile of triumph on her lips, as she finds her accounts
+right to a halfpenny. Here sits Aunt Penelope fanning
+herself with soft complacency, because the day, though of
+September, is sultry as of hot July. And all this time Brian is
+walking impatiently to and fro upon the tiny beach, thinking her
+cold, unloving, indifferent, watching with straining, reproachful
+eyes the path along which she ought to come.</p>
+
+<p>This last thought is just too much. A great fire kindles in
+her beautiful eyes; the spirit of defiance seizes on her gentle
+breast; her lips quiver; her breath comes from between them
+with a panting haste. "Yes! she will go to him, she will!"
+She rises to her feet.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Just at that moment the door is flung wide open, and Desmond
+enters the room.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How the Misses Blake receive the nephew of their sworn foe&mdash;How Monica
+at all hazards proclaims her truth&mdash;And how Miss Priscilla sees something
+that upsets her and the belief of years.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>One moment of coma ensues. It is an awful moment, in
+which nobody seems even to breathe. The two Misses Blake
+turn into a rigidity that might mean stone; the young man
+pauses irresolutely, yet with a sternness about his lips that bespeaks
+a settled purpose not to be laid aside for any reason,
+and that adds some years to his age.</p>
+
+<p>Monica has turned to him. The tangled wool has fallen
+unconsciously from her hands to her feet. Her lips are parted,
+her eyes wide: she sways a little. Then a soft rapturous cry
+breaks from her, there is a simultaneous movement on his
+part and on hers; and then&mdash;she is in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>For a few moments speech is impossible to them: there
+seems nothing in the wide world but he to her, and she to him.</p>
+
+<p>Then he lifts her face, and looks at her long and eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I have found you again, my love,&mdash;<i>at last</i>," he says.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! how long it has seemed!" whispers she, with tears
+in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The old ladies might have been in the next county, so wrapt
+are they in their happy meeting. Their hearts are beating in
+unison; their souls are in their eyes. She has reached her
+home,&mdash;his breast,&mdash;and has laid her heart on his. The moment
+is perfect, and as near heaven as we poor mortals can
+attain until kindly death comes to our aid.</p>
+
+<p>It is but a little moment, however. It passes, and recollection
+returns. Monica, raising her head, sees the two Misses
+Blake standing side by side, with folded, nerveless hands, and
+fixed eyes, and horror-stricken faces. Shrinking still closer to
+her lover, Monica regards them with a troubled conscience and
+with growing fear. She is at last discovered, and her sin is
+beyond redemption.</p>
+
+<p>She trembles in Desmond's arms, and pales visibly. But
+the frantic beating of her heart against his renders him strong
+and bold. He throws up his head, with the action of one determined
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>
+to fight to the death. No one shall ever take her
+from him. He is only too anxious to enter the lists and do
+battle for his love.</p>
+
+<p>And then, as his eyes light upon his foes, his spirit dies.
+Poor old ladies, so stupefied, so stricken! are they not already
+conquered? Looking at the frail front they present, he feels
+his weapons must be blunted in this fight, his gloves anything
+but steel.</p>
+
+<p>A terrible silence fills the room,&mdash;a silence that grows almost
+unbearable, until at length it is broken by Miss Priscilla.
+Her voice is low, and hushed and broken.</p>
+
+<p>"Monica, why did you deceive us?" she says.</p>
+
+<p>There is reproach, agonized disappointment, in her tone,
+but no anger.</p>
+
+<p>To these poor old women the moment is tragical. The child
+of their last years&mdash;the one thing they had held most dear and
+sacred&mdash;has proved unworthy, has linked herself with the opposition,
+has entered the lists of the enemy. They are quite
+calm, though trembling. Their grief is too great for tears. But
+they stand together, and there is a lost and heart-broken look
+about them.</p>
+
+<p>Monica, seeing it, breaks away from her lover's restraining
+arms, and, running to Miss Priscilla, falls down on her knees
+before her, and, clasping her waist with her soft, white arms,
+bursts into bitter tears. She clings to Miss Priscilla; but the
+old lady, though her distress is very apparent, stands proudly
+erect, and looks not at her, but at Desmond. The tears gather
+slowly in her eyes&mdash;tears come ever slowly to those whose
+youth lies far behind&mdash;and fall upon the repentant sunny head;
+but the owner shows no sign of forgiveness; yet I think she
+would have dearly liked to take the sweet sinner in her arms,
+to comfort and forgive her, but for the pride and wounded
+feeling that overmastered her.</p>
+
+<p>"Your presence here, sir, is an insult," she says to Desmond,
+meaning to be stern; but her grief has washed away the
+incivility of her little speech and has left it only vaguely reproachful.
+Desmond lowers his head before her gaze, and
+refrains from answer or explanation. A great sorrow for the
+defencelessness of <i>their</i> sorrow has arisen in his breast for
+these old aunts, and killed all meaner thoughts. I think he
+would have felt a degree of relief if they had both fallen upon
+him, and said hard things to him, and so revenged themselves
+in part.</p>
+
+<p>Monica is sobbing bitterly. Not able to endure her grief,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>
+Desmond, going even to the feet of Miss Priscilla, tries to
+raise her from the ground. But she clings even more closely
+to Miss Priscilla, and so mutely refuses to go to him.</p>
+
+<p>A pang, a sudden thought, shoots <a class="corr" name="TC_93" id="TC_93" title="though">through</a> him, and renders
+him desperate. Will they be bad to his poor little girl when
+he is gone? will they scold her?</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, madam," he says to Miss Priscilla, with a break in
+his voice, "<i>try</i> to <a class="corr" name="TC_94" id="TC_94" title="foigive">forgive</a> her; be gentle with her. It was all
+my fault,&mdash;mine entirely. I loved her, and when she refused
+to hear me plead my cause, and shrunk from me because of that
+unhappy division that separates my family from yours, and because
+of her reverence for your wishes, I still urged her, and
+induced her to meet me secretly."</p>
+
+<p>"You did an evil deed, sir," says Miss Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"I acknowledge it. I am altogether to blame," says Desmond,
+hastily. "She has had nothing to do with it. Do not,
+I beseech you, say anything to her when I am gone that may
+augment her self-reproach." He looks with appealing eyes
+at Miss Blake, his hand on Monica's shoulder, who has her face
+hidden in a fold of her aunt's gown.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," says Miss Priscilla, drawing herself up, with a touch
+of <a class="corr" name="TC_95" id="TC_95" title="old-words">old-world</a> grandeur in her manner, but a sad tremulousness
+in her tone, "my niece has been with us now for some time,
+and we have dared to hope she has been treated in accordance
+with the great love we feel for her."</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>great</i> love," echoes Miss Penelope, gently. Though
+deeply distressed, both old ladies are conscious of a subdued
+admiration for the young man, because of the tenderness of his
+fears for his beloved.</p>
+
+<p>"But if," says Miss Priscilla, with a mournful glance at the
+pretty bowed head&mdash;"if <i>she</i> thinks we have failed in our love
+towards her, as indeed it seems it may be, by your finding it
+necessary to ask us to treat her with kindness in this trouble,&mdash;we
+can only say to her that we regret,&mdash;that we&mdash;&mdash;" Here
+she breaks down, and covers her sad old face with her trembling
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>Monica springs to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, auntie!" she says, a world of love and reproach and
+penitence in her voice. She throws her arms round her aunt's
+neck; and, Miss Priscilla clasping her in turn, somehow in
+one moment the crime is condoned, and youth and age are met
+in a fond embrace.</p>
+
+<p>"Go, sir," says Miss Priscilla, presently, without lifting her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>
+eyes. There is so much gentleness in her tone that the young
+man is emboldened to ask a question.</p>
+
+<p>"You will permit me to come to-morrow, to&mdash;to&mdash;plead my
+cause?" he says, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Priscilla hesitates, and a pang of apprehension rushes
+through his heart. He is almost in despair, when Miss Penelope's
+voice breaks the oppressive silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Come to-morrow," she says, pressing Miss Priscilla's
+arm. "To-day we are too tired, too upset. To-morrow let it
+be."</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you madam," says Desmond, humbly; and then
+he turns to go, but still lingers, with grieved eyes fixed on
+Monica.</p>
+
+<p>"Monica, you will give me one parting word?" he says, at
+last, as though the petition is wrung from him.</p>
+
+<p>Still holding Miss Priscilla's hand, she turns to him, and,
+raising her other arm, places it softly round his neck. Holding
+them both thus, she seems the embodiment of the spirit that
+must in the end unite them. Her position compels her to throw
+back her head a little, and she smiles at him, a sad little smile,
+but bright with love and trust.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a <i>parting</i> word," she says, with a sweetness so grave as
+to be almost solemn.</p>
+
+<p>"You will be true to me?" says Desmond, reckless of listeners.
+He has his arms round her, and is waiting for her answer
+with a pale, earnest face. Something in the whole scene
+touches the two kindly old maids with a sense of tender reverence.</p>
+
+<p>"Until my death," says the girl, with slow distinctness, laying
+her head against the gray sleeve of his coat.</p>
+
+<p>A great wave of color&mdash;born of emotion and love that is
+stronger than the grave&mdash;sweeps over his face. He stoops and
+lays his lips on hers. When he is gone, Monica turns suddenly
+upon Miss Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not say a word to me!" she cries, feverishly; "I could
+not bear it&mdash;<i>now</i>. I may have done wrong, but I am not sorry
+for it. I love him. That should explain everything to you;
+it means <i>all</i> to me! Nothing can alter that! And I will have
+nothing said,&mdash;nothing; and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing shall be said, dear child," says Miss Penelope,
+gently. "Everything shall be as you wish with regard to us.
+Can you not trust us to spare you where we <i>can</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am ungrateful. I must go and think it all out," says
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>
+Monica, stoutly, pressing her hands against her head. She
+turns away. A little cry breaks from Miss Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! not without kissing us <i>too</i>, Monica!" she says, in a
+broken voice, holding out her arms to her niece. Monica
+throws herself into them.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Long and eager is the discussion that follows on the girl's
+disappearance.</p>
+
+<p>The two Misses Blake, side by side, argue (with what they
+erroneously term dispassionate calmness) the case just laid
+before them.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what is to be done," says Miss Priscilla, at
+length: "all I do know is that, for her sake, consent will be impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is to be said to him to-morrow? He looks so
+earnest, so&mdash;full of her. <i>What</i> is to be said to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"So his uncle looked at her mother," says Miss Priscilla,
+with a terrible bitterness; "and what came of that? Is this
+young man to steal from us our best and dearest&mdash;as <i>he</i> did?
+Be firm, Penelope. For her sake crush this attachment before
+the fickleness that is in his blood asserts itself to break her
+heart."</p>
+
+<p>"I fear it will be broken either way," says Miss Penelope,
+who has a secret hankering after all true lovers.</p>
+
+<p>"At least her self-respect will be spared, and for that she
+will thank us later on. She must give him up!"</p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, in a low tone, "supposing
+she <i>refuses</i> to do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"When I have fully explained the matter to her, she will
+withdraw her refusal," says Miss Priscilla, very grandly, but
+her expression is not up to her tone in anyway. It is, indeed,
+depressed and uncertain.</p>
+
+<p>"He struck me as being a very attractive young man," ventures
+Miss Penelope absently.</p>
+
+<p>"Humph!" says Miss Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;but that would be impossible in one of his name&mdash;a
+very <i>lovable</i> young man," says Miss Penelope, timidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Hah!" says Miss Priscilla: this ejaculation is not meant
+for surprise or acquiescence, but is merely a warlike snort.</p>
+
+<p>"And very loving, too," says Miss Penelope, dreamily. "I
+never saw such eyes in my life! and he never took them off
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"Penelope," says Miss Priscilla, with such a sudden and
+awful amount of vehemence as literally makes Miss Penelope
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>
+jump, "I am ashamed of you. Whatever we&mdash;that is" (slightly
+confused) "<i>you</i> may think about that young man, please keep
+it to yourself, and at least let me never hear you speak of a
+Desmond in admiring terms."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, she stalks from the rooms and drives down to
+the village to execute a commission that has been hanging over
+her for a fortnight, and which she chooses to-day to fulfil, if
+only to prove to the outer world that she is in no wise upset by
+the afternoon excitement.</p>
+
+<p>Yet in a very short time she returns from her drive, and
+with a countenance so disturbed that Miss Penelope's heart is
+filled with fresh dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" she says, following Miss Priscilla into her
+own room. "You have heard something further; you have
+seen&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I have seen <i>him</i>&mdash;young Desmond," says Miss Priscilla,
+with an air of much agitation. "It was just outside the
+village, on my way home; and he was carrying a little hurt
+child in his arms, and he was hushing it so tenderly; and&mdash;the
+little one was looking up in his face&mdash;and he kissed it&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;<i>Why</i>
+isn't he a <i>bad</i>, <i>wicked</i> young man?" cries Miss Priscilla,
+in a frenzy of despair, bursting into tears.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Miss Priscilla is driven to enter Coole&mdash;How she there receives an
+important proposal, but with much fortitude declines it&mdash;And how The
+Desmond suffers more from a twinge of conscience than from a bullet.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>In the morning, a certain amount of constraint prevails
+with every one. Kit is, of course, aware of all that has happened,
+<span class="s_corr" title="and">and</span> of the day's expected visitor for Monica, who has
+refused to come down to breakfast, and who is as unsettled and
+miserable as she well can be. Kit has espoused her cause <i>con
+amore</i>, and is (I need hardly say) ready for open war at a moment's
+notice. She has indeed arranged a plan of action that
+will bring her on the battle-field at a critical moment to deliver
+a speech culled from some old novels in her room and meant
+to reduce both her aunts to annihilation.</p>
+
+<p>When breakfast is over she disappears to study her part
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>
+afresh, and the Misses Blake, too, separate and go to their own
+rooms, with an air of careful unconcern, that would not have
+imposed upon a one-year babe.</p>
+
+<p>When again they reappear, they seem desirous of avoiding
+each other's glances, whereupon it occurs suddenly to everybody
+that they have both put on their very best silk gowns and
+lace caps, and have in fact got themselves up with elaborate
+care to receive&mdash;a <i>Desmond</i>! No wonder they are ashamed of
+themselves!</p>
+
+<p>Still keeping up the outward symptoms of supreme indifference,
+they seat themselves in the drawing-room, Miss Penelope
+attacking her knitting with tremendous vigor, whilst Miss
+Priscilla gets <a class="corr" name="TC_96" id="TC_96" title="apparenly">apparently</a> lost in the pages of "Temple Bar."
+Monica, sliding in presently like a small ghost, in her clinging
+white gown, slips into a seat in the window that overlooks the
+avenue, and hides herself and her pretty anxious face behind
+the lace curtains.</p>
+
+<p>An hour glides by with aggravating <a class="corr" name="TC_97" id="TC_97" title="slowuess">slowness</a>; and then a
+sound of wheels upon the gravel makes Monica's heart beat almost
+to suffocation. The two Misses Blake, suddenly forgetful
+of their <i>role</i> of unconcern, start from their seats and go to the
+window where Monica now is standing. A brougham and pair
+of horses drive up to the door, and a young man, opening the
+door, springs to the ground. It is Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"To come here in a close carriage!" says Miss Priscilla,
+with much contempt. "Is he afraid of catching cold, I wonder?
+I never heard of such foppery in my life."</p>
+
+<p>"He is not a fop," says Monica, indignantly, and then she
+catches sight of her lover's face, and something in it awakes
+within her a prescience of coming evil.</p>
+
+<p>Then the drawing-room door is thrown open with rather unceremonious
+haste, and the young man, entering, goes straight
+to where Miss Priscilla is standing, merely taking and holding
+Monica's hand as he reaches her, but addressing to her neither
+word nor look. He seems greatly agitated, and altogether unlike
+the man who stood here yesterday and almost defied
+them. His face is very pale, and full of honest grief and indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"My uncle is at death's doors," he says in a voice that
+quivers with rage and excitement. "Coming home late last
+night he was shot at by some ruffians from behind the blackthorn
+hedge on the Coole road. He wants you Miss Blake"
+(to Priscilla). "He is asking for you. You will not refuse to
+come to a man who may be dying for all we know! I have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>
+brought the carriage for you, and I implore you not to delay,
+but to come to him at once."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Priscilla has sunk into a chair, and is quite colorless;
+Miss Penelope clasps her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, poor George!" she says, involuntarily, almost unconsciously.
+His present danger has killed remembrance of all
+the angry years that stand between to-day and the time when
+last she called him by his Christian name.</p>
+
+<p>"When did it happen? How?" asks Monica, tightening
+her fingers round his, and trembling visibly.</p>
+
+<p>"About ten o'clock last evening. Both Kelly and I were
+with him, and a groom. Two shots were fired. Kelly and I
+jumped off the dog-cart and gave chase and succeeded in
+securing one of them. There were four altogether, I think.
+We did not know my uncle was wounded when we ran after
+them, but when we came back we found Murray the groom
+holding him in his arms. He was quite insensible. I left
+Kelly and Murray to guard our prisoner, and drove my uncle
+home myself. He is very badly hurt. Miss Blake," turning
+again to Miss Priscilla, "you will come with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, yes," says Miss Priscilla, faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"And I shall go with you, my dear Priscilla," says Miss
+Penelope, heroically. "Yes, you will want me. To find
+yourself face to face with him after all these years of estrangement
+and in so sad a state will be distressing. It is well I
+should be on the spot to lend you some support."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Priscilla lays her hand on her arm.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I shall go alone, Penelope," she says, falteringly.
+For one moment Miss Penelope is a little surprised, and then
+in another moment she is not surprised at all. But I believe
+in her heart she is a good deal disappointed: there is a flavor of
+romance and excitement about this expedition she would gladly
+have tasted.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, perhaps it will be better so," she says, amiably. "I
+am glad he has sent for you. He will be the easier for <i>your</i>
+forgiveness, though he cannot obtain <i>hers</i>, now. Come upstairs:
+you should not keep Mr. Desmond waiting." There is
+a kindly light in her eyes as she glances at the young man.
+And then she takes Miss Priscilla away to her room, and helps
+her carefully with her toilet, and accepts the situation as a matter
+of course, though in her secret soul she is filled with amazement
+at The Desmond's sending for Miss Priscilla even though
+lying at death's door.</p>
+
+<p>And indeed when the old man had turned to Brian and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>
+asked him to bring Miss Blake to Coole, Brian himself had
+known surprise too, and some misgivings. Was he going to
+make her swear never to give her consent to his (Brian's) marriage
+with her niece? or was he going to make open confession
+of that dishonorable action which caused Miss Blake's pretty
+stepsister to suffer dire tribulation, according to the gossips
+round?</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to see Priscilla Blake," the old squire had
+said, in a low whisper, his nephew leaning over him to catch
+the words, and then he had muttered something about "old
+friends and forgiveness," that had not so easily been understood.</p>
+
+<p>"You shall see her," the younger man says, tenderly. "I'll
+go for her myself. I am sure she won't refuse to come."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Refuse!</i>" There is something in the squire's whisper
+that puzzles Brian.</p>
+
+<p>"I am certain she will not," he repeats, mechanically,
+whilst trying to translate it. But the look has faded from the old
+man's face, and his tone is different, when he speaks again.</p>
+
+<p>"If she is afraid to come," he says, generously, having evidently
+settled some knotty point of inward discussion to his
+entire satisfaction, "tell her from me that I am ready and willing
+to forgive <i>all</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean you are anxious to obtain her forgiveness," says
+Brian, with the kindly intention of assisting the old man's wandering
+imagination.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" says the squire, sharply. "What d'ye mean,
+Brian? Speak, lad, when I desire you."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, George! if you excite yourself like this, you
+know what the consequences will be," says Brian, sharply, in
+his turn. "I only meant that, as you&mdash;er&mdash;jilted their stepsister,
+I suppose you are anxious to obtain their pardon, now
+you feel yourself pretty <a class="corr" name="TC_98" id="TC_98" title="ow">low</a>. But I'd advise you to wait and see
+about that when you have recovered your strength a little."</p>
+
+<p>"And you believed that old story too!" says the poor
+squire, forlornly. "I didn't jilt her at all, Brian. <i>It was she
+jilted me!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What!</i>" says Brian, turning to see if the bullet had
+touched his brain instead of his ribs.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis true. I tell you, that girl broke my heart. She was
+the prettiest creature I ever saw, with soft dove's eyes, and a
+heavenly smile, and no more heart than <i>that</i>," striking the post
+of the old-fashioned bedstead with his uninjured arm. "I gave
+myself up to her, I worshipped the very ground she walked on,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>
+and within a fortnight of our wedding she calmly wrote to tell
+me she could not marry me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Giving a reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Even <i>she</i>, I presume, could not summon sufficient
+courage to tell the wretch she had deluded of her love for another.
+She gave me no reason<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span> She entreated me, however,
+to keep silence about the real author of the breach between us,&mdash;that
+is, herself. <i>I</i> was the one to break off our engagement!
+I was to bear all the blame! She implored me to conceal her
+share in it, and finally demanded of me, as a last favor, that I
+would give the world to understand I had thrown <i>her</i> over."</p>
+
+<p>"A charmingly disinterested specimen of womankind,"
+says Brian, raising his brows.</p>
+
+<p>"And this to <i>me</i>," says The Desmond, an indignant sob
+making his weak voice weaker,&mdash;"a man who had always kept
+himself straight in the eyes of the world. I was required to
+represent myself as a low, despicable fellow, one of those who
+seek a woman's affections only to ignore them at the sight of
+the next pretty face."</p>
+
+<p>"But you refused to comply with her request?" says Brian,
+hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, I didn't," says the squire, shame struggling with
+his excitement. "On the contrary, I gave in to her in every
+respect. I believe at that time I would cheerfully have allowed
+myself to be branded as a <i>thief</i> if she had desired it and if it
+would have saved her one scrap of discomfort. She was afraid
+of her sisters, you see. I blamed them then, Brian, but I think
+now her fear of them arose from the fact that <i>they</i> were as true
+as <i>she</i> was&mdash;&mdash;Well, well!"</p>
+
+<p>"This is indeed a revelation," says Brian.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; you wouldn't think they would behave like that,
+would you?" says Mr. Desmond, eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Who? The Misses Blake?" says Brian, startled.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It wasn't like them to keep silent all these years,
+and let me bear the brunt of the battle, when they knew I was
+innocent and that it was their own flesh and blood who was in
+fault. Yet they turned their backs upon me, and have treated
+me ever since as though I were in reality the miscreant they
+have succeeded in making me out."</p>
+
+<p>"There is a terrible mistake somewhere," says Brian.
+"They do verily believe you to be the miscreant you describe."</p>
+
+<p>"Brian, come here!" says the old man, in an ominously
+calm tone. "Do you mean to tell me Priscilla Blake believes
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
+me guilty of having behaved dishonestly to her sister Katherine?
+You positively think this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>know</i> it," says Brian, who feels it is better to get out the
+plain unvarnished truth at once.</p>
+
+<p>"You have no doubt? Think, Brian; think."</p>
+
+<p>"I needn't.&mdash;There is no doubt on my mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Then she deceived us <i>all</i>," says the squire, in a stricken
+tone. Then he roused himself again. He seems to have recovered
+his strength wonderfully during the past hour. "Go,
+get me Priscilla Blake," he says. "Hurry, boy! hurry! I
+must make it right with her before I die."</p>
+
+<p>"Before you recover, you mean," says Brian, cheerily.
+"There! lie down now, and keep yourself quiet, or you won't
+be looking your best when she comes."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>And now Miss Priscilla has come, and is standing beside the
+bed of her quondam friend, looking down upon him with dim
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry to meet you again like this, George Desmond,"
+she says, at last, in tones meant to be full of relentless displeasure,
+but which falter strangely.</p>
+
+<p>"She made as great a fool of <i>you</i> as of <i>me</i>, Priscilla," is the
+squire's answer, whose tired mind can only grasp one thought,&mdash;the
+treachery of the woman he had loved! And then it all
+comes out, and the letter the false Katherine had written him is
+brought out from a little secret drawer, bound round with the
+orthodox blue ribbon, and smelling sadly of dust, as though to
+remind one of all things, of warmest sweetest love, of truest trust,
+and indeed of that fair but worthless body from whose hand it
+came, now lying mouldering and forgotten in a foreign land.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I wouldn't have believed it of her!" says Miss Priscilla,
+weeping bitterly. "But there must have been something wrong
+with her always, though we could never see it. What an angel
+face she had! But the children, they speak terribly of her, and
+they say&mdash;that she&mdash;and James <a class="corr" name="TC_99" id="TC_99" title="Berestord">Beresford</a>&mdash;did not get on at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" says the squire. He rises himself on his sound
+elbow, and quite a glow of color rushes into his pallid cheeks.
+When, with a groan of self-contempt, he sinks back again, and
+the light in his eye (was it of satisfaction?) dies.</p>
+
+<p>"You have met Brian," he says presently. "What do you
+think of him, Priscilla? He is a good lad,&mdash;a <i>very</i> good lad."</p>
+
+<p>"He looks it," says Miss Priscilla, shortly.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He does," heartily. "Well, I'm told this boy of mine is
+in love with your girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Who told you?" says Miss Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"Brian himself," says the Squire.</p>
+
+<p>"I like that in him," says Miss Priscilla. "Well, George,
+if you will look upon that as <a class="corr" name="TC_100" id="TC_100" title="setted">settled</a>, so shall I."</p>
+
+<p>"So be it," says the squire&mdash;"Eh, my dear? but doesn't it
+make us feel old to be discussing the love-affairs of these young
+things, when it seems only yesterday that we&mdash;that you and I,
+Priscilla&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That is all buried long ago: don't rake it up. It died
+when first your eyes fell on <i>her</i>," says Miss Blake, hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>"I was a fool," says the squire. "But, somehow, since I
+have been talking to you, I don't think I'm going to die this
+time, and old scenes came back to me, and&mdash;I suppose it is too
+late now, Priscilla?"</p>
+
+<p>There is no mistaking his meaning.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; a whole lifetime too late," says Miss Priscilla,
+with a soft, faint blush that would not have misbecome a maiden
+in her teens. "But I am glad we are friends again, George."</p>
+
+<p>She pressed his hand with real affection, and then colors
+again warmly, as though afraid of having discovered herself in
+the act of committing an indiscretion. Could that gentle pressure
+be called forward, or light, or unseemly? Terrible thought!</p>
+
+<p>"So am I, my dear," says the squire. And then again,
+"You won't think of it, then, Priscilla?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," says Miss Blake, feeling flattered at his persistence,
+and then she actually laughs out loud, and The Desmond
+laughs too, though feebly; and then the doctor comes in again,
+and Miss Priscilla goes home, to tell Miss Penelope, in the
+secrecy of her chamber, and with the solemnity that befits the
+occasion, all about the squire's proposal, its reception, and its
+rejection.</p>
+
+<p>Be assured no minutest detail is forgotten; Miss Penelope
+is soon in possession of every smallest look and word connected
+with it, and deeply gratifying is the manner in which the great
+news is received by that gentle maiden.</p>
+
+<p>"Though late in the day, Penelope," says Miss Priscilla,
+as a sort of wind-up to her recital, "it was an offer of
+marriage <i>any</i> woman might be proud of, be she young or old;
+and he <i>meant</i> it, too. He was quite <i>pressing</i>. Twice he asked
+me, although my first was a most decided 'No.'"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems terrible, your having been so cold to him, poor
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>
+fellow!" says Miss Penelope, with a regretful sigh for the
+griefs of the rejected Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"What could I do?" says Miss Priscilla, with an air of
+self-defence. This thought, that she can actually be accused
+of having treated the sterner sex in a hardhearted fashion, is
+cakes and ale to her.</p>
+
+<p>"We must not talk of this, Penelope," she says, presently.
+"It would be unfair. It must never transpire through <i>us</i> that
+George Desmond laid his heart and fortune at my feet only to
+be rejected."</p>
+
+<p>To her these old-world phrases sound grand and musical
+and full of fire and sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," says Miss Penelope, acquiescing freely, yet with
+a sigh; she would have dearly liked to tell her gossips of this
+honor that has been done her dear Priscilla. And, after all,
+she has her wish, for the story gets about, spread by the hero
+of it himself.</p>
+
+<p>The squire, tired, no doubt, of keeping secrets, and perhaps
+(but this in a whisper) grateful to her because of her
+refusal, goes about everywhere, and tells people far and near
+of his offer; so that when their friends flock to Moyne, and,
+giving The Desmond as their authority for it, accuse Miss
+Priscilla of her refusal, and she still, with maidenly modesty,
+parries their questions, Miss Penelope, feeling herself absolved
+from further reticence, comes to the front and gives them a
+full and true account of the wonderful event.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Priscilla might indeed have reigned as queen at
+Coole had she so wished it, and well graced the position too,"
+winds up Miss Penelope, on all these occasions, with much
+pride and dignity.</p>
+
+<p>Brian, who had been busy all the morning swearing informations,
+and so forth, with Mr. Kelly and the groom, before
+magistrates and others, coming into his uncle's room about half
+an hour after Miss Blake's departure, finds him considerably
+better both in mind and in body, though feeble in spirit, as is
+only natural. Indeed, the bullet had done him little harm,
+causing merely a flesh-wound, but the shock had been severe
+to a man of his years.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here, Brian; I want to tell you something," he
+says, as the young man leans over him.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not to talk," says his nephew, peremptorily.</p>
+
+<p>"If you won't listen to me, I'll send for Bailey, the steward,"
+says the squire. "Nonsense! it does me good." And then
+he tells him all the particulars of Miss Priscilla's visit relating
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>
+to his engagement with Katherine Beresford, with one reservation.</p>
+
+<p>"It is all right between us now," he says, in a pleased tone.
+"She told me everything, and it appears we were both sadly
+taken in, though I don't wish to say anything against her even
+now. I daresay she had her own grievances, poor soul; and
+indeed Priscilla said&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here he pauses, and a guilty flush covers his pale face. He
+hesitates, and then beckons Brian to come even nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"Look you, lad! I'm not quite at ease even yet. There's
+something wrong here!" laying his hand upon his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it pain?" asks his nephew, anxiously. "I told you
+you were talk&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, boy. It's only mental pain. I want to be
+ashamed of myself, and I <i>can't</i>. I'm feeling a satisfaction
+about something that I shouldn't. It's not right, Brian. It's
+not a gentlemanly feeling, but I can't curb it. The more I
+think of it, the more pleased I feel. Eh? You don't look as
+if you understood me."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't, much," confesses Brian, seating himself on the
+edge of the bed. "You see, you haven't told me what it is all
+about."</p>
+
+<p>"It is about Katherine Beresford. Priscilla told me, and I
+should like to tell you. I say, Brian, you won't throw it in my
+teeth, now, when I'm better, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"I swear I won't," says Brian.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she told me Katherine had a regular <i>devil</i> of a life
+with her husband, and <i>I'm glad of it</i>! <i>There!</i><span class="s_corr" title="">"</span> says the
+squire; after which disgraceful confession he regularly scrambles
+under the bedclothes, with a view to hiding his shame
+and his exultation from public view.</p>
+
+<p>Brian fairly roars with laughter. At the sound of his welcome
+mirth, the old man slowly emerges from the sheets again,
+and looks at him doubtfully, but with growing hope.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>She</i> had the best of it, of course; any one would have the
+best of it with James Beresford<span class="s_corr" title=".">,</span>" he says. "But she couldn't
+have been altogether comfortable; that's what I mean. I don't
+want you to think I should rejoice at her having received bad
+treatment at her husband's hands. He had all the bad
+treatment to himself, I expect."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," says Brian, who is laughing still.</p>
+
+<p>"And you don't think so badly of me for it?" says the
+Squire, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Not I," says Brian.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Still, it's rather a mean sort of feeling, isn't it, now? It's
+very low&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Low or not," says Brian, with decision, "I'm perfectly
+certain if it was <i>my</i> case I should feel just like that myself."</p>
+
+<p>"You're the comfort of my life, Brian," says his uncle,
+gratefully; and then he indulges in a covert smile himself, after
+which he drops off into a slumber, sound and refreshing.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Madam O'Connor gives her opinion on certain subjects&mdash;How Fay
+electrifies an entire audience&mdash;And how Olga makes up her mind.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>It is growing towards evening, and as yet at Aghyohillbeg
+they have not grown tired of discussing the terrible event of
+last night.</p>
+
+<p>"When I called just now, Priscilla Blake was with him,"
+says Madam O'Connor. "Brian told me The Desmond had
+sent for her. I suppose the old quarrel about Katherine will
+be patched up now, and I shouldn't wonder if our two lovers,
+Monica and Brian, get married quite comfortably and in the
+odor of sanctity, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose they couldn't have managed it without the old
+people's consent," says Mrs. Herrick, who is rocking herself
+lazily to and fro in a huge American chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, my dear!" says Madam, throwing up her chin.
+"Accredit them with some decent spirit, I beg of you. Of
+course they would have got married whether or not,&mdash;there is
+nothing like opposition for that kind of thing, and no doubt
+would have enjoyed it all the more for the fun of the thing, because
+there must be an excitement in a runaway match unknown
+to the orthodox affair."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I should like to run away," says Olga Bohun;
+"there is always a difficulty about one's clothes."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the good of being in love if you can't get over a
+few paltry obstacles?" says Madam, whose heart is still young.
+"Well, I expect we shall have a gay wedding here before long,
+and be able to give that pretty child our presents without any
+trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"How long the day has been!" says Olga, with a little affected
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>
+yawn, meant to reduce Ulic Ronayne to despair, who is
+sitting in a distant window touching up one of her paintings.
+"I don't know when I have been so bored,&mdash;no one to speak
+to. Madam, darling, you shall never go out again without me;
+remember that. Nobody has called,&mdash;I suppose they are afraid
+of being shot,&mdash;not even Owen Kelly; and one would <i>like</i> to
+see him and Brian, to make sure they are all there."</p>
+
+<p>"Talk of somebody," says Madam, looking out of the window,
+"here comes Owen."</p>
+
+<p>As Olga puts her hand in his presently, she says, laughing,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Madam O'Connor says you are, in polite language, his
+sable majesty himself. So you must be, to escape as you did
+last night. Now tell us all about it. We have heard so many
+garbled accounts that a <i>real</i> one will set our minds at rest."</p>
+
+<p>Then he tells them all about it, dropping as though unconsciously
+into a low chair very close to Hermia's.</p>
+
+<p>"So, you see," he says, when he had finished, "it might
+have been a very sensational affair, and covered us all with
+glory, only it didn't."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it did," says Mrs. Herrick, gently. She doesn't
+raise her eyes from her work to say this, but knits calmly on;
+only a <i>very</i> careful observer could have noticed the faint trembling
+of her fingers, or the quivering of her long, downcast
+lashes.</p>
+
+<p>"How can you say such a thing, Owen?" says Olga.
+"Look at all the cases we have known where the assassins
+have got away quite free, and here we have the principal
+secured."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that was very clever of Brian," says Mr. Kelly.</p>
+
+<p>"Did he capture him, then, single-handed? Were not you
+with him? Were <i>you</i> in no danger of your life, too?" exclaims
+Hermia, with such unwonted animation that every one looks
+at her. She takes no notice of their regard, but fixes her
+kindling eyes on Kelly, who, in returning her mute protest,
+forgets that any other more open answer may be required of
+him. Then she lets her eyes fall from his, and her face grows
+calm and statuesque again, and only the rapid clicking of her
+needles show the perturbation of the mind within.</p>
+
+<p>"Did the fellow give you much trouble, Kelly?" asks
+Ronayne, who in his secret soul is bitterly regretful he had
+not been on the scene of action.</p>
+
+<p>"Not he, the fool!" says Mr. Kelly, with something approaching
+a smile. "Brian fired his revolver and grazed his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>
+arm slightly,&mdash;a mere scratch, you will understand,&mdash;and the
+miserable creature rolled upon the ground, doubled himself
+in two, and, giving himself up as dead, howled dismally. Not
+knowing at that time that the poor squire was hurt, Brian and
+I roared with laughter: we couldn't help it, the fellow looked
+so absurd."</p>
+
+<p>They all laugh at this, but presently Olga, holding up her
+finger, says, seriously,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Owen, recollect yourself. You said you <i>laughed</i>. Oh!
+it <i>can't</i> be true."</p>
+
+<p>"I regret to say it is," says Mr. Kelly, with intensest self-abasement.
+"For once I forgot myself; I really <i>did</i> do it; but it
+shan't occur again. The exquisite humor of the moment was
+too much for me. I hope it won't be placed to my account,
+and that in time you will all forgive me my one little lapse."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Owen, you are the drollest creature," says Madam
+O'Connor, with a broad sweet smile, that is copied by Olga
+and Ronayne. Mrs. Herrick remains unmoved, and her needles
+go faster and faster: Mr. Kelly stares at them uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>"They'll give out sparks in another minute or so," he says,
+warningly, "and if they do there will be a general conflagration.
+Spare me that: I have had enough excitement for a
+while."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Herrick lets her knitting fall into her lap.</p>
+
+<p>"The squire may be thankful he got off so easily," says
+Madam O'Connor at this moment.</p>
+
+<p>"He may, indeed," says Kelly. "Fay," to the child who
+is standing at a distance gazing thoughtfully with uplifted
+head at the blue sky without, "what are you wondering about
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>The child turns upon him her large blue eyes, blue as Nankin
+china, and answers him in clear sweet tones, indifferent to
+the fact that every one in the room is regarding her.</p>
+
+<p>"I was wondering," she says, truthfully, "why Ulic says
+his prayers to Olga."</p>
+
+<p>A most disconcerting silence follows this speech. Madam
+hums a tune; Mrs. Herrick loses herself in her knitting; but
+Mr. Kelly, who is always alive, says "Eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw him," says Fay, dreamily.</p>
+
+<p>Olga, who is as crimson as the heart of a red rose, makes
+here a frantic but subdued effort to attract the child's attention;
+Mr. Kelly, however, gets her adroitly on to his knees before she
+can grasp the meaning of Olga's secret signals.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you see him?" he says, mildly.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"In the summer-house, this morning. He was kneeling
+down before her, just as I kneel to mamma, and he had his
+head in her lap, and he was whispering his prayers. I could
+not hear what he said." At this instant an expression of the
+most devout thankfulness overspreads Mrs. Bohun's features.
+"But they were very <i>long</i> prayers; and I think he was <i>sorry</i>
+for something he had done."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't a doubt of it," says Mr. Kelly, mournfully. "Go
+on, my child."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not your child; I'm mamma's," says Fay, firmly; but,
+having so far vindicated her mother's character, she goes on
+with her tale: "When he got up he didn't look a bit better,"
+she says. "He looked worse, I think. Didn't you, Ulic?"
+addressing the stricken young man in the window. "And I
+always thought it was only children who said their prayers to
+people, and not the grown-up ones. And why did he choose
+Olga? Wasn't there mamma? And wasn't there Madam?
+You would have let him say his prayers to you, Madam, wouldn't
+you?" turning placidly to her hostess.</p>
+
+<p>"I should have been only too charmed,&mdash;too highly flattered,"
+says Madam, in a stifled tone; and then she gives way
+altogether, and breaks into a gay and hearty laugh, under cover
+of which Olga beats an ignominious retreat.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ronayne, feeling rather than seeing that his colleague
+in this disgraceful affair has taken flight, puts down his brushes
+softly and jumps lightly from the open window to the grass
+beneath. Then with a speed that belongs to his long limbs, he
+hurries towards that corner of the house that will lead him to
+the hall door: as he turns it, he received Olga almost in his
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>"You here?" she says. "Oh, that terrible child!"</p>
+
+<p>"She didn't understand, poor little soul." And then, as
+though the recollection overcomes him, he gives away to uncontrollable
+mirth.</p>
+
+<p>"Such unseemly levity!" says Mrs. Bohun, in a disgusted
+tone; but, after the vaguest hesitation, she laughs too.</p>
+
+<p>"Come to the orchard," says Ronayne; and to the orchard
+they go. Here, finding a rustic seat at the foot of a gnarled
+and moss-grown apple-tree, they take possession of it.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very unfortunate," says Olga, with a sigh. Her fair
+hair is being blown like a silver cloud hither and thither and
+renders her distractingly pretty.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean our betrayal by that child?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I hope it will cure you of ever being so silly as to
+go on your knees to any woman again."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never go on my knees to any woman but you,
+whether you accept or reject me."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure I don't know how I am ever to face those people
+inside again." Here she puts one dainty little finger to her
+lips and bites it cruelly.</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing remarkable in having one's <i>accepted</i> lover
+at one's feet."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are not that," she says, lifting her brows and
+seeming half amused at his boldness.</p>
+
+<p>"By one word you can make me so."</p>
+
+<p>"Can I? What is the word?"</p>
+
+<p>This is puzzling; but Mr. Ronayne, nothing daunted says,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You have only to say, 'you are,' and I am."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't Christmas yet," says Mrs. Bohun: "you shouldn't
+throw conundrums at me out of season. It is too much? 'you
+<i>are</i> and I <i>am</i>.' I couldn't guess it, indeed; I'm anything but
+clever."</p>
+
+<p>"If you say the 'I will,' you will find the solution to <i>our</i>
+conundrum at once."</p>
+
+<p>"But that is two words."</p>
+
+<p>"Olga, does the fact that I love you carry no weight with it
+at all."</p>
+
+<p>"But do you love me&mdash;<i>really</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Need I answer that?"</p>
+
+<p>"But there are others, younger, prettier."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! There is no one prettier than you in this wide
+world."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" with a charming smile, "now indeed I believe you
+do love me, for the Greek Cupid is blind. What a silly boy
+you are to urge this matter! For one thing I am older than
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"A year or two."</p>
+
+<p>"For another&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I will not listen. 'Stony limits cannot hold love out:'
+why, therefore, try to discourage me?"</p>
+
+<p>"But you should think&mdash;&mdash;<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span></p>
+
+<p>"I think only that if you will say what I ask you, I shall be
+always with you, and you with me."</p>
+
+<p>"What is <i>your</i> joy is <i>my</i> fear. Custom creates weariness!
+And&mdash;'the lover in the husband may be lost!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you have thought of me in that light," exclaims the
+young man, eagerly. "Beloved if you will only take me, you
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>
+shall find in me both a lover and husband until your life's end."</p>
+
+<p>The smile has died from Olga's lips; she holds out her
+hands to him.</p>
+
+<p>"So be it," she says gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean it?" says Ronayne, as yet afraid to believe in
+his happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But if ever you repent blame yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"And if you repent?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall blame you too," she says, with a sudden return to
+her old archness.</p>
+
+<p>"And you will refuse Rossmoyne?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughs outright at this, and <a class="corr" name="TC_101" id="TC_101" title="glance">glances</a> at him from under
+drooping lashes.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't promise that," she says, with carefully simulated
+embarrassment&mdash;"because&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" haughtily, moving away from her.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>did so yesterday</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, darling, how cruelly I misjudged you! I thought&mdash;I
+feared&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind all that. I know&mdash;I forgive you. I've a <i>lovely</i>
+temper," says Olga, with self-gratulation.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you refuse him? Was it," hopefully, "because
+you didn't like him?"</p>
+
+<p>"N&mdash;o. Not so much that&mdash;as&mdash;&mdash;" again this shameless
+coquette hesitates, and turns her head uneasily from side to
+side, as though afraid to give utterance to the truth.</p>
+
+<p>"What? Explain, Olga," says her lover, in a fresh agony.</p>
+
+<p>"As that I&mdash;&mdash;<i>loved you</i>!" returns she, with a heavenly
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>His arms close round her, and at this moment she lets all
+her heart be seen by him. The mocking light dies out of her
+eyes, her face grows earnest. She lets her heart beat with happy
+unrestraint against his. The minutes fly, but time was never
+made to be counted by blissful lovers.</p>
+
+<p>A gong sounding in the distance rouses them from their
+contented dreaming.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go and tell Hermia," she says, starting to her feet:
+"that is the dressing-bell."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't let her influence you against me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody could do that." She moves away from him, and
+then runs back to him again and lays her arms round his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"You are more to me now than Hermia and <i>the world</i>!"
+she says, softly.</p>
+
+<p>Yet presently, when she finds herself in Hermia's calm
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>
+presence, her courage somewhat fails her. It is not that she
+for a moment contemplates the idea of having to give up her
+lover, but she is afraid of her cousin's cold disparagement of
+both him and her.</p>
+
+<p>"I have just promised to marry Ulic," she says, plunging
+without preface into her story, with a boldness born of nervous
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"To <i>marry</i> him! Why, I thought you looked upon him
+as a mere boy! Your 'baby,' you used to call him."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably that is why I have accepted him. A baby
+should not be allowed to roam the world at large without some
+one to look after him."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you love him, Olga?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do," says Olga, defiantly. "You may scold me
+if you like, but a title <i>isn't</i> everything, and he is worth a dozen
+of that cold, stiff Rossmoyne."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, dearest, as you have given him the best part of
+you,&mdash;your heart,&mdash;it is as well the rest should follow," says
+Mrs. Herrick, tenderly. "Yes, I think you will be very happy
+with him."</p>
+
+<p>This speech is so strange, so unexpected, so exactly unlike
+anything she had made up her mind to receive, that for a moment
+Olga is stricken dumb. Then with a rush she comes
+back to glad life.</p>
+
+<p>"'Do I wake? do I dream? are there visions about?'"
+she says. "Why, what sentiments from <i>you</i>! You have
+<span class="s_corr" title="&quot;">'</span>changed all that,' apparently."</p>
+
+<p>"I have," says Hermia, very slowly, yet with a vivid blush.
+Something in her whole manner awakes suspicion of the truth
+in Olga's mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," she says, "you don't mean to tell me that&mdash;&mdash;Oh,
+no! it can't be true! and yet&mdash;&mdash;I verily believe you
+have&mdash;&mdash;<i>Is</i> it so, Hermia?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is," says Hermia, who has evidently, by help of some
+mental process of her own, understood all this amazing farrago
+of apparently meaningless words.</p>
+
+<p>There is a new sweetness on Mrs. Herrick's lips. One of
+her rare smiles lights up all her calm, artistic face.</p>
+
+<p>"After all your vaunted superiority!" says Olga, drawing
+a deep sigh. "Oh, <i>dear</i>!" Then, with a wicked but merry
+imitation of Mrs. Herrick's own manner to her, she goes on!&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You are throwing yourself away, dearest. The world
+will think nothing of you for the future; and you, so formed
+to shine, and dazzle, and&mdash;&mdash;"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>He</i> will be a baronet at his father's death," says Mrs.
+Herrick, serenely, with a heavy emphasis on the first pronoun;
+and then suddenly, as though ashamed of this speech, she lets
+her mantle drop from her, and cries, with some tender passion,&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care about that. Hear the truth from me. If he
+were as ugly and poor as Mary Browne's Peter, I should marry
+him all the same, just because I love him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Hermia, I am so <i>glad</i>," says Olga. "After all what
+is there in the whole wide world so sweet as love? And as
+for Rossmoyne,&mdash;why, he couldn't make a tender speech to
+save his life as it should be made; whilst Ulic&mdash;<i>oh he's
+charming!</i>"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How Monica's heart fails her; and how at last Hope (whose name is
+Brian) comes back to her through the quivering moonlight.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>And now night has fallen at last upon this long day. A
+gentle wind is shivering through the elms; a glorious moon
+has risen in all its beauty, and stands in "heaven's wide, pathless
+way," as though conscious of its grandeur, yet sad for the
+sorrows of the seething earth beneath. Now clear, now resplendent
+she shines, and now through a tremulous mist shows her
+pure face, and again for a space is hidden,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"As if her head she bow'd<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stooping through a fleecy cloud."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Miss Priscilla, with a sense of now-found dignity upon her,
+has gone early to bed. Miss Penelope has followed suit.
+Terence, in the privacy of his own room, is rubbing a dirty
+oily flannel on the bright barrels of his beloved gun, long
+since made over to him as a gift by Brian.</p>
+
+<p>Kit is sitting on the wide, old-fashioned window-seat in
+Monica's room at her sister's feet, and with her thin little
+arms twined lovingly round her. She is sleepy enough, poor
+child, but cannot bear to desert Monica, who is strangely
+wakeful and rather silent and <i>distraite</i>. For ever since the
+morning when he had come to carry Miss Priscilla to Coole,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
+Brian has been absent from her; not once has he come to her;
+and a sense of chill and fear, as strong as it is foolish, is <a class="corr" name="TC_102" id="TC_102" title="overpowdering">overpowering</a>
+her.</p>
+
+<p>She rouses herself now with a little nervous quiver that
+seems to run through all her veins and lets her hand fall on
+Kit's drooping head.</p>
+
+<p>"It grows very late. Go to bed, darling," she says, gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Not till you go," says Kit, tightening the clasp of her
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that shall be in a moment, then," says Monica,
+with a stifled sigh. All through the dragging day and evening
+she has clung to the thought that surely her lover will come to
+bid her "good-night." And now it is late, and he has not
+come, and&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>She leans against the side of the wide-open casement, and
+gazes in sad meditation upon the slumbering garden underneath.
+The lilies,&mdash;"tall white garden-lilies,<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span>&mdash;though it is late in the
+season now, and bordering on snows and frosts, are still swaying
+to and fro, and giving most generously a rich perfume to
+the wondering air. Earth's stars they seem to her, as she lifts
+her eyes to compare them with the "forget-me-nots of the
+angels," up above.</p>
+
+<p>Her first disappointment about her love is desolating her.
+She leans her head against the woodwork, and lifts her eyes
+to the vaguely-tinted sky. Thus, with face upturned, she
+drinks in the fair beauty of the night, and, as its beauty
+grows upon her, her sorrow deepens.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"With how sad steps, O moon! thou climb'st the skies!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How silently, and with how wan a face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou feel'st a lover's case!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To me, that feel the like, thy state descries."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>As she watches the pale moon, Sidney's sad words return
+to her. Just now Diana is resting in a path of palest azure,
+whilst all around her clouds, silver-tinged, are lying out from
+her, trembling in mid-air.</p>
+
+<p>Great patches of moonlight lie upon the garden sward.
+One seems brighter than its fellows, and as her eyes slowly
+sink from heaven to earth they rest upon it, as though attracted
+unconsciously by its brilliancy. And, even as she looks, a
+shadow falls athwart it, and then a low, quick cry breaks from
+her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" says Kit, scrambling to her knees.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Only Brian," says Monica, with a hastily-drawn breath.
+A rich color has rushed into her cheeks, her eyes are alight,
+her lips have curved themselves into a happy smile.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right now, then, and I can go," says Kit, joyfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Go? To bed, you mean, darling?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, now I know you are <i>happy</i>," says Kit, tenderly; and
+then the sisters embrace, and presently Monica is alone, but
+for the shadow in the moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>"It is you, Monica?" says Brian, coming close beneath her
+window, and looking upwards.</p>
+
+<p>She leans out to him, her white gown gleaming softly in
+the moon's rays.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, why venture out at this hour?" she says, nervously.
+Now he is here,&mdash;woman-like,&mdash;fears for his safety, forgotten
+before, arise in all their horror. "They may have followed
+you; they may&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Come down to the balcony," he interrupts her, with a
+light laugh. "I want to talk to you. Nonsense, dear heart!
+I am as safe as a church. Who would touch me, with an angel
+like you near to protect me?"</p>
+
+<p>His shadow, as he moves away, may again be seen for an
+instant, before he turns the corner of the old house; and
+Monica, opening her door softly, runs lightly down the
+corridor and the staircase, and across the hall and the drawing-room
+floor until she reaches the balcony beyond, where she
+finds his arms awaiting her.</p>
+
+<p>"You have missed me all day?" he says, after a pause that
+to them has been divine.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Brian, what a day it has been!" she clings to him.
+"All these past hours have been full of horror. Whenever I
+thought of your danger last night, I seemed to grow cold and
+dead with fear; and then when the minutes slipped by, and
+still you never came to me, I began to picture <i>you</i> as cold and
+dead, and then&mdash;&mdash;Ah!" she clings still closer to him, and her
+voice fails her. "I never knew," she whispers, brokenly, "how
+well I loved you until I so nearly lost you. I could not live
+without you now."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor shall you," returns he, straining her to his heart with
+passionate tenderness. "My life is yours, to do what you will
+with it. And somehow all day long I knew (and was happy in
+the knowledge, forgive me that) that you were lonely for want
+of me; but I could not come to you, my soul, until this very
+moment. Yet, believe me, I suffered more than you during our
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
+long separation." (If any one laughs here, it will prove he has
+never been in love, and so is an object of pity. This should
+check untimely mirth.)</p>
+
+<p>"You felt it long too, then?" says Monica, hopefully.</p>
+
+<p>"How can you ask me that? Your darling face was never
+once out of my mind, and yet I <i>could</i> not come to you. I had
+so many things to do, so many people to see, and then the poor
+old fellow was so ill. But have we not cause to be thankful?&mdash;at
+last the breach between our houses is healed, and we may
+tell all the world of our love."</p>
+
+<p>"You should have heard Aunt Priscilla, how she talked of
+you when she came back to-day from Coole," says Monica, in
+a little fervent glow of enthusiasm. "It was beautiful! You
+know she must have <i>understood</i> you all along to be able to say
+the truth of you so well. She said so much in your favor that
+she satisfied even me."</p>
+
+<p>She says this with such a graceful <i>naivete</i>, and such an utter
+belief in his superiority to the vast majority of men, that Mr.
+Desmond does well to feel the pride that surges in his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"I really think she has fallen in love with you," says Miss
+Beresford, at the last, with a little gay laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps that is why she refused the squire," says Brian;
+and then he basely betrays trust, by telling her all that tale of
+the late wooing of Miss Priscilla, and its result, which awakens
+in the breast of that ancient lady's niece a mirth as undutiful as
+it is prolonged<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span></p>
+
+<p>"And what were you doing all day?" she says, when it has
+somewhat subsided.</p>
+
+<p>"Trying to keep my uncle&mdash;did I tell you he has fallen in
+love with your photograph?&mdash;from talking himself into a brain
+fever, and I was swearing hard, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Brian!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Only informations, darling! And I wouldn't have done
+that either, only I had to. They made me. Lay the blame on
+'<i>they</i>.' It wasn't my fault, indeed. If I had thought for a moment
+you had the slightest objection to that sort of&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! don't be silly; go on," says Miss Beresford,
+austerely.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, I listened patiently to a good deal of raving
+from Kelly on the subject of Hermia Herrick. I don't suppose
+I should have exhibited as much patience as I did, but for the
+fact that I was waiting on George&mdash;my uncle&mdash;at the time, and
+couldn't get away. And after that I listened with even more
+patience to a perfect farrago of nonsense from our sub-inspector
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>
+about the would-be assassin we have caught, and his fellows;
+and, besides all this, I thought of <i>you</i> every moment since last I
+saw you."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Every</i> moment. Not <i>one</i> neglected?" asks she, smiling<span class="s_corr" title=",">.</span></p>
+
+<p>"I'll swear to that too, if you like. I'm in good practice
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," hastily. "I can believe you without that."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you hear about your Ryde?" asks Desmond, suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"I disclaim the possession," says Monica. "But what of
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has been ordered, with his regiment, to Egypt, to fight
+Arabi, where I hope he will be shot. And the 36th are coming
+in his place."</p>
+
+<p>"How can you say such shocking things?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it shocking to say the 36th are coming to Clonbree?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but what you said about Mr. Ryde."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that! Well, I hope, then, if they don't knock the life
+they will knock the conceit and the superfluous <i>flesh</i> out of him:
+will that do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very badly. He was a horrid man in many ways, but he
+did <i>you</i> no harm."</p>
+
+<p>"He dared to look at you."</p>
+
+<p>"The cat may look at the king."</p>
+
+<p>"But the cat may not look at my queen. So now, madam,
+what have you to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, never mind, then: tell me about Hermia. So Mr.
+Kelly is engaged to her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He has just discovered her to be the most superior
+as well as the loveliest woman upon earth. He told me so. I
+ventured mildly, but firmly, to differ with him and enter a protest
+on your behalf, but he wouldn't hear of it. In his opinion you
+are nowhere beside the majestic Hermia."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that. He is right," says Monica, meekly. But
+there is a reproachful question in her eyes, as she says it, that
+contradicts the meekness.</p>
+
+<p>"He is <i>not</i>," says Desmond, with loving indignation, pressing
+her dear little head so close against his heart that she can
+hear it throbbing bravely and can find joy in the thought that
+each separate throb is all her own. "The man who thinks so
+must be insane. A fig for Hermia! Where would she be if
+placed beside <i>you</i>, my 'Helen fair beyond compare'?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are prejudiced; you tell too flattering a tale," says
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>
+Monica, with soft disparagement; but the fond, foolish, lover-like
+words are very dear and sweet to her, all the same.</p>
+
+<p>He has his arms round her; in her tender childish fashion
+she has laid her cheek against his; and now, with a slow movement,
+she turns her head until her lips reach his.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you," she whispers.</p>
+
+<p>Almost in a sigh the words are breathed, and a sense of
+rapture&mdash;of completion&mdash;renders the young man for the instant
+mute. Yet in her soul so well she knows of his content that
+she cares little for any answer save that which his fond eyes
+give.</p>
+
+<p>A breath from the sleeping world of flowers below comes
+up to the balcony and bathes the lovers in its sweets. The
+"wandering moon" looks down upon them, and lights up the
+dark windows behind them, till they looked like burnished silver.
+A deadly silence lies on grass and bough; it seems to them as
+though, of all the eager world, they two only are awake, and
+alone!</p>
+
+<p>"Do I count with you, then, as more than all?" he says, at
+length; "than Terence or than Kit?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know it," she says, earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he loosens his arms from round her, and, pushing
+her slender, white-robed figure gently backwards, gazes searchingly
+into her calm but wondering face.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me," he says,&mdash;some mad, inward craving driving
+him to ask the needless question&mdash;"how would it have been
+with you if I had been killed yesterday? Would you <i>in time</i>
+have loved again?"</p>
+
+<p>I am not sure, but I think he would have recalled the words
+when it is too late. A quiver runs through the girl's frame; a
+great wave of emotion sweeping over her face transfigures it,
+changing its calm to quick and living grief. The moonbeams,
+catching her, fold her in floods of palest glory, until he who
+watches her with remorseful eyes can only liken her to a fragile
+saint, as she stands there in her white, clinging draperies.</p>
+
+<p>"You are cruel," she says, at last, with a low, gasping cry.</p>
+
+<p>He falls at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me, my love, my darling!" he entreats, "I
+should never have said that, and yet I am glad I did. To feel,
+to <i>know</i> you are altogether mine&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You had a doubt?" she says; and then two large tears
+rise slowly, until her beautiful eyes look passionate reproach at
+him through a heavy mist. Then the mist clears, and two shining
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>
+drops, quitting their sweet home, fall upon the back of the
+small hand she has placed nervously against her throat.</p>
+
+<p>"A last one, and it is gone <i>forever</i>." He rises to his feet.
+"Place your arms round my neck again," he says, with anxious
+entreaty, "and let me feel myself forgiven."</p>
+
+<p>A smile, as coy as it is tender, curves her dainty lips, as she
+lifts to his two, soft, dewy eyes, in which the light of a first
+love has at last been fully kindled. She comes a step nearer
+to him, still smiling,&mdash;a lovely thing round which the moonbeams
+riot as though in ecstasy over her perfect fairness,&mdash;and
+then in another instant they are both in heaven, "in paradise
+in one another's arms!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are happy?" questions he, after a long pause, into
+which no man may look.</p>
+
+<p>"I am with <i>you</i>," returns she, softly.</p>
+
+<p>"How sweet a meaning lies within your words!"</p>
+
+<p>"A true meaning. But see, how late it grows! For a few
+hours we must part. Until to-morrow&mdash;good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, my life! my sweet, <i>sweet</i> heart!" says Desmond.</p>
+
+
+<p class="theend caps">The End.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr65" />
+
+<div class="trnote">
+<h2><a name="trcorrections" id="trcorrections"></a>Transcriber's corrections</h2>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#TC_1">p. 7</a>: man!" says[say] Miss Priscilla, with such terrible energy and such a</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_2">p. 7</a>: this dismal picture. Tears born of tenderness spring[pring] to her</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_3">p. 8</a>: of vicious satisfaction[satisfactiou] for her.</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_4">p. 15</a>: then, not Ryan or the cook, but a much more perplexing[preplexing] vision</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_5">p. 17</a>: The Beresfords are[ars] like so many clocks wound up, and</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_6">p. 22</a>: "Yes, some other time," echoes Miss Penelope[Penolope], gently.</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_7">p. 24</a>: she pretty, Reilly[Rielly]?"</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_8">p. 27</a>: To-morrow[To morrow], if to-day proves successful and her rowing does</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_9">p. 30</a>: why lose this lovely afternoon, and that corner you were speaking of[speak of]?</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_10">p. 40</a>: child, this girl, Bella," says Miss Priscilla, still full of reminiscences[reminiscenses],</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_11">p. 44</a>: "She is a regular old wretch!" says the youngest Miss[Uiss]</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_12">p. 47</a>: Miss Priscilla Blake then enters the carriage. She is followed[follow]</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_13">p. 50</a>: face, but very velvety eyes and a smile rare but handsome[handsone].</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_14">p. 54</a>: amuse himself with, and he ought to be proud of his victories[victorles]."</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_15">p. 56</a>: "Then let me come too[to]?"</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_16">p. 56</a>: changes, and he colors perceptibly[perceptibily]; he hesitates too, and regards</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_17">p. 60</a>: "I decline to shrink," with unparalleled[unparalled] bravery. "I prefer</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_18">p. 63</a>: making Mr. Desmond preternaturally[perternaturally] grave.</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_19">p. 68</a>: "Don't trouble yourself to do that again," says Monica[Moncia]</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_20">p. 68</a>: rude[rud] things about Ireland, because I don't like that <i>either</i>."</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_21">p. 69</a>: even to herself, ignores that ignominious[ignominous] first) to declare in this</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_22">p. 71</a>: This with the learned air of one who could[would] say</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_23">p. 87</a>: "No giving in, no shilly-shallying[shilly-shillying], but downright determination.</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_24">p. 91</a>: In fact, he is so kind-hearted that I cannot think how[now] all that</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_25">p. 91</a>: At this Monica blushes a little, and twirls her rings[rings her] round her</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_26">p. 93</a>: that, as[a] I am not in love with <i>any one</i>, and hope I never shall</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_27">p. 98</a>: which has been accepted by Mitchell as a deliberate[delibirate] insult.</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_28">p. 105</a>: man is waiting and it is woefully[wofully] late."</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_29">p. 108</a>: kept it for you all along, you know. If you tell me you[yu] have</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_30">p. 108</a>: fat young marine, so it cannot be said that she has[has she] altogether a</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_31">p. 112</a>: turn again[egain] to the room beyond, and make search for the siren</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_32">p. 120</a>: "You were indeed!" interrupting him hastily, with a contemptuous[comtemptuous]</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_33">p. 123</a>: "Others[Other's] <i>can</i>!" says Mr. Ronayne. As he speaks he</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_34">p. 125</a>: Terence, in a tone that is not to be borne[born].</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_35">p. 140</a>: breed tyranny[tryanny]&mdash;that she hardly turns aside to meditate upon</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_36">p. 147</a>: "Not to-day[to day], I think," says Monica, lazily.</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_37">p. 149</a>: pointing[pionting] to a hanging spray of pink blossoms, satisfying as a</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_38">p. 151</a>: ago) that a dark-blue petticoat beneath, of some[come] coarse description,</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_39">p. 151</a>: says; but it's belike I'll never see a sight of his handsome[handsone] face</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_40">p. 154</a>: ugly spalpeen, if ye came without a civil tongue in yer head[hand]?"</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_41">p. 157</a>: for[or] him close to Monica. "What's the matther wid ye to-day,</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_42">p. 157</a>: keenly from Brian[Brain] to Kit, and then back again.</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_43">p. 158</a>: but with a lovely smile. "I am going to[] pick to some ferns for Aunt</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_44">p. 159</a>: and she repents[ her] of her last words.</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_45">p. 160</a>: aggrieved[agrieved]; "that is visiting the sins of the uncles upon</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_46">p. 165</a>: After this come[comes] sundry other jottings, such as&mdash;</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_47">p. 166</a>: "Oh, don't! my dear Penelope!" says Miss Priscilla[Penelope], with</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_48">p. 166</a>: he is,"&mdash;pointing through the window[winddw] to where Terence may</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_49">p. 169</a>: Mrs. Herrick, regards with dismay[disma].</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_50">p. 171</a>: "Nevertheless[Neverheless] speak. Anything is better than this ghastly</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_51">p. 174</a>: Conscience forbidding her, she abstains from[fron] entering those</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_52">p. 178</a>: "Do not say another[auother] word," says Monica, imperiously.</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_53">p. 182</a>: you. What shall I swear by, then?" he asks, half laughing[laughinn]:</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_54">p. 186</a>: and in perfect good faith. She knows[knowns] less of him than the</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_55">p. 187</a>: Fancy a frowzy couch saturated with tears! you know," reproachfully[rereproachfully]</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_56">p. 190</a>: arms,&mdash;as is[in] his habit with most children, being a special favorite</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_57">p. 205</a>: readily let her tapered[taper] fingers droop until they touch the pale</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_58">p. 206</a>: "And the good man! What of him?" says[say] Desmond, looking</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_59">p. 206</a>: like a superannuated[superanuated] ghost, only awfuller."</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_60">p. 207</a>: "That's[Taat's] a good thing," says Madam O'Connor, entering,</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_61">p. 210</a>: forever, boy though[through] you deem me; and, yet, is one ever a boy</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_62">p. 211</a>: nearer," says Mrs. Bohun, with[wiih] a soft laugh.</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_63">p. 215</a>: quarrel," says[said] Mrs. Herrick, in a perfectly even tone: "so don't</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_64">p. 217</a>: with himself too," says Olga, provokingly. "Really. I think[thinh]</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_65">p. 223</a>: "Don't be stupid!" says[say] this prospective wife, with considerable</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_66">p. 223</a>: "Don't be stupid!" says this prospective wife, with[wth] considerable</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_67">p. 223</a>: with increasing[ in] temper.</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_68">p. 223</a>: The <i>denouement[denoument]</i> was full of interest,&mdash;positively thrilling! I</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_69">p. 223</a>: have addressed me that contemptuous[comtemptuous] remark."</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_70">p. 234</a>: "I am very glad of that," says Monica[Mouica], simply; and then</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_71">p. 237</a>: return, and thinking, somewhat sadly, how small a way[away] he has</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_72">p. 238</a>: Monica's week at Aghyohillbeg[Aghyohillberg] is drawing to a close.</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_73">p. 239</a>: protector. Faith, you needn't laugh, for it's[its] only common</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_74">p. 241</a>: the slightest[slighest] thought of her money."</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_75">p. 242</a>: "I know," says Monica, mysteriously: "she is <i>asleep</i>,&mdash;getting[gerting]</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_76">p. 242</a>: room, is gazing with dreamy delight at the pretty gown[grown] Miss</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_77">p. 243</a>: up this book) have mercy[merci]&mdash;that is, unfortunately, been debarred</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_78">p. 248</a>: the Egyptian[Egyptain] charcoal in the world could not make them long</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_79">p. 248</a>: usual[nsual]. "I see nothing in it. My grandmother always rouged,&mdash;put</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_80">p. 251</a>: How Madam O'Connor tells[tell] how lovers throve in the good old days when</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_81">p. 255</a>: You," uncertainly, "<i>are</i> going home to-morrow[to morrow], are</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_82">p. 259</a>: "I think[lhink] all women would be better without them; and as</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_83">p. 265</a>: and the cowardly would-be assassin[assassins] so far is safe from arrest.</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_84">p. 265</a>: discuss[disscuss] the outrage.</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_85">p. 265</a>: "I retract[retrace] every foolish word I said a few minutes since.</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_86">p. 272</a>: much precipitancy[preciptancy], he flings his cigar to the winds, and, before</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_87">p. 272</a>: and&mdash;&mdash;" Her voice trembles ominously[ominiously].</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_88">p. 274</a>: CHAPTER[CHAPTEK] XXVII.</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_89">p. 275</a>: off a piece of the cake and puts it in his mouth[mouths]. Desmond,</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_90">p. 276</a>: But just at the very last she had given way, and had flung[flnng]</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_91">p. 278</a>: it. It casts despair upon the hopes that are[is] kindling afresh within</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_92">p. 278</a>: of her own hapless[hapeless] love story) between her slender fingers,</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_93">p. 281</a>: A pang, a sudden thought, shoots through[though] him, and renders</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_94">p. 281</a>: his voice, "<i>try</i> to forgive[foigive] her; be gentle with her. It was all</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_95">p. 281</a>: of old-world[old-words] grandeur in her manner, but a sad tremulousness</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_96">p. 285</a>: Priscilla gets apparently[apparenly] lost in the pages of "Temple Bar."</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_97">p. 285</a>: An hour glides by with aggravating slowness[slowuess]; and then a</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_98">p. 287</a>: you feel yourself pretty low[ow]. But I'd advise you to wait and see</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_99">p. 289</a>: they say&mdash;that she&mdash;and James Beresford[Berestord]&mdash;did not get on at</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_100">p. 290</a>: if you will look upon that as settled[setted], so shall I."</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_101">p. 298</a>: She laughs outright at this, and glances[glance] at him from under</li>
+<li><a href="#TC_102">p. 301</a>: and a sense of chill and fear, as strong as it is foolish, is overpowering[overpowdering]</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rossmoyne, by Unknown
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rossmoyne, by Unknown
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Rossmoyne
+
+Author: Unknown
+
+Release Date: March 3, 2010 [EBook #31492]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROSSMOYNE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  ROSSMOYNE.
+
+  BY THE AUTHOR OF
+  "PHYLLIS," "MOLLY BAWN," "PORTIA," ETC.
+
+
+      "Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?--
+      Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?
+
+      "Here's much to do with hate, but more with love."--
+
+          ROMEO AND JULIET.
+
+
+  NEW YORK AND CHICAGO
+
+  BUTLER BROTHERS
+
+
+  TROW'S
+  PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY,
+  NEW YORK.
+
+
+
+
+ROSSMOYNE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+  How a Dove-cot was fluttered in Rossmoyne.
+
+
+The old-fashioned clock is ticking loudly, ponderously, as though
+determined to betray the flight of fickle time and impress upon the
+happy, careless ones that the end of all things is at hand. The roses
+knock their fragrant buds against the window-panes, calling attention to
+their dainty sweetness. The pigeons coo amorously upon the sills
+outside, and even thrust their pretty heads into the breakfast-room,
+demanding plaintively their daily crumbs; but no one heeds.
+
+A deadly silence has fallen upon this room at Moyne, albeit life is
+fully represented here, and two eyes, in which the light of youth is
+quenched, are looking anxiously into the two other eyes that have also
+seen the best and the sweetest of their days.
+
+Hopelessly the golden roses scatter their petals. In vain the white and
+tawny birds entreat backsheesh. To no purpose does the elderly clock
+count out its numbers. The urn is hissing angrily, the two cups of tea
+so carefully prepared are growing cold. So are the crisp little hot
+cakes, so is the----
+
+No! by the bye, it isn't! Honey can't. What a chance I was near giving
+the reviewers!
+
+One bird, growing annoyed at the prolonged quiet, flies from the open
+window to the back of Miss Penelope's chair, and settles there with an
+indignant flutter and a suppressed but angry note. This small suggestion
+of a living world destroyes the spell that for the last few minutes has
+been connecting the brain with a dead one.
+
+Miss Penelope, raising her head, gives words to her thoughts.
+
+"Poor, poor Katherine!" she says, gently smoothing out the letter that
+lies upon her knee. "How her happiness was wrecked and what a sad ending
+there has been to everything! Her children coming home to us,
+fatherless--motherless! Dear child! what a life hers has been! It is
+quite twenty years ago now, and yet it all seems to me as fresh as
+yesterday."
+
+"She shouldn't have taken things so easily; she should have asserted
+herself at the _time_," says Miss Priscilla, whose voice is always a
+note sharper than her sister's.
+
+"It requires a great deal of thought and--and a great deal of moral
+courage to assert one's self when a man has behaved abominably to
+one,--has, in fact, _jilted_ one!" says Miss Penelope, bringing out the
+awful word with a little shudder and a shake of her gentle head, that
+sets two pale lavender ribbons on her cap swaying mildly to and fro.
+
+"Why was she so fatally silent about everything, except the one bare
+fact of his refusal, at the last moment, to marry her, without assigning
+any cause for his base desertion? Why didn't she open her whole heart to
+me? I wasn't afraid of the man!" says Miss Priscilla, with such terrible
+energy and such a warlike front as might well have daunted "_the man_,"
+or indeed any man, could he have seen her. "She should have unburdened
+her poor bruised spirit to me, who--if my mother was not hers, and if I
+was many years her senior--had at least a sister's love for her."
+
+"A true love," says Miss Penelope, with another sigh.
+
+"Instead of which," regretfully, "she hid all her sorrows in her own
+bosom, and no doubt wept and pined for the miscreant in secret."
+
+"Poor soul!" says Miss Penelope, profoundly affected by this dismal
+picture. Tears born of tenderness spring to her eyes. "Do you remember,
+Priscilla, how she refused to show his letter, wishing, I suppose, even
+_then_ to spare him?"
+
+"I forget nothing!" with some acerbity. "Often, when saying my prayers,
+I have wished I could forget him, but I can't, so I have to go on being
+uncharitable and in sin,--if indeed sin it be to harden one's heart
+against a bad man."
+
+"Do you remember, too, my dear Priscilla, how she refused to go to
+church the Sunday after she received his cold-blooded missive telling
+her he wished his engagement at an end? I often wonder in what language
+he could have couched such a scandalous desire; but she tore the letter
+up. Dear! dear! it might have happened to-day, it is all so clear to
+me."
+
+"Too clear," says Miss Priscilla.
+
+"I recollect, too," says Miss Penelope, leaning her elbows on the table,
+pushing her untasted tea from her, and warming to the dismal memory,
+"how she would not come down to dinner on that eventful evening, though
+we had the red-currant tart she was so fond of, and how I took some up
+myself and knocked at her door and entreated her to open to me and to
+eat some of it. There was whipped cream on it; and she was very fond of
+cream, too."
+
+"And she refused to open the door?" asks Miss Priscilla, with the
+satisfied air of one who has often heard the thrilling recital before,
+yet was never tired of it.
+
+"Absolutely! so I laid the plate on a little table outside her door.
+Some hours afterwards, going up to bed, I saw the plate was gone and her
+door slightly ajar. Stealing into her room on tiptoe, I saw she was
+sleeping peacefully, and that she had eaten the red-currant tart. I felt
+so happy then. Poor dear child! how fond she was of that tart."
+
+"She liked everything that had sugar in it," says Miss Priscilla,
+mournfully.
+
+"It was only natural. 'Sweets to the sweet,'" says Miss Penelope,
+letting one little white jewelled hand fall slowly, sadly upon the
+other.
+
+There is a lengthened pause.
+
+Presently, stooping slightly towards her sister, Miss Penelope says in a
+mysterious whisper,--
+
+"I wonder, my dear Priscilla, _why_ she married James Beresford a month
+afterwards."
+
+"Who can read the human heart? Perhaps it was pride drove her into that
+marriage,--a desire to show George Desmond how lightly she treated his
+desertion of her. And James was a handsome young fellow, whereas George
+was----"
+
+"Ugly," says Miss Penelope, with quite an amazing amount of vicious
+satisfaction for her.
+
+"Strikingly so," says Miss Priscilla, acquiescing most agreeably. "But
+then the Desmond estates mean half the county; and we _used_ to think he
+was the soul of honor."
+
+"It was our father's expressed desire upon his deathbed that Katherine
+should marry him."
+
+"Yes, yes; a desire to be held sacred. And Katherine gave her promise to
+our dying parent. Nothing," says Miss Priscilla, in a solemn tone,
+"should induce any one to break such an oath. I have often said so to
+the dear child. But she appeared not only willing, but anxious, to marry
+George Desmond. _His_ was the traitorous mind."
+
+"I daresay he has had his own punishment," says Miss Penelope, mildly.
+
+"I hope so," says Miss Priscilla, sternly. Then, with a return to
+sadness, "Twenty years ago it is, and now she has been a twelvemonth
+dead and in her quiet grave."
+
+"Oh, _don't_, my dear Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, in a broken voice,
+burying her face in her pocket-handkerchief.
+
+"Ah! well, well, we had better look to the future; the past has no
+charms for us," says Miss Priscilla, with a ghastly attempt at
+cheerfulness. "Let me see," referring through a pair of gold-rimmed
+spectacles to the letter in her hand: "That the dear children have
+landed we know, and--h'm--yes, this very--yes, plainly, _very_
+respectable person, the captain, writes to say they will be with us
+to-morrow."
+
+"_To-morrow!_ and that was written yesterday," says Miss Penelope,
+putting down her handkerchief and starting once more into life. "Why, at
+that rate, my dear Priscilla, they will be here _to-day_!"
+
+"Bless me! you don't mean it!" exclaims Miss Priscilla, again applying
+her glasses to the letter. "Monday, and this is Tuesday: yes, sure
+enough you are right. What a head you have, my dear Penelope!"
+
+"Oh, not at all," says Miss Penelope, flushing with pleasure at this
+tribute to her intellect.
+
+"To-day,--in a few hours. Now, what is to be done about the beds?"
+
+"But surely they are aired?"
+
+"Aired?--yes. They have been aired every day regularly for the past two
+months, ever since I first heard the children were likely to come to us.
+But still I am uncertain about them. I know they will want hot jars; and
+then the rooms, they will want flowers and many things--and----"
+
+"Can't I help you?" demands Miss Penelope, eagerly.
+
+"My dear girl, not at all," says Miss Priscilla, with a calmly superior
+air, arising from the fact that she is quite eighteen months her senior.
+"You can assist me with your valuable counsel, but I would not have you
+disturb yourself for worlds. You must be cool and collected, and hold
+yourself in readiness to receive them when they come. They will be shy,
+no doubt, coming here all the way from Palestine, and it must be your
+part to make them feel quite at home."
+
+This to Miss Penelope, who is afraid of strangers in any guise, appears
+such a fearful mission that she pales, and says, tremblingly,--
+
+"But you too will be present at our first meeting? I must indeed _beg_
+you to be present, my dear Priscilla."
+
+"Of course, of course," says Miss Priscilla, encouragingly. Then,
+doubtfully, "I hope the boy won't take a dislike to us."
+
+"I wonder how we shall get on with children," says Miss Penelope. She is
+evidently growing extremely nervous. "It seems so strange they should be
+coming here to the old house."
+
+"Monica cannot be a child now. She must be at least eighteen," says Miss
+Priscilla, thoughtfully. "It was in 1863 that----"
+
+"1864, I think," interrupts Miss Penelope.
+
+"1863," persists Miss Priscilla.
+
+"You may be right, my dear," says Miss Penelope, mildly but firmly, "you
+often are,--but I know it was in '64 that----"
+
+"What?" asks Miss Priscilla, sharply.
+
+"The Desmond jilted our Katherine."
+
+"You are wrong, Penelope, utterly wrong. It was in '63."
+
+"I am nearly always wrong," says Miss Penelope, meekly, yet with a
+latent sense of suppressed power. "But I cannot forget that in the year
+George Desmond behaved so shamefully to our sweet Katherine, Madam
+O'Connor's cow had two calves, and _that_," triumphantly, "was in '64."
+
+"You are right--quite right," says Miss Priscilla, vanquished, but not
+cast down. "So it was. What a memory you have, my dear Penelope!"
+
+"Nothing when compared with _yours_," says Miss Penelope, smiling.
+
+At this moment the door opens and an old man enters the room. He is clad
+in the garb of a servant, though such wonderful habiliments as those in
+which he has arrayed himself would be difficult to purchase nowadays:
+whether there are more wrinkles in his forehead or in his trousers is a
+nice question that could not readily be decided at a moment's notice.
+
+He is quite ten years older than either of his mistresses; and, indeed,
+both he and his garments belong to a by-gone generation. His knees are
+bent, so is his back; his face is like a Ribston pippin, his coat is a
+marvel both in cut and in texture, but his linen is irreproachable, and
+what hair nature has still left him is most carefully brushed. There is,
+too, in his small gray Irish eyes a mischievous twinkle, and a fund of
+honest good humor that goes far to defy the ravages of time. In spite
+of his seventy years and his quaint attire, he still at times can hold
+his own with many a younger man.
+
+"Well, Timothy," says Miss Priscilla, looking up as he approaches the
+table, "we have had news of Miss Katherine's--I mean Mrs.
+Beresford's--children."
+
+"Rest her sowl!" says Timothy, in a reverential tone, alluding to that
+part of the late Mrs. Beresford.
+
+"It seems they have landed and will be with us to-day."
+
+"The day, miss?" growing brisk at this unexpected announcement.
+
+"Yes, they have reached England in safety, and are now in Dublin. What a
+long, long journey it has been for them," with another dreamy glance at
+the letter, "all the way from Palestine!"
+
+"An' so it has, miss, poor little crathurs!" says Timothy, who knows as
+much about the whereabouts of Palestine as he does about the man in the
+moon.
+
+"You mustn't think they are very young, Timothy," says Miss Penelope,
+hastily. "Miss Priscilla and I have been talking it over, and we believe
+Miss Beresford must be now seventeen, Master Terence sixteen, and Miss
+Kate fourteen."
+
+"And so of course they must be, miss. Thrue for ye, ma'am. Dear, dear,
+though only to think now; it seems only the other day the dear young
+lady was married to Mister Beresford. But you aren't eating a bit,
+miss," anxiously; "you haven't tasted a morsel, ma'am. What can I get ye
+now?"
+
+"Nothing, Timothy. The fact is----"
+
+"There's an iligant ham downstairs, ma'am," says the old man, now really
+concerned for the mistresses, who still always appear to him as "the
+young ladies:" "let me bring it up to you."
+
+"No, thank you, Timothy: we are just a little upset by this sudden news.
+We cannot help wondering how the old house will be with children in it,
+after all these years of calm and quiet."
+
+"Sure an' a grand change it will be for us all, miss; 'twill indeed,
+ma'am," says Timothy, cheerfully, though his mind misgives him. "There's
+nothing like children, when all's told: sure's there's music in every
+sound of their footsteps."
+
+"I hope they will be good," says Miss Penelope, with a doubtful sigh.
+
+"Faix, what else would they be, miss?" says the old man, with assumed
+reproach. "'Tis well I mind of poor Miss Katherine herself,--the soft
+tongue she had in her head, an' never a cross word out of her, save to
+Nelly Doolin--an' she was the divil herself, savin' your presence, miss,
+and enough to provoke all the saints--glory be----"
+
+"I trust they will be happy here," goes on Miss Penelope, still wistful.
+
+"An' why not, miss? Sure the counthry is the finest place at all for the
+young; and where's a finer counthry than ould Ireland?"
+
+"Much can't be said for it of late, Timothy," says Miss Priscilla,
+sadly: "all it can boast of now is rebellion, sedition, and bloodshed."
+
+"Sure every one must have a kick up sometimes, miss," says Timothy, with
+youthful lightness; "an', afther all, isn't the ould place only doin'
+what she can for herself, more power to her?"
+
+"Ryan," says Miss Priscilla, sternly, addressing her butler by his
+surname,--a thing that is never done except in dire cases,--and fixing
+upon him an icy glance beneath which he quails, "I regret you should so
+far forget yourself as to utter such treasonable sentiments in our
+presence. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
+
+"So I am miss. I humbly ask yer pardon, ma'am," says Mr. Ryan, promptly.
+"But all the different opinions one hears addles the brain. 'Twas only
+last night the Murphys had a meeting, and they do say, miss," lowering
+his voice confidentially, "that the Squire down there," pointing
+apparently through the breakfast-room wall, "is in a bad way with the
+League boys."
+
+"The Desmond?"
+
+"Yes, miss. He's been evictin' again, ma'am, an' there's queer talk
+about him. But," with a relapse into former thought, "if he's a bad
+landlord, what can he expect?"
+
+"No, no, Timothy. He is not a bad landlord," says Miss Priscilla,
+hastily, though this allowance of grace to her enemy causes her a bitter
+pang. "He has been most patient for years. That I _know_."
+
+"Well, maybe so, miss," says Ryan, deferentially, but with a reservation
+in his manner that speaks volumes. "It isn't for the likes of me ma'am,
+to contradict the likes of you. But did ye hear, miss, that Misther
+Desmond's nephew has come to stay with him?"
+
+"At Coole?"
+
+"At the Castle. Yes, miss. Faix 'twas meself was surprised to hear it.
+But there he is, safe enough, an' another gentleman with him; an' they
+do say that the old masther is as proud as Punch of him. But his blood's
+bad, I'll no doubt."
+
+"No doubt," says Priscilla, severely.
+
+Miss Penelope sighs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+  How two Old Maids are made acquainted with a very Young One.
+
+
+Already we have reached the afternoon. In these warm June days, when all
+the earth is languorous and glad with its own beauty, time slips from us
+unannounced, and the minutes from morn to eventide, and from the
+gloaming till nightfall, melt into one another, until all seem one
+sweet, lengthened hour.
+
+Just now the hot sun is pouring down upon garden and gravelled walks at
+Moyne; except the hum of the industrious bees, not a sound can be heard;
+even the streamlet at the end of the long lawn is running sleepily,
+making sweet music as it goes, indeed, but so drowsily, so heavily, that
+it hardly reaches the ear; and so, too, with the lap-lapping of the
+waves upon the shore below, as the tide comes and goes.
+
+Not a breath of air comes to disturb the languid grandeur of the huge
+elms that stand staring up to heaven just opposite the hall door. The
+crows swinging in their branches up above are all subdued; hardly have
+they energy enough to flap their great, broad wings.
+
+Little stationary clouds lie like flecks of silver upon the pale-blue
+sky; far far away, in the woods of Coole, a cuckoo may be heard at long
+and yet longer intervals,--last remnant of a vanished spring; but all
+the other birds have succumbed to the power of the great god of light,
+and are wrapped in silence.
+
+Certain stray little sunbeams, half wild with glee, rushing hither and
+thither through the roses, discover Miss Penelope Blake sitting in the
+drawing-room at Moyne. She is dressed in her very best lavender silk,
+that would stand alone, and be glad to do it if it was let, but
+unabashed by her splendor Apollo's saucy babies dance down upon her,
+and, seizing on her knitting-needles, play hide and seek among them,
+until the poor lady's eyes are fairly dazzled.
+
+Fortunately, at this instant Miss Priscilla, entering the room, draws
+down the blind and restores order: after which she seats herself almost
+directly opposite her sister.
+
+The Misses Blake are not pretty old ladies at all. I don't want to
+deceive you in this matter. They are, in fact, quite ugly old ladies.
+Their noses are all wrong, their cheeks are as wrinkled as Timothy's
+forehead, and their mouths out of all drawing.
+
+Miss Priscilla's eyes are brown,--a deep startling brown, that seems to
+look you through and through and compels the truth. Her hair is brown,
+too, and soft, and silky, and pretty, though thickly sprinkled with
+gray. She has a great deal of this hair, and is secretly very proud of
+it.
+
+Miss Penelope's eyes are pale blue,--with very little blue,--and but for
+her long lashes (sole remnants of goodlier days) would be oppressive.
+Her hair is pale, too, and sandy, and is braided back from her forehead
+in severe lines.
+
+There is a pensive air about Miss Penelope that might suggest to the
+casual observer an early and disastrous love-affair. But all such
+imaginings on his part would be vain. No winged cupid ever hid in Miss
+Penelope's ear, or played bo-peep in her virgin bosom, or nestled in her
+sandy locks: she is free from all taint of such wild frivolisms.
+
+"All is ready now," says Miss Priscilla,--who is the Martha at Moyne,
+while we may regard Miss Penelope as the Mary. "The rooms are prepared,
+nothing is wanting, and the flowers smell so sweet. I have sent the
+carriage to meet them, though I know the train cannot be here for quite
+an hour yet; but I think it wise always to be in time."
+
+"There is nothing like it," says Miss Penelope, placidly.
+
+"Now I shall rest here with you a little while," goes on the elder
+maiden, complacently, "and think of all that is likely to happen."
+
+"Really," says Miss Penelope, lowering her work and glancing restlessly
+at her sister, "I feel more nervous than I can say, when I think of
+their coming. What on earth should we do, dear Priscilla, if they took a
+dislike to us?"
+
+"I have thought of that myself," says Miss Priscilla, in an awe-struck
+tone. "We are not attractive, Penelope: beyond a few--a _very_
+few--insignificant touches," with an inward glance at her fine hair, "we
+are absolutely outside the pale of beauty. I wonder if Monica will be
+like her mother, or if----"
+
+Here something happens that puts a final stop to all conversation. The
+door is opened, quickly, impetuously; there is a sound as of many
+footsteps on the threshold without.
+
+The old ladies start in their seats, and sit upright, trembling
+excessively. What can have happened? Has the sedate Ryan come to
+loggerheads with Mrs. Reilly the cook? (a state of things often
+threatened); and are they now standing on the mat meditating further
+bloodshed?
+
+A moment surcharged with thrilling suspense goes by, and then, not Ryan
+or the cook, but a much more perplexing vision comes slowly into the
+room.
+
+It is a very radiant vision, though it is clothed in mourning garments,
+full of grace and beauty. Very shy, with parted lips, and brilliant
+frightened eyes, but perfect as an opening flower.
+
+Is it a child or a woman? is the first question that strikes Miss
+Penelope. As for Miss Priscilla, she is too surprised for thought of any
+kind, too lost in admiration of the little, gracious uncertain, figure,
+with its deep-blue eyes glancing up at her with a half-terrified yet
+trusting expression, to give way to speech of any kind.
+
+She is slight, and slim as a hazel wand. Her hair is nut-brown, with a
+red gold tinge running through it. Her nose is adorable, if slightly
+tilted; her mouth is a red, red rose, sad but sweet, and full of
+purpose. Her eyes are large and expressive, but touched, like her lips,
+with a suspicion of melancholy that renders them only a degree more
+sweet and earnest.
+
+There is a spirituality about her, a calm, a peace that shines out of
+these dark Irish eyes, and rests upon her perfect lips, as it were a
+lingering breath of the heaven from whence she came.
+
+She stands now, hesitating a little, with her hands loosely
+clasped,--brown little hands, but beautifully shaped. Indeed, all her
+skin owes more of its coloring to Phoebus Apollo than nature intended.
+She draws her breath somewhat quickly, and then, as though anxious to
+get through the troublous task assigned her, says, nervously, in a low,
+sweet voice,--
+
+"I am Monica."
+
+As she says this, she glances entreatingly from one old lady to the
+other, with some trouble in her great eyes, and some tears. Then all at
+once her lips tremble to a smile, and a soft light breaks upon her face.
+
+"_You_ are Aunt Priscilla," she says, turning to Miss Blake; "I know you
+by your dark eyes, and by your _pretty_ hair!"
+
+At the sound of her voice the two old ladies wake from their
+abstraction.
+
+"Yes, yes, it is your aunt Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, eagerly, with
+a sudden pleased smile. Had the compliment been made to herself she
+could not possibly have appeared more delighted, and certainly would not
+have betrayed her satisfaction so openly. "Her hair," she says, "was
+always beautiful."
+
+As for Miss Priscilla, she is smiling too, but in a shamefaced fashion,
+and is blushing a warm pretty crimson, such as a girl of seventeen might
+be guilty of, listening to a first word of love.
+
+She takes Monica's right hand in hers and pats it softly; and Miss
+Penelope takes her left; and then the two old ladies stoop forward, and,
+one after the other, kiss the pale, girlish cheek, and with the kiss
+take her at once and forever into their very hearts.
+
+"But surely, dear child, you did not come alone?" says Miss Priscilla,
+presently, calling to remembrance the fact that there ought to be two
+other Beresfords somewhere.
+
+"No; Terence and Katherine are with me."
+
+"But where, my dear?"
+
+"Well, I _think_ they are standing on the mat, just outside the door,"
+says Monica, blushing and laughing; and then she says, rather louder,
+"Terry and Kit, you may come in now. It is all right."
+
+As to what was evidently supposed not to be "all right" up to this, the
+Misses Blake have no time to decide upon before a fresh nephew and niece
+present themselves to their view. They come in quite gayly,--reassured,
+no doubt, by Monica's tone: Terence, a tall slim lad of about sixteen,
+and a little girl somewhat like Monica, but more restless in features,
+and even a degree more pallid.
+
+"My dear children, why didn't you come in before?" said Miss Priscilla,
+aghast at the inhospitable thought that they had been shivering with
+needless nervousness in the hall for the last five minutes.
+
+"They said they wouldn't come in until I paved the way for them," says
+Monica, with a slight shrug of her shoulders that is a trick of hers.
+"They always put everything upon my shoulders: a little shabby of them
+_I_ call it."
+
+"I am afraid you must have pictured us as ogres," says Miss Priscilla,
+which idea strikes the old ladies as such a delicious flight of fancy
+that they laugh outright, and look at each other with intense enjoyment
+of their little joke.
+
+"Well, of course we couldn't tell what you would be like," says Monica,
+gravely. "You might have been people likely to impress one with awe;
+but, as _it is_----This is Terry," laying her hand upon her brother's
+arm; "and this is Kit. She is really Katherine, you know, but no one
+ever calls her by so long a name. She isn't worth it."
+
+At this the three Beresfords laugh among themselves, as children will,
+at time-worn fun, knowing no fatigue; after which Katherine and Terence
+are embraced and made much of by their new-found relatives, and freely
+commented upon.
+
+But ever and anon the eyes of both old ladies wander thoughtfully,
+admiringly, to where the lissome Monica stands, like a pale, pensive
+lily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"But how have you managed to be here so soon?" asks Miss Priscilla, when
+the impromptu luncheon, improvised by the startled Timothy, has come to
+an end. The children were all hungry, and have eaten a great deal, and
+have talked more. Indeed, though Miss Priscilla has been dying to ask
+this question for a long time, it has been impossible for her to do so,
+as there has not been so much as a comma in the conversation for the
+last hour.
+
+The Beresfords are like so many clocks wound up, and bound to go for a
+certain time whether they like it or not; and, apparently, they do like
+it. Now they have run down a little, Terence being exhausted after his
+last laughing attack, and Kit wrapped in contemplation of an
+old-fashioned hair brooch that is fastening an equally old-fashioned
+piece of priceless lace that adorns Miss Penelope's throat.
+
+"Well, I can't think how they do it!" she says, lost in admiration of a
+little slim hair lady bending over a miniature hair urn in the most
+lachrymose attitude conceivable. "But they have put her eye in wrongly:
+she looks as if she is dying with laughter."
+
+Here Miss Priscilla edges in her question, as to how they have contrived
+to be at Moyne at so early an hour.
+
+"We came by the wrong train," says Terry. "We generally do. Ever since
+we left the South of France--where we were staying with the Bohuns, you
+know, on our way here--we have been missing our trains right and left,
+and turning up at all sorts of unexpected places. Haven't we, Kit?"
+
+"_You_ have," says Kit, with suspicious emphasis. "You have such a
+pretty trick of rushing into the first train you see, without ever
+asking any one where it is going. No wonder we always turned up at the
+wrong end."
+
+"_You've_ a pretty trick of putting everything down on other people's
+shoulders," says Terence, with open disgust. "Whose fault was it we were
+always so late at the stations that we hadn't time to make inquiries,
+I'd like to know? Could you," with fine irony, "tell us?"
+
+"Certainly; it was nurse," replies Kit, with dignity.
+
+"Dear me! and where is your nurse now?" asks Miss Priscilla, anxiously.
+The query is a fortunate one, in that it turns the conversation into a
+different channel, and checks the eloquence of Kit and Terry, who are
+plainly on the brink of an open war.
+
+"When last _I_ saw her," says Terence, "she was sitting on the top of
+our biggest box, with everything else strewn around her, and her feet
+resting on two brown-paper parcels.--I wonder," says Mr. Beresford,
+addressing Monica, "what on earth she had in those brown paper parcels.
+She has been hugging them night and day ever since she left Jerusalem."
+
+"Dynamite," suggested Monica, lightly; whereupon the two Misses Blake
+turn pale.
+
+"At that rate, Aunt Priscilla, we needn't trouble about her," says
+Terence, pleasantly, "as she _must_ be blown up by this. None of those
+clock-work affairs could be arranged to go on much longer. Poor thing!
+when in the flesh she wasn't half bad. I forgive her everything,--even
+her undying hatred to myself."
+
+"If she is in fragments, so are our things," says Kit. "I think she
+_needn't_ have elected to sit on them at the supreme moment."
+
+"You don't really think," says Miss Penelope, in a somewhat troubled
+tone, remembering how an innocent baker in Rossmoyne had had some of the
+explosive matter in question thrown into his kitchen the night before
+last,--"you don't really think that these parcels you speak of contain
+infernal machines?--Yes, that is what they call them, my dear
+Priscilla," turning to her sister, as though anxious to apologize for
+having used a word calculated to lead the mind to the lower regions.
+
+By this time both Kit and Terence are convulsed with delight at the
+sensation they have created, and would probably have gone on to declare
+the innocent Mrs. Mitchell an advanced Nihilist of the most dangerous
+type, but for Monica's coming to the rescue and explaining matters
+satisfactorily.
+
+"Still, I cannot understand how you got up here so quickly," says Miss
+Penelope. "You know Moyne--home I hope you will call it for the future,
+my dears--" with a little fond pat on Monica's hand, "is quite three
+miles from the station."
+
+"We should have thought nothing of that," says Terence, "but for Kit;
+she has had a fever, you know," pointing to the child's closely-cropped,
+dark little head; "so we said we would just stroll on a little and see
+what the country was like."
+
+"And lovely it is," puts in Kit, enthusiastically. "We got up on a high
+hill, and saw the sea lying like a great quiet lake beneath us. There
+was scarcely a ripple on it, and only a soft sound like a sob." Her
+eyes, that are almost too big for her small face, glow brilliantly.
+
+"And then there came by a man with a cart filled with hay, and he nodded
+to us and said, 'Good-morning, sir;' and so I nodded back, and said,
+'How d'ye do?' to him and asked him was it far to Moyne House. 'A good
+step,' he said; 'three miles at the very least.'"
+
+"He didn't; he said _laste_," says Kit, who is plainly in a litigious
+mood.
+
+"At that," says Monica, breaking in eagerly, feeling, no doubt, she has
+been left too long out in the cold, and that it is time her voice were
+heard, "I suppose I looked rather forlorn, because he said, quite nicely
+'Maybe ye'd not be too proud, miss, to get into me cart, an I'll dhrive
+the lot of ye up to the House, where as luck has it, I'm goin' meself.'"
+She mimicks the soft Southern brogue very prettily.
+
+"So up we got," says Kit, gayly, "and away we went in the nice sweet
+hay, jog trot, jog trot, and _so_ comfortable."
+
+The Misses Blake by this time are filled with dismay. In Rossmoyne,
+where families are few and far between, and indecent scandal unknown,
+the smallest trifles are seized upon with avidity and manufactured into
+mountains. "A good appearance," Miss Penelope was taught at school, "is
+the first step in life," and here have these children been making
+_their_ appearance for the first time in a common hay-cart.
+
+What will Madam O'Connor say? Madam O'Connor's father having always laid
+claim to being a direct descendant of one of the old kings of Munster,
+Madam's veins of course are filled with blood royal, and as such are to
+be held in reverence. What _won't_ this terrible old woman say, when she
+hears of the Beresfords' escapade?
+
+The Misses Blake sit shivering, blinking their eyelids, and afraid to
+say anything.
+
+"We got on splendidly," Terence is saying, "and might indeed have
+finished our journey respectably, but for Monica. _She_ laid our
+reputation in the dust."
+
+Monica turns upon him an appealing glance from her large soft eyes that
+would have melted any heart but that of a brother's.
+
+"Aunt Priscilla," says the adamantine youth, "what is the name of the
+house with a big gate, about a half a mile from this?"
+
+"Coole Castle," replies she, stiffly, the very fact of having to mention
+the residence of the detested Desmond making her heart beat violently.
+But Terry is a person blind to speaking glances and deaf to worded
+hints. In effect, Terry and tact are two; so he goes on, unheeding his
+aunt's evident disrelish for the subject,--
+
+"Well, just as we got to Coole, I saw a fellow standing inside the
+entrance-gate, smoking a cigar. I fancied he looked amused, but would
+have thought nothing of that, only I heard him laugh aloud, and saw he
+was staring over my head--I was driving--to where Monica and Kit were,
+on the top of the hay. It occurred to me then to see what the girls were
+doing, so I stood up on the shaft, and looked, and----"
+
+Here he pauses, as though slightly overcome.
+
+"What, my dear?" asks Miss Priscilla, anxiously.
+
+"There was Monica lying in an aesthetic attitude,--_very_ aesthetic,--with
+her chin in her hands, and her eyes on the horse's ears, and her
+thoughts I presume in heaven, or wherever young ladies keep them, and
+with her heels----"
+
+"It isn't _truth_!--it _isn't_!" interrupts Monica, blushing furiously,
+and speaking with much indignation. "I don't believe a single word of
+it!"
+
+"And with her heels----"
+
+"_Terence!_"
+
+"In mid-air. She was kicking them up and down with delight," says
+Terence, fairly bubbling over with joy at the recollection. "It was the
+most humiliating sight for a modest brother. I shall never forgive her
+for it. Besides, the strange young man was----"
+
+"If you say another word," says Monica, white with wrath and tears in
+her eyes, "I shall never speak to you again, or help you out of any
+trouble."
+
+This awful threat has the desired effect of reducing Mr. Beresford to
+subjection. He goes down before the foe, and truckles to her meanly.
+
+"You needn't take it so much to heart," he says soothingly: "there
+wasn't much in it, after all; and your shoes are very pretty, and so are
+your feet."
+
+The compliment works wonders; Monica quite brightens up again, but the
+two old ladies are hopelessly scandalized.
+
+"I feel assured, Terence," says Miss Priscilla, with much dignity, "that
+under _no_ circumstances could a niece of mine show too much of
+her----her----"
+
+Here Miss Priscilla blushes, and breaks down.
+
+"Legs?" suggests Terry, politely.
+
+"But who was the strange young man?" asks Miss Penelope, curiously.
+
+"Our friend of the hay-cart said his name was Desmond, and that he was
+nephew to the master of the house behind the big gates," returns Kit,
+fluently.
+
+"Desmond!" says Miss Priscilla, greatly agitated. "Let me never hear you
+mention that name again! It has been our bane! Forget you have ever been
+so unfortunate as to encounter this young man; and if ill luck should
+ever drive him across your path again, remember you do not--you never
+_can_--know him."
+
+"But I'm certain he will know Monica if he sees her again," says Kit.
+"He stared at her as if she had seven heads."
+
+"No wonder, considering her equivocal position. And as to knowing
+Monica, I'm not certain of that, of course, but I'm utterly positive he
+could swear to her _shoes_ in a crowd," says Terence, with unholy
+delight. "He was enchanted with them, and with the clocks on her
+stockings: I think he was taking the pattern of them."
+
+"He was _not_," says Monica, almost weeping. "He couldn't see them. I
+was too high up."
+
+"What will you bet he doesn't know the color of them?" asks her
+tormentor, with a fresh burst of appreciation of the undignified scene.
+"When I see him again I'll ask him."
+
+"Terence," says Miss Priscilla, growing very pale, "you must never see
+him again, or, at all events, you must never speak to him. Understand,
+once for all, that intimacy between us and the inhabitants of Coole is
+impossible. This feud I hint at touches you even more closely than it
+touches us, but you cannot feel it more than we do,--perhaps not as
+much. The honor of our family has suffered at the hands of the Master of
+Coole. He is the enemy of our house!"
+
+"Priscilla!" murmurs Miss Penelope, in a low and trembling tone.
+
+"Do not try to check me, Penelope. I _will_ speak," says Miss
+Priscilla, sternly. "This man, years ago, offered one near and dear to
+us an indignity not to be lightly borne. The world is wide," turning to
+the astonished children, "you can make friends where you choose; but I
+would have you recollect that _never_ can a Beresford and a Desmond have
+aught in common."
+
+"But what have the Desmonds done to us, Aunt Priscilla?" asks Monica, a
+good deal awed by the old lady's solemnity.
+
+"Some other time you shall know all," says Miss Priscilla in the low
+tone one might adopt if speaking of the last appalling murder.
+
+"Yes, some other time," echoes Miss Penelope, gently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+  How Monica studies the landscape.
+
+
+"Is it thrue, ma'am, what I hear, that ye'll be wantin' a maid for Miss
+Monica?" asks Mrs. Reilly, the cook at Moyne, dropping a respectful
+courtesy just inside the drawing-room door. "Ryan let dhrop a word to me
+about it, so I made so bould, ma'am, as to come upstairs an' tell ye I
+think I know a girl as will come in handy to ye."
+
+"And who is she, Reilly?" asks Miss Priscilla anxiously.
+
+"She's a very good girl, ma'am, an' smart, an' nate, an' I think ye'll
+like her," replies cook, who, like all Irish people, finds a difficulty
+in giving a direct answer to a direct question. Perhaps, too, there is a
+little wiliness in her determination not to name the new servant's
+parentage just at present.
+
+"I daresay; I place great reliance upon your opinion, Reilly. But who is
+she? Does she come from the village, or from one of the farms? I should
+prefer the farms."
+
+"She's as tidy as she can be," says Mrs. Reilly, amiably but still
+evasively, "an' a bit of a scholard into the bargain, an' a very civil
+tongue in her head. She's seventeen all out, ma'am, and never yet gave
+her mother a saucy word."
+
+"That is as it should be," says Miss Priscilla, commendingly. "You feel
+a great interest in this girl, I can see. You know her well?"
+
+"Yes, miss. She is me uncle's wife's sisther's child, an' as good a girl
+as ever stepped in shoe leather."
+
+"She is then?" asks Miss Priscilla, faintly, puzzled by this startling
+relationship.
+
+"She's that girl of the Cantys', ma'am, and as likely a colleen as ever
+ye met, though I say it as shouldn't, she being kin-like," says Mrs.
+Reilly, boldly, seeing her time is come.
+
+"What! that pretty, blue-eyed child that called to see you yesterday?
+She _is_ from the village, then?" with manifest distaste.
+
+"An' what's the matther wid the village, ma'am?" By this time Mrs.
+Reilly has her arms akimbo, and has an evident thirst for knowledge full
+upon her.
+
+"But I fear she is flighty and wild, and not at all domesticated in any
+way."
+
+"An' who has the face to say that, ma'am? Give me the names of her
+dethractors," says Mrs. Reilly, in an awful tone, that seemed to demand
+the blood of the "dethractors."
+
+"I feel sure, Reilly," says Miss Priscilla, slowly, "that you are not
+aware of the position your arms have taken. It is most unbecoming." Mrs.
+Reilly's arms dropped to her sides. "And as for this girl you speak of,
+I hear she is, as I say, very flighty."
+
+"Don't believe a word of it, ma'am," says cook, with virtuous
+indignation. "Just because she holds up her head a bit, an' likes a
+ribbon or two, there's no holdin' the gossips down below," indicating
+the village by a backward jerk of her thumb. "She's as dacent a little
+sowl as you'd wish to see, an' has as nate a foot as there is in the
+county. The Cantys has all a character for purty feet."
+
+"Pretty feet are all very well in their way," says Miss Priscilla,
+nodding her head. "But can she sew? and is she quiet and tractable,
+and----"
+
+"Divil a thing she can't do, ma'am, axin' yer pardon," says Mrs. Reilly,
+rather losing herself in the excitement of the moment. "Just thry her,
+ma'am, an' if ye don't like her, an' if Miss Monica finds even one fault
+in her, just send her back to her mother. I can't say fairer nor that."
+
+"No, indeed. Very well, Reilly, let her come up to me to-morrow; and see
+that her inside clothes are all right, and let her know she must _never_
+be out after dark."
+
+"Yes, ma'am," says the triumphant Reilly, beating a hasty retreat.
+
+Half an hour afterwards she encounters Monica upon the avenue.
+
+"Why, where are you going, Mrs. Reilly?" asks Monica, seeing that cook
+is got up in all her war-paint, regardless of expense.
+
+"To mass first, miss," says Mrs. Reilly.
+
+"Where's that?" asks Monica, with foreign ignorance.
+
+"Law! to the chapel, miss," says Reilly, with an amused smile.
+
+"But it isn't Sunday?"
+
+"No, miss. It's a saint's day--may they be good to us!" crossing
+herself. "It's different with you, miss, you see; but we poor folks, we
+must say our prayers when we can, or the Virgin will dhrop us out of her
+mind."
+
+"Is your chapel pretty?" asks Monica, who has now been a week in the
+country, and through very weariness feels a mad desire to talk to
+somebody or anybody.
+
+"Faix, it's lovely, miss, since Father Jerry took it in hand! There's
+the finest pictures ye ever saw on the walls, an' an altar it 'ud do ye
+good to look at."
+
+"Would it? Then I'll go some day to see it," says Monica, smiling, not
+knowing that her aunts would as soon let her enter a pandemonium as a
+Roman Catholic chapel.
+
+Dear old ladies! frightened by shadows, they have been bred in the
+belief that the Evil One dwells beneath the shade of the Romish Church,
+and will therefore surely die in it.
+
+"Do, then, agra!" said Mrs. Reilly, who has, of course, like all the
+other servants, gone down before Monica: "it's proud we'd be to see ye
+there."
+
+There is no thought of conversion in the woman's mind, you must
+remember,--merely a hospitable desire to let her know she will be
+welcome anywhere.
+
+"By the same token, Miss Monica," says she, "there's something I was
+near forgettin' to tell ye."
+
+"Yes!" says Monica.
+
+"Ye're goin' to have me uncle's wife's niece for yer own maid, miss."
+
+"Am I? I'm glad of that," says Monica, with a native courtesy. "Is
+she"--with some hesitation and a faint blush--"is she pretty, Reilly?"
+
+"She's the purtiest girl ye ever set eyes on," says Mrs. Reilly, with
+enthusiasm.
+
+"I'm glad of _that_; I can't bear ugly people," says Monica.
+
+"Faix, then, there's a bad time before ye wid the ould ladies," mutters
+Mrs. Reilly, _sotto voce_, gathering up her cloak and stepping onwards.
+She is a remarkably handsome woman herself, and so may safely deplore
+the want of beauty in her betters.
+
+Monica, turning aside, steps on a high bank and looks down towards the
+village. Through the trees she can see the spire of the old cathedral
+rising heavenwards. Though Rossmoyne is but a village, it still can
+boast its cathedral, an ancient edifice, uncouth and unlovely, but yet
+one of the oldest places of worship in Ireland.
+
+Most of my readers would no doubt laugh it to scorn, but we who belong
+to it reverence it, and point out with pride to passers by the few
+quaint marks and tokens that link it to a bygone age.
+
+There is a nave, broad and deep, comprising more than a third of the
+whole building, with its old broken stone pavement, and high up, carven
+upon one of its walls the head of St. Faughnan, its patron saint,--a
+hideous saint, indeed, if he resembled that ancient carving. How often
+have I gazed upon his unlovely visage, and wondered in my childish
+fashion why the grace that comes from so divine an origin had not the
+power to render his servant's face more beautiful!
+
+In these later years they have improved (?) and modernized the old
+structure. A stone pulpit, huge and clumsy, erected by subscription to
+the memory of some elderly inhabitant, stands like a misshapen blot
+before the altar rails; a window, too broad for its length, and
+generally out of proportion, throws too much light upon the dinginess
+within; the general character of the ugly old place has lost something,
+but assuredly gained nothing, by these innovations. It is hard to put "a
+piece of new cloth on an old garment" successfully.
+
+The village itself stands upon a high hill; the ocean lies at its feet.
+From Moyne House one can see the shimmer of the great Atlantic as it
+dances beneath the sunbeams or lashes itself into furious foam under the
+touch of the north wind. The coastguard station, too, stands out,
+brilliant in its whitewash, a gleaming spot upon the landscape.
+
+To the left of the station lies Ounahincha,--a long, deep line of
+sea-beach that would make its fortune as a bathing place under happier
+auspices and in some more appreciated clime.
+
+Monica, looking down from her height, takes in all the beauties of the
+landscape that surround her, and lets the music of the melancholy ocean
+sink into her very soul.
+
+Then she lets her eyes wander to the right, and rest with pardonable
+curiosity upon Coole Castle, where dwells the ogre of her house. Above
+Coole, and about two miles farther on, lies Aghyohillbeg, the residence
+of Madam O'Connor, that terrible descendant of one of Ireland's kings;
+whilst below, nestling among its firs and beeches, is Kilmore, where the
+Halfords--a merry tangle of boys and girls--may be seen at all hours.
+
+Then there is the vicarage, where the rector lives with his family,
+which is large; and nearer to the village, the house that holds the
+curate and his family, which, of course, is larger. Besides which,
+Monica can just see from her vantage-ground the wooded slopes of
+Durrusbeg that have lately called young Ronayne master,--a distant
+cousin having died most unexpectedly and left him all his property.
+
+       +       +       +       +       +
+
+Six months ago, Ulic Ronayne was spoken of by anxious matrons as a wild
+lad, with nothing to recommend him save his handsome face and some
+naughty stories attached to his name. Now he is pronounced charming, and
+the naughty stories, which indeed never had any foundation, are
+discovered to have been disgraceful fabrications. Marriageable daughters
+are kinder to him than words can say, and are allowed by the most
+cautious mothers to dance with him as often as they choose, and even to
+sit unlimited hours with him in secluded corners of conservatories
+unrebuked.
+
+Truly, O Plutus! thou art a god indeed. Thou hast outlived thy greater
+brethren. Thy shrine is honored as of old!
+
+After a last lingering glance at the distant ocean and the swelling
+woods that now in Merry June are making their grandest show, Monica
+jumps down from her bank again and goes slowly--singing as she
+goes--towards the river that runs at the end of Moyne.
+
+Down by its banks Moyne actually touches the hated lands of Cooles, a
+slight boundary fence being all that divides one place from the other.
+The river rushes eagerly past both, on its way to the sea, murmuring
+merrily on its happy voyage, as though mocking at human weals and woes
+and petty quarrels.
+
+Through the waving meadows, over the little brook, past the stile,
+Monica makes her way, plucking here and there the scarlet poppies, and
+the blue cornflowers and daisies, "those pearled Arcturi of the earth,
+the constellated flower that never sets."
+
+The sun is tinting all things with its yellow haze, and is burning to
+brightest gold the reddish tinge in the girl's hair as she moves with
+dallying steps through the green fields. She is dressed in a white gown,
+decked with ribbons of sombre tint, and wears upon her head a huge poky
+bonnet, from which her face peeps out, half earnest, half coquettish,
+wholly pure.
+
+Her hands are bare and shapely, but a little brown; some old-fashioned
+rings glisten on them. She has the tail of her gown thrown negligently
+over her arm, and with her happy lips parted in song, and her eyes
+serene as early dawn, she looks like that fair thing of Chaucer's, whose
+
+    "Berthe was of the womb of morning dew,
+    And her conception of the joyous prime."
+
+And now the sparkling river comes in sight. Near its brink an old
+boat-house may be seen fast crumbling to decay; and on the river itself
+lies, swaying to and fro, a small punt in the very last stages of
+decline. It is a very terrible little boat, quite at death's door, and
+might have had those lines of Dante's painted upon it without libel:
+
+    "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."
+
+But Monica, in happy ignorance of rotting timbers, thinks only of the
+joy she felt last evening when the discovery of this demoralized
+treasure was made. In the mouldering boat-house she had found it, and so
+had claimed it for her own.
+
+She had told no one of her secret, not even Kit, who is, as a rule, her
+prime minister, her confidante, and her shadow. She has, indeed, had
+great difficulty in escaping from "her shadow" just now, but after much
+diplomatic toil had managed it. To find herself upon the calm and gentle
+river, to dream there her own sweet thoughts beneath the kindly shade of
+the pollard willows, to glide with the stream and bask in the sunlight
+_all alone_, has been her desire since yester-eve.
+
+To-morrow, if to-day proves successful and her rowing does not fail her,
+of which she has had some practice during the last two years of her
+life, she will tell Kit and Terry all about it, and let them share her
+pleasure. But to-day is her own.
+
+The boat is connected with the shore by a rope tied round the stump of a
+tree by most unskilful hands. Flinging her flowers into the punt, she
+strives diligently to undo the knot that she herself had made the night
+before, but strives in vain. The hard rope wounds her tender hands and
+vexes her gentle soul.
+
+She is still struggling with it, and already a little pained frown has
+made a wrinkle on her smooth brow, when another boat shoots from under
+the willows and gains the little landing-place, with its pebbly beach,
+that belongs equally to Coole Castle and to Moyne.
+
+This new boat is a tremendous improvement on our heroine's. It is the
+smartest little affair possible, and as safe as a church,--safer,
+indeed, as times go now. Not that there is anything very elaborate about
+it, but it is freshly painted, and there are cushions in it, and all
+over it a suppressed air of luxury.
+
+Besides the cushions, there is something else in it, too,--a young man
+of about six and twenty, who steps lightly on to the bank, though it is
+a miracle he doesn't lose his footing and come ignominiously to the
+ground, so bent is his gaze on the gracious little figure at the other
+side of the boundary-fence struggling with the refractory rope.
+
+It doesn't take any time to cross the boundary.
+
+"Will you allow me to do that for you?" says the strange young man,
+raising his hat politely, and taking the rope out of Monica's hand
+without waiting for permission.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+  How Monica makes a most important discovery and, changing suddenly
+  from "lively to severe," is reprehensibly cruel to a most
+  unoffending young man.
+
+
+"You are very kind," says Monica slowly, feeling not so much
+embarrassment as surprise at this sudden advent.
+
+Then the young man looses the rope, and, having done so, casts a cursory
+glance at the boat to which it is attached. As he does so, he lifts his
+brows.
+
+"Surely you are not dreaming of going on the river in _that_!" he says,
+indicating the wretched punt by a contemptuous wave of his hand.
+
+"Yes. Why not?" returns she.
+
+"There isn't a sound bit of timber in her. What _can_ your people be
+thinking of, to let you trust yourself in such a miserable affair?"
+
+"My people have nothing to do with it," says Monica, somewhat grandly.
+"I am _my own mistress_."
+
+She has picked up her flowers again out of the despised punt, and now
+stands before him with her hands filled with the June blossoms, blue,
+and white, and red. They show bravely against the pallor of her gown,
+and seem, indeed, to harmonize altogether with her excessive fairness,
+for her lips are as red as her poppies, and her cornflowers as blue as
+her eyes, and her skin puts her drooping daisies all to shame.
+
+"As you _are_ your own mistress," says the young man, with a suspicion
+of a smile, as he takes in the baby sweetness of her mouth, and each
+detail of her slight girlish figure, that bespeaks the child rather than
+the woman, "I entreat you to have mercy upon _yourself_."
+
+"But what is the matter with it?" asks Monica, peering into the boat.
+"It _looks_ all right; I can't see a hole in it."
+
+"It's nothing _but_ holes, in my opinion," says the strange young man,
+peering in his turn. "It's a regular _coffin_. You will be committing
+nothing less than suicide if you put your foot in it."
+
+"Dear me," says Monica, blankly, feeling impressed in spite of herself,
+"I do think I am the most unfortunate person alive. Do you know,"
+lifting her eyes to his, "I didn't sleep a wink last night, thinking of
+this row on the river to-day, and now it comes to nothing! That is just
+like my luck always. I was so bent on it; I wanted to get round that
+corner over there," pointing to it, "to see what was at the other side,
+and now I can't do it." It seems to the young man looking at her, as
+though her glance is reproachful, and as if she connects him, innocent
+as he is, with her disappointment.
+
+"There is no reason why you shouldn't," he is beginning, anxiously, when
+she contradicts him.
+
+"After all," she says, doubtfully, bending over to look into the clear
+bed of the river, "I don't believe, if things came to the worst, and I
+_did_ get swamped, I should be drowned."
+
+"Certainly not, if you could swim, or if there was any one watching over
+your welfare from the banks that could."
+
+"Well, I can't," confesses Monica, with a sigh; "and unless _you_," with
+an irrepressible laugh that shows all her white and even teeth, "will
+promise to run along the banks of the river all the afternoon to watch
+over me, I don't think there is much chance of my escaping death."
+
+"I shouldn't mind in the least being on guard in such a cause," says the
+stranger, politely, with the same carefully suppressed smile upon his
+lips (which are very handsome) as had moved them a while ago. "Command
+me if you will; but I would have you remember that, even though I should
+come to the rescue, it would not save you an unpleasant ducking,
+and--and your pretty gown," with a glance that is almost affectionate at
+the white Indian cotton, "would be completely ruined."
+
+"Even that dire idea doesn't daunt me," says Monica, gayly: "you forgot
+that the more limp I am the more aesthetic I shall look. Well," with a
+sudden relapse into melancholy, "I suppose I must give it up, and not go
+round the corner to-day."
+
+"But _why_ not?" exclaims he, eagerly. "My boat is at your service. _Do_
+take it. I have quite done with it, I have indeed, and it is lighter
+than it looks."
+
+"Too heavy for me, I am afraid," says Monica with a sigh.
+
+"Is it? Then," with desperate boldness, "let _me_ row you."
+
+"Oh, _no_!" returns she, blushing warmly. "You forget," with a swift
+glance at him, "you are quite a stranger to me."
+
+Yet he is not quite such a stranger as she thinks. She is not such a
+stranger to him at least, because her face, seen for a minute about a
+week a go, has haunted him persistently ever since.
+
+"As we live in the same neighborhood, we cannot long continue
+strangers," he says, gently; "and, in the mean time, why lose this
+lovely afternoon, and that corner you were speaking of? The view of the
+sea, when you get round it, is really worth seeing."
+
+"Yes, yes, I daresay," reluctantly turning to leave him. "I shall see it
+some day."
+
+"Look here," says the young man, very earnestly, following her as she
+moves. "If you will come with me you will see it _now_. I will only be
+your oarsman; I won't say a word to you unless you wish it; I won't even
+_look_ at you. Think of me as a common boatman you have hired by the
+hour; or, better still, don't think of me at all. With a little care you
+might bring yourself to imagine I wasn't there."
+
+"But if we met any one?" says Miss Beresford, visibly relenting.
+
+"Impossible! There is never a soul on this stream save myself. I have
+been here now every day for ten days, and never yet came upon even the
+ghost of anything human."
+
+"Very well," says Monica, though still with palpable hesitation. "Now,
+remember, you have pledged yourself not to speak to me, or to look at
+me." At this he fixes on her so prolonged a gaze that one may readily
+understand he means it to be a last one for some time.
+
+Then he turns aside, and, having brought his boat to her side of the
+fence, holds out to her his hand. As he does this he keeps his eyes bent
+upon the ground, as though determined to let her know his penance has
+already begun.
+
+"I am not in the boat yet," says Monica, with a quaint little smile,
+laying her palm on his. Whereupon he looks at her again; and then, as
+their eyes meet, they both laugh joyously, as youth will when it meets
+youth.
+
+Lightly she steps into his boat, and slowly, lazily, he rows her down
+the little river,--flower-clad on either bank,--letting the boat drift
+almost at its own sweet will.
+
+The willows, drooping towards the water's edge, woo them as they pass;
+the foolish weeds would hold them in embrace; the broad flag-flowers
+would fain entwine them. But they, though loving them, go by them,
+thinking their own thoughts, and wondering vaguely at the beauty of the
+
+    "Starry river-buds among the sedge,
+    And floating water-lilies broad and bright,
+           *       *       *       *       *
+    And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
+    As soothes the dazzled eye with sober sheen."
+
+So far silence has been scrupulously kept. Not a word has been spoken
+since they left the bank, not a look exchanged. Monica is letting her
+little slender fingers trail through the water and the flat leaves of
+the lilies. He, with his coat off, is pretending to row, but in reality
+is letting his body grow subservient to his mind. He has even adhered
+honorably to his promise not to look at her, and is still mentally
+ambitious about being true to his word in this respect, when an
+exclamation from her puts an end to all things.
+
+"Oh! look at _that_ lily!" she says, excitedly. "Was there ever such a
+beauty? If you will row a little more to the right, I am sure I shall be
+able to get it."
+
+"Don't stir. I'll get it," returns he, grateful to the lily for this
+break in their programme; and presently the floating prize is secured,
+and he lays it, wet and dripping, in her outstretched hands.
+
+"After all, you see, you broke your promise," she says, a moment later,
+most ungratefully, glancing up at him coquettishly from under her long
+lashes.
+
+"But who made me do it?" asks he, reproachfully, whereupon she laughs
+and reddens.
+
+"I never confess," she says, shaking her pretty head; "and after all--do
+you know?--I am rather glad you spoke to me, because, though I like
+being quite by myself at times, still I _hate_ silence when any one is
+with me."
+
+"So do I," says her companion, with the utmost cheerfulness.
+
+"I think," leaning towards him with a friendly smile, "I cannot do
+better than begin our acquaintance by telling you my name. It is Monica
+Beresford."
+
+"Monica," lingering over it lovingly; "a beautiful name, I think. I
+think, too, it suits you. Mine is not to be compared to yours; but, such
+as it is, I give it you!"
+
+He throws a card into her lap.
+
+"I hope it isn't John Smith," says Monica, smiling and picking up the
+card. But, as she reads what is printed thereon, the smile fades, and an
+expression of utter dismay overspreads her face.
+
+"'Desmond'--Oh! _not_ Desmond!" she says, imploringly, her lips growing
+quite pale.
+
+"Yes, it _is_ Desmond," says the young man, half amused, half puzzled.
+"You really think it ugly, then! Do you know I rather fancy my surname,
+although my Chris----"
+
+"You are not--you cannot be _the_ Desmond," interrupts she, hastily.
+
+"No; that's my uncle," says the young man, innocently.
+
+"Oh! then you acknowledge the crime?" in deep distress.
+
+"I didn't know that an old Irish title must necessarily be connected
+with guilt," says her companion, fairly puzzled.
+
+"Eh?" says Monica, puzzled in her turn. "I don't understand you: I only
+want to know if you are one of the _particular_ Desmonds?"
+
+"I suppose not," he replies, now openly amused, "because I regret to
+say we have never yet done anything worthy of note, or likely to
+distinguish us from all the other Desmonds, whose name is legion."
+
+"If you are going to tell me you live at Coole," says Miss Beresford, in
+a tone that is almost tragic, "I warn you it will be the last straw, and
+that I shan't be able to bear it."
+
+"I am not going to tell you anything," protests he.
+
+"But you must," declares she, illogically. "I may as well hear the worst
+at once. Go on," heroically; "tell me the truth. _Do_ you live there?"
+
+"I'm awfully afraid I do," says Mr. Desmond, feeling somehow, without
+knowing why, distinctly ashamed of his name and residence.
+
+"I knew it! I _felt_ it!" says Monica, with the calmness of despair.
+"Take me back to the bank at once,--this very instant, please. Oh, what
+a _row_ I should get into if they only knew!"
+
+Very justly offended at the turn affairs have taken, Mr. Desmond rows
+her in silence to the landing-place, in silence gives her his hand to
+alight, in silence makes his boat safe, without so much as a glance at
+her, although he _knows_ she is standing a little way from him,
+irresolute, remorseful, and uncertain.
+
+He might, perhaps, have maintained this dignified indifference to the
+end, but that, unfortunately lifting his eyes, he catches sight of her
+in this repentant attitude, with her head bent down, and her slim
+fingers toying nervously with the lilies of his own gathering.
+
+This picture flings dignity to the winds. Going up to her, he says, in a
+would-be careless but unmistakably offended voice, "May I ask what I
+have done, that 'they,' whoever they are, should consider you had
+disgraced yourself by being with me for half an hour?"
+
+"_You_ have done nothing," says Monica, faintly. "It was your uncle."
+
+"My _uncle!_--George Desmond! Why, what on earth can _he_ have done?"
+demands he, bewildered.
+
+"I don't know." Feeling this is indeed a lame answer to a most natural
+question, she goes on hurriedly, "It all happened twenty years ago,
+and----"
+
+"But what happened?" asks he, with pardonable impatience.
+
+"Something dreadfully wicked," says Monica, solemnly. "Something really
+very, _very_ bad, because Aunt Priscilla can't hear you spoken of with
+common patience."
+
+"_Me!_"
+
+"Not so much you, perhaps, as your name. She hates the very sound of it.
+There isn't a doubt about _that_; because, though I have not heard the
+exact story yet, I know both my aunts grow actually faint with horror
+when your uncle's name is mentioned."
+
+"Good gracious!" says the horrified nephew of this apparently
+disreputable old man. He is staring at Monica, but in reality he does
+not even see her. Before his mind's eye is a picture of a stout old
+gentleman, irascible, but kindly, with a countenance innocent of guile.
+Yet how can he doubt this girl's story? Twenty years ago, as it seems,
+George Desmond had done something too bad to be discussed. After all,
+how impossible it is to trust to appearances! As a rule, the most
+seemingly harmless people are those who are guilty of the vilest
+misdemeanors. And, yet, what on earth _could_ George have done twenty
+years ago? Visions of forgery, murder, homicide, rise up before him,
+but, try as he will, he cannot connect Mr. Desmond's face with any of
+them.
+
+"You don't exactly know yourself what the crime is with which he is
+charged?" he asks her, with growing diffidence.
+
+"No. But I shall find out, and tell----But that will be
+impossible!"--with a glance full of liveliest regret. "I _cannot_ tell
+you, because after to-day I shall never see or speak to you again."
+
+"That is the most insane nonsense I ever heard in my life," says Mr.
+Desmond.
+
+The girl shakes her head sadly.
+
+"If you won't speak to me I shall speak to you, whether you like it or
+not," says Desmond, with decision.
+
+"That will be out of your power, as you will never see me."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me I may not call at Moyne?"
+
+"Certainly I do. They wouldn't hear of it. They wouldn't, in fact,
+receive you."
+
+"But why must they visit my uncle's sins upon my shoulders? I have heard
+of a father's sins being entailed upon his heir, but never an uncle's."
+
+"It is your name," says Monica. Then she laughs a little, in spite of
+herself, and quotes, in a low tone, "Oh! Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art
+thou Romeo?"
+
+But he takes no heed of this frivolous quotation.
+
+"You mean me to understand, then, that I am never to speak to you
+again?"
+
+"I do, indeed."
+
+"What! Do you know we are to be close neighbors for the future, you and
+I? This is to be your home. Coole is to be mine. At the most, only a
+mile of road lies between us, and _here_ not quite a yard. And yet you
+calmly tell me I am from this day forth to be only a common stranger to
+you."
+
+"You look as if you were angry with _me_," says Monica, with sudden
+tears in her eyes at his injustice. "It isn't my fault; I haven't done
+anything wicked. Blame your uncle for it all."
+
+"The whole thing is simply absurd," says the young man, taking now the
+superior tone that is meant to crush the situation by holding it up to
+ridicule. "You forget, perhaps, that we shall _have_ to meet sometimes.
+I suppose the people down here give balls occasionally, and
+tennis-parties, and that; and when I meet you at them, is it your wish
+that I shall pretend never to have seen you before,--never to have known
+you?"
+
+"Yes," says Monica, with as much hesitation as lets him know how she
+hates saying it. "When next you meet me, you are to look right over my
+head, and pass on!"
+
+"I couldn't do it," returns he, gazing at her steadily. "I couldn't
+indeed. In fact, I feel it is just the last thing in the world I _could_
+do."
+
+"But you must," says Monica, imperiously, terrified to death as she
+conjures up before her Aunt Priscilla's face as it will surely be if
+this Philistine dares to address her: "I tell you my aunts would never
+forgive me if they knew I had interchanged even one syllable with you.
+From this moment you must forget me. There will really be no difficulty
+about it, as our acquaintance is but of an hour's growth. You have seen
+me for the first time to-day, and a chance meeting such as this is
+easily driven from the mind."
+
+"That is your opinion," says the young man, moodily. "It is not mine. I
+dare say _you_ will find it very easy to forget. I shan't! And this
+isn't the first time I have seen you, either. It seems to me as if years
+have rolled by since last I looked upon your face. I was standing at the
+gate of Coole, and saw you pass by, the day of your arrival in
+Rossmoyne. So, you see, we are--in spite of you--almost old friends."
+
+A bombshell flung at her feet could hardly have produced a greater
+sensation than this apparently harmless speech. All at once there rushes
+back upon her the recollection of that fatal day when she lay upon a
+cart-load of hay and (according to Terence) kicked up her heels in the
+exuberance of her joy. Oh, horror! she grows crimson from her soft
+throat to her forehead! even her little ears do not escape the tint, but
+turn a warm and guilty pink.
+
+Never until this unlucky instant did it occur to her that this strange
+young man must be the detested one who had stood in the gateway and
+laughed at her undignified position and taken the clocks of her
+stockings into careful remembrance.
+
+The one absorbing thought that he was nephew to Aunt Priscilla's bugbear
+has swallowed up all others; but now, as he himself reveals this other
+truth to her, she feels that her cup is indeed full.
+
+Deeper and deeper grows the crimson tint that dyes her pale, shy face,
+until her cheeks are all aflame. Something like anger, too, is rendering
+her sweet eyes brilliant beyond their wont. Delicately but haughtily she
+gathers up the train of her white gown and casts one expressive glance
+upon the way she came. This glance says much. Somehow it tells him as
+distinctly as though she said it aloud that she is sorry she ever came
+down to this river, and that her sorrow arises from the fact that it was
+here she encountered him.
+
+While he is still sore perplexed by her sudden change of demeanor, she
+turns away from him. Then, pausing, she turns again, and bestows upon
+him so indignant a look as completely finishes this ill used young man.
+
+"I object to hasty friendships," she says, icily. "And," pausing as if
+to make the effect greater, "if I were _you_, I think I should seek some
+better employment than standing _idling all day long_ at your uncle's
+gate."
+
+With this parting shaft, and before he can recover from his
+consternation, she goes swiftly away from him, up through the meadows,
+home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+  How Monica is put in possession of a dreadful secret--And how Kit
+  protests against the injustice of the world.
+
+
+"An invitation from Madam O'Connor," says Miss Priscilla in a pleased
+tone, glancing at them all, over the top of her spectacles. She has the
+card in her hand, and slowly reads aloud the information printed upon
+it, to the effect that Madam O'Connor will be at home on Friday the
+15th, from four to six o'clock, etc.
+
+"I am very glad she has asked Terence and Monica," says Miss Penelope.
+"Excessively attentive I call it."
+
+"Will you go, Aunt Priscilla?" asks Monica, in a sneaky sort of tone.
+Her young soul hankers after the world, and will not be subdued. Upon
+Miss Priscilla's "yes" or "no" she waits with an anxiety that surprises
+even herself.
+
+"Certainly, my dear," says Miss Blake, drawing herself up. "I shall feel
+it my duty to take you to all such places as will enable you to mix with
+people in your own rank of life. I am not one of those who think it well
+for young girls to lead the life of nuns. No, indeed!"
+
+"I quite agree with you, my dear Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, who is
+an echo of her elder sister. "Yes, we will rouse ourselves, and once
+more seek the world."
+
+"But I would not have you make yourselves unhappy," says Monica,
+falteringly.
+
+"Nay, my dear, it will be a pleasure, for _your_ sake."
+
+Not for worlds, even to themselves, would these two old ladies
+acknowledge that they are right glad of the chance that has come to them
+of introducing so beautiful a niece to the gay world around them, and of
+mingling, even in a subdued and decorous fashion, with the amusements
+that for the last five years they have (most unwillingly, be it said,
+but on the score of age) declined.
+
+"I wonder who will be there," says Monica, in a fresher tone, striving
+vainly to drown the hope that is taking possession of her, a hope that
+connects itself with a certain blue-eyed, dark-haired young man, last
+seen in boating flannels.
+
+"Everybody," says Miss Priscilla,--"the entire country. Madam
+O'Connor may not be--is not--there may be certain points about
+her--that"--floundering hopelessly--"I mean"--with a rush--"there are
+a few who object to her _manner_ but her birth is undeniable, and she
+has a large fortune; you must know, my dear, her father was a direct
+descendant of King O'Toole, and her husband the head of one of the
+oldest families in Ireland."
+
+"Is that the old woman who called here the day before yesterday?" asked
+Terence, irreverently. They are all sitting in the drawing-room, Terence
+being rather on the balcony perhaps.
+
+"Yes--I regret you were not in to receive her. I should have liked you
+to make her acquaintance, Monica, before going to Aghyohillbeg."
+
+"Oh I saw her," says Terence, contemptuously, "she's got an eye like a
+lance, and a man's figure. She drove herself, and held the reins like
+this," throwing himself into position.
+
+"If you are going out, Terence, you may as well go at once," says Miss
+Priscilla, with dignity, pretending neither to hear nor see him.
+Whereupon Terence gladly departs.
+
+"Go on, auntie," says Monica, slipping down on a footstool close to Aunt
+Penelope, and leaning both her arms across the old lady's knee. "Who
+else will be there?"
+
+"Yes, tell her everything, Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, smoothing the
+girl's hair softly, and feeling a strange thrill of pleasure in her
+heart as she notices the little confident gesture with which the girl
+nestles close to her.
+
+"Well, there will be her own guests, of course, I mean those staying
+with her, for she always has her house full," says Miss Priscilla, after
+a slight pause, being still somewhat ruffled by Terry's remarks. "The
+Fitzgeralds will be there, of course. Bella is considered a very
+handsome girl, but I don't think you will like her much."
+
+"No, no, she is not at all our Monica's style," says Miss Penelope,
+stroking the pretty cheek near her with her mittened hand. "Yet she has
+a fine skin."
+
+"Ay, and a fine temper under it, or I'm a Dutchman," says Miss
+Priscilla. "And she is more peculiar than handsome; but men admire her,
+so _we_ say nothing."
+
+"Is she tall?" asks Monica, anxiously, who is a little thing herself,
+and looks even smaller than she really is because of her slender,
+girlish figure. She wonders in a vague, uncomfortable fashion
+whether--whether most men like tall women best.
+
+"Tall? yes, and large in proportion; and as for her _manners_," says
+Miss Priscilla, in her severest tone, "in my opinion they are simply
+unbearable. Modesty in my days was a virtue, nowadays it is as _naught_.
+Bella Fitzgerald is never content unless she has every man in the room
+at her side, and goodness alone knows what it is she says to them. The
+way she sets her cap at that poor boy Ronayne, just because he has
+fallen in for that property, is quite revolting."
+
+"And a mere lad, too," says Miss Penelope.
+
+Monica draws a breath of relief. Perhaps if Miss Fitzgerald likes Mr.
+Ronayne she will not care to practise her fascinations upon----any other
+man.
+
+"How old is she?" she asks, feeling deeply interested in the
+conversation.
+
+"She _says_ she is twenty-four," says Miss Priscilla, with an eloquent
+sniff. "There is nothing easier to say than that. I _won't_ be
+uncharitable, my dear Penelope,--you needn't look at me like that,--but
+this I must say, she looks every hour of eight and twenty."
+
+"Her mother ought to know," says Miss Penelope.
+
+"She ought, indeed," grimly. "But, as from the way she dresses we may
+reasonably conclude she thinks _herself_ nineteen, I suppose she has
+lost her memory on all points."
+
+"Her father, Otho Fitzgerald, was the same," says Miss Penelope,
+reflectively. "He never could bear the idea of age. He was one who saw
+nothing honorable in it. Gray hairs with him were a crime."
+
+"So he used to dye them," says Miss Priscilla, maliciously; "and when he
+got warm the dye used to melt, and (unknown to him) run all down his
+cheek."
+
+"Oh, Priscilla, how you remember things? Dear, dear, I think I see him
+now," says Miss Penelope. And here the two old ladies, overcome by this
+comical recollection, laugh until the tears run down their faces. Monica
+joins in from sheer sympathy; but Kit, who is sitting in the embrasure
+of a distant window and who had been strangely silent ever since the
+invitation came from Aghyohillbeg, maintains a stern gravity.
+
+"Poor man," says Miss Penelope, wiping her eyes, "I shall never forget
+the night your sweet mother, my dear Monica, most unintentionally
+offended him about the diamond--you recollect, Priscilla? Tell Monica of
+it."
+
+"He always wore a huge diamond ring upon his little finger," says Miss
+Priscilla, addressing Monica, "of which he was very proud. He was at
+this time about fifty-three, but used to pose as a man of thirty-nine.
+One evening showing the ring to your mother, then quite a girl, he said
+to her, in his stilted way, 'This jewel has been in our family for fifty
+years.' 'Ah! did you buy it, Mr. Fitzgerald?' asks your mother, in her
+sweet innocent way. Ha, ha, ha!" laughs Miss Priscilla, "you should have
+seen his face. It was a picture! and just when he was trying to make
+himself agreeable to your poor mother, and acting as if he was a
+youthful beau of twenty-five, or at least as young as the best of us."
+
+"That was so like mother," says Monica, in a low tone. "She always knew
+where to _touch_ people."
+
+"Oh, no, my dear, not at all like her," says Miss Penelope, hastily.
+"She didn't _mean_ it, you must understand; she was the very soul of
+sweetness, and would not willingly affront any one for the world."
+
+For just an instant Monica lifts her eyes and gazes earnestly at her
+aunt; but the old face is so earnest and sincere that with a faint sigh
+she lowers her eyes again, and makes no further remark.
+
+"After that he married his cousin's wife, a widow with one child, this
+girl, Bella," says Miss Priscilla, still full of reminiscences, as old
+people will be. "A most unpleasant person I thought her, though she was
+considered quite a belle in those days."
+
+"She always appeared to me such a silly woman," says Miss Penelope.
+
+"She is worse than that now," says Miss Priscilla, who seems specially
+hard on the Fitzgeralds. "She is a shocking old woman, with a nose like
+a flower-pot. I won't say she drinks, my dear Penelope, because I know
+you would object to it; but I _hear_ she does, and certainly her nose is
+her betrayer."
+
+"Do you remember," says Miss Penelope, "how anxious she once was to
+marry George Desmond?" This she says in a very low tone.
+
+"Yes, I remember." The bare mention of her enemy's name has sent a flush
+of crimson into Miss Priscilla's cheeks. "But he never bestowed a
+thought upon _her_."
+
+"Oh, no, never," says Miss Penelope, after which both the Misses Blake
+grow silent and seem to be slowly sinking into the land of revery.
+
+But Monica, having heard the "enemy's name" mentioned, becomes filled
+with a determination to sift the mystery connected with him, now, to the
+end.
+
+"Aunt Priscilla," she says, softly, looking at her with grave eyes
+across Miss Penelope's knees, "tell me, now, why Mr. Desmond is our
+enemy."
+
+"Oh, not _now_," says Miss Penelope, nervously.
+
+"Yes, now, please," says Monica, with ever-increasing gravity.
+
+"It may all be said in a few words, Monica," says Miss Priscilla,
+slowly. "And what I have to say affects you, my dear, even more than
+us."
+
+"_Me?_"
+
+"Yes, in that it affects your mother. Twenty years ago George Desmond
+was her affianced husband. Twenty years ago, wilfully and without
+cause, he deliberately broke with her his plighted troth."
+
+"He threw her over?" exclaims Monica, aghast at this revelation.
+
+"Well, I never heard be used actual violence to her, my dear," says Miss
+Penelope, in a distressed tone; "but he certainly broke off his
+engagement with her, and behaved as no man of honor could possibly
+behave."
+
+"And mother must have been quite beautiful at that time, must she not?"
+says Monica, rising to her knees in her excitement, and staring with
+widely-opened eyes of purest amazement from one aunt to the other.
+
+"'Beautiful as the blushing morn,'" says Miss Priscilla, quoting from
+some ancient birthday-book. "But, you see, even her beauty was powerless
+to save her from insult. From what we could learn, he absolutely refused
+to fulfil his marriage-contract with her. He was false to the oath he
+had sworn over our father's dying bed."
+
+Nothing can exceed the scorn and solemnity of Miss Priscilla's manner as
+she says all this.
+
+"And what did mother do?" asks Monica, curiously.
+
+"What _could_ she do, poor child? I have no doubt it went nigh to
+breaking her heart."
+
+"Her heart?" says Monica.
+
+"She suffered acutely. That we could see, or rather we had to guess it,
+as for days she kept her own chamber and would see no one, going out
+only when it was quite dusk for a solitary ramble. Ah! when sorrow
+afflicts the soul, there is no balm so great as solitude. Your poor
+mother took the whole affair dreadfully to heart."
+
+"You mean that she really _fretted_?" asks Monica, still in the same
+curious way, with her eyes fixed on her aunt. There is, indeed, so much
+unstudied surprise in her whole manner as might have produced a
+corresponding amount in the Misses Blake, had they noticed it.
+
+"Yes, my dear, of course. Dear, dear, dear! what a sad thing it all was!
+Well, now you understand all that it is needful you should, Monica,"
+says Miss Penelope, with a glance at her sister, who really seems quite
+overcome. "So we will say no more about it. Only you can see for
+yourself how impossible it is for any of our blood to be on friendly
+terms with a Desmond."
+
+"They may not all be like _that_ Mr. Desmond," says Monica, timidly,
+coloring to her brow.
+
+"Yes, yes. Like father, like son; you know the old adage; and a nephew
+is as close a relation almost. We can know no one at Coole."
+
+"I would almost rather see you dead than intimate with one of the name,"
+says Miss Priscilla, with sudden harshness.
+
+"I don't think we told Monica about the other guests at Aghyohillbeg,"
+says Miss Penelope, hastily, with the kindly intention of changing the
+conversation. "A very pretty young woman came there about a week before
+your arrival, child, and is to remain, I believe, for some time. She is
+a widow, and young, and--by the bye, I wonder if she can be any relation
+to your friends in the South of France."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Her name is Bohun, and----"
+
+"Not _Olga_ Bohun?" says Monica, springing to her feet. "A widow, you
+say, and young. Oh! auntie, if she only _might_ be Olga!"
+
+"Well, certainly she has a heathenish--I mean, a Russian--name like
+that," says Miss Priscilla. "She is a very little woman, with merry
+eyes, and she laughs always, and she has the prettiest, the most
+courteous manners. Quite a relief I found her, after the inanities of
+Bella Fitzgerald."
+
+"She is even smaller than I am. Yes, and her eyes do laugh!" says
+Monica, delight making her cheeks warm. "She is the prettiest thing. Ah!
+how happy I shall be if I may see her sometimes!"
+
+"You shall see her just as often as ever you and she wish," say the two
+old maids in a breath, glad in the thought that they can make her home
+at Moyne happy to her.
+
+"I hope _you_ like her," says Monica, glancing from one to the other of
+them.
+
+"Yes. I thought her quite fascinating," says Miss Penelope. "Some people
+say she is rather--rather _fast_, I believe is the word they use
+nowadays," getting the word out with difficulty, as though afraid it may
+go off and do somebody an injury. "But for my part I don't believe a
+word of it. She is quite natural, and most pleasing in manner,
+_especially_ to those who are older than herself. A great charm in these
+times, my dear, when age is despised."
+
+Plainly, the little widow at Aghyohillbeg has been playing off her
+sweetest graces upon the two Misses Blake.
+
+"I dare say Monica will like young Ronayne," says Miss Priscilla. "He is
+quite nice, that lad. But I hope, Monica, that, even if circumstances
+should throw you together, you will take no notice of young Mr.
+Desmond. I myself would not exchange a word with him if a queen's diadem
+were offered me as a bribe."
+
+"You might speak to him without knowing him," says Monica, blushing
+again that nervous crimson of a while ago.
+
+"Impossible, my dear. Instinct, sharpened by hatred, would tell me when
+one of the race was near me."
+
+"Well, as it is your first party here, dear child, I hope you will enjoy
+it," says Miss Penelope, quickly, as though again anxious to throw oil
+on the waters by changing the conversation. "It is a charming place, and
+its mistress, if a little rough, is at least kindly."
+
+At this moment Kit, emerging from the curtains that have hidden her for
+the past hour, comes slowly to the front. Her face, her very attitude,
+is martial. She is plainly in battle-array. Pausing before Miss
+Priscilla, she directs her first fire upon her.
+
+"Am I not asked at all?" she says, in a terrible tone, that contrasts
+painfully with the ominous silence she has maintained ever since the
+invitation was brought by Mrs. O'Connor's groom.
+
+"My dear child, you must remember you are only fourteen," says Miss
+Priscilla, who is sincerely sorry the child has not been included in the
+invitation, and, in fact, thinks it rather unkind she has been left out.
+
+"I _know_ that, thank you," says the youngest Miss Beresford,
+uncompromisingly, fixing her aunt with a stony glare. "I know my
+birthday as well as most people. And so, just because I am a child, I am
+to be slighted, am I? I call it unfair! I call it beastly _mean_, that
+every one here is to be invited out to enjoy themselves except _me_."
+
+"Young people are seldom asked to grown-up parties," says Miss
+Priscilla, in her best conciliatory manner. "When you are as old as
+Monica, of course you will go everywhere. In the meantime you are only a
+child."
+
+"I am old enough to conduct myself properly, at all events," says Kit,
+unmoved. "I suppose at _fourteen_"--as if this is an age replete with
+wisdom--"I am not likely to do anything _very_ extraordinary, or make
+myself unpleasant, or be in anybody's way."
+
+"That is not the question, at all: it is merely one of age," says Miss
+Priscilla.
+
+"Is it? And yet people say a great deal about childhood being the
+happiest time of one's life," says Kit, almost choking with scornful
+rage. "I should just like to see the fellow who first said that. Maybe I
+wouldn't enlighten him, and tell him what a hypocrite he was. Whoever
+said it, it is a decided untruth, and I know I wish to goodness I was
+grown up, because then," with withering emphasis, "I should not be
+trampled upon and insulted!"
+
+This is dreadful. The two old ladies, unaccustomed in their quiet lives
+to tornadoes and volcanoes of any kind, are almost speechless with
+fright.
+
+"Dearest," says Monica, going up to her, "how _can_ you look at it in
+such a light?"
+
+"It's all very well for you," says the indignant Kit: "_you're_ going,
+you know. I'm to stay at home, like that wretched Cinderella!"
+
+"Katherine, I am sure you are quite unaware of the injustice of your
+remarks," says Miss Priscilla, at last finding her voice. She is bent on
+delivering a calm rebuke; but inwardly (as any one can see) she is
+quaking. "And I have frequently told you before that the expression 'I
+wish to goodness,' which you used just now, is anything but ladylike. It
+is not nice; it is not proper."
+
+"I don't care what is proper or improper, when I am treated as I now
+am," says the rebel, with flashing eyes and undaunted front.
+
+"There is really _nothing_ to complain of," says Miss Priscilla,
+earnestly, seeing censure has no effect. "Madam O'Connor would not
+willingly offend any one; she is a very kind woman, and----"
+
+"She is a regular old wretch!" says the youngest Miss Beresford, with
+considerable spirit.
+
+"My _dear_ Katherine!"
+
+"And it's my belief she has done it _on purpose_!" with increasing rage.
+
+"Katherine, I must insist----"
+
+"You may insist as you like, but I'll be even with her yet," persists
+Kit, after which, being quite overcome with wrath, she breaks down, and
+bursts into a violent fit of weeping.
+
+"My dear child, don't do that," says Miss Penelope, rising
+precipitately, and going over to the weeping fury. "Priscilla," in a
+trembling tone, "I fear it is selfish. I think, my dear, I shall stay at
+home, too, the day you all go to Madam O'Connor's."
+
+This kills the storm at once.
+
+"No, no, indeed, Aunt Penny, you shan't." Kit cries, subdued, but still
+in tears. She is overcome with remorse, and blames herself cruelly in
+that her ill temper should have led to this proposal of self-sacrifice.
+To give in to Kit is the surest and quickest method of gaining your own
+point. She throws her arms, as she speaks, around Miss Penelope's neck,
+and nearly strangles that dear old lady in her remorseful agitation, to
+say nothing of the deadly havoc she makes of her frills and laces.
+
+"But indeed, my Kitten, it will be no privation to me to stay at home
+with you, and we will be quite happy together, and we will have our tea
+out in the orchard," says Miss Penelope, soothing her with sweet words;
+while Miss Priscilla, who is thoroughly frightened by the sobbing, pats
+the refractory child on the back, with a view to allaying all fear of
+convulsions.
+
+"You shan't stay at home, Aunt Penny,--you shan't indeed," cries the
+inconsistent Kitten. "I like being alone, I _love_ it; if you don't go
+to that place with the long name, and enjoy yourself very much, I shall
+be miserable all my life, though I love you very, very, _very_ much for
+wishing to keep me from being lonely. Tell her I mean it, Monica."
+
+"Yes, I am sure she means it," says Monica, earnestly, whereupon peace
+is once more restored to the breasts of the terrified aunts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+  How Monica goes to Aghyohillbeg, and meets there an old friend and a
+  very new one.
+
+
+Time flies, and no man can reach his hand to stay it. A very good thing,
+too, thinks Monica, as she stands before her looking-glass putting the
+last pretty touches to her white toilet.
+
+It is Friday. Madam O'Connor's garden-party lies before her, and,
+probably, other things. Here she blushes at herself, as she sees that
+pretty soul in the glass, though, indeed, she has no cause to do so; but
+possibly the vague thought of those "other things" has something to do
+with it, and perhaps it is for their sake too that she places with such
+care the heavy, blood-colored rose beneath her chin.
+
+This is the only suspicion of color about her. Her gown is white; her
+hat is white; long white silk gloves run up her rounded arms as though
+bent on joining her sleeves far above the elbow. A white Surat sash is
+tied round her dainty waist. She is looking "as fair as the moon, as
+lovely as a rose," and altogether distinctly dangerous.
+
+Perhaps she half recognizes this fact, because she smiles at her own
+reflection, and--vain little girl that she is--stoops forward and kisses
+herself in the happy glass that holds her even for so brief a minute;
+after which she summons her maid from her dressing-room beyond.
+
+"Canty," she says, as the "uncle's wife's sister's child" enters, "I am
+dressed now; and----"
+
+"Shure, so you are, miss; and lovely ye look, more power to ye."
+
+"Make my room very tidy," says Monica, giving her her directions before
+starting. "And, Canty, I shall want my blue dress for dinner. You can
+put it out."
+
+"Yes, miss," whereupon Monica prepares to leave the room; but the new
+maid stops her.
+
+"If ye please, Miss Monica," she says, hesitating, and applying her
+apron to her lips.
+
+"Yes, Canty?"
+
+"I'd be very thankful to ye, miss, if ye wouldn't call me that."
+
+"Call you what?"
+
+"Canty, miss."
+
+"But," astonished, "isn't it your name?"
+
+"No, miss; me name is Bridget."
+
+"But surely Canty is your name, too?"
+
+"Well, it's me father's name, miss, no doubt; but faix I feel just like
+a boy when ye call me by it, an' ye wouldn't like me to feel like a boy,
+miss, would ye?" says the village beauty casting an anxious glance at
+Monica from her dark Irish eyes, and blushing deeply.
+
+"Certainly not," says Monica, laughing a little. "Very well, Bridget; I
+shall try to forget you ever had a surname."
+
+"Thank ye, miss," says Bridget, with a sigh of profound relief.
+
+Then Monica runs downstairs, where she finds her aunts in the
+drawing-room, dressed in their very best silk gowns, waiting for the
+carriage to come round. There is a little delay, which wasted time the
+two old ladies spend in endeavoring to drill Terence into shape.
+Something of this sort is going on as Monica enters.
+
+"When I introduce you to Madam O'Connor or Lady Rossmoyne, my dear boy,
+be sure you make a very low bow. Nothing distinguishes a gentleman so
+much from the common herd as the manner of his salute. Now make me a
+bow, that I may judge of your style." Thus Miss Priscilla.
+
+"I couldn't make one to order like that," says Terence; yet he sulkily
+complies, making a very short, stiff, and uncompromising nod that makes
+both aunts lift their hands in dismay.
+
+"Oh, no, my dear!--that won't do _at all_! Most ungraceful, and totally
+devoid of the dignity that should inspire it. Now look at me. It should
+be something like _this_," making him a reverence that might well have
+created admiration in the court of Queen Anne.
+
+"Ah, yes! that is something like what it should be," chimes in Miss
+Penelope, paying a tribute to the talent of her sister. "Priscilla has
+caught the true tone. I wish, Terence, we could see you more like your
+dear grandfather; _he_ was a man to bow."
+
+Terence, calling to mind the portrait of his "dear grandfather," as
+represented in the elaborate gilt frame in the dining-room, in a court
+suit and a periwig, and with an abominable simper, most devoutly thanks
+his gods that he is _not_ like unto him. He is, indeed (feeling goaded
+to the last degree), about to break into unseemly language, when,
+fortunately, the arrival of the ancient equipage that has done duty at
+Moyne as state carriage for generations is announced.
+
+The coachman, who is considerably older than Timothy, draws up the old
+horses before the door with a careful manner that impresses the beholder
+with the belief that he thinks they would run away in a minute if he
+relaxed a muscle on the reins; and a small boy who acts as footman and
+looks decidedly depressed, lets down the rickety steps.
+
+Miss Priscilla Blake then enters the carriage. She is followed with much
+ceremony by Miss Penelope. After which Monica, who is impressed by the
+proceedings, and Terence, who is consumed with secret mirth, step in and
+seat themselves. Then the coachman says, "Gee up!" in exactly the tone
+he has employed for forty years; and the gloomy boy settling down beside
+him, they are all presently on the fair road to Aghyohillbeg.
+
+The drive is a very pleasant one, though filled with injunctions of the
+most obsolete from the Misses Blake as to their behavior, etc. The fact
+is, that the two old maids are so puffed out with pride at the thought
+that they will presently introduce to the county the handsome lad and
+beautiful girl opposite them that they have grown fidgety and
+over-anxious about the niceties of their presentation.
+
+"Surely," say the Misses Blake to themselves and to each other, "not
+half so pretty a pair could be produced by any family in the south!"
+
+Which is saying a great deal, as in the south of Ireland a pretty face
+is more the rule than the exception.
+
+Over the dusty road they go, calmly, carefully, the old horses being
+unaccustomed to fast ways of any sort; slowly, with much care they pick
+their aged steps, never stumbling, never swerving, but as certainly
+never giving way to frivolous haste.
+
+Then, all at once, as it seems to Monica, the hillside seems to break in
+twain, and a great iron gate appears, into which they turn to drive in
+their solemn fashion down a dark avenue shaded by swaying elms.
+
+It is a perfect place, old as the hills that surround it, and wild in
+its loveliness. To right and left great trees, gnarled and moss-grown,
+and dipping tangles of blackberry and fern; patches of sunlight, amidst
+the gloom, that rests lovingly upon a glowing wilderness of late
+bluebells, and, beyond all these broad glimpses of the glorious,
+restless ocean, as it sleeps in its bay below.
+
+Gazing at all this natural beauty, Monica's soft eyes and heart expand,
+and,--
+
+    "Joy rises in her like a summer morn."
+
+And then she sees an old house, low, broad, picturesque, with balconies
+and terraces, and beyond the house slanting lawns, and at one side
+tennis-courts, where many gayly-clad figures are moving to and fro.
+There is a sound of subdued laughter and the perfume of many flowers,
+and a general air of gayety; it is as though to-day care has utterly
+forgotten this one favored corner of the earth.
+
+Then they all descend from the time honored chariot, and cross the lawn
+to where they can see their hostess standing, tall and erect and
+handsome, in spite of her sixty years.
+
+"Your niece?" says Madam O'Connor, staring hard at Monica's pure little
+face, the girl looking straight back at her with a certain amount of
+curiosity in her eyes.--"Well, I wish you no greater fortune than your
+face, my dear," says the old Irishwoman. "It ought to be a rich one,
+I'm thinking. You're like your mother, too; but your eyes are honester
+than hers. You must know I knew Kitty Blake very well at one time."
+
+"I have heard my mother speak of you," says Monica.
+
+"Ay--so? Yet I fear there wasn't much love lost between us."
+
+Then she turns a little aside to greet some one else, and Monica lets
+her eyes roam round the grounds. Suddenly she starts, and says out
+loud,--
+
+"Ah! there is Olga?"
+
+"You know Mrs. Bohun, then?" says her hostess, attracted by her
+exclamation and her pretty vivacious expression.
+
+"So very, very well," says Monica. She has flushed warmly, and her eyes
+are brilliant. "I want to speak to her; I want to go to her, _please_."
+
+"Bless me! what a shame to waste that lovely blush on a mere woman!"
+says Madam O'Connor, with a merry laugh. "Here, Fred," turning to a
+young man standing close to her with a very discontented expression, "I
+am going to give you a mission after your own heart. You are to take
+Miss Beresford over there, to where Mrs. Bohun is dealing death to all
+those boys.--This is Lord Rossmoyne, Miss Beresford: he will see you
+safely over your rubicon."
+
+"Oh, thank you!" says Monica, gratefully smiling at her.
+
+"Tut, child! thank me when I have done something for you. It is Fred's
+turn to thank me now," says Madam O'Connor, with a merry twinkle in her
+gray eyes.
+
+She is a large woman close on sixty, with an eagle eye and a hawk's
+nose. As Monica leaves her she continues her gossip with the half dozen
+young men round her, who are all laughing at some joke. Presently she
+herself is laughing louder than any of them (being partial to boys and
+their "fun," as she calls it). Bestowing now a smart blow with her fan
+upon the youngest and probably therefore most flippant of her
+attendants, she stalks away from them across the lawn, to where two
+ladies are sitting together.
+
+One is elderly, but most ridiculously dressed in juvenile attire, that
+might have well suited the daughter sitting beside her. This latter is a
+tall girl, and large in every way, with curious eyes and a rather harsh
+voice; she is laughing now at some remark made by a man lounging at the
+back of her chair, and the laugh is both affected and discordant.
+
+"Have you seen that girl of Kitty Beresford's, Edith?" asks Madam
+O'Connor of the elder lady.
+
+"That little washed-out-looking girl who came with those two old Miss
+Blakes?" asks the youthful old woman, with a profoundly juvenile lisp.
+
+"Faith, I don't know about her being washed out," says Madam O'Connor,
+bluntly. "I think she is the prettiest creature I've seen this many a
+day."
+
+"You are so impulsive, my dear Theresa!" says her friend, with a simper:
+"all your geese are swans."
+
+"And other people's swans my geese, I suppose," says Madam, with a
+glance at the tall girl, which somehow brings the conversation to a full
+stop.
+
+Meantime, Monica is crossing the soft turf, with the moody man called
+Rossmoyne beside her. She can see her goal in the distance, and finds
+comfort in the thought that soon she must be there, as she cannot bring
+herself to be agreeable to her new acquaintance; and certainly he is
+feeling no desire just at present to be agreeable to her or to anybody.
+
+As Monica comes nearer to her friend, she gazes anxiously at her, as
+though to see if time has worked a change in her.
+
+She is quite a little woman about five and twenty, but looking at least
+four years younger than that. Her eyes are large, dark, and mischievous.
+Her hair is so fair as to be almost silvery; naturally wavy, it is cut
+upon the forehead in the prevailing fashion, but not curled. Her mouth
+is small, mutinous, and full of laughter; her nose distinctly retrousse.
+Altogether she is distractingly pretty, and, what goes for more
+nowadays, very peculiar in style, and out of the common.
+
+She is exquisitely dressed in a costume that suggests Paris. She is a
+harmony in black and white, as Lord Rossmoyne told her an hour ago, when
+he was _not_ wearing his discontented expression. Seated beside her is a
+tall pallid woman with a cold face, but very velvety eyes and a smile
+rare but handsome. Every now and then this smile betrays itself, as her
+companion says anything that chances to amuse her. She is a Mrs.
+Herrick, a cousin of Olga Bohun's, and is now on a visit with her at
+Aghyohillbeg.
+
+There are several men grouped round Mrs. Bohun, all in various standing
+positions. One man is lying at her feet. He is a tall slight young
+fellow, of about twenty-three, with a lean face, dark hair, and
+beautiful teeth. He has, too, beautiful eyes, and a most lovable
+expression, half boyish, but intensely earnest and very sensitive.
+
+Just now he appears happy and careless, and altogether as if he and the
+world are friends indeed, and that he is filled with the belief that
+every one likes him; and, in truth, he is right in so believing, for
+every one does like him, and a great many are fond of him, and some love
+him.
+
+He is looking up at Mrs. Bohun, and is talking rapidly, as Monica and
+Lord Rossmoyne come up behind them.
+
+"What! another bit of scandal?" exclaims Mrs. Bohun, lifting her brows
+in pleased anticipation. "The air seemed full of it. An hour ago I heard
+of the dire discomfiture of two of my dearest friends, and just now I
+listened to a legend of Belgravia that was distinctly _fifi_ and had a
+good deal to do with a marchioness. It is really quite too much
+happiness for _one_ day."
+
+"My tale does not emanate from such an aristocratic region as
+Belgravia," says Ulic Ronayne, the man at her feet: "it is, I blush to
+say, from the city."
+
+"Ah!" in a regretful tone; "then it will of course be decenter. Don't
+trouble to expend color on it, as I daresay there isn't a blush in the
+whole of it. Well," resignedly, "go on."
+
+In the usual quick manner habitual to him, and with the slight but
+eloquent amount of gesture common to Irish people, Ronayne tells his
+news, which is received with low laughter by those around.
+
+"I've heard better stories," says Mrs. Bohun, discontentedly; "and it
+isn't a bit like what Lord Tommy would do. It is more in Rossmoyne's
+line. I don't think I believe it. And the roundabout way in which you
+told it reminds one of a three-volume novel: the first leads up to the
+point, the third winds up the point, the second _is_ the point. I
+confess I like the second volume best. When I grow funny over my friends
+I'm _all_ second."
+
+"Then don't be funny about me, please," says Ronayne, lazily.
+
+"_Are_ you my friend?" asks she, glancing at him. Lifting his eyes to
+hers, he pauses, and then says slowly, the smile dying from his face,--
+
+"Well, perhaps _not_."
+
+Then he lowers his eyes again, and goes back to his idle occupation of
+decorating with daisies some of the fantastic loops upon her gown.
+
+At this moment Lord Rossmoyne, coming forward, says, sullenly, "May I
+hear the story that just now reminded you of me? But first----" He
+pauses, and glances at Monica. Mrs. Bohun, following his glance, rises
+hurriedly from her seat, and going up to the girl, embraces her warmly.
+
+"Ah! my _pretty_ Monica! my little saint!" she cries, in her sweet, gay
+voice, "what happy breeze has blown you hither?"
+
+"I am living here,--at Moyne,--with my aunts," in a happy, breathless
+way. "Some days ago they described you to me, and I knew it must be you.
+I was right. And to-day I have found you."
+
+"I'm always found out, as a rule," says Mrs. Bohun, with a light laugh.
+"That is my standing grievance. You know Hermia, don't you?" indicating
+the tall, cold-looking woman near her, who so far unbends as to take
+Monica's hand kindly and bestow upon her one of her handsome smiles.
+"She has come here to look after me and see that I don't get into a
+scrape or make myself unhappy."
+
+"Could you be unhappy?" says Rossmoyne, from behind her chair, in so
+disagreeable a tone that every one looks at him. "Decidedly," thinks
+Monica to herself, "he has either neuralgia or an execrable temper."
+
+"Miserably so," says the pretty widow, airily. "Though, after all,"
+reflectively, "I believe I have even a greater talent for making others
+so. That, however, is my misfortune, not my fault. I was 'born so,' like
+that poor man with the twisted neck."
+
+"Well, this is not one of your miserably unhappy hours, at all events,"
+says Hermia Herrick. "You have been in magnificent spirits ever since
+you came to Aghyohillbeg."
+
+"You've learned it?" says Olga, staring at her with pretended surprise.
+"The name, I mean. Well, you _are_ clever. It takes most people four
+long weeks. Oh, yes, I am blissfully happy here. I _ought_ to be. It
+would be the grossest ingratitude if I were otherwise, as all the men
+have been good enough to fall in love with me, and that, of course, is
+the principal thing."
+
+At this the young man at her feet smiles openly and presses his face
+unperceived against her gown; but Rossmoyne throws up his head and
+glances with a coldly displeased expression into the vague distance.
+
+"Have you been here long?" asks Monica, turning to her friend.
+
+"_Very_ long," pettishly. Something--perhaps Rossmoyne--has annoyed the
+capricious beauty.
+
+"Only a fortnight," says Mrs. Herrick, briefly. "You _must_ know that."
+
+"I don't judge time by days and weeks; it _seems_ long," says Mrs.
+Bohun, "years,--an eternity almost!"
+
+A sudden gloom appears to have fallen upon the group. Rossmoyne's dark
+face grows darker still; the smile fades from Ronayne's face, a shadow
+falls athwart his eyes.
+
+"I think I like the country," says Monica, suddenly. "It is so calm, so
+quiet, and there are moments when the very beauty of it brings tears to
+my eyes."
+
+"I love it too," says Ronayne, quickly, addressing her pointedly in a
+friendly tone, although no introduction has been gone through between
+them. "I wonder how any one who has once tasted the sweetness of it can
+ever again long for the heat and turmoil of the town."
+
+"Yes, for a time it is charming, all-sufficing," says Mrs. Bohun, "but
+for what a _little_ time! Perhaps,--I am not sure,--but _perhaps_ I
+should like to live for three months of every year in the country. After
+that, I know I should begin to pine again for the smoke and smuts of my
+town."
+
+"If you are already wearied, I wonder you stay here," says Lord
+Rossmoyne, sullenly.
+
+"And I wonder what has happened to-day to your usually so charming
+temper," returns she, laughingly uplifting her face to his, and letting
+her eyes rest on him with almost insolent inquiry.
+
+"Desmond says good temper is a mere matter of digestion," says some one
+at this moment. Monica starts more at the name mentioned than at the
+exceedingly worn-out words uttered. She glances at the speaker, and sees
+he is a very ugly young man, with a nice face, and a remarkably dismal
+expression. He is looking at Rossmoyne. "Sit down, dear boy," he says,
+_sotto voce_ and very sadly. "There's too much of you; you should never
+stand. You appear to so much better advantage when doubled in two. It
+don't _sound_ well, does it? but----"
+
+"But really, when you come to think of it," Mrs. Bohun is saying,
+feelingly, "there is very little in the country."
+
+"There is at least the fascinating tulip and lily," says the sad man who
+mentioned Desmond's name. "Don't put yourself beyond the pale of art by
+saying you had forgotten those aesthetic flowers,--blossoms, I mean.
+Don't you yearn when you think of them? _I_ do."
+
+"So glad you are awake at last, Owen!" says Mrs. Bohun.
+
+"That silly craze about tulips," says Mrs. Herrick, contemptuously, "I
+have always treated it with scorn. Why could not the art idiots have
+chosen some better flower for their lunatic ravings? What can _any_ one
+see in a tulip?"
+
+"Sometimes earwigs," says the man called Owen.
+
+"Nonsense! I don't believe even earwigs would care for it. Foolish,
+gaudy thing, uplifting its lanky neck as though to outdo its fellows!
+There is really nothing in it."
+
+"Like the country," says Owen, meekly, "according to Mrs. Bohun."
+
+"And like Bella Fitzgerald," says that graceless person, with a little
+grimace.
+
+"My _dear_ Olga," says Mrs. Herrick, glancing quickly to right and left.
+"Do you never _think_?"
+
+"As seldom as ever I can. But why be nervous, Hermia? If any one were to
+compare _me_ with a tulip, I should die of--no, not chagrin--_joy_, I
+mean, of course. Monica, what are you saying to Owen?"
+
+"I don't think I know who Owen is," says Monica, with a glance at the
+gentleman in question, that is half shy, half friendly.
+
+"That argues yourself unknown," says Olga. "He is Master Owen Kelly, of
+Kelly's Grove, county Antrim, and the bright and shining light of the
+junior bar. They all swear by him in Dublin,--all, that is except the
+judges, and they swear _at_ him."
+
+Monica looks at Master Owen Kelly in a faintly puzzled fashion.
+
+"It is all quite true," says that young man, modestly, in a reassuring
+tone.
+
+"Now tell us what you were saying to each other," says Olga.
+
+"It was nothing," returns Monica. "We were only talking about this
+Egyptian war. But I don't really," nervously, "understand anything about
+it."
+
+"You needn't blush for your ignorance on that score," says Mr. Kelly.
+"You're in the general swim: nobody knows."
+
+"It is the most senseless proceeding altogether," says Hermia Herrick,
+in her decided way. "Gladstone's wars are toys. He has had three of them
+now, dear little fellow, to amuse himself with, and he ought to be proud
+of his victories."
+
+"According to Erasmus, war is the 'malady of princes,'" says Lord
+Rossmoyne, sententiously.
+
+"Rossmoyne isn't well," says Mr. Kelly, softly. "He is calling the
+wood-cutter a prince. It reminds one of Hans Andersen's fairy-tale: all
+hewers of wood and drawers of water were blood-royal then."
+
+"Yet Gladstone has intellect," says Mrs. Herrick, in oh, _such_ a tone:
+would that the master of Hewarden could have heard her!
+
+"Some!" said Mr. Kelly. "He is indeed 'a thing apart.' I know nothing
+like him. 'Once, in the flight of ages past, there lived a _man_.' In
+ages to come they will say that of our modern immortal William. They
+will probably add that no _real_ man has ever lived since."
+
+"How silly you can be at times!" says Olga.
+
+"It isn't mine; it's Montgomery's nonsense," says Mr. Kelly, sadly.
+"Blame him, not me."
+
+"I don't want to blame any one," says Olga, with a skillfully-suppressed
+yawn; "but, taking your view of the case, I think it will be an awful
+age when there _doesn't_ live a man."
+
+"Your 'occupation will be o'er,' indeed," says Rossmoyne, with an
+accentuated bitterness, "when that time comes."
+
+("He must be very much in love with her," thinks Monica, with a touch of
+inspiration, "he is so excessively rude to her!")
+
+"Lord Rossmoyne," says Mrs. Bohun, turning to him with ineffable
+sweetness, "will you do something for me?"
+
+The transition from coldness to tender appeal is too much for Rossmoyne:
+his face brightens.
+
+"You know there is nothing I would not do for you," he says, gravely but
+eagerly.
+
+"Then," promptly, "please take that ugly frown off your forehead and put
+it in your pocket; or--no, throw it away altogether; if you kept it near
+you, you might be tempted to put it on again."
+
+"I did not know I was frowning."
+
+"You were," sweetly. "You are all right again now, and so shall be
+rewarded. You can't think how unbecoming frowns are, and how much better
+you look when you are all 'sweetness and light' as now for example.
+Come," rising, "you shall take me for a nice long walk through these
+delightful old gardens."
+
+As she moves she sees the daisies still clinging to her gown that Ulic
+Ronayne has been amusing himself with during the past half-hour. More
+than this, she sees, too, the imploring gaze of his dark eyes upturned
+to hers.
+
+"Silly boy!" she says, stooping to shake away the daisies with her hand;
+but her words have a double meaning. Involuntarily, unseen by all the
+others--except Monica--his hand closes upon hers.
+
+"Do not go with him," he says, with deep entreaty.
+
+"I must--now."
+
+"Then let me come too?"
+
+"No." Then she raises herself, and says, gayly, "You shall stay and make
+love to Miss Beresford--Monica, I have desired Mr. Ronayne to stay here
+and amuse you."
+
+She moves across the lawn with Rossmoyne beside her. Mrs. Herrick and
+Mr. Kelly are strolling lazily in another direction. Monica and Ulic are
+alone.
+
+"Is there anything I can take you to see?" asks he, gently.
+
+"No, thank you. I am quite happy here."
+
+Then, noticing the extreme sadness on his beautiful face, she says,
+slowly, "But you are not, I am afraid."
+
+"I _should_ be, with so fair a companion." He smiles as he says this,
+but his smile is without mirth, and she does not return it. Suddenly
+leaning forward, she says to him, very tenderly,--
+
+"You love Olga, do you not?"
+
+She never afterwards thinks of this speech without blushing deeply and
+wondering why she said it. It was an impulse too strong to be conquered,
+and it overpowers her. His face changes, and he colors perceptibly; he
+hesitates too, and regards her inquiringly. Something, perhaps, in her
+expression reassures him, because presently he says, bravely,--
+
+"Yes, I do. I love her with all my heart and soul; as I never have
+loved, as I never shall love again. _This_ thought is my happiness: my
+sorrow lies in the fear that she will never love _me_. Forgive my saying
+all this to you: she told me to amuse you," with a faint smile, "and I
+have woefully neglected her commands."
+
+"You must forgive me," says Monica. "I should not have asked you the
+question."
+
+"Do not be sorry for that: it has done me good, I think. I am glad I
+have said it _out loud_ to somebody at last. It is odd though,--isn't
+it?--I should have made my confession to you, of all people, whom I
+never saw until ten minutes ago!"
+
+Then Monica remembers that this is the second young man she has found
+herself on friendly terms with since her arrival at Moyne, without the
+smallest introduction having been gone through on any side. It all
+sounds rather dreamy, and certainly very irregular.
+
+"Ah! there is Madam O'Connor beckoning to me," says Ronayne, rising
+lazily to his feet. "I suppose she wants me for a moment. Will you mind
+my leaving you for a little, or will you come with me? I shan't be any
+time."
+
+"I shall stay here," says Monica. "There, go: she seems quite in a
+hurry. Come back when you can."
+
+He runs across the grass to his hostess; and Monica, leaning back in her
+chair, gives herself up to thought. Everything is strange, and she is
+feeling a little lonely, a little _distraite_, and (but this she will
+not allow even to herself) distinctly disappointed. She is trying very
+hard to prevent her mind from dwelling upon a certain face that should
+be naught to her, when she suddenly becomes conscious of the fact that
+some one has come to a standstill close beside her chair. She turns.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+  How Monica listens to strange words and suffers herself to be led
+  away.--How Cupid plants a shaft in Mars, and how Miss Priscilla
+  finds herself face to face with the enemy.
+
+
+"You see I failed," says Brian Desmond.
+
+A quick warm blush has dyed Monica's cheeks crimson.
+
+"Ah! it is you," she said. "I thought you had not come."
+
+This betrays the fact that she has been thinking of him, but he is far
+too wise a young man in his own generation to take count of it.
+
+"Yes, I came. Three days ago I thought I should have been in London now,
+and then I heard _you_ were to be here to-day."
+
+"In what have you failed?" asks she, abruptly, alluding to his opening
+sentence.
+
+"Can't you guess? Have you forgotten the last cruel injunction you laid
+upon me? 'When next we meet,' you said, 'you are to look straight over
+my head and pass on.' Will you believe that twice to-day I obeyed that
+mandate? The third time was the charm: it conquered me; I broke my sword
+in two and came to you."
+
+"I wish you hadn't," says Monica, sincerely, if impolitely. "I wish you
+would go away now, and promise me never to speak to me again. You _know_
+I am afraid of you," looking nervously around.
+
+"I don't, indeed; I can't conceive such a situation. You do me a great
+injustice, I think. I verily believe if I tried my very hardest I
+couldn't instil terror into the smallest child in the village."
+
+"You know what I mean. Of course," scornfully, "I should never be afraid
+of a _man_: it is Aunt Priscilla I am afraid of. And see, see _there_!"
+in an agony, "she is standing quite close to us, talking to somebody."
+
+"If that is your aunt Priscilla, she is safe for an hour at least. The
+old lady with her is Lady Rossmoyne, and she never lets any one
+(unfortunate enough to get into her clutches) go free under a generous
+sixty minutes. She is great on manures, and stock, and turnips, and so
+forth. And your aunt, I hear, is a kindred spirit."
+
+"But then there is Aunt Penelope," says Monica, timidly.
+
+"She, too, is arranged. Half an hour ago I met her so deep in a
+disgraceful flirtation with the vicar that I felt it my duty to look the
+other way. Depend upon it, she is not thinking of you."
+
+"But some one may tell them I have been talking to you."
+
+"I always thought I had a proper amount of pride until I met you," says
+Mr. Desmond. "You have dispelled the belief of years. 'Is thy servant a
+dog,' that you should be ostracized for speaking to him? Never mind; I
+submit even to that thought if it gives me five minutes more of your
+society. But listen to me. No one can tell tales of us, because we are
+both strangers in the land. No one knows me from Adam, and just as few
+know you from--let us say _Eve_, for euphony's sake."
+
+She laughs. Encouraged by her merriment to believe that at least she
+bears him no ill will, Brian says, hurriedly,--
+
+"Come with me to the rose-garden. It is stupid sitting here alone, and
+the garden is beyond praise. Do come."
+
+"Why?" lifting her heavy lashes.
+
+"For one thing, we shall be free from observation, and you know you
+dislike being seen with me. For another----" He pauses.
+
+"Well?" rather nervously.
+
+"It is just this, that I _must_ speak to you," says the young man, his
+gay manner changing to one of extreme earnestness. "You were unkind to
+me that day we parted. I want you to tell me why. I understand quite
+that I have no right to demand even the smallest favor of you, yet I do
+entreat you to come with me."
+
+For another moment she hesitates, then--
+
+"Yes, I will come with you," she says, raising her soft eyes to his. In
+her whole manner, voice, and bearing there is something so sweet and
+childish and trusting as to render Desmond her slave upon the spot.
+
+The path to the rose-garden leads away from Miss Priscilla, so they
+avoid detection as they go.
+
+But they are singularly silent and grave; when the garden is reached
+they pass between the rows of growing blossoms mute, if rich in thought.
+At last, when silence is becoming too eloquent to be borne, her
+companion turns to her.
+
+"It wasn't _true_ what you said to me that last day, was it?" he asks,
+with far more anxiety than the occasion seems to demand. "Not _really_,
+I mean. You said it for fun, perhaps--or----It has been with me ever
+since. I can't forget it. You said you disliked sudden friendships, and
+the way you said it made me think you disliked _me_. Tell me I thought
+wrong."
+
+"Quite wrong," in a low tone. She is plucking a rose to pieces, and
+keeps her eyes downcast. "When I said that, I was angry about
+something."
+
+"About something I _said_?"
+
+"No. Nothing you said."
+
+"Something I did, then?" growing more and more anxious.
+
+"Ye-es."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"It doesn't matter now; not in the least now; and I can not tell you,
+_indeed_."
+
+"But I wish very much you would. Perhaps, being in wretched ignorance, I
+shall be so unhappy as to do it again some day, and so make you hate me
+a second time."
+
+"I didn't _hate_ you."
+
+"No? Yet there was a look in your eyes I wouldn't like to see there
+again. Do tell me, lest I once more fall into error."
+
+"Oh, no," coloring deeply, as though at some unpleasant recollection.
+"That would be impossible. It could never happen again. I shall take
+care of that. I shall never as long as I live get into a--that is--I
+mean--I----Really I have forgiven it all now, so let us forget it too."
+
+Though still greatly mystified, Mr. Desmond wisely forbears to press the
+point, something in her pretty distressed face and heightened color
+forbidding him.
+
+"Very good," he says, pleasantly. "But there is another thing I have
+not forgotten. Have you ever cleared up that mystery about my uncle and
+your aunts?"
+
+"Oh! _that_. It cannot be cleared, I am afraid it is too muddy a tale
+for any help; but I have at least found out all about it."
+
+"Would it be indiscreet if I said I would give anything to be as wise as
+you on this subject? In other words, will you divulge the secret?"
+
+"It is a story that doesn't redound to the honor and glory of _your_
+house," says Miss Beresford, stepping back from him with a gay little
+laugh, and glancing at him mischievously from under her big "Patience"
+hat. "If I were you I should shrink from hearing it."
+
+"I decline to shrink," with unparalleled bravery. "I prefer to rush upon
+my fate. Life has no longer any flavor for me until I hear what the old
+reprobate at Coole has done."
+
+"Well, if you _will_ insist upon the sorry tale, 'tis this. Once there
+lived a wicked knight, who wooed a maiden fair. But when that her heart
+was all his own, his love grew cold, and, turning from her, he refused
+to fulfil his plighted troth and lead her to the hymeneal altar. In
+fact, he loved and he rode away, leaving her as dismally disconsolate as
+the original maid forlorn."
+
+"Alas for the golden age of chivalrie!" says Mr. Desmond.
+
+"Alas, indeed! That wicked knight was your uncle; the maid forlorn my
+mother!"
+
+"You have been giving me a summary of a fairytale, haven't you?" asks
+he, in an unbelieving tone.
+
+"No, indeed; it is all quite true. From what I have heard, your uncle
+must have treated my mother very badly. Now, aren't you thoroughly
+ashamed of yourself and your family?"
+
+"One swallow makes no summer," says Mr. Desmond, hardily. "Because my
+uncle refused to succor a distressed damosel is no reason why I should
+so far forget myself. Besides, the whole thing seems incredible. Report
+says, and," with an expressive glance at her, "I can well believe it,
+your mother was the most beautiful woman of her time in all the
+countryside; while my uncle, bless him, is one of the very ugliest men I
+ever met in my life. He might take a prize in that line. Just fancy the
+Beast refusing to wed with Beauty!"
+
+"To be ugly, so far as a _man_ is concerned, is nothing," says Monica
+with a knowledge beyond her years. "Many singularly plain men have been
+much beloved. Though"--with an unconscious study of her companion's
+features, who is decidedly well favored--"I confess I should myself
+prefer a man whose nose was straight, and whose eyes were--had no
+inclination to look round the corner, I mean."
+
+"A straight nose is to be preferred, of course," says Mr. Desmond,
+absently stroking his own, which is all that can be desired. "But I
+never since I was born heard such an extraordinary story as yours. I
+give you my word,"--earnestly,--"my uncle is just the sort of man who,
+if _any_ girl, no matter how hideous, were to walk up to him and say, 'I
+consent to marry you,' ought to be devoutly grateful to her. Why,
+talking of noses, you should just see his: it's--it's _anyhow_," with
+growing excitement. "It's all up hill and down dale. I never before or
+since saw such a nose; and I'd back his mouth to _beat that_!"
+
+"He must be a very distinguished-looking person," says Miss Beresford,
+demurely.
+
+"I know very little about him, of course, having been always so much
+abroad; but he _looks_ like a man who could be painfully faithful to an
+attachment of that kind."
+
+"He was not faithful to her, at all events. I daresay he fell in love
+with some other girl about that time, and slighted my mother for her."
+
+"Well," says Mr. Desmond, drawing a deep breath, "he _is_ 'a grand
+man!'"
+
+"I think he must be a very _horrid_ old man," replies Monica, severely.
+
+"You have proofs of his iniquity, of course," says Brian, presently, who
+evidently finds a difficulty in believing in his uncle's guilt.
+
+"Yes. He wrote her a letter, stating in distinct terms that"--and here
+she alters her voice until it is highly suggestive of Miss Blake's fine
+contralto--"'he deemed it expedient for both parties that the present
+engagement existing between them should be annulled.' Those are Aunt
+Priscilla's words; what he really meant, I suppose, was that he was
+tired of her."
+
+"Your mother, I should imagine, was hardly a woman to be tired of
+readily."
+
+"That is a matter of opinion. We--that is, Terry and Kit and I--thought
+her a very tiresome woman indeed," says Miss Beresford, calmly. She does
+not look at him as she makes this startling speech, but looks beyond
+him into, possibly, a past where the "tiresome woman" held a part.
+
+Brian Desmond, gazing at her pale, pure, spiritual face, sustains a
+faint shock, as the meaning of her words reaches him. Is she heartless,
+emotionless? Could not even a mother's love touch her and wake her into
+life and feeling?
+
+"You weren't very fond of your mother, then?" he asks, gently. The bare
+memory of his own mother is adored by him.
+
+"Fond?" says Monica, as though the idea is a new one to her. "Fond? Yes,
+I suppose so; but we were all much fonder of my father. Not that either
+he or mamma took very much notice of us."
+
+"Were they so much wrapt up in each other, then?"
+
+"No, certainly not," quickly. Then with an amount of bitterness in her
+tone that contrasts strangely with its usual softness, "I wonder why I
+called my mother 'mamma' to you just now. I never dared do so to _her_.
+Once when she was going away somewhere I threw my arms around her and
+called her by that pet name; but she put me from her, and told me I was
+not to make a noise like a sheep."
+
+She seems more annoyed than distressed as she says this. Desmond is
+silent. Perhaps his silence frightens her, because she turns to him with
+a rather pale, nervous face.
+
+"I suppose I should not say such things as these to you," she says,
+unsteadily. "I forgot, it did not occur to me, that we are only
+strangers."
+
+"Say what you will to me," says Desmond, slowly, "and be sure of this,
+that what you _do_ say will be heard by you and me alone."
+
+"I believe you," she answers, with a little sigh.
+
+"And, besides, we are not altogether strangers," he goes on, lightly;
+"that day on the river is a link between us, isn't it?"
+
+"Oh, yes, the river," she says, smiling.
+
+"_Our_ river. I have brought myself to believe it is our joint property:
+no one else seems to know anything about it."
+
+"I have never been near it since," says Monica.
+
+"I _know that_," returns he, meaningly.
+
+"How?" is almost framed upon her lips; but a single glance at him
+renders her dumb. Something in his expression suggests the possibility
+that he has spent pretty nearly all his time since last they met, and
+_certainly_ all his afternoons, upon that shady river just below the
+pollard willows, in the vain hope of seeing her arrive.
+
+She blushes deeply, and then, in spite of herself, laughs out loud, a
+low but ringing laugh, full of music and mischief.
+
+This most uncalled-for burst of merriment has the effect of making Mr.
+Desmond preternaturally grave.
+
+"May I ask what you are laughing at?" he says, with painful politeness;
+whereupon Miss Beresford checks her mirth abruptly, and has the grace to
+blush again even harder than before. Her confusion is, indeed, the
+prettiest thing possible.
+
+"I don't know," she says, in an evasive tone.
+
+"People generally _do_ know what they are laughing at," contends he,
+seriously.
+
+"Well, _I_ don't," returns she, with great spirit.
+
+"Of course not, if you _say_ so; but," with suppressed wrath, "I don't
+myself think there is anything provocative of mirth in the thought of a
+fellow wasting hour after hour upon a lonely stream in the insane but
+honest hope of seeing somebody who _wouldn't_ come. Of course in your
+eyes the fellow was a fool to do it; but--but if I were the girl I
+wouldn't laugh at him for it."
+
+Silence.
+
+Monica's eyes are bent upon the ground; her face is averted; but there
+is something about her attitude that compels Mr. Desmond to believe she
+is sorry for her untimely laughter; and thinking this breeds hatred
+towards himself for having caused this sorrow and makes him accuse
+himself of basest ill temper.
+
+"I beg your pardon!" he says, in a contrite tone; "I shouldn't have
+spoken to you like that. I lost my temper most absurdly and must
+apologize to you for it now. It was ridiculous of me to suppose you
+would ever come again to the river; but one hopes against hope. Yet, as
+Feltham tells us, 'he that hopes too much shall deceive himself at
+last:' that was my fate, you see. And you never once thought of coming,
+did you? You were quite right."
+
+"No, I was quite wrong; but--but--_you_ are quite wrong too in _one_
+way," still with her eyes downturned.
+
+"By what right did I expect you? I was a presumptuous fool and got just
+what I deserved."
+
+"You were not a fool," exclaims she, quickly; and then, with a little
+impulsive gesture, she draws herself up and looks him fair in the eyes.
+"If I had known you were there," she says, bravely, though evidently
+frightened at her own temerity, "I--I--am almost sure _I_ should have
+been there too!"
+
+"No! would you really?" says Desmond, eagerly.
+
+Then follows a rather prolonged silence. Not an awkward one, but
+certainly a silence fraught with danger to both. There is no greater
+friend to Cupid than an unsought silence such as this. At last it is
+broken.
+
+"What lovely roses there are in this garden!" says Desmond, pointing to
+a bush of glowing beauty near him.
+
+"Are there not?" She has taken off a long white glove, so that one hand
+and arm are bare. The hand is particularly small and finely shaped, the
+nails on it are a picture in themselves; the arm is slight and childish,
+but rounded and very fair.
+
+Breaking a rose from the tree indicated, she examines it lovingly, and
+then, lifting it to his face, as though desirous of sympathy, says,--
+
+"Is it not sweet?"
+
+"It is indeed!" He is staring at her. Very gently he takes the little
+hand that holds the flower and keeps it in his own. He detains it so
+lightly that she might withdraw it if she pleases, but she does not.
+Perhaps she doesn't please, or perhaps she sees nothing remarkable in
+his action. At all events, she, who is so prone to blush on all
+occasions, does not change color now, but chatters to him gayly, in an
+unconcerned manner, about the scented blossoms round her, and afterwards
+about the people yonder, behind the tall flowering shrubs that surround
+the tennis-ground.
+
+And still her little slender fingers lie passively in his. Glancing at
+them, he strokes them lightly with his other hand, and counts her rings.
+
+"Four--five," he says; "quite a burden for such a little hand to carry."
+
+"I like them," says Monica: "brooches and earrings and bracelets I don't
+care for, but rings I love. I never really feel dressed until they are
+on. To slip them on my fingers is the last thing I do every morning
+before running downstairs. At least nearly the last."
+
+"And what is the last?"
+
+"I say my prayers," says Monica, smiling. "That is what every one does,
+isn't it?"
+
+"I don't know," says Mr. Desmond, not looking at her. It seems to him a
+long, long time now since last he said _his_ prayers. And then he
+suddenly decides within himself that he will say them to-morrow morning,
+"the last thing before going downstairs;" he cannot have quite forgotten
+_yet_.
+
+He is examining her rings as he thinks all this, and now a little pale
+turquoise thing attracts his notice.
+
+"Who gave you that?" he asks, suddenly. It is to a jealous eye rather a
+lovable little ring.
+
+"Papa, when I was fourteen," says Monica. "It is very pretty, isn't it?
+I have felt quite grown up ever since he gave me that."
+
+"Monica," says Brian Desmond suddenly, tightening his hold on her hand,
+"had you ever a lover before?"
+
+"Before?"
+
+"Yes," slowly, and as if determined to make his meaning clear, and yet,
+too, with a certain surprise at his own question. "Had you?"
+
+"Before?" as if bewildered, she repeats the word again. "Why, I never
+had a lover _at all_!"
+
+"Do not say that again," says Brian, moving a step nearer to her and
+growing pale: "I am your lover now--and _forever_!"
+
+"Oh! no, _no,_" says Monica, shrinking from him. "Do not say that."
+
+"I won't, if you forbid me, but," quietly, "I am, and shall be, all the
+same. I think my very soul--belongs to you."
+
+A crunching of gravel, a sound of coming footsteps, the murmur of
+approaching voices.
+
+Monica, pallid as an early snowdrop, looks up to see her Aunt Priscilla
+coming towards her, accompanied by a young man, a very tall and very
+stout young man, with a rather drilled air.
+
+"Ah! here is Aunt Priscilla," says Monica, breathlessly. "Who is that
+with her?"
+
+"Ryde, one of the marines stationed at Clonbree," says Mr. Desmond,
+cursing the marine most honestly in his heart of hearts. Clonbree is a
+small town about seven miles from Rossmoyne, where a company of marines
+has been sent to quell the Land League disturbances.
+
+Miss Priscilla is looking quite pleased with herself, and greets Monica
+with a fond smile.
+
+"I knew I should find you here," she says; "flowers have such a
+fascination for you. You will let me introduce you to Mr. Ryde, dear
+child!"
+
+And then the introduction is gone through, and Monica says something
+unworthy of note to this big young man, who is staring at her in a more
+earnest manner than is strictly within the rules of etiquette. Somehow,
+too, she presently discovers she has fallen into line with her new
+friend, and is moving towards the lawn again with Aunt Priscilla
+following in her train with _Mr. Desmond_.
+
+Quaking inwardly, Monica at first cannot take her mind off the twain
+behind her, and all the consequences that must ensue if Miss Priscilla
+once discovers a Desmond is being addressed by her with common civility.
+
+She is, therefore, but poor company for the tall marine, who seems,
+however, quite satisfied with the portion allotted him and maunders on
+inanely about the surroundings generally. When the weather and the
+landscape have been exhausted, it must be confessed, however, that he
+comes to a standstill.
+
+Miss Priscilla, pleased with her day and the satisfactory knowledge that
+every one has been raving about Monica, is making herself specially
+agreeable to her companion, who, nothing loath, draws her out and grows
+almost sycophantic in his attentions. She becomes genial with him, not
+knowing who he is, while he becomes even more than genial with her,
+knowing right well who she is. Indeed, so merrily does he make the time
+fly that Miss Priscilla is fain to confess to herself that seldom has
+she passed so pleasant a five minutes.
+
+In the meantime, Monica, strolling on in front with Mr. Ryde, is feeling
+both nervous and depressed. This chance meeting between her aunt and Mr.
+Desmond, and the memory of all the strange exciting things the latter
+has said to her, renders her mute and unequal to conversation, and her
+present companion is not one likely to enchain her attention by any
+brilliant flashes of intellect.
+
+He is, in truth, a very ordinary young man, of the heavy, stupid type
+too often met with to require either introduction or description. He had
+arrived in Queenstown about a fortnight before, with nothing much to
+guide his conduct in a strange country beyond the belief that Hibernia,
+as he elects to call it, is like Africa, a "land benighted," fit only to
+furnish food for jests. He has a fatal idea that he himself can supply
+these jests at times, and that, in fact, there are moments when he can
+be irresistibly funny over the Paddies: like many others devoid of
+brain, and without the power to create wholesome converse, he mistakes
+impertinence for wit, and of late has become rude at the expense of
+Ireland whenever he found anybody kind enough, or (as in Monica's case
+now) obliged, to listen to him.
+
+Just now, there being a distinct and rather embarrassing pause, he says
+amiably,--
+
+"Awfully jolly gown you've got on!"
+
+"So glad you like it!" says Monica, absently.
+
+"Got it from town, I suppose?"
+
+"From Dublin--yes."
+
+"Oh! by Jove, you call Dublin town, do you?" says Mr. Ryde, with a heavy
+laugh that suggests danger of choking, he being slightly plethoric by
+nature.
+
+"Yes: what do you call it?" says Monica, regarding him steadily. She has
+hardly looked at him till now, and tells herself instantly that young
+men with fat faces are not in _her_ line.
+
+"Always thought it was a village, or something of that sort, you know,"
+replies he, with a continuation of the suicidal merriment.
+
+Monica stares, and her color rises, ever so little, but unmistakably.
+
+"You ought to read something, papers and articles on Ireland, now and
+then," she says, deep but suspicious pity for him in her tone.
+"Considering what education costs nowadays, it is shameful the way yours
+has been neglected. Your college, or wherever you were, ought to be
+ashamed of itself. Why, I don't believe you know what a capital means."
+
+"A capital?--in writing, do you mean?" asks he, puzzled.
+
+"N--o; I wasn't thinking of that. You can write, I suppose," with
+malicious hesitation that betrays doubt. "I was speaking of the capitals
+of Europe. Dublin is one of them."
+
+Unable to grasp the fact that she is mildly snubbing him, Mr. Ryde
+smiles gayly, and says, "Oh, really?" with an amused air that incenses
+her still more highly. "Was there ever," she asks herself, angrily, "so
+hateful a man, or so long a gravel walk!"
+
+Having racked his brain to find something further wherewith to beguile
+the monotony of the way, and finding it barren, Mr. Ryde falls back upon
+the original subject.
+
+"I like a white gown on a woman better than any," he says. "And so they
+really _can_ make gowns in Ireland? I've been awfully disappointed, do
+you know?--reg'lar sold. I came over here in the full hope of seeing
+everybody going about in goatskins and with beads round their
+necks--and--er--that."
+
+"And why are you disappointed?" asks Monica, mildly, with a provoking
+want of appreciation of this brilliant sally. "Are you fond of goatskins
+and beads? Do _you_ wear them when 'your foot is on your native heath'?"
+
+"Eh?--Oh, you don't understand," says this dense young man, fatally
+bent on explanation. "I meant to imply that the general belief with us
+over there"--pointing to the horizon, which would have led him to
+America rather than to England--"is that everybody here is half
+savage--d'ye see--eh?"
+
+"Oh, yes, it's quite plain," says Miss Beresford, her eyes immovably
+fixed on the horizon. "'Over _there_' must be a most enlightened spot."
+
+"So of course I thought the goatskins, etc., would be the order of the
+day," goes on Mr. Ryde, with another chuckle.
+
+"You do think sometimes, then?" says Monica, innocently.
+
+"I have been thinking of _you_ ever since I first saw you this
+afternoon," returns he, promptly, if unwisely.
+
+There is an almost imperceptible pause, and then--
+
+"Don't trouble yourself to do that again," says Monica _very_ sweetly,
+but with a telltale flash in her blue eyes; "I am sure it must fatigue
+you dreadfully. Remember what a warm day it is. Another thing: don't for
+the future, please, say rude things about Ireland, because I don't like
+that _either_."
+
+The "_either_" is the cruellest cut of all: it distinctly forbids him
+even to think of her.
+
+"I am afraid I have been unlucky enough to offend you," says young Mars,
+stiffly, awaking at last to a sense of the situation, and glancing down
+uneasily at the demure little figure marching beside him with her pretty
+head erect. "I didn't mean it, I assure you. What I said was said in
+fun."
+
+"Are you always like that when you are funny?" asks she, looking
+straight before her. "Then I think, if I were you, I wouldn't do it."
+
+Then she is a little ashamed of her severity, and, changing her tone,
+makes herself so charming to him that he quite recovers his spirits
+before they come up with all the others on the lawn.
+
+Yet perhaps her smiles have wrought him more harm than her frowns.
+
+Madam O'Connor, going up to Miss Priscilla, engages her in some
+discussion, so that presently Monica finds Brian beside her again.
+
+"You will let me see you again soon," he says, in a low tone, seeing
+Ryde is talking to Miss Fitzgerald.
+
+"But how can I?"
+
+"You can if you will. Meet me somewhere, as I may not call; bring your
+brother, your sister, _any one_, with you; only meet me."
+
+"If I did that, how could I look at Aunt Priscilla afterwards?" says
+Monica, growing greatly distressed. "It would be shameful; I should feel
+like a traitor. I feel like it already."
+
+"Then do nothing. Take a passive part, if you will, and leave all to
+me," says Desmond, with a sudden determination in his eyes. "I would not
+have you vexed or made unhappy in any way. But that I shall see you
+again--and _soon_--be sure."
+
+"But----"
+
+"I will listen to no 'buts:' it is too late for them. Though all the
+world, though even you yourself, should forbid me your presence, I
+should still contrive to meet you."
+
+Here somebody addresses him, and he is obliged to turn and smile, and
+put off his face the touch of earnest passion that has just illumined
+it; while Monica stands silent, spellbound, trying to understand it all.
+
+"Is it thus that all my countrymen make love?" she asks herself,
+bewildered. At the very second meeting (she always, even to herself,
+ignores that ignominious first) to declare in this masterful manner that
+he _must_ and _will_ see her again!
+
+It is rapid, rather violent wooing; but I do not think the girl
+altogether dislikes it. She is a little frightened, perhaps, and
+uncertain, but there is a sense of power about him that fascinates her
+and tells her vaguely that faith and trust in him will never be
+misplaced. She feels strangely nervous, yet she lifts her eyes to his,
+and gazes at him long and bravely, and then the very faintest glimmer of
+a smile, that is surely full of friendliness and confidence, if nothing
+more, lights up her eyes and plays around her pensive mouth. A moment,
+and the smile has vanished, but the remembrance of it lives with him
+forever.
+
+Yes, the wooing is rapid, and she is not won; but "she likes me," thinks
+Desmond, with a touch of rapture he has never known before. "Certainly,
+she _likes_ me; and--there are always time and hope."
+
+"My dear Monica, it grows late," says Miss Priscilla at this moment.
+"Say good-by to Madame O'Connor, and let us go."
+
+"Oh, not a bit of it, now," says Madam O'Connor, hospitably in her rich,
+broad brogue, inherited in all its purity, no doubt, from her kingly
+ancestor. "You mustn't take her away yet: sure the day is young. Mr.
+Ryde, why don't you get Miss Beresford to play a game with you? In my
+time, a young fellow like you wouldn't wait to be told to make himself
+agreeable to a pretty girl. There, go now, do! Have you brought your own
+racket with you?"
+
+"I left it at home," says Mr. Ryde. "Fact is," affectedly, "I didn't
+think tennis was known over here. Didn't fancy you had a court in the
+land."
+
+This speech fires the blood of the O'Toole's last descendant.
+
+Madam O'Connor uprears a haughty crest, and fixes the luckless
+lieutenant with an eagle eye, beneath which he quails.
+
+"There is no doubt we lack much," she says, taking his measure with
+lofty scorn; "but we have at least our _manners_."
+
+With this she turns her back upon him, and commences a most affable
+discussion with Miss Penelope, leaving her victim speechless with
+fright.
+
+"Have a brandy-and-soda, Ryde?" says Mr. Kelly, who is always
+everywhere, regarding the wretched marine through his eyeglass with a
+gaze of ineffable sadness. "Nothing like it, after an engagement of this
+sort."
+
+"I thought Ireland was the land for jokes," says the injured Ryde,
+indignantly,--"stock in trade sort of thing over here; and yet when I
+give 'em one of mine they turn upon me as if I was the worst in the
+world. I don't believe any one understands 'em over here."
+
+"You see, your jokes are too fine for us," says Mr. Kelly, mournfully.
+"We miss the point of them."
+
+"You are all the most uncomfortable people I ever met," says the
+wrathful marine.
+
+"We are, we are," acquiesces Kelly. "We are really a very stupid people.
+Anything, delicate or refined is lost upon us, or is met in an
+unfriendly spirit. I give you my word, I have known a fellow's head
+smashed for less than half what you said to Madam O'Connor just now.
+Prejudice runs high in this land. You have, perhaps," in a friendly
+tone, "heard of a shillelagh?"
+
+"No, I haven't," sulkily.
+
+"No? _really_? It is quite an institution here. It's a sort of a big
+stick, a very unpleasant stick, and is used freely upon the smallest
+difference of opinion. You'll meet them round every corner when you get
+more used to us: you'd like to see them, wouldn't you?"
+
+"No, I shouldn't," still more sulkily.
+
+"Oh, but you ought, you know. If you are going to live for any time in
+the country, you should study its institutions. The best way to see
+_this_ one is to make cutting remarks about Ireland in a loud voice when
+two or three of the peasants are near you. They don't like cutting
+remarks, they are so stupid, and jokes such as yours annoy them
+fearfully. Still, you mustn't mind that; you must smother your natural
+kindliness of disposition and annoy them, if you want to see the
+shillelagh."
+
+"I said nothing to annoy Mrs. O'Connor, at any rate," says Mr. Ryde.
+"She needn't have taken a simple word or two like that."
+
+"You see, we are all so terribly thin-skinned," says Mr. Kelly,
+regretfully, "I quite blush for my country-people. Of course there are
+noble exceptions to every rule. I am the noble exception here. I don't
+feel in the least annoyed with you. Now do try some brandy, my dear
+fellow: it will do you all the good in the world."
+
+"I don't know this moment whether _you_ are laughing at me or not," says
+the marine, eying him doubtfully.
+
+"I _never_ laugh," says Mr. Kelly, reproachfully. "I thought _even you_
+could see that. Well, will you have that B. and S.?"
+
+But Mars is huffed, and declines to accept consolation in any shape. He
+strolls away with an injured air to where his brother officer, Captain
+Cobbett, is standing near the hall door, and pours his griefs into his
+ears. Captain Cobbett being a very spare little man, with a half starved
+appearance and a dismal expression, it is doubtful whether poor Ryde
+receives from him the amount of sympathy required.
+
+"Well," says Madam O'Connor, turning round as she sees him disappear,
+and addressing the three or four people round her generally, "'pon me
+conscience, that's the silliest young man I ever met in my life!" When
+disturbed, elated, or distressed, Madam O'Connor always says, "'Pon me
+conscience!"
+
+"Don't be hard upon him," says Mr. Kelly, kindly. "Though very mad, he
+is _quite_ harmless!"
+
+"He plays tennis very well," says Miss Fitzgerald, the tall girl. "So
+nice, isn't it? to have these ancient games reproduced!" This with the
+learned air of one who could say more if she would.
+
+"_Ancient?_" says Madam O'Connor. "Faith, I thought it was a game of
+yesterday."
+
+"Oh, dear, no!" says the erudite Bella, with a lenient smile. "Tennis
+was first brought from France to England in the reign of Charles the
+Second."
+
+"There now, Miss Beresford, don't forget that," says Madam O'Connor,
+turning to Monica with an amused smile: "it is essential you should
+remember it, as it is part of one's education." After which she moves
+away towards some other guests, having said all she has to say to those
+near her.
+
+"May I see you to your carriage, Miss Blake?" says Desmond, finding she
+and Miss Penelope are bent on going; and Aunt Priscilla, who has taken
+quite a fancy to this strange young man, gives her gracious permission
+that he shall accompany them to the fossilized chariot awaiting them.
+
+"Who is he, my dear Priscilla?" asks Miss Penelope, in a stage whisper,
+as they go.
+
+"Don't know, my dear, but a vastly agreeable young man, very superior to
+those of his own age of the present day. He is marvellously polite, and
+has, I think, quite a superior air."
+
+"Quite," says Penelope, "and a very sweet expression besides,--so open,
+so ingenuous. I wish _all_ were like him." This with a sigh, Terence
+having proved himself open to suspicion with regard to plain dealing
+during the past few days.
+
+Now, it so happens that at this instant they turn a corner leading from
+the shrubbery walk on to the gravel sweep before the hall door; as they
+turn this corner, so does some one else, only _he_ is coming from the
+gravel sweep to the walk, so that consequently he is face to face with
+the Misses Blake without any hope of retreat.
+
+The walk is narrow at the entrance to it, and as the newcomer essays to
+pass hurriedly by Miss Priscilla he finds himself fatally entangled with
+her, she having gone to the right as he went to the left, and afterwards
+having gone to the left as he went to the right, and so on.
+
+Finally a passage is cleared, and the stranger--who is an amazingly ugly
+old man, with a rather benign though choleric countenance--speeds past
+the Misses Blake like a flash of lightning, and with a haste creditable
+to his years, but suggestive rather of fear than elasticity.
+
+"My uncle?" says Brian Desmond, in an awestruck tone, to Monica, who
+literally goes down before the terrible annunciation, and trembles
+visibly.
+
+It is a rencontre fraught with mortal horror to the Misses Blake. For
+years they have not so much as looked upon their enemy's face, and now
+their skirts have actually brushed him as he passed.
+
+"Come, come quickly, Monica," says Miss Penelope, on this occasion being
+the one to take the initiative. "Do not linger, child. Do you not see?
+It was _our enemy_ that passed by."
+
+If she had said "it was the arch fiend," her voice could not have been
+more tragic.
+
+"I am coming, Aunt Penny," says Monica, nervously.
+
+Now, it is at this inauspicious moment that Mr. Kelly (who, as I have
+said before, is always everywhere) chooses to rush up to Brian Desmond
+and address him in a loud tone.
+
+"My dear boy, you are not going yet, are you?" he says reproachfully. "I
+say, Desmond, you can't, you know, because Miss Fitzgerald says you
+promised to play in the next match with her."
+
+The fatal name had been uttered clearly and distinctly. As though
+petrified the two old ladies, stand quite still and stare at Brian; then
+Miss Priscilla, with a stately movement, gets between him and Monica,
+and, in tones that tremble perceptibly, says to him,--
+
+"I thank you for the courtesy already received sir; but we will no
+longer trouble you for your escort: we prefer to seek our carriage
+_alone_."
+
+She sweeps him a terribly stiff little salute, and sails off, still
+trembling and very pale, Miss Penelope, scarcely less pale, following in
+her wake.
+
+Desmond has barely time to grasp Monica's hand, and whisper, "Remember,"
+in as mysterious a tone as the hapless Stuart, when she too is swept
+away, and carried from his sight.
+
+Not until the gates of Aghyohillbeg are well behind them do the Misses
+Blake sufficiently recover themselves for speech. Terence, who has been
+a silent witness of the whole transaction, creating a diversion by
+making some remark about the day generally, breaks the spell that binds
+them. His remark is passed over in silence, but still the spell is
+broken.
+
+"Whoever introduced you to that young man," begins Miss Priscilla,
+solemnly, "did a wrong thing. Let us hope it was done in ignorance."
+
+At this Monica shivers inwardly and turns cold, as she remembers that no
+introduction has ever been gone through between her and "that young
+man." What if her Aunt Priscilla persists, and asks the name of the
+offending medium? Fortunately, Miss Blake loses sight of this idea,
+being so much engrossed with a greater.
+
+"For the future you must forget you ever spoke to this Mr. Desmond," she
+says, her face very stern. "Happily he is an utter stranger to you, so
+there will be no difficulty about it. You will remember this, Monica?"
+
+"Yes, I will remember," says the girl, slowly, and with a visible
+effort.
+
+Then Moyne is reached in solemn silence so far as the Misses Blake are
+concerned; in solemn silence, too, the two old ladies mount the oaken
+staircase that leads to their rooms. Outside, on the corridor, they
+pause and contemplate each other for a moment earnestly.
+
+"He--he is very good-looking," says Miss Penelope at last, as though
+compelled to make the admission even against her will.
+
+"He is abominably handsome," says Miss Priscilla fiercely: after which
+she darts into her room and closes the door with a subdued bang behind
+her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  How Brian, having instituted inquiries, condemns his Uncle
+  secretly--How Terry throws light upon a dark subject, and how, for
+  the third time, Love "finds out his way."
+
+
+It is the evening of the next day, and dinner at Coole has just come to
+an end. Mr. Kelly, who has been Brian's guest for the last fortnight,
+and who is to remain as long as suits him or as long after the
+grouse-shooting in August as he wills, has taken himself into the garden
+to smoke a cigar. This he does at a hint from Brian.
+
+Now, finding himself alone with his uncle, Brian says, in the casual
+tone of one making an indifferent remark,--
+
+"By the bye, I can see you are not on good terms with those old ladies
+at Moyne."
+
+As he speaks he helps himself leisurely to some strawberries, and so
+refrains from looking at his uncle.
+
+"No," says The Desmond, shortly.
+
+"Some old quarrel I have been given to understand."
+
+"I should prefer not speaking about it," says the squire.
+
+"Twinges of conscience even at this remote period," thinks Brian, and is
+rather tickled at the idea, as he lifts his head to regard his uncle in
+a new light,--that is, as a regular Don Juan.
+
+"Well, of course, I dare say I should not have mentioned the subject,"
+he says, apologetically; "but I had no idea it was a sore point. It was
+not so much bad taste on my part as ignorance. I beg your pardon!"
+
+"It was a very unhappy affair altogether," says Don Juan.
+
+"Very unfortunate indeed, from what I have heard."
+
+"_More_ than unfortunate!--right down disgraceful!" says the squire,
+with such unlooked-for energy as raises astonishment in the breast of
+his nephew. ("By Jove, one would think the old chap had only now
+awakened to a sense of his misconduct," he thinks, irreverently.)
+
+"Oh, well," he says, leniently, "hardly _that_, you know."
+
+"_Quite_ that," emphatically.
+
+"It has been often done before: yours is not a solitary case."
+
+"Solitary or not, there were elements about it inexcusable," says the
+old squire, beating his hand upon the table as though to emphasize his
+words.
+
+"I wouldn't take it so much to heart if I were you," says Brian, who is
+really beginning to pity him.
+
+"It has lain on my heart for twenty years. I can't take it off now,"
+says the squire.
+
+"You have evidently suffered," returns Brian, who is getting more and
+more amazed at the volcano he has roused. "Of course I can quite
+understand that if you were once more to find yourself in similar
+circumstances you would act very differently."
+
+"I should indeed!--_very_ differently. A man seldom makes a fool of
+himself twice in a lifetime."
+
+("He's regretting her now," thinks Brian.)
+
+But out loud he says,--
+
+"You didn't show much wisdom, I daresay."
+
+"No, none; and as for _her_,--to fling away such a love as that----"
+Here he pauses, and looks dreamily at the silver tankard before him.
+
+This last speech rather annoys Brian; to gloat over the remembrance of a
+love that had been callously cast aside to suit the exigences of the
+moment, seems to the younger man a caddish sort of thing not to be
+endured.
+
+("Though what the mischief any pretty girl of nineteen could have seen
+in _him_," he muses, gazing with ill-concealed amazement at his uncle's
+ugly countenance, "is more than I can fathom.")
+
+"Perhaps it wasn't so deep a love as _you_ imagine," he cannot refrain
+from saying _a propos_ to his uncle's last remark, with a view to taking
+him down a peg.
+
+"It was, sir," says the Squire, sternly. "It was the love of a lifetime.
+People may doubt as they will, but I know _no_ love has superseded it."
+
+"Oh, he is in his dotage!" thinks Brian, disgustedly; and, rising from
+the table, he makes a few more trivial remarks, and then walks from the
+dining-room on to the balcony and so to the garden beneath.
+
+Finding his friend Kelly in an ivied bower, lost in a cigar, and
+possibly, though improbably, in improving meditation, he is careful not
+to disturb him, but, making a successful detour, escapes his notice, and
+turns his face towards that part of Coole that is connected with Moyne
+by means of the river.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Moyne, too, dinner has come to an end, and, tempted by the beauty of
+the quiet evening, the two old ladies and the children have strolled
+into the twilit garden.
+
+There is a strange and sweet hush in the air--a stillness full of
+life--but slumberous life. The music of streams can be heard, and a
+distant murmur from the ocean; but the birds have got their heads
+beneath their wings, and the rising night-wind wooes them all in vain.
+
+Shadows numberless are lying in misty corners; the daylight lingers yet,
+as though loath to quit us and sink into eternal night. It is an eve of
+"holiest mood," full of tranquillity and absolute calm.
+
+    "It is that hour of quiet ecstasy,
+      When every rustling wind that passes by
+      The sleeping leaf makes busiest minstrelsy."
+
+"You are silent, Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, glancing at her.
+
+"I am thinking. Such an eve as this always recalls Katherine; and
+yesterday _that meeting_,--all has helped to bring the past most vividly
+before me."
+
+"Ah, dear, yes," says Miss Penelope, regarding her with a furtive but
+tender glance. "How must _he_ have felt, when he thought what grief he
+brought to her young life!"
+
+"You are talking of mother?" asks Kit, suddenly, letting her large dark
+eyes rest on Miss Penelope's face, as though searching for latent
+madness there.
+
+"Yes, my dear, of course."
+
+"He would not have dared so to treat her had her father been alive or
+had we been blessed with a brother," says Miss Priscilla, sternly. "He
+proved himself a dastard and a coward."
+
+"Perhaps there was some mistake," says Monica, timidly, plucking a pale
+blossom and pretending to admire it.
+
+"No, no. We believe he contracted an affection for some other girl, and
+for her sake jilted your mother. If so, retribution fit and proper
+followed on his perfidy, because he brought no wife later on to grace
+his home. Doubtless he was betrayed in his turn. That was only just."
+
+"There seems to be reason in that conjecture," says Miss Penelope,
+"because he went abroad almost immediately. I saw him shortly before he
+left the country, and he was then quite a broken-down man. He must have
+taken his _own_ misfortune greatly to heart."
+
+"Served him right!" says Miss Priscilla, uncompromisingly. "He deserved
+no greater luck. Your mother suffered so much at his hands that she
+almost lost her health. I don't believe she ever got over it."
+
+"Oh, yes, she did," says Terry, suddenly; "she got over it uncommonly
+well. We didn't know who Mr. Desmond was then, of course; but I know she
+used to make quite a joke of him."
+
+"A joke!" says Miss Priscilla, in an awful tone.
+
+"Yes, regular fun, you know," goes on Terence, undaunted. "One day she
+was telling father some old story about Mr. Desmond, a 'good thing'
+_she_ called it, and she was laughing heartily; but he wasn't, and when
+she had finished, I remember, he said something to her about want of
+'delicacy of feeling,' or something like that."
+
+"I was there," says Kit, in her high treble. "He said, too, she ought to
+be ashamed of herself."
+
+"Oh, that was nothing," says Mr. Beresford, airily. "Father and mother
+never agreed for a moment; they were always squabbling from the time
+they got up till they went to bed again."
+
+The Misses Blake have turned quite pale.
+
+"Terence how can you speak so of your sainted mother?" says Miss
+Penelope. "I'm sure, from her letters to us, she was a most _devoted_
+mother and wife, and, indeed, sacrificed her every wish and pleasure to
+yours."
+
+"I never knew it cost her so much to _keep away_ from us," says Terence.
+"If she was dying for our society, she must indeed have sacrificed
+herself, because she made it the business of her life to avoid us from
+morn to dewy eve."
+
+"Doubtless she had her duties," says Miss Penelope, in a voice of
+suppressed fear. What is she going to hear next? what are these dreadful
+children going to say?
+
+"Perhaps she had," said Terence. "If so, they didn't agree with her, as
+she was always in a bad temper. She used to give it to papa right and
+left, until he didn't dare to call his soul his own. When I marry, I
+shall take very good care my wife doesn't lead me the life my mother led
+my father."
+
+"_Your_ wife! who'd marry _you_?" says Kit, scornfully, which interlude
+gives the discussion a rest for a little time. But soon they return to
+the charge.
+
+"Your mother when here had an angelic temper," says Miss Penelope. Miss
+Priscilla all this time seems incapable of speech.
+
+"Well, she hadn't when _there_," says Terence; and then he says a
+dreadful thing, as vulgar as it is dreadful, that fills his aunt's heart
+with dismay. "She and my father fought like cat and dog," he says; and
+the Misses Blake feel their cup is indeed full.
+
+"And she never would take Monica anywhere," says Kit; "so selfish!"
+
+It is growing _too_ terrible. Is their idol to be shattered thus before
+their eyes?
+
+"Monica, was your mother _unkind_ to you?" says Miss Penelope, in a
+voice full of anguish. After all these years, is the Katherine of their
+affections to be dragged in the dust?
+
+Monica hesitates. She can see the grief in her aunt's face, and cannot
+bear to add to it. The truth is that the late Mrs. Beresford had _not_
+been beloved by her children, for reasons which it will be possible to
+conceive, but which would be tiresome to enumerate here. Perhaps there
+seldom had been a more careless or disagreeable mother.
+
+So Monica pauses, flushes, glances nervously from right to left, and
+then back again, and finally rests her loving, regretful eyes full upon
+Miss Penelope's agitated face.
+
+Something she sees there decides her. Sinking to her knees, she flings
+her arms around the old lady's neck, and lays her cheek to hers.
+
+"I will say nothing, but that I am happy _here_," she says, in a low
+whisper.
+
+Miss Penelope's arms close round her. The worst has come to her; yet
+there is solace in this clinging embrace, and in the dewy lips that
+seek hers. If she has lost one idol, who can say she has not gained
+another, and perhaps a worthier one?
+
+Yet beyond doubt the two old ladies have sustained a severe shock: they
+hold down their heads, and for a long time avoid each other's eyes, as
+though fearing what may there be seen.
+
+"Let us walk round the garden, Aunt Priscilla," says Monica, feeling
+very sorry for them. "The evening is lovely, and the roses so sweet."
+
+"Come then," says Miss Priscilla, who is perhaps glad to escape from her
+own thoughts. And so they all wander to and fro in the pretty garden,
+bending over this flower and lingering over that in a soft, idle sort of
+enjoyment that belongs alone to the country.
+
+Terence had disappeared, but, as he is not great on flowers, his
+presence is not indispensable, and no one takes any notice of his
+defection.
+
+Presently they come upon the old gardener, who is also the old coachman,
+upon his bended knees beside a bed. The whole garden is scrupulously
+raked and scrupulously weeded till not a fault can be found. But Miss
+Priscilla is one of those who deem it necessary always to keep a servant
+up to his trumps.
+
+Stooping over the bed, therefore, she carefully adjusts her glasses upon
+her nose, and proceeds to examine with much minuteness the earth beneath
+her. A tiny green leaf attracts her notice.
+
+"Corney, is that a _weed_?" she asks, severely. "I certainly remember
+sowing some seeds in this place; but _that_ has a weedy look."
+
+"It's seeds, miss," says Corney, "Ye'd know it by the curl of it."
+
+"I hope so, I _hope_ so," says Miss Priscilla, doubtfully, "but there's
+a common cast about it. It reminds me of groundsel. Corney, whatever you
+do, don't grow careless."
+
+"Faix, I'm too ould a hand for that, miss," says Corney. "But, to tell
+the truth, I think myself, now, not to desaive ye, that the leaf ye
+mentioned is uncommon like the groundsel. You ought to be proud of yer
+eyes, Miss Priscilla; they're as clear as they were twinty years ago."
+
+Greatly mollified by this compliment, Miss Priscilla declines to scold
+any more, and, the groundsel forgotten, moves onward to a smooth piece
+of sward on which a cartload of large white stones from the seashore has
+been ruthlessly thrown.
+
+"What is this?" she says, indignantly, eying the stones with much
+disfavor. "Corney, come here! Who flung those stones down on my green
+grass?"
+
+"The rector, miss. He sent his man wid a load of 'em, and 'tis there
+they left 'em."
+
+"A most unwarrantable proceeding!" says Miss Priscilla, who is in her
+managing mood. "What did Mr. Warren mean by that?"
+
+"Don't you think it was kind of him to draw them for our rookery, my
+dear Priscilla?" says Miss Penelope, suggestively.
+
+"No, I don't," says Miss Priscilla. "To bring cartloads of nasty large
+stones and fling them down upon my velvet grass on which I pride myself
+(though _you_ may think nothing of it, Penelope) is _not_ kind. I must
+say it was anything but nice,--anything but gentlemanly."
+
+"My dear, he is quite a gentleman, and a very good man."
+
+"That may be. I suppose I am not so uncharitable as to be rebuked for
+every little word; but to go about the country destroying people's good
+grass, for which I paid a shilling a pound, is _not_ gentlemanly.
+Katherine, what are you laughing at?"
+
+"At the stones," says Kit.
+
+"There is nothing to laugh at in a stone. Don't be silly, Katherine. I
+wonder, Monica, you don't make it the business of your life to instil
+some sense into that child. The idea of standing still to laugh at a
+_stone_."
+
+"Better do that than stand still to _cry_ at it," says the younger Miss
+Beresford, rebelliously. Providentially, the remark is unheard; and
+Monica, scenting battle in the breeze, says, hastily,--
+
+"Do you remember the roses at Aghyohillbeg, auntie? Well, I don't think
+any of them were as fine as this," pointing to a magnificent blossom
+near her. It is the truth, and it pleases Miss Priscilla mightily, she
+having a passion for her roses. And so peace is once more restored.
+
+"It grows chilly," says Miss Penelope, presently.
+
+"Yes; let us all go in," says Miss Priscilla.
+
+"Oh, not yet, auntie; it is quite lovely yet," says Monica, earnestly.
+She cannot go in yet, not _yet_; the evening is still young, and--and
+she would like _so_ much to go down to the river, if only for a moment.
+All this she says guiltily to herself.
+
+"Well we old women will go in at least," says Miss Penelope. "You two
+children can coquet with the dew for a little while; but don't stay too
+long, or sore throats will be the result."
+
+"Yes, yes," says Miss Priscilla, following her sister. As she passes
+Monica, she looks anxiously at the girl's little slight fragile figure
+and her slender throat and half-bared arms.
+
+"That dress is thin. Do not stay out too long. Take care of yourself, my
+darling." She kisses her pretty niece, and then hurries on, as though
+ashamed of this show of affection.
+
+A little troubled by the caress, Monica moves mechanically down the path
+that leads towards the meadows and the river, followed by Kit. By this
+time the latter is in full possession of all that happened
+yesterday,--at least so much of it as relates to Monica's acquaintance
+with Mr. Desmond (minus the tender passages), his uncle's encounter with
+her aunts, and Brian's subsequent dismissal. Indeed, so much has
+transpired in the telling of all this that Kit, who is a shrewd child,
+has come to the just conclusion that the young Mr. Desmond is in love
+with her Monica!
+
+Strange to say, she is not annoyed at his presumption, but rather
+pleased at it,--he being the first live lover she has ever come in
+contact with, and therefore interesting in no small degree.
+
+Now, as she follows her sister down the flowery pathway, her mind is
+full of romance, pure and sweet and great with chivalry, as a child's
+would be. But Monica is sad and taciturn. Her mind misgives her,
+conscience pricks her, her soul is disquieted within her.
+
+What was it she had promised Aunt Priscilla yesterday? Aunt Priscilla
+had said, "For the future you will remember this?" and she had answered,
+"Yes."
+
+But how can she forget? It was a foolish promise, for who has got a
+memory under control?
+
+Of course, Aunt Priscilla had meant her to understand that she was never
+to speak to Mr. Desmond again, and she had given her promise in the
+spirit. And of course she would be obedient; she would at least so far
+obey that she would not be the first to speak to him, nor would she seek
+him--nor----But why, then, is she going to the river? Is it because the
+evening is so fine, or is there no lurking hope of----
+
+And, after all, what certainty is there that--that--any one will be at
+the river at this hour? And even if they should be, why need she speak
+to him? she can be silent; but if he speaks to her, what then? Can she
+refuse to answer?
+
+Her mind is as a boat upon a troubled sea, tossed here and there; but
+by and by the wind goes down, and the staunch boat is righted, and turns
+its bow toward home.
+
+"Kit, do not let us go to the river to-night," she says, turning to face
+her sister in the narrow path.
+
+"But why? It is so warm and light, and such a little way!"
+
+"You have been often there. Let us turn down this side of the meadow,
+and see where it will lead to."
+
+That it leads directly away from Coole there cannot be the least doubt;
+and the little martyr treading the ground she would not, feels with an
+additional pang of disappointment that the fulfilment of her duty does
+not carry with it the thrill of rapture that ought to suffuse her soul.
+No, not the faintest touch of satisfaction at her own heroism comes to
+lighten the bitter regret she is enduring as she turns her back
+deliberately on the river and its chances. She feels only sorrow, and
+the fear that _some one_ will think her hard-hearted, and she could cry
+a little, but for Kit and shame's sake.
+
+"Monica, who is that?" exclaims Kit, suddenly, staring over the high
+bank, beside which they are walking, into the field beyond. Following
+her glance, Monica sees a crouching figure on the other side of this
+bank, but lower down, stealing cautiously, noiselessly, towards them, as
+though bent on secret murder. A second glance betrays the fact that it
+is Terence, with--yes, most positively with a _gun_!
+
+"Where on earth did he get it?" says Kit; and, unable to contain her
+curiosity any longer, she scrambles up the bank, and calls out, "Terry,
+here we are! Come here! Where did you get it?" at the top of her fresh
+young lungs.
+
+As she does so, a little gray object, hitherto unseen by her, springs
+from among some green stuffs, and, scudding across the field into the
+woods of Coole beyond, is in a moment lost to view.
+
+"Oh, _bother_!" cries Terry, literally dancing with rage; "I wouldn't
+_doubt_ you to make that row just when I was going to fire. I wish to
+goodness you girls would stay at home, and not come interfering with a
+fellow's sport. You are always turning up at the wrong moment, and just
+when you're not wanted!--indeed you _ever are_!"
+
+These elegant and complimentary remarks he hurls at their heads, as
+though with the wish to annihilate them. But they haven't the faintest
+effect: the Misses Beresford are too well accustomed to his eloquence to
+be dismayed by it. They treat it, indeed, as a matter of course, and so
+continue their inquiries uncrushed.
+
+"Terry, where _did_ you get this gun?" asks Monica, as breathless with
+surprise as Kit. "Is it"--fearfully--"_loaded_? Oh! don't!--don't point
+it this way! It will surely go off and kill somebody."
+
+Here she misses her footing and slips off the high bank, disappearing
+entirely from view, only to reappear again presently, flushed but
+uninjured.
+
+"What a lovely gun!" says Kit, admiringly.
+
+"Isn't it?" says Terence, forgetting his bad temper in his anxiety to
+exhibit his treasure. "It's a breech-loader, too; none of your
+old-fashioned things, mind you, but a reg'lar good one. I'll tell you
+who lent it to me, if you'll promise not to peach."
+
+"We won't," says Kit, who is burning with curiosity.
+
+"Guess, then."
+
+"Bob Warren?" says Monica. Bob Warren is the rector's son, and is much
+at Moyne.
+
+"Not likely! Pegs above _him_. Well, I'll tell you. It's that fellow
+that's spoons on you,"--with all a brother's perspicacity,--"the fellow
+who saw us on the hay-cart,"--Monica writhes inwardly,--"Desmond, you
+know!"
+
+"The enemy's nephew?" asks Kit, in a thrilling tone, that bespeaks
+delight and a malicious expectation of breakers ahead.
+
+"Yes. I was talking to him yesterday, early in the day, at Madam
+O'Connor's; and he asked me was I your brother, Monica, to which I
+pleaded guilty, though," with a grin, "I'd have got out of it if I
+could; and then he began to talk about shooting, and said I might knock
+over any rabbits I liked in Coole. I told him I had no gun, so he
+offered to lend me one. I thought it was awfully jolly of him,
+considering I was an utter stranger, and that; but he looks a real good
+sort. He sent over the gun this morning by a boy, and I have had it
+hidden in the stable until now. I thought I'd never get out of that
+beastly garden this evening."
+
+"Oh, Terence, you shouldn't have taken the gun from him," says Monica,
+flushing. "Just think what Aunt Priscilla would say if she heard of it.
+You know how determined she is that we shall have no intercourse with
+the Desmonds."
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!" says Mr. Beresford. "I never heard such a row as
+they are forever making about simply _nothing_. Why, it's quite a
+common thing to jilt a girl, nowadays. I'd do it myself in a minute."
+
+"You won't have time," says Kit, contemptuously. "She--whoever she may
+be--will be sure to jilt _you_ first."
+
+"Look here," says Terence, eyeing his younger sister with much disfavor;
+"you're getting so precious sharp, you know, that I should think
+there'll be a conflagration on the Liffey before long; and I should
+think, too, that an outraged nation would be sure to fling the cause of
+it into the flames. So take care."
+
+"Terence, you ought to send that gun back _at once_," says Monica.
+
+"Perhaps I ought, but certainly I shan't," says Terence, genially. "And
+if I were you," politely, "I wouldn't make an ass of myself. There is
+quite enough of that sort of thing going on up there," indicating, by a
+wave of his hand, the drawing-room at Moyne, where the Misses Blake are
+at present dozing.
+
+"You shouldn't speak of them like that," says Monica; "it is very
+ungrateful of you, when you know how kind they are, and how fond of
+you."
+
+"Well, I'm fond of them, too," says Terence, remorsefully but gloomily;
+"and I'd be even fonder if they would only leave me alone. But they keep
+such a look-out on a fellow that sometimes I feel like cutting the whole
+thing and making a clean bolt of it."
+
+"If you ran away you would soon be wishing yourself back again," says
+Monica, scornfully. "You know you will have no money until you are
+twenty-one. People pretend to be discontented, at times, with their
+lives; but in the long run they generally acknowledge 'there is no place
+like home.'"
+
+"No, thank goodness, there isn't," says Terence, with moody fervor.
+"I'll acknowledge it at once, without the run. To have frequent
+repetitions of it would be more than human nature could endure. I have
+known two homes already; I should think a third would be my death."
+
+So saying, he shoulders the forbidden gun and marches off.
+
+Monica and Kit, getting down from their elevated position, also pursue
+their path, which leads in a contrary direction.
+
+"Monica," says Kit, presently, slipping her slender brown fingers
+through her sister's arm, "what did Terry mean just now, when he spoke
+about some one being 'spoons' on you? Does that mean being in love with
+you?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Is Mr. Desmond, then, in love with you?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"_Is_ he?"
+
+"Oh, Kit, how can I answer such a question as that?"
+
+"In words, I suppose. _Is_ he in love with you?"
+
+"I don't know," says Monica, in a troubled tone. "If I ever had a lover
+before, I should _know_; but----"
+
+"That means he is," says the astute Kit. "And I'm sure," with a little
+loving squeeze of her arm, "I don't wonder at it."
+
+"You must not say that," says Monica, earnestly. "Indeed, he said a few
+_things_ to me, but that is nothing; and----"
+
+"You think he _likes_ you?"
+
+"Yes," reluctantly.
+
+"I believe he adores the very ground you walk on."
+
+"Oh, no, indeed."
+
+"If you say that, he _isn't_ a real lover. A real one, to my mind, ought
+to be ready and willing to kiss the impressions your heels may make in
+the earth."
+
+"That would be the act of a fool; and Mr. Desmond is not a fool."
+
+"Ergo, not a lover. And yet I think he is _yours_. Monica," coaxingly,
+"did he say any pretty things to you?"
+
+"What should he say? I only met him twice."
+
+"You are prevaricating," gazing at her severely. "Why don't you answer
+me honestly?"
+
+"I don't know what _you_ call 'pretty things.'"
+
+"Yes, you do. Did he tell you your eyes were _deep, deep_ wells of love,
+and that your face was full of soul?"
+
+"No, he did not," says Monica, somewhat indignantly; "_certainly_ not.
+The idea!"
+
+"Well, that is what Percival said to the girl _he_ loved in the book I
+was reading yesterday," says Kit, rather cast down.
+
+"Then I'm very glad Mr. Desmond isn't like Percival."
+
+"I daresay he is nicer," says Kit, artfully. Then she tucks her arm into
+her sister's, and looks fondly in her face. "He must have said
+_something_ to you," she says. "Darling love, why won't you tell your
+own Kitten all about it?"
+
+A little smile quivers round Monica's lips.
+
+"Well, I will, then," she says. In her heart I believe she is glad to
+confide in somebody, and why not in Kit the sympathetic? "First, he made
+me feel he was delighted to meet me again. Then he asked me to go for a
+walk _alone_ with him; then he said he was--my lover!"
+
+"Oh!" says Kit, screwing up her small face with delight.
+
+"And then he asked me to meet him again to-day with _you_."
+
+"With _me_! I think that was very delicate of him." She is evidently
+flattered by this notice of her existence. Plainly, if not _the_ rose in
+his estimation, she is to be treated with the respect due to the rose's
+sister. It is all charming! she feels wafted upwards, and incorporated,
+as it were, in a real love affair. Yes, she will be the guardian angel
+of these thwarted lovers.
+
+"And what did you say?" she asks, with a gravity that befits the
+occasion.
+
+"I refused," in a low tone.
+
+"To meet him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"With _me_?" says this dragon of propriety.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because of Aunt Priscilla." And then she tells her all about Aunt
+Priscilla's speech in the carriage, and her reply to it.
+
+"I never heard such a rubbishy request in my life!" says the younger
+Miss Beresford, disdainfully. "It is really beneath notice. And when all
+is told it means nothing. As _I_ read it, it seems you have only
+promised to forget you ever spoke to Mr. Desmond: you haven't promised
+never to speak to him again." Thus the little Jesuit.
+
+"That was not what Aunt Priscilla meant."
+
+"If she meant anything, it was folly. And, after all, what is this
+dreadful quarrel between us and the Desmonds all about? It lives in Aunt
+Priscilla's brain. I'll tell you what I think, Monica. I think Aunt
+Priscilla was once in love with old Mr. Desmond, and mother cut her out;
+and now, just because she has been disappointed in her own love-affair,
+she wants to thwart you in yours."
+
+"She doesn't, indeed. Any one but Mr. Desmond might show me attention,
+and she would be pleased. She was quite glad when Mr. Ryde--well--when
+he made himself agreeable to me."
+
+"From all you told me of him, he must have made himself _dis_-agreeable.
+I'm perfectly certain I should hate Mr. Ryde, and I'm equally sure I
+should like Mr. Desmond. What did he say to you, darling, when you
+refused to meet him even with _me_?" She lays great stress on this
+allusion to herself.
+
+"He said I might do as I chose, but that he would meet me again, whether
+I liked it or not, and _soon_!"
+
+"Now, that's the lover for _me_!" says Kit, enthusiastically. "No giving
+in, no shilly-shallying, but downright determination. He's an honest
+man, and we all know what an honest man is,--'the noblest work of God.'
+I'm certain he will keep his word, and I do hope I shall be with you
+when next you meet him, as I should like to make friends with him."
+
+At this moment it occurs to Monica that she never before knew how very,
+_very_ fond she is of Kit.
+
+"Oh, well, I don't suppose I _can_ see him again for ever so long," she
+says. But even as the words pass her lips she knows she does not mean
+them, and remembers with a little throb of pleasure that he had said he
+would see her again _soon_. _Soon!_ why, that might mean this
+evening,--now,--_any_ moment! Instinctively she lifts her head and looks
+around her, and there, just a little way off, is a young man coming
+quickly towards her, bareheaded and in evening dress.
+
+"I told you how it would be," says Kit, in a nervous whisper, taking
+almost a bit out of poor Monica's arm in her excitement. "Oh, when I
+have a lover I hope he will be like _he_."
+
+Her grammar has gone after her nerve.
+
+Monica is silent: some color has gone from her cheeks, and her heart is
+beating faster. It is her very first _affaire_, so we must forgive her:
+a little frightened shadow has fallen into her eyes, and altogether she
+looks a shade younger than usual: she is troubled in spirit, and
+inclined to find fault with the general management of things.
+
+After all, she might as well have gone to the river this evening for
+what good her abstinence has done her: the poverty of our strength to
+conquer faith and the immutability of its decrees fills her with
+consternation and a fretful desire for freedom. Yet above and beyond all
+these vain imaginings is a gladness and a pride that her power is strong
+enough to draw her lover to her side in spite of all difficulties.
+
+The bareheaded young man has come up to her by this time, and is
+holding out his hand: silently she lays her own in it, and colors
+treacherously as his fingers close on hers in a close, tender, and
+possessive fashion.
+
+"I found the river too chilly," he says, smiling, "so I came on here.
+Having been unsuccessful all the afternoon and morning, I _knew_ I
+should find you _now_."
+
+This might be hieroglyphics to others, but is certainly English to her,
+however she may pretend otherwise; she doesn't pretend much, to do her
+justice.
+
+"This is your sister?" goes on Desmond, looking at Kit, who is regarding
+him with an eye that is quite a "piercer."
+
+"Yes," says Monica. "Kit, this is Mr. Desmond."
+
+"I know that," says this _enfant terrible_, still fixing him with a
+glance of calm and searching scrutiny that is well calculated to
+disconcert even a bolder man. Then all at once her mind seems made up,
+and, coming forward, she holds out her hand, and says, "How d'ye do?" to
+him, with a sudden, rare sweet smile that convinces him at once of her
+sisterhood to Monica.
+
+"We are friends?" he says, being attracted to the child for her own
+grace alone, as well as for the charm of her relationship to the pale
+snowdrop of a girl beside her.
+
+"Yes. If you prove true to my Monica."
+
+"Oh, Kit!" says Monica, deeply shocked; but Kit pays no heed, her eyes
+being fastened gravely upon the man before her. He is quite as grave as
+she is.
+
+"If our friendship depends upon that, it will be a lasting one," he
+says, quietly. "My whole life is at your sister's service."
+
+Something in his tones touches Monica: slowly she lifts her eyes until
+they reach his.
+
+"I wish, I _wish_ you would not persist in this," she says, sadly.
+
+"But why? To think of you is my chiefest joy. Do you forbid me to be
+happy?"
+
+"No--but--"
+
+"In the morning and the afternoon I went to the river, to look for
+you--in vain; after dinner I went too, still hoping against hope; and
+now at last that I _have_ found you, you are unkind to me!" He speaks
+lightly, but his eyes are earnest. "Miss Katherine," he says appealingly
+to Kit, "of your grace, I pray you to befriend me."
+
+"Monica would not go to the river this evening because she remembered an
+absurd promise she made to Aunt Priscilla, and because she feared to
+meet you there. It is the most absurd promise in the world: wait till
+you hear it." Whereupon Kit, who is in her element, proceeds to tell him
+all about Miss Priscilla's words to Monica, and Monica's answer, and her
+(Kit's) interpretation thereof. "She certainly didn't promise never to
+speak to you again," concludes she, with a nod Solomon might have
+envied.
+
+Need it be said that Mr. Desmond agrees with her on all points?
+
+"There is no use in continuing the discussion," says Monica, turning
+aside a little coldly. "I should not have gone to the river, _anyway_."
+
+This chilling remark produces a blank indescribable, and conversation
+languishes: Monica betrays an interest in the horizon never before
+developed; Mr. Desmond regards with a moody glance the ripening harvest;
+and Kit, looking inward, surveys her mental resources and wonders what
+it is her duty to do next.
+
+    "For aught that ever I could read,
+    Could ever hear by tale or history,
+    The course of true love never did run smooth."
+
+_This_ much she knows; and to any one blessed with a vision sharp as
+hers it is very apparent now that there is a roughness somewhere. She
+knows too, through many works of fiction, that those in attendance on
+loving couples should at certain seasons see cause to absent themselves
+from their duty, and search for a supposititious handkerchief or sprain
+an unoffending ankle, or hunt diligently in hedgerows for undiscoverable
+flowers. Three paths therefore lie open to her; which to adopt is the
+question. To return to the house for a handkerchief would be a decidedly
+risky affair, calculated to lead up to stiff and damning
+cross-examination from the aunts, which might prove painful; to sprain
+an ankle might prove even painfuller; but to dive into the innocent
+hedgerow for the extraction of summer flowers, what can be more
+effectual and reasonable? she will do it at once.
+
+"Oh, what lovely dog-roses!" she says, effusively, in a tone that
+wouldn't have deceived a baby; "I really _must_ get some."
+
+"Let me get them for you," says Desmond, gloomily, which she at once
+decides is excessively stupid of him, and she doing all she can for him
+too! She tries to wither him with a glance, but he is too miserable to
+be lightly crushed.
+
+"No, thank you," she says; "I prefer getting them myself. Flowers are
+like fruit, much more enjoyable when you pick them with your own hands."
+
+So saying, this accomplished gooseberry skips round the corner, leaving
+Monica and Mr. Desmond _tete-a-tete_.
+
+That they enjoy their sudden isolation just at first is questionable:
+Monica discovers blots on the perfect horizon; and Mr. Desmond, after a
+full minute's pause, says, reproachfully,--
+
+"You didn't _really_ mean that, did you?"
+
+"Mean what?" uncompromisingly, and without changing position.
+
+"That even if matters had been quite--quite comfortable with us, you
+would not have gone to meet me at the river?"
+
+"I don't know," in a low tone.
+
+"_Say_ you didn't mean it."
+
+"I--suppose I didn't," even lower.
+
+"Look at me, then," says Mr. Desmond.
+
+Kit, in her high, sweet voice, is warbling that little, pretty thing
+about a "lover and his lass," in the next field. The words of her song,
+and its silly refrain of
+
+    "A hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,"
+
+come to them across the corn and scented meadow. Monica, with her hand
+in his, smiles faintly.
+
+"You hear what she sings,--'that life is but a flower:' is it wise,
+then, to set your heart upon----"
+
+"You?"
+
+"I meant, an impossibility."
+
+"Which you are _not_. You shall not be. I don't believe in
+impossibilities, to begin with; and, even if it were so, I should still
+prefer to be unwise."
+
+"You are defiant," she says, lightly; but her smile is still very sad.
+
+"I have hope. 'Affection's ground is beyond time, place, and all
+mortality,' as we read. I shall conquer yet; yes, even _your_
+prejudices. In the mean time, give me fair play; do not harden your
+heart against me."
+
+"I wish mine was the only hard heart you had to contend against,"
+returns she, with a faint sigh. But this remark seems to drop so
+carelessly from her lips that, though elated by it, he is afraid to take
+any open notice of it.
+
+"I hope your aunts were not cross to you last evening on my account?" he
+says, anxiously.
+
+"No. Nothing was said, more than Kit told you, except that Aunt
+Priscilla touched upon the point of introduction. Oh, what a fright I
+got then! If she had persisted in her inquiries, what _would_ have
+become of me?"
+
+"Couldn't you have----" began Mr. Desmond, and then stops abruptly. A
+glance at the face uplifted to his checks his half-uttered speech
+effectually, and renders him, besides, thoroughly ashamed of himself.
+
+"If I had to confess there had been _no_ introduction," goes on Monica,
+laughingly, "I don't know what would have been the result."
+
+"The deluge, I suppose," returns her companion thoughtfully.
+
+"What a pity you have an uncle at all!" says Monica, presently. "It
+would be all right only for him." She omits to say _what_ would be all
+right, but the translation is simple.
+
+"Oh, don't say that," entreats Desmond, who has a wholesome affection
+for the old gentleman above at Coole. "He is the kindest old fellow in
+the world. I think, if you knew him, you would be very fond of him; and
+I know he would adore _you_. In fact, he is so kind-hearted that I
+cannot think how all that unfortunate story about your mother ever came
+about. He looks to me as if he couldn't say 'Bo to a goose' where a
+woman was concerned and yet his manner to-night confirmed everything I
+heard."
+
+"He confessed?" in a deeply interested tone.
+
+"Well just the same thing. He seemed distressed about his own conduct in
+the affair, too. But his manner was odd, I thought: and he seems as much
+at daggers drawn with your aunts as they with him."
+
+"That is because he is ashamed of himself. One is always hardest on
+those one has injured."
+
+"But that is just it," says Mr. Desmond, in a puzzled tone. "I don't
+believe, honestly, he is a bit ashamed of himself. He _said_ a good deal
+about his regret, but I could see he quite gloried in his crime. And, in
+fact, I couldn't discover the smallest trace of remorse about him."
+
+"He must really be a very bad old man," says Monica, severely. "I am
+perfectly certain if he were _my_ uncle I should not love him at all."
+
+"Don't say that. When he _is_ your uncle you will see that I am right,
+and that he is a very lovable old man, in spite of all his faults."
+
+At this Monica blushes a little, and twirls her rings round her slender
+fingers in an excess of shyness, and finally, in spite of a stern
+pressure laid upon herself, gives way to mirth.
+
+"What are you laughing at now?" asks he laughing too.
+
+"At you," casting a swift but charming glance at him from under her long
+lashes. "You _do_ say such funny things!"
+
+"Did you hear there is to be an afternoon dance at the Barracks next
+week?" asks he presently. "I was at Clonbree on Thursday, and Cobbett
+told me about it."
+
+"Who is Cobbett?"
+
+"The captain there, you know. He was at Aghyohillbeg yesterday. Didn't
+you see him,--a little, half-starved looking man, with a skin the color
+of his hair, and both gray?"
+
+"Oh, of course--now I remember him," says Monica, this fetching
+description having cleared her memory. "I thought to myself how odd he
+and the other man, Mr. Ryde, looked together, one as big as the other
+was little."
+
+"I think there is more matter than brains about Ryde," says Desmond,
+contemptuously. "Do you think your aunt will let you go to this dance at
+Clonbree?"
+
+"Oh, no; I am _sure_ not. My aunts would be certain to look upon a dance
+in the Barracks as something too awfully dissipated."
+
+"For one reason I should be glad you didn't go."
+
+"Glad?" opening her eyes.
+
+"Yes. That fellow Ryde never took his eyes off you yesterday."
+
+"Is _that_ a crime?"
+
+"In my eyes, _yes_."
+
+"And you would wish me to be kept a prisoner at home just because one
+man looked at me?"
+
+"I don't want any one to look at you but me!" Then he comes a little
+closer to her and compels her, by the very strength of his regard, to
+let her eyes meet his. "Do you like Ryde?" he asks, somewhat
+imperiously. "Monica, answer me."
+
+It is the second time he has called her by her Christian name, and a
+startled expression passes over her face.
+
+"Well, he was nice to me," she says, with a studied hesitation that
+belongs to the first bit of coquetry she has ever practised in her life.
+She has tasted the sweetness of power, and, fresh as her knowledge is
+she estimates the advantage of it to a nicety.
+
+"I believe a man has only to be six feet one to have every woman in the
+world in love with him," says Desmond, wrathfully, who is only five feet
+eleven.
+
+"I am not exactly in _love_ with Mr. Ryde," says Monica, sweetly, with
+averted face and a coy air, assumed for her companion's discomfiture;
+"but----"
+
+"But _what_?"
+
+"But, I was going to say, there is nothing remarkable in that, as I am
+not in love with _any one_, and hope I never shall be. I wonder where
+Kit can have gone to: will you get up there, Mr. Desmond, and look?"
+Breaking off a tiny blade of grass from the bank near her, she puts it
+between her pretty teeth, and slowly nibbles it with an air of utter
+indifference to all the world that drives Mr. Desmond nearly out of his
+wits.
+
+Disdaining to take any heed of her "notice to quit," and quite
+determined to know the worst, he says, defiantly,--
+
+"If you _do_ go to this dance, may I consider myself engaged to you for
+the first waltz?" There is quite a frown upon his face as he says this;
+but it hasn't the faintest effect upon Monica. She is not at all
+impressed, and is, in fact enjoying herself immensely.
+
+"If I go, which is more than improbable, I shall certainly not dance
+with you at all," she says, calmly, "because Aunt Priscilla will be
+there too, and she would not hear of my doing even a mild quadrille with
+a Desmond."
+
+"I see," with a melancholy assumption of composure. "All your dances,
+then, are to be reserved for Ryde."
+
+"If Mr. Ryde asks me to dance, of course I shall not refuse."
+
+"You mean to tell me"--even the poor assumption is now gone--"that you
+are going to give him _all_ and me _none_?"
+
+"I shall not give any one _all_: how can you talk like that? But I
+cannot defy Aunt Priscilla. It is very unkind of you to desire it. I
+suppose you think I should enjoy being tormented from morning till night
+all about you?"
+
+"Certainly not. I don't want you to be tormented on any account, and,
+above all on mine," very stiffly. "To prevent anything of the kind, I
+shall not go to Cobbett's dance."
+
+"If you choose to get into a bad temper I can't help you."
+
+"I am _not_ in a bad temper, and even if I were I have cause. But it is
+not temper will prevent my going to the Barracks."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Why should I go there to be made miserable? _You_ can go and dance with
+Ryde to your heart's content, but I shall spare myself the pain of
+seeing you. Did you say you wanted your sister? Shall I call her now? I
+am sure you must want to go home."
+
+"I don't," she says, unexpectedly; and then a little smile of conscious
+triumph wreathes her lips as she looks at him, standing moody and
+dejected before her. A word from her will transform him; and now, the
+day being all her own, she can afford to be generous. Even the very best
+of women can be cruel to their lovers.
+
+"I don't," she says, "not _yet_. There is something I want to ask you
+first," she pauses in a tantalizing fashion, and glances from the grass
+she is still holding to him, and from him back to the grass again,
+before she speaks. "It is a question," she says then, as though
+reluctantly, "but you look so angry with me that I am afraid to ask it."
+This is the rankest hypocrisy, as he is as wax in her hands at this
+moment; but, though he knows it, he gives in to the sweetness of her
+manner, and lets his face clear.
+
+"Ask me anything you like," he says, turning upon her now a countenance
+"more in sorrow than in anger."
+
+"It isn't much," said Miss Beresford, sweetly, "only--what _is_ your
+Christian name? I have been so _longing_ to know. It is very unpleasant
+to be obliged to _think_ of people by their surnames, is it not? so
+unfriendly!"
+
+He is quite staggered by the excess of her geniality.
+
+"My name is Brian," he says, devoutly hoping she will not think it
+hideous and so see cause to pass judgment upon it.
+
+"Brian!" going nearer to him with half-shy eyes, and a little _riante_
+mouth that with difficulty suppresses its laughter. "How _pretty_!
+Brian," purposely lingering over it, "with an 'i' of course?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm so glad I know yours now!" says this disgraceful little coquette,
+with a sigh of pretended relief. "You knew mine, and that wasn't fair,
+you know. Besides,"--with a rapid glance that might have melted an
+anchorite and delivered him from the error of his ways,--"besides, I may
+want to call you by it _some_ day, and then I should be at a loss."
+
+Though by no means proof against so much friendliness, Mr. Desmond still
+continues to maintain an injured demeanor. Monica lays one little hand
+lightly on his arm.
+
+"Won't you ask me to call you by it?" she says, with the prettiest
+reproach.
+
+"Oh, Monica," says the young man, seizing her hand and pressing it
+against his heart, "you know your power; be merciful. Darling," drawing
+her still nearer to him, "I don't think you quite understand how it is
+with me; but, indeed, I love you with all my heart and soul."
+
+"But in such a little time, how can it be true?" says Monica, all her
+gayety turning into serious wonderment.
+
+"'Love is a thing as any spirit free,'" quotes he, tenderly. "How shall
+one know when the god may come? It has nothing to do with time. I have
+seen you,--it little matters how often,--and now I love you. Dear heart,
+_try_ to love me."
+
+There is something in his manner both gentle and earnest. Impressed by
+it, she whispers softly,--
+
+"I _will_ try."
+
+"And you will call me Brian?"
+
+"Oh, no!--no, indeed!--not yet," entreats she, stepping back from him as
+far as he will allow her.
+
+"Very well, not yet."
+
+"And you will go to the Barracks for this dance?"
+
+"I will do anything on earth you ask me. You know that too well, I fear,
+for my peace of mind."
+
+"And you won't be angry with me if I don't dance with you there?"
+
+"No. I promise that, too. Ah! here is Miss Kit coming,--and without the
+roses,--after all."
+
+It is true she has no roses; she has, indeed, forgotten she even
+pretended to want them, and has been happy while away with her song and
+her own thoughts.
+
+"I think, Monica, we ought, perhaps, to be thinking of coming home," she
+says, apologetically, yet with quite a motherly air. Has she not been
+mounting guard over and humoring these two giddy young people before
+her?
+
+"Yes, I think so too;" and the goodness of Kit, and something else,
+strike her.
+
+"If we are asked to this dance at Clonbree, and if we go, I should like
+Kit to go too," she says in a soft aside to Desmond, who says, "That is
+all right: I settled it with Cobbett yesterday," in the same tone; and
+then a little more energetically, as he sees the moments flying, he goes
+on, "Before you go, say one thing after me. It will be a small
+consolation until I see you again. Say, 'Brian, good-by.'"
+
+"Good-by, Brian," she whispers, shyly, and then she draws her hand out
+of his, and, turning to the studiously inattentive Kit, passes her arm
+through hers.
+
+"Good-by, Mr. Desmond! I trust we may soon meet again," says the
+younger Miss Beresford, with rather a grand air, smiling upon him
+patronizingly.
+
+"I hope so too," says Desmond, gravely, "and that next time you will
+graciously accord me a little more of your society."
+
+Quite pleased with this delicate protest against her lengthened absence,
+Kit bows politely, and she and Monica take their homeward way.
+
+Once Monica turns, to wave him a friendly adieu, and he can see again
+her soft, bare arms, her pretty baby-neck in her white dinner-gown, and
+her lovely, earnest eyes. Then she is gone, and her passing seems to him
+"like the ceasing of exquisite music," and nothing is left to him but
+the wailing of the rising night-wind, and the memory of a perfect
+girl-face that he knows will haunt him till he dies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+  How Terry is put in the Dock--And how the two Misses Blake baffle
+  expectation, and show themselves in their true colors.
+
+
+Monica and Kit reach the house in breathless haste. It is far later than
+they imagined when lingering in happy dalliance in the flower-crowned
+field below, and yet not really late for a sultry summer evening. But
+the Misses Blake are fearful of colds, and expect all the household to
+be in at stated hours; and the Misses Beresford are fearful of
+scoldings, carrying, as they do, guilty hearts within their bosoms.
+
+"Conscience makes cowards of us all;" and the late secret interview with
+Brian Desmond has lowered the tone of their courage to such an extent
+that they scarcely dare to breathe as they creep into their aunts'
+presence.
+
+The lamps are lighting in the drawing-room as they enter, though the
+windows are open, and _Dies pater_, the all-great, is still victorious
+over _Nox_. The Misses Blake both start and look up as they come in, and
+show general symptoms of relief which is not reciprocated by the
+culprits. Mrs. Mitchell, the nurse, who has followed almost on their
+heels, stands in the doorway, with bayonets fixed, so to speak, seeing
+there is every chance of an engagement. It may be as well to remark
+here that Mitchell has not "got on" with the Misses Blake, having
+rooted opinions of her own not to be lightly laid aside. The Misses
+Blake's opinions have also a home in very deep soil, so that the
+"give-and-take" principle is not in force between them and the foreign
+nurse, as they term Jane Mitchell, though she was bred and born on
+Devonshire soil.
+
+"Mitchell," say the Misses Blake in confidence to each other, "is not
+altogether what one would desire in a servant assigned to the care of
+children. She is not _nice_ in many ways; there is far too much of the
+fine lady about her," etc.
+
+"H'elderly ladies as 'asn't been to the h'altar," says Mrs. Mitchell in
+confidence to cook, "can't be supposed to know what is right and proper
+for motherless lambs." And so the war rages.
+
+Just now Mrs. Mitchell is plainly on the defensive, and eyes her
+baby--as she still calls Kit (having nursed her)--with all the air of
+one prepared to rush in and rescue her by bodily force, should the worst
+come to the worst.
+
+"My dear Monica, what a late hour to be abroad!" says Miss Priscilla,
+reproachfully. "The dew falling, too, which is most unwholesome. For
+you, Kit, a mere child, it is really destruction. Nurse, as you are
+_there_," regarding the bony Mitchell with distrust and disfavor, "I
+think it as well to let you know I do not think this is a proper time
+for Miss Katherine to be in the open air. It is far too late."
+
+"It isn't late, miss. It is only nine o'clock."
+
+"Nine o'clock! What is the woman thinking about? Nine! why, that means
+night?"
+
+"Not at this time of the year, miss."
+
+"At _any_ time of year. With all the experience you _say_ you have had,
+I wonder you do not consider it a most injurious hour for a child of
+Miss Katherine's age to be out of doors."
+
+"I don't hold with making a child puny, miss. Coddling up, and that
+sort, only leads to consumptions and assmas, in my humble opingion."
+
+"I must request that for the future you will show deference to _our_
+opinion, nurse; which is directly opposed to yours," says Miss
+Priscilla, straightening herself.
+
+"I suppose I can manage my own young lady, miss," says Mitchell,
+undaunted, and now, indeed, thoroughly braced for conflict.
+
+"I have grave doubts about that, Mitchell, and at least you should not
+answer me in this wise."
+
+"If I brought my young lady safely all the way from Jerusalem, miss, I
+suppose I can take care of her 'ere."
+
+"Her ear?" questions Miss Priscilla, not meaning to be rude at all.
+
+"She means _here_," says Miss Penelope, in a stage whisper.
+
+"Oh!" says Miss Priscilla, rather shocked at her mistake, which has been
+accepted by Mitchell as a deliberate insult. "Katherine, go upstairs
+with Mitchell, and change your shoes and stockings; they _must_ be
+damp."
+
+"I don't consider Mitchell at all a nice person," says Miss Priscilla,
+when the door had closed upon that veteran; "but still I hope I did not
+offend her with that last thoughtless slip of mine. But really, over
+here in Ireland, we are not accustomed to the extraordinary language in
+which Mitchell indulges at times. She seems to me to be saving up her
+aspirates for a hypothetical dearth of that article in the future."
+
+Miss Priscilla is so pleased with this long word that she quite recovers
+her temper.
+
+"Certainly, from Jerusalem _is_ a long way to bring a child," says Miss
+Penelope, thoughtfully; and, indeed, this journey from Palestine has
+been, and probably always will be, Mrs. Mitchell's trump card when
+disputing with the mistresses of Moyne.
+
+Miss Priscilla has walked to the window, and is now gazing in thoughtful
+fashion over the fast darkening landscape. Perhaps her mind is
+travelling that long journey to Palestine, perhaps it is still occupied
+with the inimical Mitchell; be that as it may, she keeps her senses well
+about her, and a keen eye behind her spectacles, because presently she
+says aloud, in a tone calculated to attract attention,--
+
+"_What_ is that in the meadow, creeping along beneath the ha-ha,
+Katherine?"--Kit has returned with dry shoes and stockings;--"come here,
+your eyes are sharper than mine!" which is a distinct libel upon her own
+orbs.
+
+"Where?" says Kit, recognizing the crouching form of Terry with a pang
+of terror. Is she to be compelled to inform upon her own brother? Perish
+the thought!
+
+"Over _there_," says Miss Priscilla, in an awful tone, pointing to where
+the luckless Terence is crawling home in the fond belief that he is
+defying all detection; whereupon Kit, with much presence of mind, looks
+scrutinizingly in just the opposite direction. "It is somebody carrying
+a gun. Good gracious! it is remarkably like Terence!"
+
+At this Monica starts perceptibly, and lets the book she is holding fall
+heavily to the ground.
+
+"Perhaps it is a poacher," says Kit, brightly, her general reading being
+deeply imbued with those characters.
+
+"Perhaps," says Miss Priscilla, grimly. "Yet I feel sure it is your
+brother!" Then she throws wide the sash, and calls aloud to the
+culprit,--
+
+"Terence! Terence, come here!"
+
+At this, Mr. Beresford loses his presence of mind, and stands bolt
+upright, gun in hand: the words have come to him distinctly across the
+soft green grass, and fallen upon his ears with dismal distinctness.
+Throwing up the sponge, he shoulders the offending weapon and marches
+upon the foe with head erect and banners flying. Even if death is before
+him (meaning the confiscation of the gun), he vows to himself he will
+still die game.
+
+"Really, it _is_ Terence," says Miss Penelope, as he approaches; "but
+where _can_ he have got the gun?"
+
+"I _know_!" says Miss Priscilla, whereupon Monica feels positively
+faint.
+
+Feeling she is growing very pale, she rises hurriedly from her seat,
+and, going to the lower window, so stands that her face cannot be seen.
+
+If Terence is cross-examined, will he tell a lie about the obtaining of
+the gun? And if he does _not_, what will happen? what dreadful things
+will not be said and done by Aunt Priscilla? Her breath comes quickly,
+and with horror she finds herself devoutly hoping that Terence on this
+occasion _will_ tell a lie.
+
+By this time Terence has mounted the balcony, and is standing in a
+somewhat defiant attitude before his inquisitors.
+
+"Where have you been, Terence?" began Miss Priscilla.
+
+"Shooting, aunt."
+
+"And where did you get the gun, Terence?"
+
+Silence.
+
+"You certainly had no gun yesterday, and none this morning, as far as I
+can judge. Now we want the truth from you, Terence, but we do not wish
+to coerce you. Take time, and give us an answer your heart can approve."
+
+Such an answer is evidently difficult to be procured at a moment's
+notice, because Terence is still dumb.
+
+"I am afraid your nature is not wholly free from deceit, Terence," says
+Miss Priscilla, sadly. "This hesitation on your part speaks volumes; and
+such unnecessary deceit, too. Neither your aunt Penelope nor I have any
+objection to your borrowing a gun if you find such a dangerous weapon
+needful to your happiness. But why not confide in us?"
+
+"Is it possible she would not be really angry if she knew?" thinks
+Monica, breathlessly. I regret to say that both Kit and Terence take
+another view of Miss Blake's speech, and believe it an artful dodge to
+extract confession.
+
+"I--" says Terence, to gain time, and because speech of some kind at
+this moment is absolutely necessary--"I didn't think----"
+
+"Of _course_ you didn't think, Terence, or you would not have recorded
+your poor aunts, in your secret thoughts, as hard-hearted and
+ungenerous. If you had told us openly that Mitson, the coast-guard, had
+lent you a gun (as I strongly suspect, and indeed felt sure from the
+first moment was the case), we should not have been at all angry, only
+naturally anxious that you should use an instrument of death with
+caution. But you have no confidence in us, Terence."
+
+Intense relief fills the breasts of the three Beresfords. Remorse that
+the trusting nature of the old ladies should be so abused touches Monica
+keenly, but of the other two I must again declare with grief that they
+feel nothing but a sense of delivery from peril, and no contrition at
+all for their past suspicions.
+
+"I thought you might be angry, aunt," says Terence. He is looking very
+dirty indeed, and his hands are grimy, and altogether even Monica cannot
+bring herself to feel proud of him. There is, too, a covert desire for
+laughter about him that exasperates her terribly.
+
+"Not angry, my dear; only nervous. I hope you know how to load, and
+that. I remember a cousin of ours blowing off his first finger and thumb
+with a powder-horn."
+
+"This is a breech-loader, auntie," says Monica, softly.
+
+"Eh? One of those new-fangled things I have read of. Oh, well, my dear
+boy, I daresay there is more need for circumspection. Let me look at it.
+Ah! very handsome, indeed! I had no idea coast-guards were so well
+supplied; and yet I cling to the old guns that your grandfather used to
+use."
+
+"Did you shoot anything?" asks Miss Penelope, who has grown quite
+interested, and regards Terence with a glance of pride.
+
+"Only one thrush," says Terence, drawing the dilapidated corpse from his
+pocket, "and a sparrow, and one rabbit I fired at and wounded mortally,
+I know, but it got away into its hole and I lost it."
+
+"Rabbits!" says Miss Priscilla. "Am I to understand--nay, I hope I am
+_not_ to understand--that you crossed the stile into Coole?"
+
+"There are plenty of rabbits in our own wood," says Terence; "more than
+I could shoot. I am glad you don't object to my having the gun, auntie."
+
+"I don't, my dear; but I wish you had been more ingenuous with us. Why
+now, Terence, _why_ do you steal along a field with your back bent as
+though desirous of avoiding our observation, and with your gun _under_
+your coat, as if there was a policeman or a bailiff after you?"
+
+"I was only trying to steal upon a crow, aunt."
+
+"Well, that _may be_, my dear, but there are ways of doing things. And
+why put your gun _under_ your coat? I can't think such a fraudulent
+proceeding necessary even with a crow. Now look here, Terence,"
+illustrating his walk and surreptitious manner of concealing his gun
+beneath his coat, "_does_ this look nice?"
+
+"If I do it like _you_, auntie, it looks _very_ nice," says Terence,
+innocently, but with a malevolent intention.
+
+"What a pity you missed the rabbit, Terry!" says Monica, hurriedly.
+
+"Oh, he is dead _now_, I'm certain; but I should have liked to bring him
+home. His leg was broken, and I chased him right through the rushes down
+below in the furze brake at Coole."
+
+Sensation!
+
+It is too late to redeem his error. "Murder wol out, that see we day by
+day," says Chaucer, and now, indeed, all the fat is in the fire. The two
+old ladies draw back from him and turn mute eyes of grief upon each
+other, while Kit and Monica stare with heavy reproach upon their guilty
+brother.
+
+The guilty brother returns their glance with interest, and then Miss
+Priscilla speaks.
+
+"So you went into Coole, after all," she says. "Oh, Terence!"
+
+"I couldn't help it," says Terence, wrathfully. "I wasn't going to let
+the rabbit go for the sake of a mere whim."
+
+"_A mere whim!_" Words fail me to convey Miss Priscilla's indignation.
+"Are you destitute of heart, boy, that you talk thus lightly of a family
+insult? Oh! shame, shame!"
+
+"I'm very sorry if I have made you unhappy," says Terence, who is really
+a very good boy and fond. "I didn't mean it, _indeed_."
+
+But Miss Priscilla appears quite broken-hearted.
+
+"To dream of bringing a rabbit of Coole into this house!" she says, with
+quite a catch in her voice that brings Miss Penelope into prominent
+play.
+
+"If, when you came to the stile that leads into Moyne," she says, "you
+had said to yourself, 'My good aunt, who loves me so dearly, would not
+wish me to enter this forbidden land,' you would, I _hope_, have paused,
+and come back here. But you did not. You went recklessly on, and trod
+upon ground where your foot is _unwelcome_."
+
+"Dear Aunt Penelope, do not talk like that," says Monica, entreatingly,
+slipping her arm around her.
+
+"And this to his poor old aunts who love him so fondly!" says Miss
+Penelope, in so dismal a voice that the two Misses Blake break into
+sobs.
+
+"It wouldn't seem so bad if he hadn't equivocated about it," says Miss
+Priscilla, presently. "But he purposely led us to believe that he had
+not set his foot on that detested land."
+
+"He has indeed been much to blame," says Miss Penelope. "Terence, what
+was it it said about _lying_ in the Bible this morning? I am afraid your
+chapter to-day--that awful chapter about Ananias and Sapphira--did you
+little good."
+
+A growl from Terence.
+
+"He will be more careful for the future, auntie," says Monica,
+interpreting the growl after her own gentle fashion. "And now you will
+forgive him, won't you? After all, any one, even _you_, might forget
+about forbidden lands, if you were racing after a rabbit."
+
+The idea of the Misses Blake racing through rushes and gorse after a
+rabbit strikes Kit as so comical that she forgets everything, and laughs
+aloud. And then the Misses Blake, who are not altogether without a sense
+of fun, catching "the humor of it," laugh too, and, drying their eyes,
+give Terence to understand that he is forgiven.
+
+Just at this moment the door is opened, and Timothy enters, bearing not
+only an air of mystery with him, but a large envelope.
+
+"Why, what is this at this time of night?" says Miss Priscilla, who is
+plainly under the impression that, once the lamps are lighted, it is
+verging on midnight. She takes the envelope from Timothy, and gazes at
+the huge regimental crest upon it with a judicial expression.
+
+"A sojer brought it, miss. Yes, indeed, ma'am. A-hossback he come, all
+the way from the Barracks at Clonbree."
+
+Redcoats at Rossmoyne are a novelty, and are regarded by the peasantry
+with mixed feelings of admiration and contempt. I think the contempt is
+stronger with Timothy than the admiration.
+
+"From the Barracks?" says Miss Priscilla, slowly, turning and twisting
+the letter between her fingers, while Monica's heart beats rapidly. It
+is, it _must_ be the invitation; and what will be the result of it?
+
+"Yes, indeed, miss. I asked him what brought him at this hour, ma'am;
+but he took me mighty short wid his answer, so I give up me questions."
+
+Never having been able during fifty years to make up his mind whether
+his mistresses should be addressed as maidens or matrons, Timothy has
+compromised matters by putting a "miss" and a "ma'am" into every
+sentence he dedicates to them.
+
+"Ah, an invitation from Captain Cobbett for Friday next--um--um--four to
+seven--um--um. All of us invited, even Kit," says Miss Priscilla, in a
+decidedly lively tone.
+
+"Me! am I asked?" cries Kit, excitedly.
+
+"Yes, indeed, you are specially mentioned. Very nice and attentive, I
+must say, of those young men, particularly when we have not shown them
+any kindness _as yet_. I thought that Mr. Ryde a very superior young
+fellow, with none of the discourteous antipathy to _age_ that disfigures
+the manners of the youth of the present day. Penelope, my dear, perhaps
+you had better indite the answer to this. Yours is the pen of a ready
+writer."
+
+"Very well," says Miss Penelope, rising slowly--Oh! _so_ slowly! thinks
+Monica--and going towards the davenport.
+
+"Is the soldier outside, Timothy?" asks Miss Priscilla.
+
+"Yes, miss. He said he wanted a bit of writing from ye for the captain."
+
+"It is a long ride. Take him downstairs, Timothy, and give him some
+beer, while Miss Penelope prepares a reply."
+
+"Begging your pardon, miss, and with due respect to ye, ma'am, but he's
+that stiff in his manners, an' tight in his clothes, I doubt if he'd
+condescend to enter the kitchen."
+
+"Timothy," says Miss Priscilla, with much displeasure, "you have been
+having hot words with this stranger. What is it all about?"
+
+"There's times, miss, as we all knows, when a worm will turn, and though
+I'm not a worm, ma'am, no more am I a coward, an' a red coat don't cover
+more flesh than a black; an' I'm an ould man, Miss Priscilla, to be
+called a buffer!"
+
+It is apparent to every one that Timothy is nearly in tears.
+
+"A buffer?" repeats Miss Priscilla, with dignity blended with disgust:
+she treats the word cautiously, as one might something noxious. "What is
+a buffer?"
+
+Nobody enlightens her: though perhaps Terence might, were he not busily
+engaged trying to suppress his laughter behind a huge Japanese fan.
+
+"Perhaps, Timothy," says Miss Priscilla, gravely, "as we all seem in
+ignorance about the real meaning of this extraordinary word, you are
+wrong in condemning it as an insult. It _may_ be--er--a term of
+_endearment_."
+
+At this Terence chokes, then coughs solemnly, and finally, lowering the
+fan, shows himself preternaturally grave, as a set-off against all
+suspicions.
+
+"I wouldn't pin my faith to that, miss, if I was you," says Ryan,
+respectfully, but with a touch of the fine irony which is bred and born
+with his class in Ireland.
+
+"Well, but as we cannot explain this word, Timothy, and you cannot,
+perhaps the best thing for you to do will be to go to the originator of
+it and ask _him_ what he meant by it," says Miss Penelope, with quite
+astonishing perspicacity for _her_.
+
+"Shure I did that same, miss. 'Twas the first thing I said to him,
+ma'am. 'What do ye mane, ye spalpeen, ye thief o' the world,' says I,
+'by miscalling a dacent man out of his name like that?' says I. I gave
+him all that, miss, and a dale more, though I've forgotten it be now,
+for the Ryans was always famous for the gift o' the gab!"
+
+"If you said all that to the poor marine, I think you gave him
+considerably more than you got," says Miss Penelope, "and so you may cry
+peace. Go down now, Timothy, and make it up with him over your beer."
+
+Timothy, though still grumbling in an undertone death and destruction
+upon the hated Sassenach, retires duteously, closing the door behind
+him.
+
+"Now, Penelope," says Miss Priscilla, with an air of relief, glancing at
+the pens and ink, at which Monica's heart fails her. She has no doubt
+whatever about the answer being a refusal, but a sad feeling that she
+dare make no protest renders her doubly sorrowful.
+
+"Dear me!" says Miss Penelope, leaning back in her chair with pen well
+poised between her fingers, and a general air of pleased recollection
+full upon her, "it sounds quite like old times--doesn't it?--to be
+invited to the Barracks at Clonbree."
+
+"Quite," says Miss Priscilla, with an amused smile.
+
+"You remember when the Whiteboys were so troublesome, in our dear
+father's time, what life the officers stationed here then, threw into
+the country round. Such routs! such dances! such kettle-drums! You can
+still recollect Mr. Browne--can you not, Priscilla?--that fashionable
+young man!"
+
+"_You_ have the best right to remember him," returns Miss Priscilla, in
+a meaning tone. "It would be too ungrateful of you if you did not,
+considering what a life you led him."
+
+And at this the two old ladies break into hearty laughter and shake
+their heads reproachfully at each other.
+
+"You _know_ you broke his heart," says Miss Priscilla.
+
+"Tell us about it, auntie," says Kit, eagerly, who is always sympathetic
+where romance is concerned; but the old ladies only laugh the more at
+this, and Aunt Priscilla tells her how her Aunt Penelope was a very
+naughty girl in her time, and created havoc in the affections of all the
+young men that came within her reach.
+
+All this delights Aunt Penelope, who laughs consumedly and makes feeble
+protest with her hands against this testimony.
+
+"Poor fellow!" she says, sobering down presently, and looking quite
+remorseful. "It is unkind to laugh when his name is mentioned. He was
+killed in the Indian Mutiny, long afterwards, in a most gallant charge."
+
+"Yes, indeed," says Miss Priscilla. "Well, well, things _will_ happen.
+Go on with the answer now, Penelope, as the man is waiting and it is
+woefully late."
+
+Monica trembles. But Kit starts into life.
+
+"Oh, _don't_ refuse, Aunt Priscilla!" she cries, darting from her seat
+and throwing her arms round Miss Blake's neck. "_Don't_, now! I do so
+_want_ to go, when I have got my invitation, and all."
+
+"But----" begins Miss Priscilla; whereupon Kit, tightening her hold on
+her neck, with a view to staying further objection, nearly strangles
+her.
+
+"No 'buts,'" she says, entreatingly; "Remember how disappointed I was
+about Madam O'Connor's, and be good to me now."
+
+"Bless the child!" breaks out Miss Priscilla, having rescued her
+windpipe and so saved herself from instant suffocation by loosening
+Kit's arms, and then drawing the child down upon her knee. "What is she
+talking about? who is going to refuse anything? Penelope, accept at
+once,--_at once_, or I shall be squeezed to death!"
+
+"Then you _will_ go?" exclaims Monica, joining the group near the
+davenport, and turning brilliant eyes upon her aunts. "Oh, I am so
+glad!"
+
+"Why, we are dying to see the inside of the Barracks again, your aunt
+Penelope and I, especially your aunt Penelope," says Miss Blake, with a
+sly glance at her sister, who is plainly expecting it, "because she has
+tender recollections about her last visit there."
+
+"Oh, now, Priscilla!" says Miss Penelope, modestly, but with keen
+enjoyment of the joke. After which an acceptance of his kind invitation
+is written to Captain Cobbett, and borne to him by the destroyer of
+Timothy's peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+  How Monica falls a prey to the green-eyed monster--How Mr. Kelly
+  improves the shining hours--And how Brian Desmond suffers many
+  things at the hands of his lady-love.
+
+
+For the next few days the sun is conspicuous by its absence, and Jupiter
+Tonans, with all his noisy train, is abroad. There is nothing but rain
+everywhere and at all hours, and a certain chill accompanying it, that
+makes one believe (with "Elia," is it not?) that "a bad summer is but
+winter painted green."
+
+The light is dimmed, the winds sigh heavily, all through these days, and
+on the hills around, "the hooded clouds, like friars, tell their beads
+in drops of rain."
+
+But on Thursday evening it clears a little,--not sufficiently to allow
+one to wander happily through shrubbery or garden, but enough to augur
+well for the morrow, when the much longed for dance at the Barracks is
+due.
+
+And, indeed, when Friday dawns all nature is glorious. O'er sea and land
+there floats a brightness indescribable, with no fleck or flaw upon its
+beauty. In every nook and glade and hollow is glad sunshine, and a soft
+rushing breeze that bids the heart rejoice, and uplift itself in joyous
+praise to the Great Power who calls the heavens His Throne.
+
+Birds are singing upon every bough, to give the day "good-morrow," and
+the small streamlets, swollen by past rains, are chanting loud but soft
+harmonies to the water-pixies, as they dash headlong towards the river
+down below.
+
+                        "No tears
+    Dim the sweet look that Nature wears."
+
+but rather a smile is on leaf, and flower, and waving bracken. And on
+Monica, too, as, with glad eyes and parted lips, she steps lightly into
+the shadow of the old porch at Moyne. No sweeter presence ever honored
+it. Leaning against one of the pillars, she steps forward, and gazes
+almost gratefully at the merry sunbeams, as they creep up in homage to
+her feet and then go swiftly back again.
+
+She is dressed to-day in a pale blue batiste gown, that rivals in hue
+the delicate azure of the skies above her. Her large black hat is a mass
+of Spanish lace, her long gloves are of the same sombre shade, and so
+are her shoes, though relieved by buckles. With that smile upon her
+lips, and the subdued expectation in her eyes, she looks the
+personification of all that is tender, pure, and lovable.
+
+"Are you ready?" asks Kit, joining her. "The carriage is coming round."
+
+"Quite."
+
+"All but your fan: where is that?"
+
+"Ah! true; I forgot it. It must be on my table. I----"
+
+"No, do not stir. I will get it for you. It would be a shame to send you
+on any errand that might destroy your present pose, you look so like a
+cloud, or a thing out of one of Kate Greenaway's books."
+
+"It is very rude to call me a thing; it is disheartening, when I
+believed I was looking my best," says Monica, laughing. Somehow Kit's
+praises always please her.
+
+Then the carriage does come round, and they all get into it, and start
+for their seven-miles drive, a very slow seven miles, at the end of
+which they find themselves in the small town of Clonbree, mounting the
+steep hill that leads to the Barracks, which are placed on almost
+unsavory eminence,--all the narrow streets leading up to them being
+lined with close cabins and tiny cabins that are anything but "sweets to
+the sweet."
+
+Entering the small barrack-yard and finding a door hospitably open, the
+Misses Blake go up a wooden staircase, and presently find themselves on
+the landing-place above, where they are welcomed effusively by Mr. Ryde,
+who is looking bigger and hotter and stouter than usual.
+
+Captain Cobbett in the largest room--there are but two available in
+these rustic barracks--is trying vainly to find a comfortable corner for
+old Lady Rossmoyne, who is both deaf and stupid, but who, feeling it her
+duty to support on all occasions (both festive and otherwise) the
+emissaries of her queen, has accepted this invitation and is now
+heartily sorry for her loyalty.
+
+She is sitting in durance vile upon a low chair, with a carpet seat and
+a treacherous nature, that threatens to turn upon her and double her up
+at any moment if she dare to give way to even the smallest amount of
+natural animation: so perforce the poor old woman sits still, like
+"patience on a monument smiling at grief," and that her own grief, too,
+which, of course, is harder to bear!
+
+"_So_ glad you've come! We were quite in despair about you; but better
+late than never, eh?" says Mr. Ryde to Monica, with a fat smile. There
+is rather much of "too solid flesh" about his face.
+
+"I daresay," says Monica, very vaguely: she is looking anxiously round
+her, hoping, yet dreading to see Desmond.
+
+In the next room can be heard the sound of music. "My Queen" is being
+played very prettily upon a piano by somebody. Dancing is evidently
+going on, and Monica, who adores it, feels her toes trembling in her
+shoes.
+
+"May I have the pleasure of this?" says Mr. Ryde. "I've kept it for you
+all along, you know. If you tell me you have already given it away, I
+shall feel myself aggrieved indeed."
+
+"Was there ever so silly a young man?" thinks Monica, and then she says
+aloud, "No, it is not promised," and lets him place his arm round her,
+and reluctantly mingles with the other dancers. To do him justice, he
+waltzed very well, this fat young marine, so it cannot be said that she
+has altogether a bad time, and she certainly feels a little glow of
+pleasure as she pauses presently to recover her breath.
+
+As she does so, her eyes rest on Desmond. He, too, is dancing, and with
+Olga Bohun. He is whispering to his partner, who is whispering back to
+him in a somewhat pronounced fashion, and altogether he is looking
+radiantly happy, and anything but the disconsolate swain Monica has been
+picturing him to herself. He is smiling down at Olga, and is apparently
+murmuring all sorts of pretty things into her still prettier ear,
+because they both look quite at peace with each other and all the world.
+
+A pang shoots through Monica's heart. He can be as happy, then, with one
+pretty woman as with another! She by no means, you will see, depreciates
+her own charms. All he wants is to have "t'other dear charmer away."
+
+At this moment she encounters his eyes, and answers his glad stare of
+surprise with a little scornful lowering of her lids. After which, being
+fully aware that he is still watching her in hurt amazement, she turns a
+small, pale, but very encouraging face up to Ryde, and says, prettily,--
+
+"You said I was late, just now. Was I?"
+
+"Very. At least it seemed so to me," says Ryde with heavy adoration in
+his glance.
+
+Feeling, rather than seeing, that Mr. Desmond has brought his fair
+companion to an anchor close behind her, Monica says, in a soft sweet
+voice,--
+
+"I didn't _mean_ to be late. No, indeed! I hurried all I could; but my
+aunts are slow to move. I was _longing_ to be here, but they would make
+no haste."
+
+"You _really_ longed to be here?" asks he, eagerly. "Well, that _was_
+good of you! And now you have come you will be kind to me, won't you?
+You will give me all the dances you can spare?"
+
+"That would be a great many," says she, laughing a little. "You might
+tire of me if I said yes to that. The fact is, I know nobody here, and
+_certainly_ there is no one I care to dance with."
+
+"You will have another tale to tell later on," returns he, gazing with
+unrepressed admiration at her charming face. "Before the avalanche of
+worshippers descends, promise me all the waltzes."
+
+"Are my dances, then, so necessary to you?" with a swift upward glance.
+
+"They are, at all events, the only ones I care for," returns he,
+clumsily, but heartily. "All the others will lie in the scale with
+duty."
+
+"'Every subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's soul is his
+own,'" quotes Monica, lightly. "Why dance unless you wish it?"
+
+"Because my soul is _not_ my own," responds he, with a sigh. "I am bound
+to dance with every undanceable woman here to-day, or they will go home
+and revile me. You _ought_ to be sorry for me if you aren't."
+
+"Well, I am," says Monica; "and so you shall have every waltz on the
+programme."
+
+With this she lets him take her in his arms again, and float away with
+her to the strains of the waltz then playing, and far away from
+Desmond's jealous ears.
+
+"Well, I had no idea it was in her," says Mrs. Bohun, in a breathless
+sort of manner, when Monica has quite vanished. "All that was meant for
+you, you know; and how _well_ she did it!"
+
+"But _why_ should it be meant for me? What have I done that she should
+so ill use me?" says Desmond, also breathless. "And you speak of her as
+if you admired her and she ought to be praised for her conduct when you
+have just heard from my own lips how devotedly I am attached to her!"
+
+"I cannot help admiring genius when I see it," says Olga, with a gay
+laugh. "She made up her mind--naughty little thing!--to make you
+miserable a minute ago, and--she succeeded. What can compare with
+success! But in very truth, Brian," tapping his arm familiarly with her
+fan (an action Monica notes from the other side of the room), "I would
+see you a victor too, and in this cause. She is as worthy of you as you
+of her, and a fig for one's cousins and sisters and aunts, when Cupid
+leads the way."
+
+She has thrown up her head, and is looking full of spirit, when young
+Ronayne, approaching her, says, smiling,--
+
+"This is our dance, I think, Mrs. Bohun?"
+
+"Is it? So far so good!" She turns again to Brian:
+
+"'Faint heart never won fair lady,'" she says, warningly.
+
+"I cannot accuse myself of any feebleness of that sort," says Desmond,
+gloomily. "As you see, it all rests with her."
+
+"Perhaps she is afraid of the family feud," says Olga, laughing. "One
+hears such a lot about this Blake-Desmond affair that I feel I could
+take the gold medal if examined about it. There!--what nonsense! Go and
+speak to her, and defy those dear old ladies at Moyne."
+
+"You were talking about that pretty Miss Beresford?" says Ronayne, as
+Brian moves away.
+
+"Yes. But, sir," archly, "dare you see beauty in any woman when I am
+by?"
+
+"Oh that I could see you really jealous, and of _me_!" returns he, half
+sadly, looking at her with longing eyes. "If I thought I could make
+your heart ache for even one short minute, I should be the happiest man
+alive."
+
+"_Boy_, you mean! Oh, traitor! And would you have me miserable for your
+own gratification?"
+
+"It would be for yours later on. For that one moment you would gain a
+slave forever."
+
+"And unless I am wretched for that one moment, I cannot gain my slave?"
+
+"You know the answer to that only too well," returns he, with so much
+fervor that she refuses to continue the discussion.
+
+"Talking of jealousy," she says, lightly, with a glance at him, "it is
+the dream of my life to make Rossmoyne jealous,--to reduce him to
+absolute submission. He is so cold, so precise, so English, that it
+would be quite a triumph to drag him at one's chariot-wheels. Shall I be
+able to do it?" she turns up her charming face to his, as though in
+question. She is looking her very sweetest, and is tenderly aware of the
+fact; and, indeed, so is he.
+
+"I suppose so," he says, in answer to her, but slowly and reproachfully.
+
+"But I must have help," says Olga. "_Some_ one must help me. You?--is it
+not?"
+
+"I?" with strong emphasis. "What should I have to do with it?"
+
+"Not much, yet I count upon you. Why, who do you think I am going to
+make him jealous about? Eh?"
+
+"How should I know?"
+
+"How shouldn't you? Why it is of you,--_you_!" with quite a delicious
+little laugh. "So you will have to dance round after me all day for the
+future until your mission is fulfilled, and try to look as if you
+_really_ loved me."
+
+"You have mistaken your man," says Ronayne, quietly: "you must get some
+one else to help you in this matter. It is not for me, even if I did not
+love you; I should scorn so low a task."
+
+"Love is an idle word," she says, her eyes flashing.
+
+"It may be--to some. But I tell you no man's heart is of so poor value
+that it can be flung hither and thither at any one's pleasure,--no, not
+even at the pleasure of the woman he adores. You will seek some more
+complaisant lover to be your dupe on this occasion. I decline the
+office."
+
+"You forget how you speak, sir!" she says, proudly; yet even as she
+gives way to this angry speech a gleam of deepest admiration so lights
+her eyes that she is obliged to let her lids fall over them to cover the
+tell-tales beneath; her breath comes and goes quickly.
+
+Something like relief comes to her when Lord Rossmoyne, stretching his
+long neck round the curtain that half shields the cushioned recess of
+the window where they are sitting, says, with considerable animation,
+for him,--
+
+"Ah! so I have found you, Mrs. Bohun."
+
+"You have indeed, and in good time. I am pining in prison, but you have
+come to deliver me."
+
+"If I may."
+
+"Such a dreary little spot, is it not? I don't know what could have
+induced me to enter it."
+
+"Ronayne possibly," says Rossmoyne, with an unpleasant smile.
+
+"Oh, dear, no!" contemptuously: "I came here of my own free will. We all
+do foolish things at times, I have not danced this last because Mr.
+Ronayne prefers pleasant converse. I don't. I thought you would never
+come to seek me. What were you doing?"
+
+"Hunting for you, and thinking every minute an hour. These
+curtains"--touching them--"were jealous of you, and sought to hide you."
+
+"Well, don't be so long next time," she says, looking up at him with a
+smile that a little more pressure would make tender and laying her hand
+on his arm.
+
+She moves away. Ronayne, drawing his breath somewhat savagely, sits down
+on the sill of the window and gazes blankly into the barrack-yard below.
+He has still her programme in his hand, and is crumpling it
+unconscionably, hardly knowing what he does. But, if disturbed in mind,
+it is always _such_ a comfort to smash something, be it a piece of
+pasteboard or one's most intimate friend.
+
+She had forgotten her card, probably, and now it is almost useless.
+Ronayne's heart is full of bitterness, and he tries to swear to himself
+that for the future he will cleanse his heart of this coquette, who
+cares no more for him--nay, far less--than she does for her little toy
+terrier. Yet, even as these stern resolves seek vainly to root
+themselves in his breast, his eyes turn again to the room beyond, and
+make search for the siren who is his undoing. She is still, of course,
+with Rossmoyne, and is all smiles and pretty blushes, and is evidently
+both content and happy.
+
+"I am a fool!--a madman!" he says to himself; and even as he says it
+his eyes light on Owen Kelly, who by chance is looking at him too.
+
+Crossing the room, the latter (as though drawn by the melancholy eyes
+that have met his) soon reaches the window where Ronayne stands
+disconsolate.
+
+"Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" he says gayly, but with so kindly an
+intonation that even the most pugnacious could not take umbrage at it.
+
+Now, Mr. Kelly's knowledge on all matters is so clear and precise that
+Ronayne does not dream of deceiving him in this matter.
+
+"Of course you will laugh at me," he says, "but somehow I don't mind
+_your_ ridicule much. It means only this, that I have just found out
+that she cares nothing at all for me."
+
+"_She_, being Mrs. Bohun? Well, my dear lad, if an elderly gentleman's
+experience is of any use to you, you may have it cheap. _I_ believe she
+cares a great deal for you. Lookers-on see most of the game, and I would
+back you against Rossmoyne any day."
+
+"You are a very good fellow," says Ulic Ronayne, "the best I know; but I
+understand you. You are only saying that to console me."
+
+"I am not, in faith: I say it because I think it."
+
+"I wish I could think it."
+
+"Try. 'If at first you don't succeed,' you know follow out the
+inestimable Watts's advice, and 'try again.' There's nothing like it: it
+gets to be quite a game in the long run. I thank my stars," laughing, "I
+have never been a slave to the 'pathetic fallacy' called love; yet it
+has its good points, I suppose."
+
+"It hasn't," says Ronayne, gloomily.
+
+"You terrify me," says Mr. Kelly, "because I feel positive my day is yet
+to come, and with all this misery before me I feel suicidal. Don't my
+dear fellow! don't look like that! Give her up; go and fall in love with
+some little girl of your own age or even younger."
+
+The "even" is offensive, but Ulic is too far gone in melancholy to
+perceive it.
+
+"It is too late for that kind of advice," he says: "I want her, and her
+only. I don't know how to describe it, but----"
+
+"There are chords," quotes his friend gravely.
+
+"Just so," says the miserable Ronayne, quite as gravely; which so upsets
+the gravity of his companion that it is with difficulty he conceals his
+ill-timed mirth.
+
+"What is that mutilated article in your hand?" he asks at length, when
+he has conquered his muscles.
+
+"This--eh!--oh, her card, I suppose," says Ronayne, viciously. Yet even
+as he speaks he smooths out the crumpled card, and regards it with a
+dismal tenderness as being in part _her_.
+
+"You're engaged to her for the next," says Mr. Kelly, looking over his
+shoulder: "what an unfortunate thing! If I were you," mournfully, "I
+should go home. Get ill. Do _something_."
+
+"And so let her think I'm wasting in despair because she prefers
+another? No, I shan't," says Ronayne, with sudden animation. "I shall
+see it out with her. If she chooses to cancel this dance well and good,
+but I shall certainly remind her she promised it to me."
+
+"Rash boy!" says Kelly, with a sigh. "As you refuse to hearken to the
+voice of common sense, and afflict yourself with a megrim, I leave you
+to your fate."
+
+So saying, he turns aside, and, having gone a step or two, finds himself
+face to face with Miss Beresford.
+
+"This dance is ours," he says, mendaciously, knowing well this is the
+first time they have met this evening.
+
+Monica laughs: to be angry with so sad a visaged man as Owen Kelly would
+be a cruelty.
+
+"I am glad of it," she says, "because I do not want to dance at all; and
+I think you will not mind sitting with me and talking to me for a little
+while."
+
+"You remember me then?" he says, shifting his glass from one eye to the
+other, and telling himself she is as pretty as she is wise.
+
+"I think so," shyly, yet with a merry glance; "you are that Master
+O'Kelly, of Kelly Grove, county Antrim, who is the bright and shining
+light of the Junior Bar."
+
+"You do indeed know me," returns he, mildly.
+
+"'Thy modesty's a candle to thy merit,'" quotes she, wickedly, in a low
+tone.
+
+At this he smiles sadly (a luxury he rarely permits himself), and,
+taking up her hand, lays it on his arm.
+
+"Come," he says, "I will sit with you, and talk with you, when, and
+where, and for as long as you like. The longer the greater bliss for me.
+The spaciousness of these halls, fair madam, as doubtless you have
+perceived, gives wide scope for choice of seats. In which secluded bower
+will it please you to efface yourself?"
+
+Monica glances from one small room to the landing-place, and from the
+landing-place to the other small room beyond, and naturally hesitates.
+
+"There is another stairs besides the one we ascended," says Mr. Kelly.
+"I saw it when first I came: would _you_ like to see it too?"
+
+"I should indeed," says Monica, grateful for the hint, and, going with
+him, suddenly becomes aware of a staircase, leading goodness knows
+whither, upon the third step of which she seats herself, after a rapid
+glance around and upwards that tells her nothing, so mysterious are the
+workings of a barracks.
+
+Mr. Kelly seats himself beside her.
+
+"I suppose it is my mission to amuse you," he says, calmly, "as I dare
+not make love to you."
+
+"Why not?" says Monica, quite as calmly.
+
+"For one thing, you would not listen to me; and for another, I don't
+want my head broken."
+
+Monica smiles, more because it is her duty to than for any other reason,
+because after the smile comes a sigh.
+
+"I know few knights would tilt a lance for me," she says; and Kelly,
+glancing at her, feels a quick desire rise within him to restore
+sunshine to her perfect face.
+
+"One knight should be enough for any one, even the fairest ladye in the
+land," he says.
+
+"True; but what is to be for her who has none?" asks she, pathos in her
+eyes, but a smile upon her lips.
+
+"She must be a very perverse maiden who has _that_ story to tell,"
+returns he; and then, seeing she has turned her face away from him, he
+goes on quietly,--
+
+"You know every one here, of course."
+
+"Indeed, no. The very names of most are unknown to me. Tell me about
+them, if you will."
+
+"About that girl over there, for instance?" pointing to a dingy-looking
+girl in the distance, whose face is as like a button as it well can be,
+and whose general appearance may be expressed by the word "unclean."
+
+"That is Miss Luker," says Kelly. "Filthy Lucre is, I believe, the name
+she usually goes by, on account of her obvious unpalatableness (my own
+word, you will notice), and her overwhelming affection for coin small
+and great."
+
+"She looks very untidy," says Monica.
+
+"She does, indeed. She is, too, an inveterate chatterbox. She might give
+any fellow odds and beat him; I don't believe myself there is so much
+as one comma in her composition."
+
+"Poor girl! What an exertion it must be to her!"
+
+"Musn't it? Especially nowadays, when one _never_ goes for much, real
+hard work of any kind being such a bore. That's her mother beside her.
+She is always beside her. Fat little woman, d'ye see?"
+
+"Yes, a nice motherly-looking little woman she seems to be."
+
+"Horribly motherly! She has a birthday for every month in the year!"
+
+"How?" says Monica, opening her eyes.
+
+"I don't so much allude to her own natal day (which by this time I
+should say is obscure) as to her children's. They came to her at all
+seasons, from January to December. There are fourteen of them."
+
+"Oh, it _can't_ be possible! Poor, _poor_ soul!" says Monica, feeling
+quite depressed.
+
+"She isn't poor; she is very well off," says Mr. Kelly, obtusely. "Much
+better than she deserves. So don't grieve for her. She glories in her
+crime. Well, it's 'a poor heart that never rejoices,' you know: so I
+suppose she is right. There's Miss Fitzgerald: do you admire her?"
+
+"I am sure I _ought_," says Monica, simply; "but I _don't_."
+
+"You have the courage of your opinions. Every one down here admires her
+tremendously. I agree with you, you know, but then," softly, "_I_ am
+nobody!"
+
+"Perhaps you think I am jealous," says Monica. "But indeed I am not."
+
+"What a baby you are!" says Mr. Kelly. "_Who_ could suppose you jealous
+of Bella Fitzgerald? 'Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere,'
+and I shouldn't think the fair Bella would have _much_ motion if put in
+comparison with you. She always calls 'a spade a spade, and Branson's
+Essence of Coffee,' etc. In fact, she is material."
+
+"That means she has common sense. Why call her 'material'?"
+
+"Never mind. It is quite _immaterial_," says Mr. Kelly, tranquilly,
+after which silence reigns triumphantly for a moment or two, until a new
+figure presents itself on a small platform below them.
+
+"Ah! there is Desmond," says Kelly. "He looks," innocently, "as if he
+was looking for somebody."
+
+"I hope he will find her," remarks Miss Beresford, with some acerbity
+and a most unnecessary amount of color.
+
+"Perhaps he is looking for _me_," says Mr. Kelly, naively.
+
+"Perhaps so," dryly.
+
+"At all events, whoever it is, she, or he, or it, seems difficult of
+discovery. Did you ever see so woebegone a countenance as his?"
+
+"I think he looks quite happy enough," says Monica, without sympathy.
+
+Kelly lets his languid gaze rest on her for a moment.
+
+"What has Desmond done to you?" he says at last, slowly.
+
+"Done?" haughtily. "Nothing. What _could_ he do?"
+
+"Nothing, I suppose,--as you say. By the bye, I have not seen you
+dancing with him this afternoon."
+
+"No."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+It is an indisputable fact that some people may say with impunity what
+other people dare not say under pain of excommunication. Owen Kelly, as
+a rule, says what he likes to women without rebuke, and, what is more,
+without incurring their displeasure.
+
+"How is what?"
+
+"I thought that day at Aghyohillbeg that you and Desmond were great
+friends."
+
+"Friends! when we have only seen each other two or three times. Is
+friendship the growth of an hour?"
+
+"No. But something else is." He looks at her _almost_ cheerfully as he
+says this. "But neither you nor I, Miss Beresford, have anything to do
+with that flimsy passion."
+
+"You mean----"
+
+"Love!"
+
+"_Is_ there such a thing?" says Monica, wistfully, whereupon Mr. Kelly
+says to himself, "Now, what on earth has that fellow been doing to her?"
+but aloud he says, in his usual subdued tones,--
+
+"I don't know, I'm sure, but they say so, and perhaps they, whoever they
+may be, are right. If so, I think it is a dangerous subject to discuss
+with _you_. Let us skip it, and go on. You haven't told me why you are
+not dancing with Desmond."
+
+"_Why_ should I dance with Mr. Desmond?"
+
+"Because it is not always easy to have a refusal ready, perhaps,
+or----He has asked you?"
+
+She would have given a good deal at this instant to be able to answer
+"No;" but the remembrance of how he pleaded with her for one waltz that
+evening at the end of the Moyne meadow comes between her and her desire.
+So she says, "Yes," instead.
+
+"And you would none of him?"
+
+"_No._"
+
+"It isn't my part to ask why," says Kelly, with quite a miserable air;
+"but still I cannot help wondering how _any one_ can dislike Desmond."
+
+No answer. Miss Beresford is looking straight before her, but her color
+is distinctly higher, and there is a determination about her not to be
+cajoled into speech, that is unmistakable. Having studied her for a
+little, Mr. Kelly goes on,--
+
+"I never know whether it is Desmond's expression or manner that is so
+charming, therefore I conclude it is both. Have you noticed what a
+peculiarly lovable way he has with him? But of course not, as, somehow
+he has the misfortune to jar upon you. Yet very few hate him. You see,
+you are that excellent thing, an exception."
+
+"I do not hate him," says Monica; and, having thus unlocked her lips
+against her inclination, she feels Owen Kelly of Kelly's Grove has won
+the game; but she bears him no ill will for all that. "It is the cause,
+it is the cause, my soul!"
+
+"No! well, hate is a bitter word, and an unmannerly. I am sorry, then,
+that you dislike him."
+
+"Not even that."
+
+"You mean, you regard him with indifference!"
+
+"Yes, exactly that," says Monica, with slow deliberation.
+
+"I am sorry for it. He is a man upon whom both men and women smile,--a
+rare thing,--a very favorite of Fortune."
+
+"She is fickle."
+
+"She may well be dubbed so, indeed, if she deserts him at his sorest
+need. But as yet she is faithful, as she ought to be, to the kindest,
+the sincerest fellow upon earth."
+
+"Sincerest?"
+
+As this repetition, and the fine sneer that accompanies it, escape her,
+she becomes aware that Desmond himself has come to the foot of the
+stairs, and is gazing at her reproachfully.
+
+"Here is fickle Fortune's favorite literally at our feet," says Owen
+Kelly; and, before Monica can say anything, Brian has mounted the two
+steps that lie between him and her, and is at her side.
+
+"If I may not dance with you, may I at least talk to you for a moment or
+two?" he says, hurriedly.
+
+"Certainly," with cold surprise.
+
+"I don't think three of us could sit together comfortably on this one
+step," says Mr. Kelly, with a thoughtful glance at its dimensions,--"not
+even if we squeezed up to each other ever so much; and I am afraid,"
+mournfully, "Miss Beresford might not like that, either. Would you, Miss
+Beresford?"
+
+"Not much," says Monica. "But why need you stir? Mr. Desmond has asked
+at the most for two moments; they will go quickly by: in fact,"
+unkindly, "I should think they are already gone."
+
+"And yet he has not begun his '_talk_.' Make haste Desmond. Time, tide,
+and Miss Beresford wait for no man. Hurry! we are all on the tiptoe of
+expectation." As Mr. Kelly says all this in a breath, he encourages
+Desmond generously to "come on" by a wave of his hand; whereupon Brian,
+who is not in his sweetest mood, directs a glance at him that ought to
+annihilate any ordinary man, but is thrown away upon Kelly, who is
+fire-proof.
+
+"Some other time, then, as I disturb you now," says Brian, haughtily,
+addressing himself pointedly to Monica.
+
+"By no means," says his whilom friend, rising. "Take my place for your
+two moments,--not a second longer, remember! I feel with grief that Miss
+Beresford will probably hail the exchange of partners with rapture.
+'Talk,' says Bacon, 'is but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love;'
+and as she would not let me discourse on any topics tenderer than the
+solar system and the Channel Tunnel, I have no doubt she has found it
+very slow. Now, _you_ will be the--er--other thing quite!"
+
+With this speech, so full of embarrassing possibilities, he bows to
+Monica, smiles at the gloomy Desmond, and finally withdraws himself
+gracefully from their view. Not without achieving his end, however: they
+both heartily wish him back again even while he is going.
+
+"What have I done?" asks Desmond, abruptly, turning to Monica, who is
+gazing in a rapt fashion at her large black fan.
+
+"Done?"
+
+"Don't answer me like that, Monica. I have offended you. I can see that.
+But how? Every moment of this wretched afternoon, until you came, I
+spent wondering when you would arrive. And yet when at last I _did_ see
+you, you would vouchsafe me neither smile nor glance. In fact, you
+looked as if you _hated_ me!"
+
+"_Every_ moment?" sardonically.
+
+"Every one."
+
+"Even those spent with Mrs. Bohun?" To save her life she could not call
+her "Olga" now.
+
+"With _her_?" staring in some surprise at his inquisitor. "Well, it
+certainly wasn't quite so bad--the waiting, I mean--then. Though still,
+with my mind full of you, I was----"
+
+"You were indeed!" interrupting him hastily, with a contemptuous smile.
+
+"Certainly I was," the surprise growing deeper.
+
+"I wonder you are not ashamed to sit there and confess it," says Miss
+Beresford, suddenly, with a wrathful flash in her eyes. "I shall know
+how to believe you again. To say one thing to me one day, and another
+thing to another person another day, and----" Here she finds a
+difficulty in winding up this extraordinary speech, so she says,
+hurriedly, "It is _horrible_!"
+
+"What is horrible?" bewildered.
+
+But she pays no heed to his question, thinking it doubtless beneath her.
+
+"At least," she says, with fine scorn, "you needn't be untruthful."
+
+"Do you know," says Mr. Desmond, desperately, "you are making the most
+wonderful remarks I ever heard in my life? There is no beginning to
+them, and I'm dreadfully afraid there will be no ending."
+
+"No doubt," scornfully, "you are afraid."
+
+"If I allow I am," says Desmond, humbly, "will it induce you to
+explain?"
+
+"You want no explanation," indignantly. "You know very well what you
+confessed a while ago,--that--that--'_you were_'! _There!_"
+
+"_Where?_"
+
+"Flirting with Olga Bohun!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"You did. You know you did. Oh, what perfidy! Only a moment since you
+declared it openly, shamelessly; and now you deny it! Why I wouldn't
+have believed it, even of _you_. How _can_ you pretend to forget it?"
+
+But that there are tears born of real emotion in her great eyes, Mr.
+Desmond would assuredly believe she is making a vast joke at his
+expense, so innocent is he of any offence.
+
+"If by some unfortunate method," he says, calmly, "you have
+metamorphosed any speech of mine into a declaration relative to a
+flirtation with Mrs. Bohun, you have done an uncommonly clever thing.
+You have turned a lie into truth. I never said even one spoony word to
+Olga Bohun in all my life."
+
+"Then why," in a still much-aggrieved tone, but with strong symptoms of
+relenting, "did you say you were?"
+
+"I don't remember saying it at all," says poor Mr. Desmond, who has
+forgotten all about his interrupted remark.
+
+"Then what were you saying to Olga just as I came in?"
+
+"Oh! _that!_"--brightening into a remembrance of the past by the
+greatest good luck, or the quarrel might have proved a final one (which
+would have been a sad pity, as so many right good ones followed it).
+"You stopped me just now when I was going to tell you about it. When you
+came this evening I was dancing with Olga, and talking to her of _you_.
+It was some small consolation."
+
+"But you were smiling at her," says Monica, faltering, "and whispering
+to her--_whispering!_"
+
+"Of you. You believe me? Monica, look at me. Do you know I really think
+that----"
+
+But this valuable thought is forever lost. Glancing at his companion, he
+sees a change come over the spirit of her face. Her eyes brighten, but
+not with pleasurable anticipation. Quite the reverse. She lays her hand
+suddenly upon his arm, and gazes into the landing-place beneath.
+
+"There is Aunt Priscilla!" she says, in an awestruck tone. "She has just
+come out of that room. She is, I _know_,"--a guilty conscience making a
+coward of her,--"looking for me. She may come here! Go, Go!"
+
+"But I can't leave you here alone."
+
+"Yes, you can; you can, indeed. Only try it. Mr. Desmond, _please_ go."
+This she says so anxiously that he at once decides (though with
+reluctance) there is nothing left him but to obey.
+
+And, after all, Aunt Priscilla never looks up those stairs, but passes
+by them, dimly lit as they are, as though they had never been built; and
+Desmond, unknowing of this, goes sadly into the dancing-room, ostensibly
+in search of Kelly, but with his mind so full of his cross little love
+that he does not see him, although he is within a yard of him at one
+time.
+
+Now, Mr. Kelly, when he quitted the fateful staircase, had turned to his
+right, with a view to getting some friend to lounge against a doorway
+with him, but, failing in this quest, had entered the dancing-room, and
+edged round it by degree,--not so much from a desire for motion as
+because he was elbowed ever onwards by tired dancers who sought the
+friendly support of the walls.
+
+Reaching at length a certain corner, he determines to make his own of it
+and defend it against all assailants, be they men or Amazons.
+
+It is a charming corner, and almost impregnable; it is for this very
+reason also almost unescapable, as he learns to his cost later on.
+However, he comes to anchor here, and looks around him.
+
+He is quite enjoying himself, and is making private comments on his
+friends that I have no doubt would be rapturously received by them could
+they only hear them, when he wakes to the fact that two people have come
+to a standstill just before him. They are engaged in not only an
+animated but an amicable discussion, and are laughing gayly: as laughter
+is even more distinguishable in a crowd than the voice when in repose,
+Mr. Kelly is attracted by theirs, and to his astonishment discovers that
+his near neighbors are the deadly enemies of an hour agone,--_i. e._,
+Mrs. Bohun and Ulic Ronayne.
+
+No faintest trace of spleen is to be discovered in their tones. All is
+once more sunshine. Past storms are forgotten. They have evidently been
+carrying on their discussion for a considerable time whilst dancing,
+because it is only the very end of it that is reserved for Mr. Kelly's
+delectation. He, poor man, is hemmed in on every side, and finds to his
+horror he cannot make his escape. This being so, he resigns himself with
+a grim sense of irony to the position allotted him by fate, and being a
+careful man, makes up his mind, too, to derive what amusement from it
+that he can.
+
+"So you see everything depends upon judgment," says the fair widow,
+fanning herself languidly, but smiling archly.
+
+"A good deal, certainly."
+
+"_Everything_, _I_ say. Determination to succeed, and the power to do
+it, are strong in themselves; but judgment tempers all things. And how
+few possess all three!"
+
+"I, at least, am grateful for that. If every one was endowed with those
+three irresistible forces, I should have a bad chance. I should be but
+one among so many. Then it could only be decided by brute force."
+
+"What could?" asks she, turning a fair but amazed face up to his.
+
+"Oh, nothing!" returns he, with some confusion. "Only some silly thought
+of my own private brain,--not the part I was devoting to your argument.
+Forgive me. You were saying----"
+
+"That there is a tremendous amount of feebleness in most natures. The
+real clever thing is to be able to see when an opportunity for good
+arises, and then to grasp it. Most people can't see it, you know."
+
+"Others _can_!" says Mr. Ronayne. As he speaks he passes his arm round
+her pretty waist and smiles saucily into her eyes.
+
+"What!" exclaims she, smiling in turn, "am I an opportunity, then?"
+
+"The sweetest one I know, and so I seize it," says the audacious youth;
+while Mr. Kelly, behind, feels as if he was going to sink into the
+ground.
+
+"You don't understand what the word means, you silly boy," says the
+widow, laughing gayly.
+
+"Don't I! I only wish I might parse and _spell_ it with you," says
+Ronayne, his spirits rising; at which answer, I regret to say, pretty
+Mrs. Bohun laughs again merrily, and suffers him to lead her away into
+the dancing-circle without a rebuke, leaving Mr. Kelly limp with fear of
+discovery.
+
+Now, his imprisonment being at an end, he leaves his corner, and,
+braving the anger of the dancing people, walks straight through their
+midst to the door beyond, ready to endure anything rather than the
+eavesdropping, however innocent, of a moment past.
+
+Filled therefore with courage, he sallies forth, and on the landing
+outside encounters the two Misses Blake clothed for departure, with
+Monica and Kit beside them. Terence is still bidding adieu to Miss
+Fitzgerald whose tall charms have worked a way into his youthful
+affections.
+
+Desmond is standing at a little distance from this group; Mr. Ryde is in
+the midst of it. He is expostulating with Monica about the cruelty of
+her early departure, in a tone that savors of tenderness and rouses in
+Mr. Desmond's breast a hearty desire to kick him. Then Mr. Ryde carries
+on his expostulations to where Aunt Priscilla is standing; and Brian
+tries vainly to gain a last glance from Monica, if only to see whether
+the treaty of peace between them--interrupted a while ago--has been
+really signed or not.
+
+But Monica, either through wilfulness or ignorance of his near locality,
+or perhaps fear of Miss Priscilla, refuses to meet his longing eyes. For
+my part, I believe in the wilfulness.
+
+Kit, who is always like the cockles of ancient fame, "_alive O_," sees
+his disconsolate face, his earnest, unrequited glance, and Monica's
+assumed or real indifference, and feels sad at heart for him.
+Deliberately, and with a sweet, grave smile, she holds out to him her
+small hand, and, regardless of consequences, gives his a hearty squeeze.
+Most thankfully he acknowledges this courtesy; whereupon, of her still
+further charity, she bestows upon him a glance from her dark eyes that
+speaks volumes and assures him he has in her a friend at court.
+
+Then all is over. The two Misses Blake go slowly and with caution down
+the steep staircase, Monica and Mr. Ryde (who grows more devoted every
+minute) following, Terence and Kit bringing up the rear.
+
+During the drive home the Misses Blake (who have thoroughly enjoyed
+themselves) are both pleasant and talkative. As the old horses jog
+steadily along the twilit road, they converse in quite a lively fashion
+of all they have heard and noticed, and laugh demurely over many a small
+joke.
+
+Kit of course, is in raptures. Her _first_ party and _such_ a success!
+She had danced one set of quadrilles and one polka! _two_ whole dances!
+Ye gods, was there ever so happy a child! She chatters, and laughs, and
+rallies everybody so gayly that the old aunts are fain to die of
+merriment.
+
+Yet Monica, who might--an' she chose--have had two partners for every
+dance, is strangely silent and depressed. No word escapes her: she leans
+back with her pretty tired head pressed close against the cushions.
+Perchance little Kit notices all this; because when any one addresses
+Monica she makes answer for her in the most careless manner possible,
+and by her sharp wit turns the attention of all from the sister she
+adores; yet in her heart she is angry with Monica.
+
+Once only during this homeward drive something occurs to disturb the
+serenity of the Misses Blake. Kit, in one of her merry sallies, has
+touched upon Miss Fitzgerald; whereupon Aunt Priscilla, mindful of that
+late and lingering adieu of Terence, says, suddenly,--
+
+"And how do _you_ like Miss Fitzgerald, Terence?"
+
+"She's delightful, aunt!" says the stricken Terence, enthusiastically.
+"Perfectly enchanting! You never met so nice a girl!"
+
+"Oh, yes! I think I have, Terence," says Miss Priscilla, freezingly. "I
+am, indeed, _sure_ I have."
+
+"There's something about her right down fetching," says Mr. Beresford,
+giving himself airs. "Something--er--_there_, but difficult to
+describe."
+
+"A 'je ne sais quoi young man,'" quotes the younger Miss Beresford, with
+a sneer. "She's tall enough to be one, at any rate. She is a horrid girl
+I think."
+
+"You're jealous," says Terence, contemptuously. "Because you know you
+will never be half as good to look at."
+
+"If I thought that," says Kit, growing very red, "I'd commit suicide."
+
+"Tut! You are too silly a child to be argued with," says Terence, in a
+tone that is not to be borne.
+
+Kit, rising in her seat, prepares for battle, and is indeed about to
+hurl a scathing rebuke upon him, when Miss Priscilla interrupts her.
+
+"What is this great charm you see in Miss Fitzgerald, Terence?" she asks
+slowly.
+
+"That is just what I cannot describe, aunt."
+
+"I should think you couldn't, indeed!" puts in Kit, wrathfully.
+
+"But, as I said before, she is delightful."
+
+"She _may_ be," says Priscilla, the most damning doubt in her tone. "She
+_may_ be, my dear. Forbid that I should deny it! But there are some
+delightful people, Terence, that are not good for us."
+
+Somehow, after this, conversation dwindles until it is gone. Terence
+sulks; Monica moons; Kit ponders; the Miss Blake snooze: and so at last
+home is reached.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+  How Kit sees a Vision, and being exhorted thereto by it, pleads a
+  certain cause with great success.
+
+
+It is ten o'clock, and as lovely a night as ever overhung the earth. The
+moon is at its fullest, the wind has fallen, all is calm as heaven
+itself, through which Dictynna's unclouded grandeur rolls.
+
+The Misses Blake, fatigued by their unusual dissipation, ordered an
+early rout an hour agone, whereby bedroom candlesticks were in demand at
+nine or half-past nine o'clock.
+
+Now, in Monica's room Kit is standing by the open window gazing in rapt
+admiration at the dew spangled garden beneath. Like diamonds glitter the
+grass and the flowers beneath the kiss of the grass and the queen of
+night.
+
+Moonbeams are playing in the roses, and nestling in the lilies, and
+rocking to and fro upon the bosom of the stream.
+
+There is a peace unspeakable on all around. One holds one's breath and
+feels a longing painful in its intensity as one drinks in the beauty of
+the earth and sky. 'Twere _heaven_ to be assured of love on such a night
+as this.
+
+Stars make the vault above so fine that all the world, me-thinks, should
+be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun. There is a
+rush of feeling in the air,--a promise of better things to come,--of
+hope, of glad desire, of sweet love perfected!
+
+"How lovely a night it is!" says Kit, leaning far out of the window, and
+gazing westward. She is at heart a born artist, with a mind, indeed, too
+full of strange, weird thoughts at times to augur well for the happiness
+of her future. Like many of her Irish race, she is dreamy,
+poetical,--intense at one moment, gay, wild impulsive the next.
+
+"See what a flood of light there is on everything!" she says. "'_Bathed_
+in moonlight,' what a good thought was that. Monica, when I am as old as
+you, in a very few short years I shall be a poet."
+
+"No, you won't, darling: you will be a musician. See what fairies lie
+beneath your fingers even now when you touch the piano or violin; be
+content, then, with your great gift, which most surely _is_ yours. And
+to me, indeed, it seems a grander thing to thrill and enchain and draw
+to your feet all hearts by the power of harmony that dwells within you,
+than by the divine gift of song that poets have."
+
+"But their songs _are_ harmony," says the child, turning quickly to her.
+
+"Ay, the interpretation of it, but you have its very breath. No; search
+the world over, and you will find nothing so powerful to affect the
+souls of all as music."
+
+"Well some day I shall want to do something," says Kit, vaguely; and
+then she turns to the window again, and lets her mind wander and lose
+itself in a mute sonata to the fair Isis throned above.
+
+"It draws me," she says, presently, rising slowly and addressing Monica,
+but always with her gaze fixed upon the sleeping garden down below. "It
+is so bright,--so clear."
+
+"What, Kit?"
+
+"The moonlight. I must," restlessly, "go down into it for a little
+moment, or I shall not sleep through longing for it."
+
+"But the doors are closed, my dearest, and Aunt Priscilla is in bed, and
+so are the servants."
+
+"So much the better. I can draw the bolts myself without being
+questioned. You said just now," gayly, "I have a fairy beneath my
+fingers. I think I have a moon-fairy in my heart, because I love it so."
+
+"Stay here with me, then, and worship it sensibly from my window."
+
+"What! do you look for sense in 'moon-struck madness'? No; I shall go
+down to my scented garden. I have a fancy I cannot conquer to walk into
+that tiny flame-white path of moonlight over there near the hedge. Do
+you see it?"
+
+"Yes. Well, go, if Titania calls you, but soon return, and bring me a
+lily,--I, too, have a fancy, you see,--a tall lily, fresh with dew and
+moonshine."
+
+"You shall have the tallest, the prettiest I can find," says Kit from
+the doorway, where she stands framed unknowingly, looking such a
+slender, ethereal creature, with eyes too large for her small face, that
+Monica, with a sudden pang of fear, goes swiftly up to her, and,
+pressing her to her heart, holds her so for a moment.
+
+"I know what you are thinking now," says Kit, with another laugh,--"that
+I shall die early."
+
+"Kit! Kit!"
+
+"Yes. Isn't it strange? I can read most people's thoughts. But be happy
+about me. I look fragile, I know, but I shall not die until I am quite a
+respectable age. Not a hideous age, you will understand, but with my
+hair and my teeth intact. One keeps one's hair until forty, doesn't
+one?"
+
+"I don't know. I'm not forty," says Monica. "But hurry, hurry out of the
+garden, because the dew is falling."
+
+Down the dark staircase, through the darker halls, into the brilliant
+moonlight, goes Kit. The wind, soft as satin, plays about her pretty
+brows and nestles through her hair, rewarding itself thus for its
+enforced quiet of an hour ago. Revelling in the freedom she has gained,
+Kit enters the garden and looks lovingly around upon her
+companions,--the flowers.
+
+Who would sleep when beauty such as this is flung broadcast upon the
+earth, waiting for man to feast his slothful eyes upon it?
+
+Lingeringly, tenderly, Kit passes by each slumbering blossom, or gazes
+into each drowsy bell, until the moonlit patch of grass she had pointed
+out to Monica is at last reached. Here she stands in shadow, glancing
+with coy delight at the fairyland beyond. Then she plunges into it, and
+looks a veritable fairy herself, slim, and tall, and beautiful, and more
+than worthy of the wand she lacks.
+
+Walking straight up her silver path, she goes to where the lilies grow,
+in a bed close by the hedge. But, before she comes to them, she notes in
+the hedge itself a wild convolvulus, and just a little beyond it a wild
+dog-rose, parent of all roses. She stays to pluck them, and then--
+
+"Kit," says a voice subdued and low, but so distinct as to sound almost
+in her ear.
+
+She starts, and then looks eagerly around her, but nothing can she see.
+Was it a human voice, or a call from that old land that held great Zeus
+for its king? A message from Olympus it well might be, on such a night
+as this, when all things breathe of old enchantment and of mystic lore.
+Almost she fears yet hopes to see a sylvan deity peep out at her from
+the escalonia yonder, or from the white-flowered, sweetly-perfumed
+syringa in that distant corner,--Pan the musical, perhaps, with his
+sweet pipes, or a yet more stately god, the beautiful Apollo, with his
+golden lyre. Oh for the chance of hearing such godlike music, with only
+she herself and the pale Diana for an audience!
+
+Perchance the gods have, indeed, been good to her, and sent her a
+special messenger on this yellow night. Fear forgotten, in the ecstasy
+of this hope, the strange child stands erect, and waits with eager
+longing for a second summons.
+
+And it comes, but alas! in a fatally earthly tone that ruins her fond
+hope forever.
+
+"Kit, it is I. Listen to me," says some one, and then a hole in the
+hedge is cleared, and Mr. Desmond, stepping through it, enters the
+moonlit patch, flushed but shamelessly unembarrassed.
+
+Kit, pale with disappointment, regards him silently with no gentle
+glance.
+
+"And to think," she says, at length, with slow scorn, looking him up and
+down with measureless contempt,--"to think I was mad enough to believe
+for one long moment that you might be Apollo, and that your voice was a
+cry from Parnassus!"
+
+At which, I regret to say, Mr. Desmond gives way to most unseemly
+mirth. "I never dreamed I should attain to such glory," he says. "I feel
+like 'the rapt one of the godlike forehead.'"
+
+"You _may_," says the younger Miss Beresford, who has awakened from the
+dim dusk of "faerie lands forlorn" to the clearer light of earth. "You
+may," witheringly, "_feel_ like it, but you certainly don't _look_ like
+it."
+
+"I am not complete, I know that," says Mr. Desmond still full of unholy
+enjoyment. "I lack 'bright Apollo's lute strung with his hair;' but if
+you will wait a moment I will run back to Coole and get the nearest
+thing to it."
+
+He turns as if to fulfil his words, but Kit stops him.
+
+"Don't go," she says, laughing gayly, now herself. "Even the very
+original lute would not transform you into a god. Stay if you want to.
+After all, now I am again in my senses, I daresay you are as good to
+talk to as a heathen deity."
+
+"Oh, no," says Mr. Desmond, humbly. "They always thundered when they
+spoke: so think how imposing and convincing their arguments must have
+been!"
+
+"Horrid, _I_ should think," says Kit. "And now tell me what brought you
+here?"
+
+This is abrupt, but, taking her in her own mood, Desmond answers,
+bluntly,--
+
+"Monica."
+
+"She _told_ you to come?"
+
+"No. But I want to see her."
+
+"She has gone to her room."
+
+"Make her leave it again. Tell her I cannot rest until I see her; tell
+her anything; only bring her to me for even one short moment."
+
+"But it is some time since I left her: perhaps she is in bed."
+
+"But not asleep yet, surely. She loves _you_, Kit: induce her, then, to
+come to her window, that I may even catch a glimpse of her, if I may not
+speak with her. But she cannot be in bed; it is so early," says Mr.
+Desmond, desperately.
+
+"Well," says Kit, relenting, and striving to forget the blank occasioned
+by the substitution of an ordinary Desmond for an extraordinary deity,
+"I'll see what can be done."
+
+"You will," eagerly, "really?"
+
+"Yes, really. I will stand your friend," say Kit, solemnly, feeling now
+that, even if the old gods have denied her an intimate acquaintance with
+them, still they have devoted her to the service of Cupid, and have
+secretly commanded her to help on the machinations of his naughty little
+highness.
+
+"Then will you tell her I want to see her--_here, now_--for only a bare
+second if she so wills it? Will you tell her this from me? Dear Kit,
+_sweet_ Kit, I entreat you to do this."
+
+"Oh! how sweet I am when you want me to do something for you!" says she,
+with a little smile. "There! I can see through you as clearly as though
+you were crystal; but I like you all the same. You must have some good
+in you to fall in love with my Monica."
+
+"Others can fall in love with her, too," returns he, with moody
+jealousy.
+
+"Ah, yes! I saw that," says Kit, lifting her hands excitedly.
+
+"Who could fail to see it? Who could fail to love her?" says Desmond,
+sadly. Then, being in such very poor case, and looking sorrowfully for
+comfort from any source, however small, he says, nervously,--
+
+"Kit, answer me truthfully--you have sworn to be my friend: tell me,
+then, which do _you_ count the better man,--him, or me?"
+
+But that a sense of honor forbids him to pry into his love's secret
+thoughts, he would have asked whom _she_ counted the better man.
+
+"You," says Kit, calmly. "I have no doubt about it. I _hate_ fat men,
+and--and so does Monica. I have heard her say so, over and over again."
+
+"Oh, Kit! what a dear little girl you are!" says Mr. Desmond, with
+grateful fervor.
+
+"Well, I'm glad you like me," says Kit, "because"--frankly--"I like you.
+It was very good of you to lend that gun to Terry; I haven't forgotten
+that, though, goodness knows, I only hope he won't do himself to death
+with it" (she delights in old-world phrases such as this); "and I like
+you, too, for loving Monica. Isn't she--" laying her hand upon his arm,
+and looking trustfully into his eyes,--"_isn't_ she pretty?"
+
+"She is like an angel," says Desmond, feeling all his heart go out to
+the fragile, ethereal-looking child before him, as he listens to her
+praises of her sister.
+
+"Or a saint, perhaps. Monica is a saintly name. Was she not the mother
+of St. Augustine?" says Kit, quickly. After the old gods, passion for
+the saints, and their lilies and roses and fiery trials, animates her
+childish bosom. "Oh! and that reminded me," she says: "she told me to
+bring her in a lily, fresh with dew,--one of those lilies over there in
+that dark corner. Do you see them,--tall and white?"
+
+"I see. Let me pick one for her. Here, take it to her, and," laying his
+lips upon it, "_this_ with it."
+
+"I will. And now let me run in and try my utmost to persuade her to come
+out here. But," doubtfully, as she remembers how Monica refused with
+studied coldness to meet his parting glance at the Barracks a few hours
+ago, "do not be too sure of her coming. She _may_ refuse, you know. She
+is peculiar in many ways, and she thinks herself bound in honor to Aunt
+Priscilla not to look at you. But stay here, just in this spot, and
+think all the time that I am doing my very best for you."
+
+Her little face is so earnest as she says all this, so fearful that he
+may have to endure disappointment, that he is greatly touched. Pushing
+back her hair from her forehead with both hands, he lays a light but
+loving kiss upon her brow.
+
+"Go, my best friend. I trust all to you," he says, after which the
+slender sprite springs away from him, and, entering the shadows beyond,
+is soon lost to him.
+
+Reaching the house, she mounts the stairs with swift but silent
+footsteps, and, after a nervous hesitation before the door of her aunt
+Priscilla's room, finds herself once again face to face with Monica.
+
+That pretty cause of all this plotting is not in bed, as Kit had
+predicted might be the case. She is not even undressed. She has only
+exchanged her azure gown for a loose white morning robe, long and
+trailing, and lavishly trimmed at the throat and wrists with some rare
+old Mechlin lace that Aunt Penelope had given her a week ago, glad in
+the thought that it may perchance add another charm to the beauty of her
+darling.
+
+Her hair is rolled up in a small, soft knot behind; her face is a little
+pale; her eyes, large and luminous, have great heavy shadows lying
+beneath them, suggestive of fatigue and tiring thought. Altogether, she
+is looking as lovely as any heart can desire.
+
+"Ah, you have returned!" she says, as Kit enters. "How long you have
+been! I gave you up. I thought some pixy had become enamoured of you and
+had carried you off to his kingdom."
+
+"I was in danger of nothing so insignificant as a pixy. It was the great
+Apollo's self I feared," says Kit, with a sly humorous smile. "And here
+is your lily: _he_ sent it to you with his love and a kiss."
+
+"Apollo?" smiling.
+
+"Why, yes. Who else could it be at this hour?"
+
+"Yet there is something strange in your manner."
+
+"That is as it should be. On such a night as this, how could one escape
+a little touch of that 'moonstruck madness' I spoke of a while since? Go
+out yourself, walk through that moonlit garden just where I walked, to
+where in that corner over the rays melt into shadow, and try if there be
+nothing in it to make your heart beat faster."
+
+"I could do it, and return calm as I am now."
+
+"Then you are no true woman."
+
+"What! must a woman be so foolishly romantic as to tremble in the
+moonlight, to be true?"
+
+"Moonlights differ. There is a witchery abroad to-night. Go, and judge
+for yourself if there be not truth in my words."
+
+"I can see enough of it from this," says Monica, leaning her bare snowy
+arms--from which her loose sleeves have fallen--upon the window-ledge,
+and turning her eyes to the pale sky studded with bright stars, "to
+bewitch me, if indeed it has the power you ascribe to it."
+
+Foiled in her first effort to send her to Desmond's arms, Kit flings
+herself upon the ground beside her, and lays her arms upon her lap and
+looks lovingly but reproachfully into her eyes.
+
+"I think you were a little unkind to that dear Brian this evening," she
+says.
+
+"That dear Brian will recover from my cruel treatment, I make no doubt,"
+says Monica, with affected lightness, though, in truth, remorse is
+gnawing at her heartstrings.
+
+"If he does, he will show his very good sense. He loves you: why, then,
+do you _flout_ and scorn him?"
+
+In the ancient library below, the young ladies in the novels always
+_flouted_ their lovers. Not having the faintest idea how they perform
+this arduous task, Kit still adopts the word as having a sonorous sound,
+and uses it now with--as she hopes--great effect.
+
+"I do _not_ flout him," says Monica, indignantly. "But what am I to do?
+am I to make Aunt Priscilla wretched, then, because of him, and break
+her poor heart perhaps?"
+
+"Oh, bother her heart!" says the younger Miss Beresford, with more
+candor than decency: "think of _his_ poor heart, if you like, wasting
+and wearing away because of your unkindness. If _I_ had a lover, that
+is not how I should treat him. I should do anything in the world he
+asked me. I should defy everybody in the world for him, and think them
+well lost. I should run away with him at a moment's notice if he asked
+me. _Now!_"
+
+"Oh, Kit!" says Monica, aghast at all this energy.
+
+"I should indeed," nothing daunted; "I shouldn't hesitate. And, at all
+events, I should be civil to him at all times. Why, the way you treated
+that wretched young man to-day at Clonbree Barracks was, I consider,
+shameful! And you call yourself, I dare say, soft-hearted. To _look_ at
+you, one would think you couldn't be unkind if you tried; and yet the
+_barbarity_ of your conduct to-day, to a person who literally worships
+the ground you walk on, was----"
+
+"But what did I do?" interrupts poor Monica, trembling before this
+whirlwind.
+
+"What _didn't_ you do? you mean. You would not even grant him one kind
+parting glance. I could have _cried_ for him, he looked so sad and
+forlorn. I think he looked like suicide,--I do, indeed,--and I shouldn't
+wonder a bit if in the morning we heard----"
+
+"Oh, Kit, don't! _don't!_" says Monica, in an agony, as this awful
+insinuation gains force with her.
+
+"Well, I won't then," says the advocate, pretending to surrender her
+point by adroitly changing her front. A very Jesuit at soul is this
+small Kit. "After all, I daresay he will grow tired of your incivility,
+and so--forget you. Some one else will see how dear a fellow he is, and
+smile upon him, and then he will give you up."
+
+This picture, being in Monica's eyes even _more_ awful than the former,
+makes great havoc in her face, rendering her eyes large and sorrowful,
+and, indeed, so suffused with the heart's water that she seems upon the
+very verge of tears. She turns these wet but lovely orbs upon her
+tormentor.
+
+"That would be the best thing he could do for _himself_," she says, so
+sadly that Kit insensibly creeps closer to her; "and as for me, it
+doesn't matter about me, of course."
+
+"Monica, you like him, then," says Kit, suddenly, rising on her knees
+and looking into her sister's averted eyes. "I am sure of it: I know it
+now. Why did you not confide in me before?"
+
+"Because it seems all so hopeless; even--if I loved him enough to marry
+him--_they_ would never give in" (meaning, presumably, her aunts): "so
+why should he or I waste time over so impossible a theory?"
+
+"Why should it be impossible? Why should you not be married?"
+
+"Because the fates are against us. Not," quickly, "that _that_ so much
+matters: I don't want to marry _anybody_! But--but," lowering her lids,
+"I do want him to _love_ me."
+
+"My dear child, talk sense if you talk at all," says the material Kit.
+"There never yet was a heroine in any novel ever read by me (and I have
+had a large experience) who didn't want to marry the man of her heart.
+Now just look at that girl of Rhoda Broughton's, in 'Good-by,
+Sweetheart!' We can all see she didn't die of any disease, but simply
+because she couldn't be wedded to the man she loved. _There's_ a girl
+for you! give _me_ a girl like that. If ever I fall in love with a man,
+and I find I can't marry him, I shall make a point of dying of grief. It
+is so graceful; just like what I have heard of Irving and Ellen Terry--I
+mean, Romeo and Juliet!"
+
+"But I can't bear to deceive Aunt Priscilla," says Monica. "She is so
+kind, so good."
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!" says Kit promptly. "Do you suppose, when Aunt
+Priscilla was young, she would have deserted--let us say--Mr. Desmond
+the elder, at the beck and call of any one? She has too much spirit, to
+do her credit. Though I must say her spirit is rather out of place now,
+at times."
+
+"What would you have me do, then?" asks Monica, desperately.
+
+"Oh, nothing," says Kit, airily,--"really _nothing_. I am too young, of
+course, to give advice," with a little vicious toss of her small head.
+"And of course, too, I know nothing of the world's ways," with another
+toss, that conveys to her auditor the idea that she believes herself
+thoroughly versed and skilled in society's lore, but that as yet she is
+misunderstood. "And it is not my place, of course, to dictate to an
+elder sister." This severely, and evidently intended as a slap at Monica
+because of some little rebuke delivered by her, the other day, on the
+subject of age. "But," with concentrated energy, "I would not be
+_brutal_, if I were you."
+
+"Brutal?" faintly.
+
+"Yes, _brutal_, to keep him waiting for you all this time in the shadow
+near the ivy wall!"
+
+Having discharged this shell, she waits in stony silence for a reply.
+She waits some time. Then--
+
+"Are you speaking of--of Mr. Desmond?" asks Monica, in a trembling
+voice.
+
+"Yes. He is standing there now, and has been, for--oh, for hours,--on
+the bare chance of gaining one word from you."
+
+"Now?" starting.
+
+"Yes. He said he would wait until I had persuaded you to go out. If I
+had such a lover, I know I should not keep him waiting for me all the
+evening _shivering_ with cold."
+
+(It is the balmiest of summer nights.)
+
+"Oh! what shall I do?" says Monica, torn in two between her desire to be
+true to her aunt and yet not unkind to her lover.
+
+"As I said before," says the resolute Kit, turning her small pale face
+up to her sister, "I know I am not entitled to dictate to any one, but
+this I know, too, that if I were you, and _twenty_ Aunt Priscillas were
+at my side, I should still--go to him! There!"
+
+She conquers. Monica rises slowly, and as a first move in the desired
+direction goes--need I say it?--to the looking-glass. Need I say, also,
+that she feels dissatisfied with her appearance?
+
+"Then I suppose I had better dress myself all over again," she says,
+glancing with much discontent at the charming vision the glass returns
+to her.
+
+"No, no!" says Kit, decidedly. She has now arranged herself as Mistress
+of the Ceremonies, and quite gives herself airs. "Do not add even a
+touch to your toilet. You are quite too sweet as you are, and 'time
+presses'" (another quotation from one of her mouldy volumes).
+
+"But _this_," says Monica, plucking at her pretty loose gown, that hangs
+in limp artistic folds round her slight figure and is pranked out with
+costly laces.
+
+"It is perfect! Have you no eyes for the beautiful? There, go, you silly
+child; Nature has been so good to you, you now deride her prodigality,
+and make little of the gifts she has bestowed upon you. Go to----"
+
+"Good gracious!" says Monica, pausing to stare at her aghast. "Where did
+you learn all that?"
+
+"It is in a book below; I learned it by heart, to say it to you some
+day, and now I have done it. There, be quick! He will be _gone_ if you
+don't make haste. His patience by this time must be exhausted. Think
+what he has been enduring; I only hope he hasn't fainted from sheer
+fatigue, that's all!"
+
+"Will you stay here till I come back," says Monica, nervously, "or will
+you come with me?"
+
+"I shall stay here; and don't hurry on my account. I shall be quite
+happy with this lamp and your Chaucer. There, go now; and tell him I
+sent you. And," mischievously, "don't be civil to him, you know, but
+rate him soundly for presuming to disturb your worship at this hour."
+
+"Oh! if any one sees me!" says Monica, quaking.
+
+"You will never get hanged for a big crime," returns Kit, laughing; and
+then Monica steps out lightly, fearfully, upon the corridor outside, and
+so, with her heart dying within her, creeps past her aunt's doors, and
+down the wide staircase, and through the hall, and at last into the
+silver moonlight!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+  How Monica with faltering footsteps enters the mysterious moonlight,
+  and how she fares therein.
+
+
+What a noise the tiny gravel makes beneath her feet, as she hurries
+rapidly towards the garden! How her heart beats! Oh that she were back
+again in her pretty safe room, with the naughty Kit to scold! Oh, if
+Aunt Priscilla were to rise, and, looking out of her bedroom window,
+catch a glimpse of her, as she hastes to meet the man she has been
+forbidden to know! A thousand terrors possess her. The soft beauty of
+the night is unseen, the rushing of sweet brooks in the distance is
+unheard. She hurries on, a little, lithe, frightened figure, with wide
+eyes and parted lips, to the rendezvous she has not sought. And what a
+little way it had seemed in the glad daylight, yet what a journey in the
+silent, fearsome night! There are real tears, born of sheer nervousness,
+in her beautiful eyes, as she runs along the garden path, and at
+last--_at last_--finds herself face to face with Desmond.
+
+"Ah, you have come!" cries he, gladly, going to meet her while yet she
+is a long way off.
+
+"Yes." She can say no more, but her fear has departed at sight of him,
+and once more she grows calm, collected, and mistress of herself. She
+keeps well away from him, however, and holds out to him--that "white
+wonder"--her hand, from a very great distance, as it seems to him. Does
+she distrust him, then? Thinking of this, Brian takes the extended hand,
+and holds it in a clasp that though tender is light, and refrains with
+much forbearance from pressing his lips to it.
+
+"To come _here_, and at this hour! It is madness!" says Monica, hastily.
+
+"A very blessed madness, then, and with method in it: it has enabled me
+to see _you_."
+
+"Oh, do not talk like that. You ought not to see me at all. And, now,
+what is it? Kit said you wanted me sadly."
+
+"And so I do, and not only now but always."
+
+"If," reproachfully, "it is nothing pressing, would not to-morrow have
+done?"
+
+"To-morrow never comes. There is nothing like to-day; and how could I
+have lived till to-morrow? I could not sleep, I could not rest, until I
+had seen you. My heart seemed on fire. Monica, how could you have
+treated me as you did to-day?"
+
+She is silent. The very fact of her not answering convinces him her
+coldness at the Barracks was intentional, and his tone takes an
+additional sadness as he speaks again.
+
+"You meant it then?" he says. "You would not throw me even one poor
+glance. If you could only look into my heart, and read how cruelly I
+felt your unkindness, you might----"
+
+"I don't know what you mean," says Monica. "Why should you talk of
+unkindness? Why should I be kinder to you than to another?"
+
+"Of your grace alone; I know that," says the young man, humbly. He has
+paid court to many a town-bred damsel before this, and gained their
+smiles too, and their sighs; yet now he sues to this cold child as he
+never sued before, and knows his very soul is set on her good will.
+
+"Why must you choose me to love,--_me_, of all the world?" says Monica,
+tremulously: "it is wide, there are others--and----"
+
+"Because I must. It is my fate, and I am glad of it. Whom worthier could
+I love?" says the lover, with fond, passionate reverence.
+
+"Many, no doubt. And why love at all? Let us be friends, then, if it is
+indeed decreed that our lives meet----"
+
+"There could never be mere friendship between you and me. If your heart
+sleeps, at least your sense must tell you that."
+
+"Then I could wish myself without sense. I want to know nothing about
+it. Alas! how sad a thing is love!"
+
+"And how joyous! It is the one emotion to be fed and fostered. 'All
+others are but vanity.' I will persist in loving you until I die."
+
+"That is a foolish saying; and, even if you do, what will come of it
+all?" says Monica, with a sigh.
+
+"Marriage, I trust," returns he, right cheerily. "Because, to give you
+another example of love's endurance, and to quote old Southey to you, I
+will tell you that he says,--
+
+            "'It is indestructable;
+      Its holy flame forever burneth:
+    From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.'
+
+but not yet awhile, I hope."
+
+"You are a special pleader," says she, with a sudden smile.
+
+"For the cause that I plead I would that I were a more eloquent
+advocate."
+
+"You are eloquent enough," glancing at him for a moment, and then again
+turning away from him; "too eloquent," she says, with a little sigh.
+
+He is still holding her hands, but now he does not speak or answer her
+in any wise. A silence falls upon them, calm as the night. In "full
+orbed glory" the moon above sails through the skies.
+
+    "A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
+    No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,
+    Breaks the serene of heaven."
+
+"There is one thing I must say, Monica," says the young man at last,
+lifting her face gently with one hand until her eyes look into his own:
+"remember, my life is in your hands."
+
+"Do not overburden me," she answers, but in so low a voice that it can
+scarce be heard. Yet _he_ hears.
+
+"My darling, must I be a burden to you?" he says. "Monica, if this my
+courtship is hateful to you, or more than you can bear, dismiss me now,
+and I will go from you, no matter what it costs me."
+
+"You are no true lover, to talk like that," she says, with a shadowy
+smile.
+
+"I am lover enough to wish you no pain or weariness of spirit."
+
+"I doubt you are too good for me," she answers with a little burst of
+feeling.
+
+"I must be a paragon indeed if that be so," returns he. "Oh, Monica, if
+you could only love me!"
+
+"I _dare_ not." Then, as though sorry for these words, she holds out her
+hands to him, and says, with a quick smile, "Oh, Romeo, Romeo! wherefore
+art thou Romeo?"
+
+"I wish I knew," returns he sadly. "Yet if I were sure of one thing I
+should not despair. Monica, tell me you don't like Ryde."
+
+"I can't," says Monica. "He is very kind to me always. I am sure I ought
+to like him."
+
+"How has he been kind to you?"
+
+"Oh, in many ways."
+
+"He has brought you a cup of somebody else's tea, I suppose, and has
+probably trotted after you with a camp-stool; is that kindness?"
+
+"If one is hot or tired, yes."
+
+"You are one of the most grateful specimen of your sex. I wish there was
+anything for which you might be grateful to me. But I am not great at
+the _petits soins_ business."
+
+"I shouldn't have thought so this afternoon," says Monica, maliciously,
+"when you were happy with Olga Bohun. But see, the moon has risen quite
+above the elms. I must go."
+
+"Not yet. There is something else. When am I to see you again?--when?"
+
+"That is as fate wills it."
+
+"_You_ are my fate. Will it, then, and say to-morrow."
+
+"No, no!" exclaims she, releasing her hands from his, "I cannot indeed.
+I _must_ not. In being here with you now I am doing wrong, and am
+betraying the two people in the world who are most kind to me. How shall
+I look into their eyes to-morrow? No; I will not promise to meet you
+anywhere--_ever_."
+
+"How tender you are with them, and with me how cruel!"
+
+"You have many joys in your life, but they how few!"
+
+"You are wrong there. The world has grown useless to me since I met you.
+You are my one joy, and you elude me; therefore pity me too."
+
+"Who made you so gracious a courtier?" asks she, with a little shrug of
+her rounded shoulders.
+
+"Now you cast scorn upon me," says Desmond, half angrily, and as he says
+it the thought of Kit's word _flout_ comes to her, and she smiles. It is
+an idle thought, yet it is with difficulty she cleaves to the less
+offensive smiles and keeps herself from laughing aloud.
+
+"Why should I do that?" she says, a little saucily. Indeed, she knows
+this young man to be so utterly in her power--and power is so sweet when
+first acquired, and so prone to breed tyranny--that she hardly turns
+aside to meditate upon the pain she may be causing him.
+
+"I don't know," a little sadly; then, "Monica, you like me?"
+
+"Yes, I like you," says Miss Beresford, as she might have answered had
+she been questioned as to her opinion of an aromatic russet.
+
+Repressing a gesture of impatience, Desmond goes on calmly,--
+
+"Better than Ryde?"
+
+"Than Mr. Ryde?" She stops and glances at the gravel at her feet in a
+would-be thoughtful fashion, and pushes it to and fro with her pretty
+Louis Quinze shoe. She pauses purposely, and makes quite an affair of
+her hesitation.
+
+"Yes, Ryde," says he, impatiently.
+
+"How can I answer that?" she says, at length, with studied deliberation,
+"when I know so little of either him--or you?"
+
+His indignation increases.
+
+"Knowing us both at _least_ equally well, you must have formed by this
+time some opinion of us."
+
+"I should indeed," says the young girl, slowly, always with her eyes
+upon the gravel; "but unfortunately it never occurred to me,--the vital
+necessity of doing so, I mean."
+
+Though her head is still bent, he can detect the little amused smile
+that is curving her mobile lips. There can be small doubt but that she
+is enjoying his discomfiture immensely.
+
+"Certainly there is no reason why _you_ should waste a thought on either
+him or me," he returns, stiffly.
+
+"No; and yet I do waste one on--_you_--sometimes," says she, with a
+gleam of tenderness, and a swift glance from under her long lashes that
+somehow angers him intensely.
+
+"You are a coquette," he says, quietly. There is contempt both in his
+look and tone. As she hears it, she suddenly lifts her head, and,
+without betraying chagrin, regards him steadfastly.
+
+"Is that so?" she says. "Sometimes I have _thought_ it, but----"
+
+The unmistakable hope her pause contains angers him afresh.
+
+"If you covet the unenviable title," he says, bitterly, "be happy. You
+can lay just claim to it. You are more than worthy of it."
+
+"You flatter me," she says, letting a glance so light rest upon him that
+it seems but the mere quiver of her eyelids.
+
+"I meant no flattery, believe me."
+
+"I do believe you: I quite understand."
+
+"Not quite, I think," exclaims he, the sudden coldness of her manner
+frightening him into better behavior. "If--if I have said anything to
+offend you, I ask your forgiveness."
+
+"There is nothing to forgive, indeed, and you have failed to offend me.
+But," slowly, "you have made me very sorry for you."
+
+"_Sorry?_"
+
+"Yes, for your most unhappy temper. It is quite the worst, I think, I
+have ever met with. _Good_-night Mr. Desmond: pray be careful when going
+through that hedge again; there are some rose-trees growing in it, and
+thorns do hurt so dreadfully."
+
+So saying, she gathers up her white skirts, and, without a touch of her
+hand, or even a last glance, flits like a lissome ghost across the
+moonlit paths of the garden, and so is gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  How Kit reads between the lines--How the Misses Blake show
+  themselves determined to pursue a dissipated course, and how Monica
+  is led astray by an apt pupil of Machiavelli.
+
+
+Early next morning Bridget, Monica's maid, enters Kit's room in a
+somewhat mysterious fashion. Glancing all round the room furtively, as
+though expecting an enemy lying in ambush behind every chair and table,
+she says, in a low, cautious tone,--
+
+"A letter for you, miss."
+
+As she says this, she draws a note from beneath her apron, where, in her
+right hand, it has been carefully hidden,--_so_ carefully, indeed, that
+she could not have failed to create suspicion in the breast of a babe.
+
+"For me," says Kit, off her guard for once.
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+"Who brought it?"
+
+"A bit of a gossoon, miss, out there in the yard beyant. An' he wouldn't
+give me his name; but sure I know him well for a boy of the Maddens',
+an' one of the Coole people. His father, an' his gran'father before him,
+were laborers with the ould Squire."
+
+"Ah, indeed!" says Kit. By this time she has recovered her surprise and
+her composure. "Thank you, Bridget," she says, with quite a
+grandiloquent air: "put it there, on that table. It is of no
+consequence, I dare say: you can go."
+
+Bridget--who, like all her countrywomen, dearly likes a love-affair, and
+is quite aware of young Mr. Desmond's passion for her mistress--is
+disappointed.
+
+"The gossoon said he was to wait for an answer, miss," she says,
+insinuatingly. "An' faix," waxing confidential, "I think I caught sight
+of the coat-tails of Misther Desmond's man outside the yard gate."
+
+"You should never think on such occasions, Bridget; and coat-tails are
+decidedly _low_," says the younger Miss Beresford, with scathing
+reproof.
+
+"They weren't very low, miss. He wore one o' them cutaway coats," says
+Bridget, in an injured tone.
+
+"You fail to grasp my meaning," says Kit, gravely. "However, let it
+pass. If this note requires an answer, you can wait in the next room
+until I write it."
+
+"Very well, miss," says the discomfited Bridget; and Kit, finding
+herself in another moment alone, approaches the table, and with a
+beating heart takes up the note. "It is--it _must_ be from Brian!"
+
+The plot thickens; and _she_ has been selected to act a foremost part in
+it! She is to be the confidante,--the tried and trusted friend; without
+her aid all the fair edifice Cupid is erecting would crumble into dust.
+
+And is there no danger, too, to be encountered,--perhaps to be met and
+overcome? If perchance all be discovered,--if Aunt Priscilla should
+suddenly be apprised of what is now going on beneath her very
+spectacles,--will not she,--Kit,--in her character of "guide,
+philosopher, and friend" to the culprits, come in for a double share of
+censure? Yes, truly there are breakers ahead, and difficulties to be
+overcome. There is joy and a sense of heroism in this thought; and she
+throws up her small head defiantly, and puts out one foot with quite a
+martial air, as it comes to her.
+
+Then she tears open the envelope, and reads as follows:--
+
+"DEAR LITTLE KIT,--Owing you all the love and allegiance in the world
+for having helped me once, I come to you again. How am I to pass this
+long day without a glimpse of _her_? It is a love-sick swain who doth
+entreat your mercy. Does any happy thought run through your pretty head?
+If so, my man is waiting for it somewhere; befriend me a second time.
+
+      "Ever yours,
+          "BRIAN."
+
+Prompt action is as the breath of her nostrils to Kit. Drawing pen and
+ink towards her, without a moment's hesitation, she scribbles an answer
+to Desmond:--
+
+"We are going towards Ballyvoureen this afternoon, to take a pudding to
+old Biddy Daly: any one _chancing_ to walk there also might meet us.
+Count upon me always.
+
+          "KIT."
+
+This Machiavellian epistle, which she fondly believes to be without its
+equal in the matter of depth, she folds carefully, and, enclosing it in
+an envelope void of address or anything (mark the astuteness of
+_that_!), calls to Bridget to return to her.
+
+"You will find the boy you mentioned as being by birth a Madden," she
+says, austerely, "and give him this; and you will refrain from gossiping
+and idle talking with him, which is not convenient."
+
+It would be impossible to describe the tone in which she says this.
+Bridget, much disgusted, takes the note silently, and with sufficient
+nervousness to make itself known. Indeed, she is so plainly impressed by
+Kit's eloquence that the latter's heart sings aloud for joy.
+
+"Yes, miss," she says, in a very subdued voice, and goes away with
+indignant haste, to tell cook, as she passes through the kitchen, that
+"Faix, Miss Kit might be her own gran'mother,--she is so ould an' quare
+in her ways."
+
+Kit meantime goes in search of Monica, with a mind stored with crafty
+arguments for the beguiling of that unconscious maiden. Hearing voices
+in the morning-room, she turns in there, and finds the whole family in
+conclave.
+
+Miss Priscilla is speaking.
+
+"Yes, I certainly think hospitality of some sort should be shown them,"
+she is saying, with quite an excited flush on her dear old ugly face.
+"We cannot, of course, do much; but afternoon tea, now, and some
+pleasant people to meet them,--and strawberries,--and a little stroll
+round the gardens--eh? And, Penelope, you used to be a great hand at
+claret-cup in our dear father's time; and then there is tennis. I really
+think, you know, it might be done."
+
+She quite bridles with pleasure at the bare anticipation. To entertain
+once more,--again to welcome guests beneath the old roof! For many years
+a nightly game of patience has been the sole dissipation the Misses
+Blake have known, and here of late days they have been going hither and
+thither to dances and garden-parties, and have acknowledged to
+themselves secretly that the change is sweet. And now they are actually
+discussing the idea of indulging in wild festivities on their own part!
+Surely these children from Jerusalem have much to answer for!
+
+"Is there going to be a party _here_, Aunt Priscilla?" asks Kit with
+enlarged eyes.
+
+"Well, my dear, we are debating the possibilities of it,--just the pros
+and cons," says Miss Priscilla, precisely. "Your aunt Penelope agrees
+with me that some attention is due to those young men in Clonbree
+Barracks."
+
+"You are going to ask Captain Cobbett and Mr. Ryde here! Oh, what fun!"
+cries Kit, seating herself, minus invitation, on Miss Priscilla's knee,
+and twining her arms round her neck. "Do you know, when with mother we
+didn't dare call our souls our own; but with you we are having real good
+old times! Aren't we, now?"
+
+"Oh, Kit!--my _dear_ Kit!--you must not speak so of your lost mother,"
+cry the old ladies in a breath, both greatly distressed.
+
+"Well, I shan't if you don't wish it; but it is true, for all that. And
+so you are really going to ask that big young man and his little captain
+to come here?"
+
+"Your Aunt Penelope and I both feel that some hospitality should be
+shown to Her Majesty," says Miss Priscilla, pompously.
+
+"The Queen!" says Kit aghast. "You aren't going to ask _her_ to Moyne
+are you? Windsor is a long way off, and she is pretty well on now, you
+know, and I don't believe she'd come."
+
+"Not personally. But we shall pay her the compliment through her trusty
+servants the marines. Not that we owe her much," says Miss Priscilla,
+shaking her head. "I cannot think she has behaved quite fairly towards
+us in many ways. Never coming to see us, I mean, or sending the prince,
+or having a residence here, or that----"
+
+"Still," breaks in Miss Penelope, coming to Her Majesty's relief, with
+the evident and kindly desire of showing her up in a more favorable
+light, "I have always understood that in private life she is a most
+exemplary woman,--a blameless wife so long as she was allowed to be so,
+and a most excellent mother."
+
+"And grandmother," chimes in Miss Priscilla, gracefully, as though
+ashamed of her former acrimonious remarks. "From what I can glean from
+the papers, she seems quite devoted to those poor little motherless
+girls of Hesse."
+
+It is quite plain that the Misses Blake regard their sovereign more as
+Victoria and sister than queen and mistress.
+
+"She has sent these men to Clonbree to protect our lives and properties
+in these perilous times," goes on Miss Priscilla, in her clear, soft
+voice, "and so I think we are bound to show them any civility in our
+power."
+
+"More especially the life and property of old Desmond," says Terry, at
+this moment, with a noble disregard of consequences. He is sitting at a
+distant window, tying flies, and makes this unfortunate remark without
+the faintest appearance of malice prepense. "They say he is running a
+regular rig with his tenants,--playing old Harry with 'em, in fact," he
+goes on, debonairly; "but they'll stop his little game for him with a
+bullet before long, I shouldn't wonder."
+
+As the forbidden name is thus cavalierly thrown into their midst, like a
+bomb, Monica flushes first a warm crimson and then turns cold with
+fright.
+
+The old ladies stiffen in their chairs, but never a word say they; they
+are too much overcome for ordinary rebuke. Kit, however, to whom any
+excitement is welcome, betrays an open admiration for the bold Terence
+and waits hopefully for what may come next.
+
+It is even worse than might be expected. Terence, either unaware or
+careless of the sensation he has produced, closes one eye to examine
+with pleased scrutiny the gaudy fly he has just completed, after which
+he says, with a suggestion of jocoseness that under the circumstances is
+perfectly abominable,--
+
+"I say, Aunt Priscilla, as Cobbett has been sent to look after old
+Desmond in particular, don't you think, if you entertain him, it will be
+to old Desmond, and _not_ Her Majesty, you will be paying attention,
+after all?"
+
+He stops and smiles blandly. If, indeed, I said a _grin_ illuminates his
+countenance, I might be nearer the truth. It is apparent to everybody
+that he is _jesting_ on this sacred subject.
+
+"Terry!" says Monica, with a little gasp.
+
+"Well?" says Mr. Beresford, amiably, purposely misunderstanding the
+horror of her tone, and looking up as though thirsting for the remainder
+of her speech. It doesn't come. Monica, fearful of provoking him to
+further monstrosities, forbears from answer of any kind.
+
+"Terence," says Miss Priscilla, with slow solemnity, "I have frequently
+told you that we object to hearing that detested name mentioned in our
+presence. It offends both your aunt Penelope and me. I must again beg
+that for the future we may be spared a repetition of it."
+
+"When I was going to give Tim Daly a sound thrashing for his
+impertinence yesterday, you stopped me and bade me forgive my enemies,"
+says Terence, calmly, questioningly. "Why don't you forgive old
+Desmond?"
+
+"Because----That is quite another thing altogether. I mean----I----it
+seems to me----No matter _what_ it seems now; we can't discuss it," says
+Miss Priscilla, making a desperate effort to catch the horns of her
+dilemma and to escape from it.
+
+"Let us discuss our party instead," says Kit, cheerfully, who is really
+of the greatest use at times. "When is it to be, Aunt Pris?"
+
+"Next week, I suppose," says Miss Penelope, promptly, seeing that Miss
+Priscilla is still too agitated to reply. "And I think it would be
+rather nice to have tea in the orchard."
+
+"Oh! how quite too lovely!" says Kit, clasping her hands.
+
+"Quite too utterly consummately, preciously intense?" mutters Terence,
+_sotto voce_, regarding Kit sideways, who returns his rapturous glance
+with one full of ineffable disdain.
+
+"I hope Michael won't object," says Miss Penelope, nervously. Michael is
+the gardener, and they are all, without exception, afraid of him.
+
+"Nonsense, my dear! why should he?" says Miss Priscilla. "It isn't
+because he has been here for years that he is to forbid us the use of
+our own grounds, and of late I consider there is great fault to be found
+with him. Long service should not generate neglect, and of late there
+has not been a good lettuce or a respectable dish of asparagus in the
+garden."
+
+"There wasn't even any thyme last week," says Kit, who maintains an
+undying feud with Michael. "He had to get some fresh plants from
+Cahirmore."
+
+"Time was made for slaves," says Terence, meditatively. "_You_ aren't a
+slave, are you?"
+
+"I should hope not," says Kit, icily.
+
+"Then you can't want time: so don't worry that poor old man in the
+garden about it. He hasn't a scythe, or a bald head, or a dismal
+forelock: so he _can't_ know anything about it."
+
+"You are so clever," says the younger Miss Beresford, with unmixed
+scorn, "that I wonder something dreadful doesn't happen to you."
+
+"So do I," says Terence.
+
+"Well, auntie, and whom shall we ask to meet these men of war?" says
+Kit, ignoring him,--publicly, to his great delight.
+
+"I suppose Madam O'Connor and all her party, and the Frenches, and Lord
+Rossmoyne,--who I hear is still in the country,--and----Penelope, my
+dear, will you sit down and write the invitations now for Friday next,
+as I must get ready to go to the coast-guard station? That girl of
+Mitson's is ill, and wants to see me."
+
+Monica rising at this moment to leave the room, Kit follows her.
+
+"It is really _too_ amazing," she says, when they find themselves in the
+hall. "To think of their blossoming into a real live party! I feel quite
+overcome."
+
+"So do I," says Monica, laughing.
+
+"There is only one drawback to it," says Kit, softly: "I am _so_ sorry
+Brian can't be asked."
+
+Monica flushes furiously, and swerves away from her somewhat
+impatiently; but reply she makes none.
+
+"There are cobwebs in my brain," says Kit, raising her hands languidly
+to her head, with the oppressed air of one who is bravely struggling
+with a bad headache. "I think I shall go for a walk to Biddy Daly's to
+try and rout them. I promised her old mother a pudding the last day I
+was there, and to-day cook has it ready for me. Will you come with me,
+Monica? _Do._"
+
+"Not to-day, I think," says Monica, lazily.
+
+"I wish you would! I do so _hate_ going anywhere by myself. And,
+somehow, I am half afraid to go alone to-day, I feel--so--so faint.
+However," with a resigned sigh, "never mind; I dare say if I _do_ drop
+in a deadly swoon, somebody will pick me up."
+
+"My dear Kit, if you feel like that, don't go," says Monica, naturally
+alarmed.
+
+"I have promised old Mrs. Daly; I must go," replies Kit, with the
+determination of a Brutus. "If I am not back in time for dinner, you
+will understand what has happened."
+
+This is awful! Monica turns quite pale.
+
+"Of course I shall go with you," she says, hurriedly. "Is your head so
+very bad, darling? How bravely you carried it off in there!" pointing
+towards the morning-room they have just left. "However, it would be only
+like you to hide your worries from us, lest they should make us
+unhappy."
+
+At this, it must be allowed to her credit, Kit feels some strong twinges
+of remorse,--not enough, however, to compel confession.
+
+"It is really hardly worth talking about," she says, alluding to the
+headache; and this, at all events, is the strict truth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+  How Kit's plot is betrayed, and how a walk that begins gayly ends in
+  gloom.
+
+
+The road to Mrs. Daly's is full of beauty. On one side of it runs Coole,
+its trees rich with leafy branches; upon the other stretches a common,
+green and soft, with a grand glimpse of the ocean far down below it.
+
+"Why walk on the dusty road when those fields are green in there?" says
+Kit, pointing to Coole; and, after a faint hesitation, Monica follows
+her over the wall and into the dark recesses of the woods. The grass is
+knee deep in ferns and trailing verdure; great clumps of honeysuckle,
+falling from giant limbs of elm, make the air sweet. Some little way to
+their right--but where they cannot see because of the prodigality of
+moss and alder and bracken--a little hidden brook runs merrily, making
+
+    "Sweet music with th' enamell'd stones,
+    Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
+    He overtaketh in his pilgrimage."
+
+Some thought belonging to the past night coming to Kit, she turns to
+Monica with a little laugh.
+
+"How silent you have been about last night's adventure!" she says. "I
+watched you from your own window until the shadows caught you. You
+looked like a flitting spirit,--a--a bhoot."
+
+"A _boot_!" says Monica, very justly surprised.
+
+"Yes," loftily. Kit's educational course, as directed by herself, has
+been of the erratic order, and has embraced many topics unknown to
+Monica. From the political economy of the Faroe Isles, it has reached
+even to the hidden mysteries of Hindostan.
+
+"I must have struck you then as being in my liveliest mood," says
+Monica, still laughing. "Terry told us yesterday he was as gay as old
+boots. As I looked like _one_, I suppose I was at least half as gay as
+he was. After all, there is nothing like leather, no matter how
+ancient."
+
+"There's an _h_ in my bhoot," says Kit, with some disgust. "Really, the
+ignorance of some people--even the _nicest_--is, surprising."
+
+"Then why don't you take it out?" says Monica, frivolously. "Not that I
+know in the very least what harm a poor innocent letter could do there."
+
+"You don't understand," says Kit, pitifully.
+
+"I don't indeed," says Monica, unabashed.
+
+"A bhoot is an Indian ghost."
+
+"And you thought I looked like an Indian ghost! with a turban! and an
+Afghan! and a scimitar! Oh, Kit! Did I really look like the mahogany
+table beneath the silver moonbeams? and did my eyes glitter?"
+
+"What a goose you are!" says Kit, roaring with laughter. "No, you looked
+lovely; but I was reading an Indian story yesterday, and it came into my
+head."
+
+"You read too much," says Monica. "'Much learning will make you mad,' if
+you don't take care. Remember what Lord Bacon says, 'Reading maketh a
+full man.' How would _you_ like to be a full woman,--like Madam
+O'Connor, for example?"
+
+"Francis Bacon never meant it in that sense," says Kit, indignantly. "I
+really _wonder_ at you Monica." And, having so scolded her idol, she
+relapses into silence for a considerable time.
+
+"Oh! what lovely dog-roses!" says Monica, presently, pointing to a
+hanging spray of pink blossoms, satisfying as a happy dream. "I _must_
+get them."
+
+She springs up a mossy bank as she speaks, regardless of the blackberry
+branches that cross her path, barring her way, and catching viciously
+at her skirts, as though to hinder her progress.
+
+"Oh, take care!" cries Kit, forgetting all about Lord Bacon in her
+terror lest her pretty sister shall not show to the best advantage in
+her lover's eyes. "Your gown will be torn. Wait, wait, until I set you
+free from these dreadful thorns."
+
+"'Alas! how full of briers is this working-day-world,'" quotes Monica,
+gayly. "There, now I am all right, and I have got my pretty roses into
+the bargain. Are they not sweet?--_sweet?_" holding them right under
+Kit's nose.
+
+"They are, indeed. And, by the by, here we are," pointing to a low
+farmhouse in the distance.
+
+Reaching it, and finding the door as usual open, they enter what might
+be the hall in another house, but is here the kitchen. There is no
+leading up to it. From the moment you cross the threshold the kitchen
+lies before you.
+
+It is a large room, if it may so be called, with a huge fireplace in
+which a dozen fires might be stowed away and forgotten. Just now there
+is a flame somewhere in its blackmost depths that cannot possibly annoy
+these June visitors, as one has to search for it to find it.
+
+An old woman, infirm and toothless, yet with all the remains of great
+beauty, sits cowering over this hidden turf fire, mumbling to herself,
+it may be, of golden days now past and gone, when she had been the
+fairest colleen at mass or pattern, and had counted her lovers by the
+score. Yea, those were good old times, when the sky was ever blue and
+all the earth was young.
+
+Two young women, sitting near her, but farther from the chimney-nook,
+are gossiping idly, but persistently, in the soft, mellifluous brogue
+that distinguishes the county Cork.
+
+As the Beresford girls enter, these two latter women rise simultaneously
+and courtesy with deep respect. The youngest of them, who is so like the
+handsome old woman in the corner of the fireplace as to be unmistakably
+of kin to her, comes quickly forward to greet her visitors with the
+kindly grace and the absence of consciousness that distinguish the Irish
+peasantry when doing the honors of their own homes. This lack of
+_mauvaise honte_ arises perhaps from the fact that they are so honestly
+glad to welcome a guest beneath their roof that they forget to be shy or
+backward.
+
+She makes a slight effort to pull down her tucked-up sleeves, and then
+desists, for which any one with a mind artistic should be devoutly
+grateful, as her arms, brown as they are from exposure to the sun, are
+at least shaped to perfection. She is dressed in a maroon-colored skirt
+and body, the skirt so turned up in fishwife fashion (as _we_ wore it
+some seasons ago) that a dark-blue petticoat beneath, of some coarse
+description, can be distinctly seen.
+
+Her throat is a little bare, arms, as I have said, quite so, far up
+above the elbows. She is stout and comely, with a beautiful laughing
+mouth, and eyes of deepest gray, merry as her lips. Outside, lying
+about, half naked in the warm sunshine, are three or four boys with the
+same eyes and mouth, undeniably her children.
+
+"Wisha! 'tis meself's glad to see ye," she says, with a beaming smile.
+"Good luck to yer faces. 'Tis a long time now, Miss Beresford, since ye
+came, or Miss Kit there."
+
+"I promised your mother a pudding, and I have brought it," says Kit.
+
+"Look at that, now! 'Tis a trouble we are to ye entirely. Mother, wake
+up a bit, an' thank Miss Kit for what she's brought ye."
+
+"Ye're too kind, asthore, too kind," mumbles the old woman in the
+corner, turning eyes that are still full of light upon the child, "to
+think of an ould 'ooman now in the grave as it might be. Ay, faix! An'
+the bells a-ringin' too. I can hear 'em sometimes, when the wind's
+down----"
+
+"Nonsense, mother! the yard (churchyard) will be lonely for ye yet
+awhile," says Mrs. Daly, junior, cheerfully. "See, now! taste this:
+'twill do ye good. An' you'll sit down, Miss Monica, I hope. Take care,
+honey, till I dust the chair for ye." This is dexterously done with the
+corner of her apron. "An' ye'll take a dhrop o' tay too, may be; oh, ye
+will now, if only to plase me, afther yer long walk, an' all to honor
+the ould woman."
+
+"Ah, there is Mrs. Moloney!" says Kit, addressing the second younger
+woman, who is a thin little peasant with a somewhat discontented
+expression. "The sun blinded my eyes so that I could not see you at
+first. Have you heard from your boy at sea?"
+
+"Yes, miss. Praises be above! He's doin' well, he says; but it's belike
+I'll never see a sight of his handsome face again."
+
+"Oh, nonsense, now, Mrs. Moloney, me dear! What are ye talkin' like that
+for?" says young Mrs. Daly, who seems to be the parish consoler. "Sure
+it's back he'll be wid ye before the new year."
+
+"Oh, yes, I _hope_ so," says Monica, softly.
+
+"'Tis hard to hope, miss, wid the rowling wind o' nights, an' the waves
+dashin' up on the beach."
+
+"Ye're an ould croaker," says Mrs. Daly, giving her a good-humored
+shake, "An' now sit down, Miss Monica an' Miss Kit, do, till I get ye
+the sup o' tay. Mrs. Moloney, me dear, jist give the fire a poke, an'
+make the kittle sing us a song. 'Tis the music we want most now."
+
+It would have been considered not only a rudeness, but an act _hauteur_,
+to refuse this simple hospitality: so the girls seat themselves, and,
+indeed, to tell the truth, are rather glad than otherwise of this chance
+of securing their afternoon tea.
+
+"An' how are the old ladies up above?" says Mrs. Daly, meaning the
+Misses Blake.
+
+"Quite well, thank you," says Monica. "It was only yesterday Aunt
+Priscilla was saying she should come down and see old Mrs. Daly."
+
+"She's as welcome as the flowers in May whenever she comes," says the
+daughter-in-law. "D'ye hear that, mother? Miss Priscilla's comin' to see
+ye, some day soon. Ay, 'tis a good friend she always was to the poor,
+summer an' winter; an' isn't it wondherful now, Miss Monica, how she's
+kept her figure all through? Why," raising her hands with an expressive
+gesture of astonishment, "'twas Friday week I saw her, an' I said to
+meself, says I, she's the figure o' a young girl, I says. Ye'll take a
+taste o' this home-made cake, alanna."
+
+She is made happy forever by Kit's unmistakable enjoyment of this
+last-named luxury.
+
+"Ay, she's an iligant figure even now," says Mrs. Moloney, in her
+depressing voice. "But time an' throuble is cruel hard on some of us. I
+had a figure meself when I was young," with a heartrending sigh.
+
+"Ye were always slight, me dear, an' ye're slight now too," says Mrs.
+Daly, tenderly. "I niver see the like o'ye for keepin' off the flesh.
+Why, I remember ye well as a slip o' a girl, before yer blessed babby
+was born, an' ye were a screed, me dear,--a screed."
+
+"Yes, I was always ginteel," says Mrs. Moloney, openly consoled. Still
+she sighs, and sips her tea with a mournful air. Mrs. Daly is drinking
+hers with much appreciation out of her saucer, it being considered
+discourteous to offer anything to a guest without partaking of the same
+one's self.
+
+At this moment a little cooing sound coming from the other corner of the
+fireplace makes itself heard. Instantly the old woman stooping over the
+turf embers rouses herself, and, turning, puts out her withered hand
+lovingly towards what looks like a box covered with colored stuff of
+some sort. Young Mrs. Daly rises too, precipitately and, hurrying across
+the kitchen, bends over the box.
+
+"Ay, she's awake sure enough!" says the old woman, who has quite
+brightened into life. "See how she looks at ye, Molly! The colleen of
+the world, she was! asthore machree-sthig."
+
+Many another fond name is muttered, such as "pulse o' my heart," and
+such like, before Mrs. Daly junior emerges from the supposed box, but
+_not_ empty-handed.
+
+"Oh! it is the baby!" cry Monica and Kit, in a breath. "Oh! what a
+darling baby! and what red, red cheeks, just like a June rose!"
+
+It is the only daughter of the house, so the mother is of course
+inordinately proud of it. She places it, with quite a little flourish of
+triumph, in Monica's arms, to Kit's terrible but unspoken
+disappointment.
+
+"She grows prettier every day. She is really the sweetest baby I ever
+saw in my life!" says Monica, enthusiastically, to whom babies are an
+endless joy.
+
+The mother is pleased beyond doubt at these compliments, yet a shade of
+anxiety crosses her brow. To praise a child _too_ much in the
+superstition of these simple folks, is to "overlook" it; and when a
+child is "overlooked" it dies. The smiles fades from Mrs. Daly's bonny
+face, and her mouth grows anxious.
+
+"You should say, 'God bless her,' miss, when ye give her the good word,"
+says Mrs. Moloney, timidly, who is also bending over the beloved bundle,
+and notes the distress in her neighbor's eyes.
+
+"God bless her!" says Monica with pretty solemnity, after which the
+mother's face clears, and sunshine is again restored to it.
+
+"I think she knows ye," she says to Monica. "See how she blinks at ye!
+Arrah! look, now, how she clutches at yer hand! Will ye come to yer
+mother now, darlin',--will ye? Sure 'tis starvin' ye must be, by this."
+
+"Oh! don't take her yet," says Monica, entreatingly.
+
+A little figure with naked legs and feet, creeping into the doorway at
+this moment, draws near the baby as if fascinated. It is Paudheen, the
+eldest son of the house, and baby's _nurse_,--save the mark!
+
+"Come nearer, Paddy," says Monica, smiling at him with sweet
+encouragement; but Paddy stops short and regards her doubtfully.
+
+"Come, then, and kiss your little sister," continues Monica, gently; but
+Paddy is still obdurate, and declines to hearken to the charmer, charm
+she never so wisely. There is, indeed, a sad lack both of sweetness and
+light about Paddy.
+
+"An' what d'ye mane be standin' there, an' niver a word out o' ye in
+answer to the lady, ye ill-mannered caubogue?" cries his mother, deeply
+incensed. The laughter is all gone from her face, and her eyes are
+aflame. "What brought ye in at all, ye ugly spalpeen, if ye came without
+a civil tongue in yer head?"
+
+"I came to see the baby an' to get me dinner," says the boy, with
+hanging head, his silence arising more from shyness than sullenness. The
+potatoes have just been lifted from the fire by Mrs. Moloney, and are
+steaming in a distant corner. Paudheen looks wistfully towards them.
+
+"Dickens a sign or taste ye'll get, then, if only to tache ye better
+manners. Be off, now, an' don't let me see ye agin."
+
+"I'm hungry," says the boy, tears coming into his eyes.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Daly!" says Monica, in a distressed tone.
+
+"A deal o' harm it will do him to be hungry, thin!" says the culprit's
+mother, with an angry voice, but with visible signs of relenting in her
+handsome eyes. "Be off wid ye now, I tell ye." This is the last burst of
+the storm. As the urchin creeps crestfallen towards the doorway her rage
+dies, its death being as sudden as its birth. "Come back here!" she
+cries, inconsistently. "What d'ye mane be takin' me at me word like
+that? Come back, I tell ye, an' go an' ate something, ye crathur. How
+dare ye behave as if I was a bad mother to ye?"
+
+The boy comes back, and, raising his bonny head, smiles at her fondly
+but audaciously.
+
+"Look at him, now, the blackguard," says the mother, returning the smile
+in kind. "Was there ever the like of him? Go an' ate yer praties now,
+and thank yer stars Miss Monica was here to say a good word for ye."
+
+Paddy, glad of his rescue, casts a shy glance at Monica, and then, going
+over to where his grandmother and the pot of potatoes rest side by side,
+sits down (close cuddled up to the old dame) to fill his little empty
+stomach with as many of those esculent roots as he can manage, which, in
+truth, is the poor child's only dinner from year's end to year's end.
+And yet it is a remarkable fact that, in spite of this scanty fare, the
+Irish peasant, when come to man's estate, is ever strong and vigorous
+and well grown. And who shall say he hasn't done his queen good service,
+too, on many a battle-field? and even in these latter days, when sad
+rebellion racks our land, has not his name been worthy of honorable
+mention on the plains of Tel-el-Kebir?
+
+"I don't think he _looks_ like a bad boy, Mrs. Daly," says Monica,
+reflectively, gazing at the liberated Paddy.
+
+"Bad, miss, is it?" says the mother, who, having made her eldest born
+out a villain, is now prepared to maintain he is a veritable saint. "You
+don't know him, faix. Sure there niver was the like of him yet. He is a
+raal jewel, that gossoon o' mine, an' the light of his father's eyes.
+Signs on it, he'd die for Daly! There niver was sich a love betwixt
+father an' son. He's the joy o' my life, an' the greatest help to me.
+'Tis he minds the pig, an' the baby, an' ould granny there, an'
+everything. I'd be widout my right hand if I lost him."
+
+"But I thought you said----" begins Monica, mystified by this change
+from righteous wrath to unbounded admiration.
+
+"Arrah, niver mind what I said, acushla," says the younger Mrs. Daly,
+with an emphatic wink. "Sure 'twas only to keep him in ordher a bit, I
+said it at all at all! But 'tis young he is yet, the crathur."
+
+"_Very_ young. Oh, Mrs. Daly, _look_ at baby! See how she is trying to
+get at my hair!" Monica is beginning in a delighted tone,--as though to
+have one's hair pulled out by the roots is the most enchanting sensation
+in the world,--when suddenly her voice dies away into silence, and she
+herself stares with great open violet eyes at something that darkens the
+doorway and throws a shadow upon the assembled group within.
+
+It is Desmond!
+
+Kit, feeling as guilty as though she were the leading character in some
+conspiracy, colors crimson, and retires behind Mrs. Moloney. She lowers
+her eyes, and is as mute as death. But Monica speaks.
+
+"Is it you?" she says. Which, of course, is quite the silliest thing she
+_can_ say, as he is standing there regarding her with eyes so full of
+light and love that the cleverest ghost could not copy them. But then
+she is not sillier than her fellows, for, as a rule, all people, if you
+remark, say, "Is that you?" or "Have you come?" when they are actually
+looking into your face and should be able to answer the question for
+themselves.
+
+"Yes, it is," says Desmond, with such an amount of diffidence (I hope it
+wasn't assumed) as should have melted the heart of the hardest woman
+upon earth. Monica is _not_ the hardest woman upon earth.
+
+Still, she makes him no further speech, and Desmond begins to wonder if
+he is yet forgiven. He is regarding her fixedly; but she, after that
+first swift glance, has turned her attention upon the baby on her knee,
+and is seemingly lost in admiration of its little snub nose. Why will
+she not look at him? What did he say to her last night that is so
+difficult to forgive? Can wrath be cherished for so long in that gentle
+bosom? Her face is as calm as an angel's; surely
+
+    "There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple."
+
+"Ah! come in, Misther Desmond," says Mrs. Daly, hospitably. "I'm glad
+'tis company I have before you the day. Maybe 'twill coax ye to come
+again. Where have you been this week an' more? Faix, ye were so long in
+comin', I thought 'twas angry wid me ye were."
+
+"Nobody is ever angry with a pretty woman like you," says Desmond,
+saucily.
+
+"Oh, now, hark to him!" says Mrs. Daly laughing heartily. "I wonder ye
+aren't ashamed of yourself. An' is the ould Squire hearty?"
+
+"He's as well as even _you_ could wish him. How d'ye do, Kit? Won't you
+come and speak to me?"
+
+He has been afraid to shake hands with Monica up to this, but now she
+turns suddenly towards him and holds out to him one slender fair hand,
+the other being twined round the baby. She does this musingly.
+
+He grasps the little snowy hand with almost senile delight, and holds it
+for--as long as he dares. During this undefined period he tells himself
+what a perfect picture she is, with her clear, pale, beautiful face, and
+her nut-brown hair, and the tender sweetness of her attitude, as she
+bends over the smiling baby. Could any vaunted Madonna be half as
+lovely? At this moment a growing contempt for all the greatest
+masterpieces of the greatest masters permeates his being and renders him
+weak in faith.
+
+"Won't ye sit down, thin?" says Mrs. Daly. Being a woman, she grasps the
+situation at a glance, and places a chair for him close to Monica.
+"What's the matther wid ye to-day, Misther Desmond, that ye haven't a
+word to give us?"
+
+"You ought to know what I'm thinking of," says Desmond, accepting the
+chair, and drawing it even a degree closer to Monica.
+
+"Faix, thin, I don't," says Mrs. Daly junior, her handsome face full of
+smiles. A love-affair is as good as a saint's day to an Irish peasant;
+and here she tells herself, with a glance at Monica, is one ready-made
+to her hand.
+
+"I'm thinking what a lucky man Daly is," says Desmond, promptly.
+
+"Oh, git along wid ye now, an' yer blarney!" says Mrs. Daly, roaring
+with laughter; whilst even Mrs. Moloney the dismal, and the old granny
+in the corner, chime in merrily.
+
+And then the visit comes to a close, and they all rise and bid Mrs. Daly
+and the others "good-by;" and Monica, mindful of his late affliction,
+bestows a soft parting word upon the subdued Paddy.
+
+And now they are all in the open air again, and, turning down the boreen
+that leads to the Daly's homestead, reach the road that leads to Moyne.
+It is Desmond's way as well as theirs, so he accompanies the girls
+without remark.
+
+"What brought you to see the Dalys, to-day?" asks Monica, suddenly,
+without any ulterior meaning beyond the desire of making conversation;
+but to Kit's guilty soul this question seems fraught with mischief.
+
+"Oh, I often go to see Daly. I want him to come fishing with me
+to-morrow: he's the best man about here for that, and trudges behind one
+for miles without complaining."
+
+"Poor Daly!"
+
+"Well, I hope you enjoyed your visit to-day," says Kit, blithely,
+glancing at him mischievously from beneath her broad hat.
+
+"There was a drawback," says Brian, unthinkingly. "I went there full of
+hope, and, after all, she never offered me any of your pudding!"
+
+Tableau!
+
+Kit's agonized glance and Monica's questioning eyes awake Mr. Desmond to
+a knowledge of what he has done.
+
+"How did _you_ hear of Kit's pudding?" asks Monica, looking keenly from
+Brian to Kit, and then back again.
+
+"Oh!--the pudding," stammers Desmond.
+
+"There! don't commit yourself," says Monica, in a tone that trembles.
+"Oh, Kit!"
+
+Both culprits are afraid to look at her. Does the tremble mean tears, or
+anger, or what? Perhaps horror at their duplicity, or contempt. Is she
+hopelessly angered?
+
+Then a suppressed sound reaches their ears, creating a fresh panic in
+their breasts. Is she positively _choking_ with indignation? Cautiously,
+anxiously, they glance at her, and find, to their everlasting relief,
+that she is convulsed with laughter.
+
+"When next you meditate forming a brilliant plot such as this," she says
+to Kit, "I think I should look out a more trustworthy accomplice if I
+were you."
+
+"Catch me having a secret with _him_ again," says Kit now her fears are
+appeased, turning wrathfully upon Desmond.
+
+"I quite forgot all about it, I did, indeed," exclaims he, penitently.
+"Forgive me this time, and I'll promise never to do it again."
+
+"And I'll promise you you shan't have the chance," says Kit, with
+fervor.
+
+"_Why_ was I to be deceived?" says Monica. "I think I have been very
+basely treated. If you, Kit, desired a clandestine meeting with Mr.
+Desmond, I don't see why _I_ was to be drawn into it. And it was a
+stupid arrangement, too: two is company, three trumpery. I know, if I
+had a lover, I should prefer----"
+
+"Monica!" says Kit, indignantly; but Monica only laughs the more.
+
+"It is _my_ turn now, you know," she says.
+
+"Kit had nothing to do with it: it was all my fault," says Desmond,
+laughing too. "If you must pour out the vials of your wrath on some one,
+let it be on me."
+
+"Yes, give him a good scolding, Monica," says Kit viciously, but with a
+lovely smile. "I am going to pick to some ferns for Aunt Pen; when I
+return I hope I shall find that recreant knight of yours--I mean
+_mine_--at the point of death!"
+
+At this she flits away from them, like the good little thing she is, up
+a sloping bank, and so into the fields beyond, until Desmond and Monica
+are as much alone as if a whole sphere divided them from their kind.
+Dear little Kit! When her own time comes may she be as kindly dealt
+with!
+
+"You are angry with me still,--about last night," says Desmond, softly,
+"and, I own, with cause. But I was miserable when I called you a
+coquette, and misery makes a man unjust. I wrote to Kit this morning,--I
+was afraid to write to you,--and she was very good to me."
+
+"How good?" plucking a leaf from a brier, as she goes slowly, _very_
+slowly--down the road.
+
+"She brought me _you_. Do you know, Monica, I have been as unhappy as a
+man can be since last I saw you,--a whole night and part of a day? Is it
+not punishment enough?"
+
+"Too much for your crime," whispers she, softly, turning suddenly
+towards him and letting her great luminous eyes rest with forgiveness
+upon his. She smiles sweetly, but with some timidity, because of the
+ardor of the glance that answers hers. Taking her hand with an impulsive
+movement impossible to restrain, Desmond presses it rapturously to his
+lips. Drawing it away from him with shy haste, Monica walks on in
+silence.
+
+"If I had written to you, and not to her, would you still have been here
+to-day?" asks he, presently.
+
+"I think not."
+
+"That is a cruel answer, is it not?"
+
+"Would you have me belie my nature?" asks she, with quick agitation;
+"would you have me grow false, secret, deceitful? My aunts trust me: am
+I to prove myself unworthy of their confidence?"
+
+"I am less to you, then, than your aunts' displeasure!"
+
+"You are less to me than my conscience; and yet----"
+
+With a violent effort, that betrays how far her thoughts have been
+travelling in company with his, she brings herself back to the present
+moment, and a recollection of the many reasons why she must not listen
+to his wooing. "Why should you believe yourself anything to me?" she
+asks, in a voice that quivers audibly.
+
+"Ah, why, indeed?" returns he, bitterly. There is such pain in his voice
+and face that her soul yearns towards him, and she repents of her last
+words.
+
+"I am wrong. You _are_ something to me," she says, in a tone so low that
+he can scarcely hear it. But lovers' ears are sharp.
+
+"You _mean_ that, Monica?"
+
+"Yes," still lower.
+
+"Then why cannot I be _more_ to you? Why am I to be denied a chance of
+forwarding the cause in which all my hopes are centred? Monica, say you
+will meet me somewhere--_soon_."
+
+"How can I?" she says, tremulously. Her voice is full of tears. She is
+altogether different from the coquettish, provoking child of last night.
+"You forget all I have just now said."
+
+"At least tell me," says he, sadly, "that if you could you would."
+
+There is a pathetic ring in his tone, and tears rise to her eyes. Can
+anything be so hopeless as this love-affair of hers?
+
+"Yes, I would," she says, almost desperately.
+
+"Oh, darling--_darling_!" says the young man with passion. He holds her
+hands closely, and looks into her troubled eyes, and wishes he might
+dare take her into his arms and, pressing her to his heart, ask her to
+repeat her words again. But there is something in the calm purity of her
+beautiful face that repels vehemence of any sort; and as yet--although
+the dawn is near--her love has not declared itself to her own soul in
+all its strength.
+
+"I have at least one consolation," he says, at last, calling to mind the
+quietude that surrounds Moyne and its inhabitants, and the withdrawal
+from society that has obtained there for many years. "As you are not
+allowed to see me,--except on such rare occasions as the present when
+the Fates are kind,--you cannot at least see _any one else_,--often,
+that is."
+
+"Meaning?----"
+
+"Ryde."
+
+She laughs a little, and then colors.
+
+"Aunt Priscilla has asked him to come to Moyne next Friday," she says,
+looking at the ground: "she is giving an At Home on that day, for him
+and Captain Cobbett. She says she feels it is a duty to her queen to
+show some attention to her servants."
+
+In her tone, as she says this, there is a spice of that mischief that is
+never very far from any pretty woman.
+
+"He is to be invited to Moyne,--to spend an entire day with you!" says
+Desmond, thunderstruck by this last piece of news.
+
+"Oh, no! only part of it," says Monica, meekly.
+
+"It is just as bad. It is disgraceful! Your aunts are purposely
+encouraging _him_ to keep you away from me. Oh, _why_," wretchedly,
+"should this unlucky quarrel have arisen between our house and yours?"
+
+"Well, that's your fault," says Monica.
+
+"Mine?"
+
+"Your uncle's, then. It is all the same," unjustly.
+
+"I really can't see _that_," says Mr. Desmond, very righteously
+aggrieved; "that is visiting the sins of the uncles upon the nephews
+with a vengeance! Monica, at least promise me you won't be civil to
+him."
+
+"To your uncle?"
+
+"Nonsense! You know I mean Ryde."
+
+"I can't be rude to him."
+
+"You can. Why not? It will keep him from calling again."
+
+No answer.
+
+"Oh, I daresay you _want_ him to call again," says Desmond, angrily.
+
+At this moment, the gates of Moyne being in sight, and those of Coole
+long passed, Kit suddenly appears on the top of a high stone wall, and
+calls gayly to Desmond to come and help her alight.
+
+"And now go away too," she says: "you are forbidden goods, you know, and
+we must not be seen talking to you, under pain of death."
+
+"Good-by," says Desmond, with alacrity, who is, in truth, sulky, and
+undesirous of further parley with his beloved. "Good-by, Miss
+Beresford."
+
+"Good-by," says Monica, shortly.
+
+"We shall see you again soon, no doubt," says Kit, kindly, in her clear,
+sweet treble.
+
+"I think it very improbable," returns he, raising his hat gravely and
+taking his departure.
+
+"Now, what _have_ you been saying to that wretched young man, Monica?"
+says Kit, severely, standing still in the middle of the road, the better
+to bring her sister beneath the majesty of her eye.
+
+"Nothing. Nothing that any reasonable being could object to," declares
+Monica, with such an amount of vigor as startles Kit. "But of all the
+ill-tempered, bearish, detestable men I ever met in my life, _he is the
+worst_."
+
+Which unlooked for explosion from the gentle Monica has the effect of
+silencing Kit for the remainder of the walk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+  How the Misses Blake discover a gigantic fraud--How Terence is again
+  arraigned, and brought before the Court on a charge of
+  duplicity--and how he is nearly committed for contempt.
+
+
+Reaching home, they find the atmosphere there decidedly clouded. Miss
+Priscilla, who has returned from her drive just a moment before, is
+standing in the hall, gazing with a stern countenance upon the
+old-fashioned eight-day clock, in which two or three people might be
+safely stowed away. The clock regards her not at all, but ticks on
+loudly with a sort of exasperating obstinacy, as though determined to
+remind every one of the flight of time.
+
+"Who has wound this clock?" demands Miss Priscilla, in an awful tone.
+With a thrill of thankfulness the girls feel they can answer truthfully,
+"Not I."
+
+"Dear me!" says Miss Penelope, timidly, advancing from the morning-room;
+"I did. You were so long out, Priscilla, and I feared--I mean, I thought
+it would save you the trouble."
+
+"Trouble in winding a clock! What trouble could there be in that? And it
+is _never_ wound until Saturday evening. For twenty years I have wound
+it on Saturday evening. A good eight-day clock nearly fifty years old
+can't bear being tampered with. Now, Penelope, why did you do that? You
+know that I can't endure old rules to be upset."
+
+"But, my dear Priscilla, I only thought as I was passing----"
+
+"You _thought_, Penelope; but I wish you _wouldn't_ think. There are
+other things you ought to think about that you often neglect; and----"
+
+"Now, Priscilla, is that just? I think--I _hope_ I seldom neglect my
+duty; and I must say I didn't expect this from _you_."
+
+Here Miss Penelope dissolves into tears, to Monica's grief and dismay.
+
+"Oh, Aunt Priscilla, I am sure Aunt Pen only meant to save you trouble,"
+she says, earnestly, putting her arms round Miss Penelope, who sobs
+audibly on her shoulder.
+
+"And who says I thought anything else?" says poor Miss Priscilla,
+fiercely, though her voice trembles with emotion: it is terrible to her
+to see her faithful friend and sister in tears of her causing.
+"Penelope, I meant nothing, but I have heard something that has grieved
+and disturbed me: so I must needs come home and avenge my ill-temper on
+the best creature in the world. Alas! I am a wicked woman."
+
+"Oh, no, no," cries Miss Penelope. "My dear Priscilla, you will break my
+heart if you talk thus. My good soul, come in here and tell me what has
+happened to distress you."
+
+In truth it is quite plain now that something has happened during her
+drive to take Miss Priscilla's well-balanced mind off its hinges.
+
+"Where is Terence?" she asks, looking from one to other of the group in
+the hall.
+
+"Here," says Terence himself, coming leisurely towards her from a
+side-passage.
+
+"Come in here with me," says Miss Priscilla; and they all follow her
+into the morning-room.
+
+Here she turns and faces the unconscious Terence with a pale,
+reproachful face.
+
+"When I tell you I have just come from Mitson the coast-guard, and that
+I thanked him for having lent you his gun, you will understand how I
+have been grieved and pained to-day," she says, a tremor in her voice.
+
+Terence is no longer unconscious; and Monica feels that her heart is
+beating like a lump of lead.
+
+"Oh! what is it, Priscilla?" asks Miss Penelope, greatly frightened.
+
+"A tale of craft and cunning," says Miss Priscilla in a hollow tone.
+"Mitson tells me he never lent him that gun. Terence has wilfully
+deceived us, his poor aunts, who love him and only desire his good. He
+has, I fear, basely mystified us to accomplish his own ends, and has
+indeed departed from the precious truth."
+
+"I never said Mitson did lend it to me," says Terence, sullenly: "you
+yourself suggested the idea, and I let it slide, that was all."
+
+"All! Is not prevarication only a _mean_ lie? Oh, Terence, I am so
+deeply grieved! I know not what to say to you."
+
+The scene is becoming positively tragical. Already a sense of crime of
+the blackest and deepest dye is overpowering Terence.
+
+"Whom _did_ you get that gun from, Terence?" asks Miss Priscilla,
+sternly.
+
+No answer.
+
+"Now, Terence, be calm," says Miss Penelope. "Sit down now, Terence, and
+collect yourself, and don't be untruthful again."
+
+"I have told no lie, aunt," says Terence, indignantly.
+
+"Then tell your good Aunt Priscilla who gave you the gun."
+
+Dead silence.
+
+"Are we to understand that you _won't_ tell us, Terence?" asks Miss
+Priscilla, faintly. She is now much the more nervous of the two old
+maids.
+
+Terence casts a hasty glance at Monica's white face, and then says,
+stoutly,--
+
+"I don't want to tell, and I _won't_!"
+
+"Terence!" exclaims the usually mild Miss Penelope, with great
+indignation, and is going to further relieve her mind, no doubt, when
+Miss Priscilla, throwing up her hands, checks her.
+
+"Let him alone, Penelope," she says, sadly. "Perhaps he has some good
+reason: let us not press him too far. Obduracy is better than falsehood.
+Let us go and pray that heaven may soften his heart and grant him a
+right understanding."
+
+With this the two old ladies walk slowly and with dignity from the room,
+leaving the criminal with his sisters.
+
+Monica bursts into tears and flings her arms round his neck. "You did it
+for _me_. I know it!--I saw it in your eyes," she says. "Oh, Terence, I
+feel as if it was all my fault."
+
+"Fiddlesticks!" says Mr. Beresford, who is in a boiling rage. "Did you
+ever hear anything like her? and all about a paltry thing like that! She
+couldn't behave worse if I had been convicted of murder. I'm
+convinced"--viciously--"it was all baffled curiosity that got up her
+temper. She was _dying_ to know about that gun, and so I was determined
+I wouldn't gratify her. A regular old cat, if ever there was one."
+
+"Oh, no! don't speak like that; I am sure they love you--and they were
+disappointed--and----"
+
+"They'll have to get through a good deal of disappointment," says
+Terence, still fuming. "What right have they to make me out a Sir
+Galahad in their imaginations? I'd perfectly _hate_ to be a Sir Galahad;
+and so I tell them." This is not strictly correct as the Misses Blake
+are out of hearing. "And as for their love, they may keep it, if it only
+means blowing a fellow up for nothing."
+
+"Aunt Penelope was just as bad," says Kit. "I really"--with dignified
+contempt--"felt quite _ashamed_ of her!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miss Priscilla keeps a diary, in which she most faithfully records all
+that happens in every one of the three hundred and sixty-five days of
+every year.
+
+About this time there may be seen in it an entry such as follows:
+
+"_Saturday, July 3._--I fear Terence told a LIE! He _certainly_
+equivocated! Penelope and I have done our best to discover the real
+owner of THE gun, but as yet have failed. The secret rests with Terence,
+and to force his confidence would be unchristian; but it _may_ transpire
+in _time_."
+
+After this come sundry other jottings, such as--
+
+"_Monday, July 5._--Past four. Fanny Stack called. Penelope in the
+garden, as usual. All the trouble of entertaining falling upon _my_
+hands. Still, I do not repine. Providence is good; and Penelope of
+course, dear soul, should be allowed the recreation that pertains to her
+garden. And, indeed, a sweet place she makes of it."
+
+After this again comes a third paragraph:
+
+"_Tuesday, July 6._--Terence again most wilful, and Kit somewhat saucy;
+yet my heart yearns over these children. God grant they be guided by a
+tender hand along the straight and narrow way!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is the next day, July 7, and the two Misses Blake, standing in the
+dining-room, are discussing Terence again. They have had a great shock,
+these two old ladies, in the discovery of a duplicity that they in their
+simplicity have magnified fourfold. How is it possible they should
+remember how _they_ felt thirty years ago?
+
+"I doubt we must keep a tight hand upon him, Penelope," says Miss
+Priscilla, sorrowfully. "The rector is very lax. He goes to him day by
+day, but beyond Greek and Latin seems to imbibe little else. And
+_morals_ are the groundwork of all, and surely superior to the languages
+spoken by those who believed in heathen gods. I wonder at the rector, I
+must say. But we must only make up for his deficiences by keeping a
+tight hand, as I said before, upon this unhappy boy."
+
+"Yes, but not _too_ tight, Priscilla; that might only create a
+rebellious feeling and destroy all our chances of success. And we are
+bent on leading this poor dear boy (poor Katherine's boy, Priscilla)
+into the way of truth."
+
+"Yes, yes; we must be cautious, _most_ cautious, in our treatment," says
+Miss Priscilla, nervously, "and very careful of his comings and goings,
+without _appearing_ to be so! Dear me! dear me! I wonder if the
+greatness of our cause justifies so much deceit. It sounds jesuitical,
+my dear Penelope, say what we can."
+
+"The end justifies the means," says Miss Penelope, as solemnly as if
+this speech emanated from her throat as an original remark.
+
+"Oh, don't! my dear Penelope!" says Miss Priscilla, with a shudder;
+"that is _their_ principal argument."
+
+"Whose? The children's?" asks Miss Penelope, startled.
+
+"No; the Jesuits,--the Inquisitors,--those dreadful people we read of in
+'Westward Ho,'" says Miss Priscilla, protestingly. "Still, I agree with
+you; secrecy is the part we have to play. We must keep one eye" (as if
+there was only one between them) "upon him without _seeming_ to do so.
+And there he is,"--pointing through the window to where Terence may be
+seen coming slowly towards the window in which they stand in a most
+unhappy frame of mind.
+
+"I wonder where he can have been for the past half-hour," says Miss
+Priscilla presently, in a nervous whisper, though Terence is so far off
+that if she spoke at the top of her lungs he could not have heard her.
+
+"Perhaps if we ask him he may tell us," says Miss Penelope, equally
+nervous and decidedly with great doubt as to the success of her
+suggestion.
+
+"Well, you ask him," says Miss Priscilla.
+
+"I am greatly wanting in _force_ on occasions such as these," says Miss
+Penelope, hurriedly. "No, no, my dear; you ask him. But be gentle with
+him, my dear Priscilla."
+
+"Why can't _you_ do it?" persists Miss Blake, plainly anxious to shift
+the obnoxious task from her own shoulders to another's. "You have great
+influence with the children, I have remarked many times."
+
+"Nothing to _yours_," says Miss Penelope, with an agitated wave of her
+hand. "I couldn't do it; indeed I _couldn't_, my dear Priscilla," openly
+quaking. "Don't ask me. See, here he comes! Now be firm,--be _firm_,
+Priscilla, but lenient, _very_ lenient: he is only a boy, remember, and
+even the great Luther was strangely wanting in principle when young."
+
+"It is my duty; I suppose I must go through with it," says poor Miss
+Priscilla, sighing; and then she throws wide the window and calls to
+Terence to come to her.
+
+"Where have you been, Terence?"
+
+"At the back gate, aunt."
+
+"But, my _dear_ Terence, _why_ at the back gate? Such a nice day for a
+good long wholesome walk! Why spend it at the back gate?"
+
+"Because--that is--I----"
+
+"My dear boy, be calm. Wait a moment now, Terence, and don't hurry
+yourself. There is no occasion for haste."
+
+"I was only going to say, aunt----"
+
+"Pause now, Terence: consider well before you speak. Though, indeed,
+there should be no need for consideration when only the simple but
+lovely truth is required. Truth is always lovely, Terence; it is a
+flower of great beauty. Collect yourself, now." (This is a favorite
+formula with the Misses Blake.) "Don't tell a lie, Terence!"
+
+"Why should I tell a lie?" says Terence, fiercely, feeling at this
+moment that death, when compared with nagging, would be sweet.
+
+"Oh, Terence, what a tone! and to your good aunt Penelope, who loves
+you! Such a tone as that, my dear, is unchristian. Now, we don't want to
+know what you were _doing_ at the back gate. Why should you be afraid of
+us? Are we not your greatest friends? But what could you have been doing
+for half an hour at the back gate, Terence?"
+
+"I went up there with Michael, aunt."
+
+"I didn't ask you that, dear. I am afraid you have no confidence in us,
+Terence. I didn't ask you who went with you. Can't you say yes or no,
+Terence? Were you _long_ at the gate?"
+
+"No, aunt."
+
+"Was any one but Michael with you?"
+
+"Yes, aunt."
+
+"Was it Adams?"
+
+"No, aunt."
+
+"Can't you say anything but yes or no, Terence? Have you no command of
+the Queen's English, after all the money, too, your poor father wasted
+on your education,--and now the rector? Speak up, my dear child, and
+tell us everything honestly and nobly."
+
+"But there is nothing to tell, aunt, except that----"
+
+"No, collect yourself, Terence; take time, my dear. _Now_, answer me:
+who was with you, besides Michael?"
+
+"Timothy, aunt."
+
+The hoary-headed butler being, like Caesar's wife, above suspicion, the
+Misses Blake are pulled up pretty short,--so short, indeed, that they
+forget to ask if any one besides the respectable Timothy was at the
+obnoxious back gate. Perhaps had they known that the smith's son, and
+two or three other young men, had been there, and that all had been
+talking the most violent politics, their fears for Terence's morality
+would have increased rather than diminished.
+
+As it is, they are well pleased.
+
+"But why didn't you say that at once, my dear boy? We are so afraid of
+your mixing with evil companions."
+
+Terence thinks of the smith's son, and his unqualified opinion that all
+landlords and aristocrats and sovereigns should be "stamped out," and
+wonders if _he_ would come under the category of evil companions, but he
+wisely refrains from speech.
+
+"And," says Miss Penelope, softly, "why didn't you tell us before
+leaving the house where you were going? I am sure, if you had, both your
+aunt Priscilla and I would have been delighted _to go with you_, busy
+though we were."
+
+This is the climax. Again in Terence's fevered imagination the smith's
+son arises, wielding his brawny brown arm like a sledge-hammer, as he
+noisily lays down the laws of extermination: he can see himself, too,
+joining in the fray, and defying the smith's son's opinion with an
+eloquence of which he had been only proud. He feels he is deceiving
+these two old ladies, and is angry with himself for doing it, and still
+more angry with them for making him do it.
+
+"I am glad we have heard the truth at _last_, Terence," says Miss
+Priscilla. "There is nothing so mean or contemptible as a lie."
+
+"You are enough to make _any_ fellow tell a lie," bursts out Terence,
+with miserable rage, "with your questionings and pryings!"
+
+At this awful speech, the two Misses Blake burst into tears, and Terence
+dashes in a fury from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+  How the afternoon at Moyne proves a great success--How Olga Bohun is
+  led into a half confession, and how Monica, growing restless, seeks
+  a dubious solitude.
+
+
+"It is quite the loveliest old place in the world!" says Mrs. Bohun, in
+her soft plaintive voice, speaking very enthusiastically. "We ought to
+be more than grateful to you, dear Miss Blake, for letting us see it."
+
+Miss Priscilla reddens with suppressed satisfaction but says,--
+
+"Tut tut, my dear! It is only a funny old-fashioned spot, after all," in
+quite an off-hand manner.
+
+It is Friday,--_the_ Friday,--as the Misses Blake have been thinking of
+it for days, in fear and trembling, as being the date of their first
+hospitable venture for many years.
+
+All the Aghyohillbeg party, and the men from Clonbree Barracks, and some
+other neighbors, are strolling through the sweet antiquated gardens of
+Moyne, hedged with yews fantastically cut. The roses, white and red and
+yellow, are nodding their heads lazily, bowing and courtesying to the
+passing breeze. The stocks and mignonette are filling the air with
+perfume. Tall lilies are smiling from distant corners, and the little
+merry burn, tumbling over its gray boulders through the garden, is
+singing a loud and happy song, in which the birds in the trees above
+join heartily.
+
+The lazy hum of many insects makes one feel even more perceptibly how
+drowsy-sweet is all the summer air.
+
+Mrs. Bohun has now flitted away with Monica, who in her white gown looks
+the prettiest flower of all, in this "wilderness of sweets," with the
+tall, infatuated Ryde and handsome young Ronayne in their train. Mrs.
+Bohun, who is in one of her most mischievous moods to-day, has taken it
+into her head to snub Lord Rossmoyne and be all that is of the sweetest
+to Ulic Ronayne, a proceeding her cousin, Mrs. Herrick, regards with
+dismay.
+
+Not so, however, does Bella Fitzgerald regard it. She, tall, and with a
+would-be stately air, walks through the grounds at Lord Rossmoyne's
+side, to whom she has attached herself, and who, _faute de mieux_, makes
+himself as agreeable as he can to her, considering how he is inwardly
+raging at what he is pleased to term Olga's disgraceful behavior.
+
+Miss Priscilla has now been seized upon by Madam O'Connor and carried
+off for a private confab.
+
+"And you really _must_ let her come to us for a week, my dear," says
+Madam O'Connor, in her fine rich brogue. "Yes, now, really I want her.
+It will be quite a favor. I can't withstand a pretty face, as you well
+know 'tis a weakness of mine, my dear, and she is really a pearl. Olga
+Bohun is talking of getting up tableaux or some such nonsense, and she
+wants your pretty child to help us."
+
+"I should like her to go to you. It is very kind of you," says Miss
+Priscilla, but with unmistakable hesitation.
+
+"Now, what is it? Out with it, Priscilla!" says Madam O'Connor, bluntly.
+
+Miss Priscilla struggles with herself for yet another minute, and then
+says, quickly,--
+
+"That young man Desmond,--will _he_ be staying in your house?"
+
+"Not if you object, my dear," says Mrs. O'Connor, kindly; "though I do
+think it is a pity to thwart that affair. He is as nice and as pleasant
+a young fellow as I know, and would make a jewel of a husband; and
+money--say what you like, my dear Priscilla--is always something. It
+ranks higher than _revenge_."
+
+"There is no revenge. It is only a just resentment."
+
+"Well, I'll call it by any name you like, my dear, but I must say----"
+
+"I must beg, Gertrude, you will not discuss this unhappy subject," says
+Miss Priscilla, with some agitation.
+
+"Well, I won't, there. Then let it lie," says Madam O'Connor,
+good-humoredly. "And tell me, now, if I come over to fetch Monica on
+Monday, will she be ready for me?"
+
+"Quite ready. But we have not consulted her yet," says Miss Priscilla,
+clinging to a broken reed.
+
+"Olga is talking to her about it. And, if she's the girl she _looks_,
+she'll be glad of a change, and the chance of a sweetheart," says Madam
+O'Connor, gayly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What lovely lilies!" says Mrs. Bohun, standing before a tall white
+group.
+
+"Oh, don't!" says Owen Kelly, who has joined her and Monica. "Whenever I
+hear a lily mentioned I think of Oscar Wilde, and it hurts very much."
+
+"I like Oscar Wilde. He is quite nice, and _very_ amusing," says Olga.
+
+"I wonder if I could make my hair grow," says Mr. Kelly, meditatively.
+"He's been very clever about his; but I suppose somebody taught him."
+
+"Well, I think long hair is dirty," says Mrs. Bohun, with an abstracted
+glance at Ronayne's lightly-shaven head.
+
+Then, as though tired of her sweet _role_ and of its object (Ronayne)
+and everything, she turns capriciously aside, and, motioning away the
+men with her hand and a small frown, sits down at Hermia Herrick's feet
+and plucks idly at the grasses near her.
+
+"So we are dismissed," says Kelly, shrugging his shoulders. Monica has
+disappeared long ago with the devoted Ryde. "Your queen has her tempers,
+Ronayne."
+
+"There are few things so cloying as perfection," says Ronayne, loyally.
+
+"I entirely agree with you,--so much so that I hope Providence will send
+me an ugly wife. She--I beg your pardon--Mrs. Bohun does pretty much
+what she likes with you, doesn't she?"
+
+"Altogether what she likes. She's been doing it for so long now that I
+suppose she'll go on to the end of the chapter. I hope it will be a long
+one. Do you know," says the young man, with a rather sad little laugh,
+"it sounds of course rather a poor thing to say, but I really think it
+makes me _happy_, being done what she likes with?"
+
+"It is only to oblige a friend that I should seek to understand such a
+hopelessly involved sentence as that," says Mr. Kelly, wearily. "But I
+have managed it. You're as bad a case as ever I came across, Ronayne,
+and I pity you. But, 'pon my soul, I respect you too," with a flash of
+admiration: "there is nothing like being thoroughly in earnest. And so I
+wish you luck in your wooing."
+
+"You're a very good fellow, Kelly," says Ronayne gratefully.
+
+In the mean time, Olga, tiring of tearing her grasses to pieces, looks
+up at Hermia.
+
+"How silent you are!" she says.
+
+"I thought that was what you wanted,--silence. You have been talking all
+day. And, besides, if I speak at all, it will be only to condemn."
+
+"Nevertheless speak. Anything is better than this ghastly quiet; and,
+besides, frankly, I need not mind you, you know."
+
+"You are flirting disgracefully with that Ronayne boy."
+
+"What harm, if he _is_ a boy?"
+
+"He is not such a boy as all that comes to; and, if you don't _mean_ it,
+you are overkind to him."
+
+"He is my baby," says Olga, with a little laugh; "I often tell him so.
+Why should I _not_ be kind to him?"
+
+"Oh, if you are _bent_ on it."
+
+"I am bent on nothing. You do run away so with things!"
+
+"I think you might do better."
+
+"I'm not going to do anything," says the widow. She throws off her hat,
+and ruffles up all her pretty pale gold hair with impatient fingers.
+
+"Oh! if you can _assure_ me of that!"
+
+"I don't want to assure you of anything."
+
+"So I thought. That is why I say you might do better."
+
+"I might do worse, too."
+
+"Perhaps. But still I cannot forget there was Wolverhampton last year. A
+title is not to be despised; and he was devoted to you, and would, I
+think, have made a good husband."
+
+"I daresay. He was fool enough for anything. And I liked him, rather;
+but there was something in him--wasn't there, now, Hermia?--something
+positively enraging at times."
+
+"I suppose, then, your fancy for young Ronayne arises from the fact that
+there is _nothing_ in him," says Hermia, maliciously: "that's his charm,
+is it?"
+
+Mrs. Bohun laughs.
+
+"I don't suppose there is very much in him," she says: "that in itself
+is such a relief. Wolverhampton was so overpowering about those
+hydraulics. Ulic isn't a savant, certainly, and I don't think he will
+ever set the Liffey afire, but he is 'pleasant too to think on.' Now,
+mind you, I don't believe I care a pin about Ulic Ronayne,--he is
+younger than I am, for one thing,--but still I don't care to hear him
+abused."
+
+"I am not abusing him," says Hermia. "It was you said he was no savant,
+and would be unlikely to set the Liffey afire."
+
+"For which we should be devoutly grateful," says Olga, frivolously.
+"Consider, if he _could_, what the consequences would be, both to life
+and property. Poor young man! I really think Government ought to give
+him a pension because he _can't_."
+
+"And what about all the other young men?" asks Hermia. And then she
+yawns.
+
+Here Monica--who has been absent with Mr. Ryde for the best part of an
+hour--comes up to them, and presently Terence, with the Fitzgeralds, and
+Miss Priscilla and Lord Rossmoyne.
+
+"I heard a story yesterday I want to tell you," says Terence, gayly,
+singling out Miss Fitzgerald and Olga, and sinking upon the grass at the
+former's feet. He is such a handsome merry boy that he is a favorite
+with all the women. Miss Priscilla stands near him; the others are all
+conversing together about the coming plays at Aghyohillbeg.
+
+"It is about the curate," says Terence, gleefully. "You know, he is
+awful spoons on the ugliest French girl, and the other day he wanted to
+run up to Dublin to get her a ring, or something, but----"
+
+"Now, Terence, dear, surely that is not the way to pronounce that word,"
+says Miss Priscilla, anxiously; "such a vulgar pronounciation--'bu-ut.'
+How you drawled it! How ugly it sounds--'bu-ut!' Now put your lips
+together like mine, so, and say 'but,' _shortly_. Now begin your story
+again, and tell it nicely."
+
+Terence begins again,--_very_ good humoredly, thinks Olga,--and has
+almost reached the point, when Miss Priscilla breaks in again:
+
+"Now, not so fast, my dear Terence. I really cannot follow you at all. I
+don't even understand what you are at. Gently, my dear boy. Now begin it
+all over again, and be more explicit."
+
+But the fun is all out of Terence by this time, though Olga is so
+convulsed with laughter that it might have been the best story on
+record, which somewhat astonishes though it consoles Terence, as when
+his funny incident is related in a carefully modulated voice, and with a
+painful precision, it strikes even him as being hopelessly
+uninteresting. However, Mrs. Bohun certainly enjoys it,--or something
+else, perhaps: fortunately, it never occurs to Terry to ponder on the
+"something else."
+
+"Hermia, Olga, come now, my dears. You can't stay here for _ever_, you
+know," cries Madam O'Connor's loud but cheery voice. "It is nearly
+seven. Come, I tell you, or the Misses Blake, our good friends here,
+will think we mean to take up our residence at Moyne for good."
+
+"Oh, now, Gertrude!" says Miss Priscilla, much shocked. But Madam
+O'Connor only laughs heartily, and gives her a little smart blow on the
+shoulder with her fan. Olga laughs too, gayly, and Hermia lets her lips
+part with one of her rare but perfect smiles. If she likes any one
+besides Olga and her children, it is bluff and blunt old Gertrude
+O'Connor.
+
+One by one they all walk away, and presently Moyne is lying in the dying
+sunshine, in all its usual quietude, with never a sound to disturb the
+calm of coming eve but the light rustling of the rising breeze among the
+ivy-leaves that are clambering up its ancient walls.
+
+Kit and Terry are indoors, laughing merrily over the day, and
+congratulating themselves upon the success it has certainly been.
+
+"Yes. I do think, Penelope, they all enjoyed themselves," says Miss
+Priscilla, in high glee; "and your claret-cup, my dear, was superb."
+
+But Monica has stolen away from them all. The strange restlessness that
+has lain upon her all day is asserting itself with cruel vigor, and
+drives her forth into the shadows of the coming night.
+
+All day long she has struggled bravely against it; but, now that the
+enforced necessity for liveliness is at an end, she grows dreamy,
+_distraite_, and feels an intense longing for solitude and air.
+
+Again she walks through the now deserted garden, where the flowers,
+"earth's loveliest," are drooping their sweet heads to seek their happy
+slumbers. Past them she goes with lowered head and thoughts engrossed,
+and so over the lawn into the wood beyond.
+
+Here Coole and Moyne are connected by a high green bank, that in early
+spring is studded and diamonded with primroses and now is gay with
+ferns. Not until she has reached this boundary does she remember how far
+she has come.
+
+She climbs the bank, and gazes with an ever-growing longing at the cool
+shade in the forbidden land, at the tall, stately trees, and the
+foxgloves nodding drowsily.
+
+It is a perfect evening, and as yet the god of day--great Sol--is riding
+the heavens with triumphant mirth, as though reckless of the death that
+draweth nigh. Shall he not rise again to-morrow morn in all his awful
+majesty, and so defy grim Mars? It is, indeed, one of those hours when
+heaven seems nearest earth, "as when warm sunshine thrills wood-glooms
+to gold," and "righteousness and peace have kissed each other," and
+Nature, tender mother, smiles, and all the forest deeps are by "a tender
+whisper pierced."
+
+Conscience forbidding her, she abstains from entering those coveted
+woods, and, with a sigh, seats herself upon the top of the green bank.
+
+"Monica!" says a voice close to her, yet not close to
+her,--mysteriously, far up in mid-air, right over her head. She starts!
+Is the great wood peopled with satyrs, ouphs, or dryads?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+  The marvellous history of how Monica finds the green-eyed monster in
+  a beech-tree--and how, single-handed, she attacks and overcomes him.
+
+
+It is not a tender voice. It is not even a gentle or coldly friendly
+voice. It is, when all is told, a distinctly angry voice, full of
+possible reproaches and vehement upbraidings.
+
+Monica, raising her head with extreme nervousness, had just time to see
+Mr. Desmond in the huge fir-tree above her, before he drops at her feet.
+
+"What on earth were you doing up there?" asks she, thinking it wise to
+adopt the offensive style, so as to be first in the field, feeling
+instinctively that a scolding is coming and that she deserves it.
+
+"Watching _you_," returns he, sternly, nothing dismayed by her
+assumption of injured innocence, so her little ruse falls through.
+
+"A charming occupation, certainly!" says Miss Beresford, with fine
+disgust.
+
+"I climbed up into that tree," says Mr. Desmond, savagely, "and from it
+saw that you had spent your entire day with that idiot, Ryde."
+
+"Do you think," says Miss Beresford, with awful calm, "that it was a
+_gentlemanly_ thing to climb into that tree, like a horrid schoolboy,
+and spy upon a person?--_do you?_"
+
+"I don't," vehemently, "but I was driven to it. I don't care what is
+gentlemanly. I don't care," furiously, "what you think of me. I only
+know that my mind is now _satisfied_ about you, and that I know you are
+the most abominable flirt in the world, and that you ought to be ashamed
+of yourself."
+
+"Well, I'm not," with great self-possession.
+
+"The more to your discredit! That only means that you are bent on doing
+it again."
+
+"I shall certainly always talk to any man who talks to me. That is,"
+cuttingly, "any man who knows how to conduct himself with propriety."
+
+"Meaning--_I_ don't, I suppose?"
+
+"_Certainly_ you don't."
+
+"Oh, if it comes to that," says Desmond, in tones of the deepest
+desperation, and as if nothing is left to expect but the deluge in
+another moment.
+
+And, in effect, it comes. Not, as one has been taught to expect, in
+sudden storm, and wind, and lightning, but first in soft light drops,
+and then in a perfect downpour, that bursts upon them with passionate
+fury.
+
+As they are standing beneath a magnificent beech, they get but a taste
+of the shower in reality, though Desmond, seeing some huge drops lying
+on Monica's thin white gown, feels his heart smite him.
+
+"Here, take this," he says, roughly, taking off his coat and placing it
+round her shoulders.
+
+"No, thank you," says Miss Beresford, stiffly.
+
+"You must," returns he, and, to his surprise, she makes no further
+resistance. Perhaps she is cowed by the authority of his manner;
+_perhaps_ she doesn't like the raindrops.
+
+Encouraged, however, by her submission to a further daring of fortune,
+he says, presently,--
+
+"You might have given Cobbett a turn, I think, instead of devoting
+yourself all day to that egregious ass."
+
+"He prefers talking to Hermia. I suppose you don't want me to go up to
+people and ask them to be civil to me?"
+
+"Some other fellow, then."
+
+"You would be just as jealous of him, whoever he was."
+
+"I am not jealous at all," indignantly. "I only object to your saying
+one thing to _me_ and another to _him_."
+
+"What is the one thing I say to you?"
+
+This staggers him.
+
+"You must find me a very monotonous person if I say only one thing to
+you always."
+
+"I haven't found you so."
+
+"Then it--whatever it is--must be one of the most eloquent and
+remarkable speeches upon record. _Do_ tell it to me."
+
+"Look here, Monica," says Mr. Desmond, cautiously evading a reply: "what
+I want to know is--what you _see_ in Ryde. He is tall, certainly, but he
+is fat and effeminate, with 'a forehead villanous low.'"
+
+"Your own is very low," says Miss Beresford.
+
+"If I thought it was like _his_, I'd make away with myself. And you
+listen to all his stories, and believe them every one. I don't believe a
+single syllable he says: I never met such a bragger. To listen to him,
+one would think he had killed every tiger in Bengal. In my opinion, he
+never even saw one."
+
+"'Les absents ont toujours tort,'" quotes she, in a low, significant
+tone.
+
+This is the finishing stroke.
+
+"Oh! you _defend_ him," he says, as savagely almost as one of those wild
+beasts he has just mentioned. "In your eyes he is a hero, no doubt. I
+daresay all women see virtue in a man who 'talks as familiarly of
+roaring lions as maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs.'"
+
+"I don't think maids of thirteen, as a rule, talk much of puppy-dogs.
+I'm sure Kit doesn't," says Monica, provokingly. "And really, to do Mr.
+Ryde justice too, I never heard him mention a roaring lion. Perhaps you
+are thinking of Artemus Ward's lion that goes about 'seeking whom he may
+devour somebody.'" She smiles in a maddening fashion.
+
+"I am thinking of Ryde," says Desmond. "I am thinking, too, how mad I
+was when I thought you liked me better than him. I _did_ think it, you
+know; but now I am _desillusionnee_. It is plain to me you are
+infatuated about this fellow, who is 'perfumed like a milliner' and
+hasn't two ideas in his head."
+
+"I can't think where you find all your quotations," says Monica, who is
+now seriously annoyed; "but I must ask you not to worry me any further
+about Mr. Ryde."
+
+"You are madly in love with him," says Desmond, choking with rage. Upon
+which Miss Beresford loses the last remnant of her patience, and very
+properly turns her back on him.
+
+The rain has ceased, but during its reign has extinguished the dying
+sun, which has disappeared far below the horizon. A great hush and
+silence has followed the petulant burst of storm, and a peace
+unspeakable lies on all the land. There is a little glimpse of the ocean
+far away beyond the giant firs, and one can see that its waves are calm,
+and the fishing-boats upon its bosom scarcely rock.
+
+The grass is bending still with the weight of the past rain, and a
+plaintive dripping from the trees can be heard,--a refreshing sound that
+lessens the sense of heat. The small birds stir cosily in their nests,
+and now and then a drowsy note breaks from one or another; a faint mist,
+white and intangible, rises from the hills, spreading from field to sky,
+until
+
+    "The earth, with heaven mingled, in the shadowy twilight lay,
+      And the white sails seemed like spectres in a cloud-land far away."
+
+"Ah! you don't like me to say that," says Desmond, unappeased by the
+beauty of the growing night; "but----"
+
+"Do not say another word," says Monica, imperiously. The moon is rising
+slowly--slowly,--and so, by the by, is her temper. "I forbid you. Here,"
+throwing to him his coat; "I think I have before remarked that the rain
+is _quite_ over. I am sorry I ever touched anything belonging to you."
+
+Desmond having received the coat, and put himself into it once more,
+silence ensues. It does, perhaps, strike him as a hopeful sign that she
+shows no haste to return home and so rid herself of a presence she has
+inadvertently declared to be hateful to her, because presently he says,
+simply, if a little warmly,--
+
+"There is no use in our quarreling like this. I won't give you up
+without a further struggle, to _any_ man. So we may as well have it out
+now. Do you care for that--for Ryde?"
+
+"If you had asked me that before,--sensibly,--you might have avoided
+making an exhibition of yourself and saying many rude things. I don't in
+the least mind telling you," says Miss Beresford, coldly, "that I _can't
+bear_ him."
+
+"Oh, Monica! is this _true_?" asks he, in an agony of hope.
+
+"Quite true. But you don't deserve I should say it."
+
+"My darling! My 'one thing bright' in all this hateful world! Oh!"
+throwing up his head with an impatient gesture, "I have been so wretched
+all this evening! I have suffered the tortures of the----"
+
+"Now, you musn't say naughty words," interrupts she, with an adorable
+smile. "You are glad I have forgiven you?"
+
+This is how she puts it, and he is only too content to be friends with
+her on any terms, to show further fight.
+
+"_More_ than glad."
+
+"And you will promise me never to be jealous again?"
+
+This is a bitter pill, considering his former declaration that jealousy
+and he had nothing to do with each other; but he swallows it bravely.
+
+"Never. And you--you will never again give me cause, darling, will you?"
+
+"I gave you no cause now," says the darling, shaking her pretty head
+obstinately. And he doesn't dare contradict her. "You behaved really
+badly," she goes on, reproachfully, "and at such a time, too,--just when
+I was dying to tell you _such_ good news."
+
+"Good?--your aunts--" eagerly, "have relented--they----"
+
+"Oh, no! oh, _dear_, no!" says Miss Beresford. "They are harder than
+ever against you. Adamant is a _sponge_ in comparison with them. It
+isn't that; but Madam O'Connor has asked me to go and stay with her next
+Monday for a week!--there!"
+
+"And me too?"
+
+"N--o. Aunt Priscilla made it a condition with regard to my going that
+you shouldn't be there."
+
+"The----And Madam O'Connor gave in to such abominable tyranny?"
+
+"Without a murmur."
+
+"I thought she had a soul above that sort of thing," says Mr. Desmond,
+with disgust. "But they are all alike."
+
+"Who?--women?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You mean to tell me I am like Aunt Priscilla and Madam O'Connor?"
+
+"_Old_ women, I mean," with anxious haste, seeing a cloud descending
+upon the brow of his beloved.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"And, after all, it _is_ good news," says Brian, brightening, "because
+though I can't stop in the house for the week, still there is nothing to
+prevent my riding over there every one of the seven days."
+
+"That's just what I thought," says Monica, ingenuously, with a sweet
+little blush.
+
+"Ah! you wished for me, then?"
+
+She refuses to answer this in any more direct manner than her eyes
+afford, but says, quickly, doubtfully,--
+
+"It won't be deceiving Aunt Priscilla, your coming there to visit, will
+it? She must know she cannot compel Madam O'Connor to forbid you the
+house. And she knows perfectly you are an intimate friend of hers."
+
+"Of course she does. She is a regular old tyrant,--a Bluebeard in
+petticoats; but----"
+
+"No, no; you must not abuse her," says Monica: so he becomes silent.
+
+She is standing very close to the trunk of the old beech, half leaning
+against it upon one arm which is slightly raised. She has no gloves, but
+long white mittens that reach above her elbow to where the sleeves of
+her gown join them. Through the little holes in the pattern of these
+kindly mittens her white arms can be seen gleaming like snow beneath
+the faint rays of the early moon. With one hand she is playing some
+imaginary air upon the tree's bark.
+
+As she so plays, tiny sparkles from her rings attract his notice.
+
+"Those five little rings," says Desmond, idly, "always remind me of the
+five little pigs that went to market,--I don't know why."
+
+"They didn't all go to market," demurely. "One of them, I _know_, stayed
+at home."
+
+"So he did. I remember now. Somehow it makes me feel like a boy again."
+
+"Then, according to Hood, you must be nearer heaven than you were a
+moment ago."
+
+"I couldn't," says Desmond, turning, and looking into her beautiful
+eyes. "My heaven has been near me for the last half-hour." If he had
+said _hour_ he would have been closer to the truth.
+
+A soft, lovely crimson creeps into her cheeks, and her eyes fall before
+his for a moment. Then she laughs,--a gay, mirthful laugh, that somehow
+puts sentiment to flight.
+
+"Go on about your little pigs," she says, glancing at him with
+coquettish mirth.
+
+"About your rings, you mean. I never look at them that I don't begin
+this sort of thing." Here, seeing an excellent opportunity for it,
+he takes her hand in his. "This little turquoise went to market,
+this little pearl stayed at home, this little emerald got
+some--er--cheese----"
+
+"No, it wasn't," hastily. "It was roast beef."
+
+"So it was. Better than cheese, any day. How stupid of me! I might have
+known an emerald--I mean a pig--wouldn't like cheese."
+
+"I don't suppose it would like roast beef a bit better," says Monica;
+and then her lips part and she bursts into a merry laugh at the
+absurdity of the thing. She is such a child still that she finds the
+keenest enjoyment in it.
+
+"Never mind," with dignity, "and permit me to tell you, Miss Beresford,
+that open ridicule is rude. To continue: _this_ little pearl got none,
+and this little plain gold ring got--he got--what on earth did the
+little plain gold pig--I mean, ring--get?"
+
+"_Nothing._ Just what _you_ ought to get for such a badly-told story. He
+only cried, 'Wee.'"
+
+"Oh, no, indeed. He shan't cry at all. I won't have tears connected with
+you in any way."
+
+She glances up at him with eyes half shy, half pleased, and with the
+prettiest dawning smile upon her lips.
+
+He clasps the slender fingers closer, as though loath to part with them,
+and yet his tale has come to a climax.
+
+"If I have told my story so badly, perhaps I had better tell it all over
+again," he says, with a base assumption of virtuous regret.
+
+"No. I would not give you that trouble for the world," she says,
+mischievously, and then the dawning smile widens, brightens into
+something indescribable, but perfect.
+
+"Oh, Monica, I do think you are the sweetest thing on earth," says the
+young man, with sudden fervid passion; and then all at once, and for the
+first time, he puts out his arms impulsively and draws her to him. She
+colors,--still smiling, however,--and after a brief hesitation, moves
+slowly but decidedly back from him.
+
+"You don't _hate_ me to touch you, do you?" asks he, rather hurt.
+
+"Oh, no, indeed!" hurriedly. "Only----"
+
+"Only what, darling?"
+
+"I hardly know what," she answers, looking bewildered. "Perhaps because
+it is all so strange. Why should you love _me_ better than any one?--and
+yet you do," anxiously, "don't you?"
+
+The innocently-expressed anxiety makes his heart glad.
+
+"I adore you," he says, fervently; and then, "Did no one ever place his
+arm round you _before_, Monica?"
+
+He finds a difficulty in even asking this.
+
+"No, no," with intense surprise at the question, and a soft, quick
+glance that is almost shamed. "I never had a lover in my life until I
+met you. No one except you ever told me I was pretty. The first time
+_you_ said it I went home (when I was out of your sight," reddening, "I
+ran all the rest of the way) and looked at myself in the glass. Then,"
+naively, "I knew you were right. Still I had my doubts; so I called Kit
+and told her about it; and she," laughing, "said you were evidently a
+person of great discrimination, so I suppose she agreed with you."
+
+"She could hardly do otherwise."
+
+"Yet sometimes," says Monica, with hesitation and a downcast face, "I
+have thought it was all mere fancy with you, and that you don't love me
+_really_."
+
+"My sweetheart, what a cruel thing to say to me!"
+
+"But see how you scold me! Only now," nervously plucking little bits of
+bark from the trunk of the tree, "you accused me of dreadful things.
+Yes, sometimes I doubt you."
+
+"I wonder where I leave room for doubt? Yet I must convince you. What
+shall I swear by, then?" he asks, half laughing: "the chaste Diana up
+above--the lovers' friend--is in full glory to-night; shall I swear by
+her?"
+
+"'Oh, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, lest that thy love
+prove likewise variable,'" quotes she archly; "and yet," with a sudden
+change of mood, and a certain sweet gravity, "I do not mistrust you."
+
+She leans slightly towards him, and unasked, gives her hand into his
+keeping once again. She is full of pretty tender ways and womanly
+tricks, and as for the best time for displaying them, for this she has a
+natural talent.
+
+Desmond, clasping her hand, looks at her keenly. His whole heart is in
+his eyes.
+
+"Tell me that you love me," he says, in a low unsteady voice.
+
+"How can I? I don't know. I am not sure," she says, falteringly; "and,"
+shrinking a little from him, "it is growing very late. See how the moon
+has risen above the firs. I must go home."
+
+"Tell me you love me first."
+
+"I _must_ not love you; you know that."
+
+"But if you might, you could?"
+
+"Ye--es."
+
+"Then I defy all difficulties,--aunts, and friends, and lovers. I shall
+win you in the teeth of all barriers, and in spite of all opposition.
+And now go home, my heart's delight, my best beloved. I have this
+assurance from you, that your own lips have given me, and it makes me
+confident of victory."
+
+"But if you fail," she begins, nervously; but he will not listen to her.
+
+"There is no such word," he says, gayly. "Or, if there is, I never
+learnt it. Good-night, my love."
+
+"Good-night." A little frightened by his happy vehemence she stands well
+away from him, and holds out her hands in farewell. Taking them, he
+opens them gently and presses an impassioned kiss on each little
+pink-tinged palm. With a courteous reverence for her evident shyness, he
+then releases her, and, raising his hat, stands motionless until she has
+sprung down the bank and so reached the Moyne fields again.
+
+Then she turns and waves him a second and last good night. Returning the
+salute, he replaces his hat on his head, and thrusting his hands deep in
+his pockets, turns towards Coole--and dinner. He is somewhat late for
+the latter, but this troubles him little, so set is his mind upon the
+girl who has just left him.
+
+Surely she is hard to win, and therefore--_how_ desirable! "The women of
+Ireland," says an ancient chronicler, "are the coyest, the most
+coquettish, yet withal the coldest and virtuousest women upon earth."
+Yet, allowing all this, given time and opportunity, they may be safely
+wooed. What Mr. Desmond complains of bitterly, in his homeward musings
+to-night, is the fact that to him neither time nor opportunity is
+afforded.
+
+"She is a woman therefore to be won;" but how is his courtship to be
+sped, if thorns are to beset his path on every side, and if persistent
+malice blocks his way to the feet of her whom he adores?
+
+He reaches home in an unenviable frame of mind, and is thoroughly
+unsociable to Owen Kelly and the old squire all the evening.
+
+Next morning sees him in the same mood; and, indeed, it is about this
+time he takes to imagining his little love as being a hapless prisoner
+in the hands of two cruel ogres (I am afraid he really does apply the
+term "ogres" to the two old ladies of Moyne), and finds a special
+melancholy pleasure in depicting her as a lonely captive condemned to
+solitary confinement and dieted upon bread and water.
+
+To regard the Misses Blake in the light either of ogres or witches
+required some talent; but Mr. Desmond, at this period of his
+love-affair, managed it.
+
+He would go about, too, singing,--
+
+    "Oh, who will o'er the downs so free,"
+
+taking immense comfort out of, and repeating over and over again, such
+lines as--
+
+    "I sought her bower at break of day,
+        'Twas guarded safe and sure;"
+
+    "Her father he has locked the door,
+      Her mother keeps the key;
+    But neither bolt nor bar shall keep
+      My own true love from me,"--
+
+until bars, and bolts, and locks, and keys seemed all real.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+  How, after much discussion, the devoted, if mistaken, adherents of
+  Thalia gain the day--and how, for once in his life, Owen Kelly feels
+  melancholy that is not assumed.
+
+
+"I wish you would all attend," says Olga Bohun, just a little
+impatiently, looking round upon the assembled group, with brows uplifted
+and the point of a pencil thrust between her rose-red lips.
+
+"Thrice-blessed pencil!" murmurs Mr. Kelly, in a _very_ stage whisper.
+"Man is the superior being, yet he would not be permitted to occupy so
+exalted a position. Are you a stone, Ronayne, that you can regard the
+situation with such an insensate face?" Mr. Ronayne is at this moment
+gazing at Mrs. Bohun with all his heart in his eyes. He starts and
+colors. "I cannot help thinking of that dear little song about the
+innocent daisy," goes on Mr. Kelly, with a rapt expression. "But I'd
+'choose to be a _pencil_, if I might be a flower.'"
+
+"Now _do_ let us decide upon something," says Olga, taking no heed of
+this sally, and frowning down the smile that is fighting for mastery.
+
+"Yes; now you are all to decide upon something at once," says Mr. Kelly,
+gloomily. "There is a difficulty about the right way to begin it, but it
+must be done; Mrs. Bohun says so. There is to be no deception. I shall
+say one, two, three, and away, and then every one must have decided: the
+defaulter will be spurned from the gates. Now, one, two----Desmond,"
+sternly "you are not deciding!"
+
+"I am, indeed," says Desmond, most untruthfully. He is lying on the
+grass at Monica's feet, and is playing idly with her huge white fan.
+
+"You are not doing it properly. I daresay Miss Beresford is making you
+uncomfortable; and I am sure you are trying to break her fan. Come over
+here and sit by me, and you will be much happier."
+
+"Penance is good for the soul. I shall stay here," says Desmond.
+
+"If we mean to get up tableaux, we certainly ought to set about them at
+once," says Herrick, indolently.
+
+"There doesn't seem to be any work in anybody," says Olga, in despair.
+
+"Try me," says Lord Rossmoyne, bending over her chair. He has only just
+come, and his arrival has been unannounced.
+
+"Ah! _thank_ you!"--with a brilliant smile. "Now you _do_ look like
+business."
+
+It is Monday, and four o'clock. Aghyohillbeg lying basking in the
+sunshine is looking its loveliest,--which is saying a great deal. The
+heat is so intense on this sweet July day that every one has deserted
+the house and come out to find some air,--a difficulty. They have tried
+the grass terraces, in vain, and now have congregated beneath a giant
+fir, and are, comparatively speaking, cool.
+
+Just before luncheon Madam O'Connor brought Monica home in triumph with
+her from Moyne, to find Desmond, handsome and happy, on her doorstep,
+waiting with calm certainty an invitation to that meal. He got it, and
+to dinner likewise.
+
+"We have set our hearts on tableaux, but it is _so_ difficult to think
+of any scene fresh and unhackneyed," says Olga, gazing plaintively into
+Lord Rossmoyne's sympathetic face.
+
+"Don't give way," says Mr. Kelly, tenderly. "It must be a poor intellect
+that couldn't rise superior to such a demand as that. Given one minute,
+I believe even I could produce an idea as novel as it would be
+brilliant."
+
+"You shall have your minute," says Olga, pulling out her watch.
+"Now--begin----"
+
+"Time's up," she says, presently, when sixty seconds have honestly
+expired.
+
+"You might have said that thirty seconds ago, and I should not have
+objected," says Mr. Kelly, with an assured smile.
+
+"And your idea."
+
+"_The Huguenots!_"
+
+Need I say that every one is exceedingly angry?
+
+"Ever heard it before?" asks Mr. Kelly, with aggressive insolence; which
+question, being considered as adding insult to injury, is treated with
+silent contempt.
+
+"I told you it was not to be done," says Olga, petulantly addressing
+everybody generally.
+
+"I can't agree with you. I see no reason why it should fall to the
+ground," says Miss Fitzgerald, warmly, who is determined to show herself
+off in a gown that has done duty for "Madame Favart," and the "Bohemian
+Girl," and "Maritana," many a time and oft.
+
+"I have another idea," says Mr. Kelly, at this opportune moment.
+
+"If it is as useful as your first, you may keep it," says Olga, with
+pardonable indignation.
+
+"I am misunderstood," says Mr. Kelly, mournfully, but with dignity. "I
+shall write to Miss Montgomery and ask her to make another pathetic tale
+about me. As you are bent on trampling upon an unknown genius,--poor but
+proud--I shall _not_ make you acquainted with this last beautiful
+thought which I have evolved from my inner consciousness."
+
+"Don't say that! _do_ tell it to us," says Monica, eagerly, and in
+perfect good faith. She knows less of him than the others, and may
+therefore be excused for still believing in him.
+
+"Thank you, Miss Beresford. _You_ can soar above a mean desire to crush
+a rising power. You have read, of course, that popular poem by our
+poet-laureate, called 'Enid.'"
+
+"Yes," says Monica, staring at him.
+
+"I mean the poem in which he has so faithfully depicted the way in which
+two escaped lunatics would be sure to behave if left to their own
+devices. Considered as a warning to us to keep bolts and bars on Colney
+Hatch and Hanwell, it may be regarded as a delicate attention. Dear
+Tennyson! he certainly is a public benefactor. There is a scene in that
+remarkable poem which I think might suit us. You remember where, after
+much wild careering in the foreground, the principal idiots decide upon
+riding home together, pillion fashion?"
+
+"I--I think so," says Monica, who plainly doesn't, being much confused.
+
+"'Then on his foot she sat her own and climbed,'--and then she threw her
+arms round him in a most unmaidenly fashion, if I recollect aright; but
+of course mad people _will_ be vehement, poor souls; they can't help it.
+Now, supposing we adopted that scene, wouldn't it be effective? One of
+Madam O'Connor's big carriage-horses, if brought forward,--I mean the
+one that kicked over the traces, yesterday,--would, I firmly believe,
+create quite a sensation, and in all probability bring down the house."
+
+"The stage, certainly," says Desmond.
+
+"Ah! you approve of it," says Kelly, with suspicious gratitude. "Then
+let us arrange it at once. Miss Beresford might throw her arms round
+Ryde, for example: that would be charming."
+
+Desmond looking at this moment as if he would willingly murder him, Mr.
+Kelly is apparently satisfied, and sinks to rest with his head upon his
+arm once more. No one else has heard the suggestion.
+
+"I think you might help me, instead of giving voice to insane
+propositions," says Olga, reproachfully, turning her eyes upon Mr.
+Kelly's bowed form,--he is lying prostrate on the grass,--which is
+shaking in a palsied fashion. "I really _did_ believe in _you_," she
+says, whereupon the young man, springing to his feet, flings his arms
+wide, and appeals in an impassioned manner to an unprejudiced public as
+to whether he has not been racking his brain in her service for the last
+half-hour.
+
+"Then I wish you would go and rack it in somebody else's service," says
+Mrs. Bohun, ungratefully.
+
+"Hear her!" says Mr. Kelly, gazing slowly round him. "She still persists
+in the unseemly abuse. She is bent on breaking my heart and driving
+sleep from mine eyelids. It is ungenerous, the more so that she knows I
+have not the courage to tear myself from her beloved presence. You,
+Ronayne, and you, Rossmoyne, can sympathize with me:
+
+    "'In durance vile here must I wake and weep,
+    And all my frowzy couch in sorrow steep.'
+
+Fancy a frowzy couch saturated with tears! you know," reproachfully to
+Olga, "_you_ wouldn't like to have to lie on it."
+
+"Oh, do come and sit down here near me, and be silent," says Olga, in
+desperation.
+
+"Why not have a play?" says Captain Cobbett, who with Mr. Ryde has
+driven over from Clonbree.
+
+"'The play's the thing,'" says Brian Desmond, lazily; "but when you are
+about it, make it a farce."
+
+"Oh, _no_!" says Miss Fitzgerald, with a horrified gesture; "_anything_
+but that! Why not let us try one of the good old comedies?--'The School
+for Scandal,' for example?"
+
+"_What!_" says Mr. Kelly, very weakly. He is plainly quite overcome by
+this suggestion.
+
+"Well, why not?" demands the fair Bella, with just a _soupcon_ of
+asperity in her tone,--as much as she ever allows herself when in the
+society of men. She makes up for this abstinence by bestowing a liberal
+share of it upon her maid and her mother.
+
+"It's--it's such a naughty, naughty piece," says Mr. Kelly, bashfully,
+beating an honorable retreat from his first meaning.
+
+"Nonsense! One can strike out anything distasteful."
+
+"Shades of Farren--and----Who would be Lady Teazle?" says Olga.
+
+"I would," says Bella, modestly.
+
+"That is more than good of you," says Olga, casting a curious glance at
+her from under her long lashes. "But I thought, perhaps----You, Hermia,
+would you not undertake it? You know, last season, they said you
+were----"
+
+"No, dear, thanks. No, _indeed_," with emphasis.
+
+"Cobbett does Joseph Surface to perfection," breaks in Mr. Ryde,
+enthusiastically.
+
+"Oh, I say now, Ryde! Come, you know, this is hardly fair," says the
+little captain, coyly, who is looking particularly pinched and dried
+to-day, in spite of the hot sun. There is a satisfied smirk upon his
+pale lips, and a poor attempt at self-depreciation about his whole
+manner.
+
+"You know you took 'em by storm at Portsmouth, last year,--made 'em
+laugh like fun. You should see him," persists Ryde, addressing everybody
+generally.
+
+"Perhaps you mean the part of Charles Surface," says Ronayne, in some
+surprise.
+
+"No. Joseph: the sly one you know," says Ryde chuckling over some
+recollection.
+
+"Well, it never occurred to me that Joseph's part might be termed a
+_funny_ one," says Mr. Kelly, mildly; "but that shows how ignorant all
+we Irish are. It will be very kind of you, Cobbett, to enlighten us,--to
+show us something _good_, in fact."
+
+"Really, you know, you flatter me absurdly," says Cobbett, the
+self-depreciation fainter, the smirk broader.
+
+Lord Rossmoyne, whose good temper is not his strong point, glances
+angrily at him, smothers an explosive speech, and walks away with a
+sneer.
+
+"And Sir Peter,--who will kindly undertake Sir Peter?" asks Olga, with a
+smile that is faintly sarcastic. "Will you, Owen?" to Mr. Kelly.
+
+"Don't ask me. I could not act with Cobbett and Miss Fitzgerald. I mean,
+I should only disgrace them," says Kelly, who is a member of a famous
+dramatic club in Dublin, and who has had two offers from London managers
+to tread the boards. "I feel I'm not up to it, indeed."
+
+"I suspect you are not," says Hermia Herrick, with a sudden smile that
+lights up all her cold impassive face. Kelly, catching it, crawls lazily
+over to her, along the grass, Indian fashion, and finding a fold of her
+gown lays his arm on it, and his head on his arm, and relapses into
+silence.
+
+"Ryde has done it," says Captain Cobbett.
+
+"Indeed!" says Olga, raising questioning eyes to the big marine standing
+behind Monica's chair.
+
+"Ye--es. We--er--do a good deal of that sort of thing in _our_ country,"
+says Ryde, with conscious worth. "I have done Sir Peter once or twice;
+and people have been good enough not to--" with a little laugh--"_hiss_
+me. I have a style of my own; but--er----" with an encouraging glance at
+the other men, "I daresay there are many here who could do it as I do
+it."
+
+"Not _one_, I am convinced," says Desmond, promptly; and Monica laughs
+softly.
+
+"We must think it over. I don't believe anything so important could be
+got up without deep deliberation----" Olga is beginning, when Kelly, by
+a movement of the hand, stops her.
+
+"Do let it go on to its bitter end," he says, in a whisper, with most
+unusual animation for him. "Mrs. Herrick, help me."
+
+"Why not, Olga?" says Hermia, in a low tone. "The principal characters
+are willing; we have not had a real laugh for some time: why throw away
+such a _perfect_ chance?"
+
+"Oh! _that_----" says Olga.
+
+Here a slight diversion is caused by the appearance of a footman, tea
+tray, a boy, a gypsy table, a maid, a good deal of fruit, maraschino,
+brandy, soda, _and_ Madam O'Connor. The latter, to tell the truth, has
+been having a siesta in the privacy of her own room, and has now come
+down, like a giant refreshed, to see how her guests are getting on.
+
+"Well, I hope you're all happy," she says, jovially.
+
+"We are mad with perplexity," says Olga.
+
+"What's the matter, then, darling?" says Madam. "Hermia, like a good
+child, go and pour out the tea."
+
+"I'll tell you all about it," says Brian, who is a special favorite of
+Madam O'Connor's, coming over to her and stopping behind her chair to
+whisper into her ear.
+
+Whatever he says makes her laugh immoderately. It is easy to bring
+smiles to her lips at any time,--her heart having kept at a standstill
+whilst her body grew old,--but now she seems particularly fetched.
+
+"Yes, yes, my dear Olga, let them have their own way," she says merrily.
+
+"Very good. Let us consider it settled," says Mrs. Bohun. "But I
+_should_ like some tableaux afterwards, as a wind-up."
+
+"Yes, certainly," says Ronayne. "What do you think, Madam?"
+
+"I have set my mind on them," says his old hostess, gayly. "You are
+such a handsome boy, Ulic, that I'm bent on seeing you in fancy clothes;
+and so is somebody else, I daresay. Look at the children, how they steal
+towards us; were there ever such demure little mice? Come here, Georgie,
+my son, I have peaches and pretty things for you."
+
+The kind old soul holds out her arms to two beautiful children, a boy
+and a girl, who are coming slowly, shyly towards her. They are so like
+Hermia Herrick as to be unmistakably hers. The boy, coming straight to
+Madame O'Connor, climbs up on her lap and lays his bonny cheek against
+hers; but the girl, running to her mother, who is busy over the
+tea-tray, nestles close to her.
+
+"Gently, my soul," say Hermia, in a soft whisper. Though she still
+calmly pours out the tea, with Kelly beside her, she lets the unoccupied
+hand fall, to mingle with the golden tresses of the child. As her hand
+meets the little sunny head, a marvellous sweetness creeps into her face
+and transfixes it to a heavenly beauty. Kelly, watching her, marks the
+change.
+
+Going round to the child, he would have taken her in his arms,--as is
+his habit with most children, being a special favorite in every nursery;
+but this little dame, drawing back from him, repels him coldly. Then, as
+though fearing herself ungracious, she slowly extends to him a tiny,
+friendly hand, which he accepts. The likeness between this grave baby
+and her graver mother is so remarkable as to be almost ludicrous.
+
+"I think you haven't given Mr. Kelly even one kiss to-day," says her
+mother, smiling faintly, and pressing the child closer to her. "She is a
+cold little thing, is she not?"
+
+"I suppose she inherits it," says Owen Kelly, without lifting his eyes
+from the child's fair face.
+
+Mrs. Herrick colors slightly.
+
+"Will you let me get you some tea, Fay?" says Mr. Kelly, addressing the
+child almost anxiously.
+
+"No, thank you," says the fairy, sweetly but decidedly. "My mammy will
+give me half hers. I do not like any other tea."
+
+"I am not in favor to-day," says Kelly, drawing back and shrugging his
+shoulders slightly, but looking distinctly disappointed. It may be the
+child sees this, because she comes impulsively forward, and, standing on
+tiptoe before him, holds her arms upwards towards his neck.
+
+"I want to kiss you now," she says, solemnly, when he has taken her into
+his embrace. "But no one else. I only want to kiss _you_ sometimes--and
+_always_ mamma."
+
+"I am content to be second where mamma is first. I am glad you place me
+with her in your mind. I should like to be always with mamma," says
+Kelly. He laughs a little, and kisses the child again, and places her
+gently upon the ground, and then he glances at Hermia. But her face is
+impassive as usual. No faintest tinge deepens the ordinary pallor of her
+cheeks. She has the sugar tongs poised in the air, and is apparently
+sunk in abstruse meditation.
+
+"Now, I wonder who takes sugar and who doesn't," she says, wrinkling up
+her pretty brows in profound thought. "I have been here a month, yet
+cannot yet be sure. Mr. Kelly, you must call some one else to our
+assistance to take round the sugar, as you can't do everything."
+
+"I can do _nothing_," says Kelly, in a low tone, after which he turns
+away and calls Brian Desmond to come to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+  How Desmond asserts himself, and shows himself a better man than his
+  rival--And how a bunch of red roses causes a breach, and how a ring
+  heals it.
+
+
+"Then it is decided," says Olga. "'The School for Scandal' first, and
+tableaux to follow. Now for _them_. I suppose four altogether will be
+quite sufficient. We must not try the patience of our poor audience past
+endurance."
+
+"It will be past that long before our tableaux begin," says Ulic
+Ronayne, in a low tone. He is dressed in a tennis suit of white flannel,
+and is looking particularly handsome.
+
+Olga makes a pretty little _moue_, but no audible response.
+
+"I have two arranged," she says, "but am distracted about three and
+four. Will anybody except Mr. Kelly come to my assistance?"
+
+"Oh, you're jealous because you didn't think of 'Enid' and the
+carriage-horse yourself," returns that young man, with ineffable
+disdain,--"or that Dolly Varden affair."
+
+"Well, that last might do,--modified a little," says Olga, brightening.
+"Mr. Ryde is enormous enough for anything. Quite an ideal Hugh."
+
+"Quite," says Ronayne, with a smile.
+
+"Then it has arranged itself; that is, if you agree, dear?" says Olga,
+turning to Monica.
+
+"It shall be as you wish. I mean, I know nothing about it," gently; "but
+I shall like to help you if I can."
+
+"I mean you don't object to the subject,--or Mr. Ryde?" says Olga,
+kindly, unaware that Mr. Ryde has come away from the tea-table and is
+now close behind her. Monica, however, sees him, and smiles courteously.
+
+"Oh, no," she says, as in duty bound.
+
+And then the fourth is found and grasped, and all trouble is at an end.
+
+"_So_ glad I can now take my tea in peace," says Olga, with a sigh of
+profound relief. "_Who_ would be stage-manager?"
+
+"Ah! you don't do much of this kind of thing in Ireland, I daresay,"
+says Mr. Ryde.
+
+"What kind of thing?" asks Olga, sweetly, who doesn't like him.
+"Tea-drinking?"
+
+"No--acting--er--and that."
+
+"I'm afraid I'm quite at sea about the '_that_,'" says Olga, shaking her
+blonde head. "Perhaps we do a good deal of it, perhaps we don't. Explain
+it to me."
+
+("Awful stoopid people!--not a word of truth about their ready wit,"
+says Mr. Ryde to himself at this juncture.)
+
+"Oh, well--er--let us confine ourselves to the acting," he says, feeling
+somehow at a loss. "It is new to you here, it seems."
+
+"I certainly have never acted in my life," begins Monica; "but----"
+
+Mrs. Bohun interrupts her.
+
+"We are a hopelessly benighted lot," she says, making Ryde a present of
+a beautiful smile. "We are sadly behind the world,--_rococo_"--shrugging
+her shoulders pathetically--"to the last degree. You, Mr. Ryde, have
+opened up to us possibilities never dreamt of before; touches of
+civilization hitherto unknown."
+
+"I should think in your case a very little tuition would be sufficient,"
+says Ryde, with such kindly encouragement in his tone that Ronayne, who
+is at Olga's feet, collapses, and from being abnormally grave breaks
+into riotous laughter.
+
+"You must teach us stage effects,--is that the proper term?--and correct
+us when we betray too crass an ignorance, and--above all things, Mr.
+Ryde," with an arch glance, "you must promise not to lose your temper
+over the _gaucheries_ of your Dolly Varden."
+
+"Whose Dolly Varden?" asks Desmond, coming up at this instant laden with
+cups of tea.
+
+"Mr. Ryde's."
+
+"He is to be Hugh to Miss Beresford's Dolly," says Ronayne.
+
+"Yes, isn't it good of Monica? she has consented to take the part," says
+Olga, who is really grateful to her for having helped her out of her
+difficulty.
+
+"_Have_ you?" says Desmond, turning upon Monica with dilated eyes.
+
+"Yes. Is that tea for me?" returns she, calmly, with great
+self-possession, seeing that sundry eyes are upon her.
+
+"For you, or any one," replies he. Tone can convey far more meaning than
+words. The words just now are correct enough, but the tone is uncivil to
+the last degree. Monica, flushing slightly, takes a cup from him, and
+Olga takes the second.
+
+There is a short silence whilst they stir their tea, during which Madam
+O'Connor's voice can be distinctly heard,--it generally _can_ above
+every tumult. She is discoursing enthusiastically about some wonderful
+tree in her orchard, literally borne down by fruit.
+
+"You never saw such a sight!" she is saying,--"laden down to the ground.
+The finest show of pears in the country. I was telling Williams he would
+do well to prop it. But I suppose it will ruin the tree for the next two
+years to come."
+
+"What, the propping?" says Rossmoyne.
+
+"No, the enormous produce, you silly boy!" says his hostess, with a
+laugh.
+
+Monica, who is growing restless beneath Desmond's angry regard, turns to
+her nervously.
+
+"I think I should like to see it," she says, softly.
+
+"Allow me to take you to it," says Ryde, quickly, coming to her side.
+
+"Miss Beresford is coming with _me_," interposes Desmond. His face is
+pale, and his eyes flash ominously.
+
+"That is for Miss Beresford to decide."
+
+"She _has_ decided," says Desmond, growing even paler, but never
+removing his eyes from his rival's. He is playing a dangerous game, but
+even in the danger is ecstasy. And, as Monica continues silent, a great
+joy fills his soul.
+
+"But until"--begins the Englishman, doggedly--"I hear----"
+
+"Mrs. Bohun's cup is causing her embarrassment. See to it," interrupts
+Desmond, unemotionally. And then, turning to Monica, he says, "Come,"
+coldly, but with such passionate entreaty in his eyes that she is borne
+away by it, and goes with him submissively across the lawn, until she
+has so far withdrawn herself from her companions that a return would be
+undignified.
+
+They go as far as the entrance to the orchard, a good quarter of a mile,
+in silence, and then the storm breaks.
+
+"I won't have that fellow holding you in his arms," says Desmond, pale
+with grief and rage, standing still and confronting her.
+
+"I thought you said you would never be jealous again," says Monica, who
+has had time to recover herself, and time, too, to grow angry.
+
+"I also said I hoped you would never give me cause."
+
+"Mrs. Bohun has arranged this tableau."
+
+"Then disarrange it."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Say you won't act with Ryde."
+
+"You can't expect me to make myself laughable in that way."
+
+"Then _I'll_ do it."
+
+"And so make me laughable in another way. I can't see what right you
+have to interfere," she breaks out suddenly, standing before him, wilful
+but lovely. "What are you to me, or I to you, that you should order me
+about like this?"
+
+"You are all the world to me,--you are _my wife_," says the young man,
+in a solemn tone, but with passionately angry eyes. "You can refuse me
+if you like, but I shall go to my grave with your image only in my
+heart. As to what I am to _you_, that is quite another thing,--less than
+nothing, I should say."
+
+"And no wonder, too, considering your _awful_ temper," says Monica,
+viciously; but her tone trembles.
+
+At this he seems to lose heart. A very sad look creeps into his dark
+eyes and lingers there.
+
+"Well, do what you like about these wretched tableaux," he says, so
+wearily that Monica, though victorious, feels inclined to cry. "If they
+give you a moment's pleasure, why should I rebel? As you say, I am
+nothing to you. Come, let us go and look at this famous pear-tree."
+
+But she does not stir. They are inside the orchard, standing in a very
+secluded spot, with only some green apples and an ivied wall to see
+them. Her eyes are downcast, and her slender fingers are playing
+nervously with a ribbon on her gown. Her lips have taken a remorseful
+curve. Now, as though unable to restrain the impulse, she raises her
+eyes to his for a brief second, but, brief as it is, he can see that
+they are full of tears.
+
+"Brian," she says, nervously.
+
+It is the first time she has ever called him by his Christian name, and
+he turns to her a face still sad indeed, but altogether surprised and
+pleased.
+
+"Now, that is good of you," he says.
+
+"There is nothing good about me," says Monica, tearfully. "I am as
+horrid as I well can be, and you are----Brian, I will give up that
+tableau. I will not be Dolly Varden; no, not if Mr. Ryde went on his
+_knees_ to me."
+
+"My dear, _dear_ love!" says Mr. Desmond.
+
+"Do you indeed love me," says Monica, softly, "in spite of all I do?"
+
+"I love you _because_ of all you do. What is there not commendable in
+every action of yours? I love you; I live always in the hope that some
+day you will be more to me than you are to-day. A presumptuous hope
+perhaps," with a rather forced smile, "but one I _will_ not stifle. I
+suppose every one lives in a visionary world at times, where some 'not
+impossible she' reigns as queen. I dare say you think my queen _is_
+impossible, yet you little know what dreams have been my playmates,
+night and day."
+
+"Am I your queen?" sweetly.
+
+"Yes, darling."
+
+"And you are glad I have given up this tableau?"
+
+"I don't know what I should have done if you hadn't."
+
+"Then, now you will do something for me," says Miss Beresford, promptly.
+
+"Anything," with enthusiasm.
+
+"Then to-morrow you are to come here _without_ the roses I heard you
+promising Miss Fitzgerald this afternoon."
+
+Her tone is quite composed, but two little brilliant flecks of color
+have risen hurriedly and are now flaunting themselves on either pretty
+cheek. She is evidently very seriously in earnest.
+
+"She asked me for them: she will think it so ungenerous, so rude," says
+Desmond.
+
+"Not ungenerous. She will never think you that, or rude either," says
+Monica, gauging the truth to a nicety. "_Careless_ if you will, but no
+more; and--I _want_ you to seem careless where she is concerned."
+
+"But why, my dearest?"
+
+"Because I don't like her; she always treats me as though I were some
+insignificant little girl still in short petticoats," says Miss
+Beresford, with rising indignation. "And because--because, too----"
+
+She pauses in some confusion.
+
+"Go on: because what?" with gentle encouragement.
+
+"Well, then, because I know she wants to _marry_ you," says Monica,
+vehemently, but in a choked voice.
+
+"What an extraordinary idea to come into your head!" says Desmond, in a
+choked tone also, but from a different emotion.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" severely. "At me?"
+
+"My darling, it seems so absurd, and----"
+
+"I _forbid_ you to laugh," in a tone replete with anger but highly
+suggestive of tears. "Don't do it."
+
+"I'll never laugh again, my pet, if it offends you so dreadfully."
+
+"But your eyes are laughing; I can see them. I can see a great deal more
+than you think, and I know that hateful girl has made up her mind to
+marry you as soon as ever she can."
+
+"That will be never."
+
+"Not if you go on bringing her roses and things."
+
+"What harm can a simple rose do?"
+
+"If you are going to look at it in that light, I shall say no more. But
+in a very little time you will find she has married you, and _then_
+where will you be?"
+
+Her jealousy is too childishly open to be misunderstood. Mr. Desmond's
+spirits are rising with marvellous rapidity; indeed, for the past two
+minutes he feels as if he is treading on air.
+
+"As you won't have me, I don't much care _where_ I shall be," he says
+with the mean hope of reducing her to submission by a threat. In this
+hope he is doomed to be disappointed, as she meets his base insinuation
+with an unlowered front.
+
+"Very good, _go_ and marry her," she says, calmly, as if church, parson,
+and Miss Fitzgerald are all waiting for him, in anxious expectation,
+round the corner.
+
+"No, I shan't," says Desmond, changing his tactics without a blush.
+"Catch me at it! As you persist in refusing me, I shall never marry, but
+remain a bachelor forever, for your sweet sake."
+
+"Then say you will not bring those roses to-morrow. Or, better still,
+say you will bring them, and"--all women, even the best are cruel--"give
+them to me _before_ her."
+
+"My darling! what an unreasonable thing to ask me!"
+
+"Oh! I daresay! when people don't _love_ people they always think
+everything they do unreasonable."
+
+This rather involved sentence seems to cut Mr. Desmond to the heart.
+
+"Of course, if you say that, I must do it," he says.
+
+"Don't do it on my account," with a wilful air.
+
+"No, on my own, of course."
+
+"Well, remember I don't ask you to do it," with the most disgraceful
+ingratitude. "Do as you wish about it."
+
+"Your wishes are mine," he says, tenderly. "I have had no divided
+existence since that first day I saw you,--how long ago it seems
+now----"
+
+"Very long. Only a few weeks in reality, but it seems to myself that I
+have known and--liked you all my life."
+
+"Yet that day when I saw you on the hay-cart is hardly two months old,"
+says Desmond, dreamily.
+
+As a breath of half-forgotten perfume, or a long-lost chord fresh
+sounded, brings back the memories of a lifetime, so does this chance
+remark of his now recall to her a scene almost gone out of mind, yet
+still fraught with recollections terrible to her self-love.
+
+"Two months,--only two?--oh, it must be more," she says, with a pang.
+Surely time ought to lessen the feeling of shame that overpowers her
+whenever she thinks of that fatal day.
+
+"So wearisome a time, my own?" asks he, reproachfully.
+
+"No, it is not that. It is only----. Oh, Brian, that day you speak of,
+when I was on that horrid hay-cart, did you--I mean--did I--that is--did
+I look very ungraceful?"
+
+The word she is dying to say is _dis_graceful, but she dares not.
+
+"Ungraceful?"
+
+"Yes. Terry says that when we were passing you that day I was--was,"
+with a desperate rush, "kicking up my heels?"
+
+She is trembling with shame and confusion. Crimson has sprung to her
+cheeks, tears to her eyes.
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," says Mr. Desmond, comprehending the
+situation at last. "But, even supposing you were,--and, after all, that
+is the sort of thing _every one_ does on a bundle of hay,"--as though
+it is quite the customary thing for people generally to go round the
+world seated on hay-carts,--"I didn't see you--that is, your heels, I
+mean; I saw only your face,--the prettiest face in the world. How could
+I look at anything else when I had once seen that?"
+
+"Brian!" turning to him impetuously, and laying both her hands upon his
+shoulders, "I do think you are the dearest fellow on earth."
+
+"Oh, Monica! am I the dearest to you?" He has twined his arms round her
+lissome figure, and is gazing anxiously into her eyes.
+
+"Yes,--yes, _certainly_." And then, with a _naivete_ indescribable, and
+with the utmost composure, she says,--
+
+"I think I should like to give you a kiss!"
+
+Is the blue dome still over his head, or has the sky fallen? The thing
+he has been longing for, with an intensity not to be portrayed, ever
+since their first meeting, but has not dared to even _hint_ at, is now
+freely offered him, as though it were a thing of naught.
+
+"Monica!" says her lover, the blood rushing to his face, "do you _mean_
+it?" He tightens his clasp round her, yet still refrains from touching
+the sweet lips so near his own. A feeling of honest manliness makes him
+hesitate about accepting this great happiness, lest, indeed, he may have
+misunderstood her. To him it is so great a boon she grants that he
+hardly dares believe in its reality.
+
+"Of course I do," says Miss Beresford, distinctly offended. "I--at
+least, I _did_. I don't now. I always want to kiss people when I feel
+fond of them; but you don't, evidently, or else, perhaps, you aren't
+really fond of me at all, in spite of all you have said. Never mind.
+Don't put yourself out. It was merely a passing fancy on my part."
+
+"Oh, don't let it pass," exclaims her lover, anxiously. "Darling _life_,
+don't you know I have been longing, _longing_ to kiss you for weeks
+past, yet dared not, because something in your eyes forbade me? And now,
+to have you of your own accord really willing to give my dear desire
+seems too much."
+
+"Are you sure that it is that, or----"
+
+"My angel, what a question!"
+
+"Yet perhaps you think----Don't kiss me just to oblige me, you know. I
+don't care so much about it as all _that_, but----"
+
+She finds it impossible to finish the sentence, because----
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dexterously, but gently, she draws herself away from him, and stands a
+little apart. Looking at her, he can see she is troubled. He has opened
+his lips to speak, but by a gesture she restrains him.
+
+"I know it now," she says. This oracular speech is accompanied by a
+blush, vivid as it is angry, and there are large tears in her eyes. "I
+should not have asked _you_ to kiss _me_. That was your part, and you
+have taught me that I usurped it. Yet I thought only that I was fond of
+you, that you were my friend, or like Terry, or--" here the grievance
+gains sound, "you _should_ not have kissed me like that."
+
+"You didn't suppose I was going to kiss you as Terry might?" asks he,
+with just indignation. "He is your brother; I am--not."
+
+"I don't know anything about it, except this, that it will be a very
+long time before you have the chance of doing it again. I can't bear
+being _hugged_."
+
+"I am very sorry," says Mr. Desmond, stiffly. "Let me assure you,
+however, that I shall never cause you such offence again until you wish
+it."
+
+"Then say never at once," says Monica, with a pout.
+
+"Very good," says Desmond. It may now be reasonably supposed that he has
+met all her requirements, and that she has no further complaints to
+bring forward; but such is not the case.
+
+"I don't like you when you talk to me like that," she says,
+aggressively, and with a spoiled-child air, glancing at him from under
+her sweeping lashes.
+
+"How am I to talk to you, then?" asks he, in despair.
+
+"You know very well how to talk to Miss Fitzgerald," retorts she,
+provokingly, and with a bold attempt at a frown. Yet there is something
+about her naughty little face, a hidden, mocking, mischievous, yet
+withal friendly smile as it were, that disarms her speech of its sting
+and gives Brian renewed hope and courage.
+
+He takes her hand deliberately and draws it unrepulsed through his arm.
+
+"Let us go up this walk," he says, "and leave all angry words and
+thoughts behind us."
+
+He makes a movement in the direction indicated, and finds that she moves
+with him. He finds, too, that her slender fingers have closed
+involuntarily upon his arm. Plainly, she is as glad to be at peace with
+him as he with her.
+
+Coming to a turn in the path, shaded by two rugged old apple-trees now
+growing heavy with their green burden, Desmond stands still, and,
+putting his right hand in his pocket, draws out something from it. As he
+does this he colors slightly.
+
+"You wear all your rings on your right hand," he says, with loving
+awkwardness, "and it seems to me the other poor little fingers always
+look neglected. I--I wish you would take this and make it a present to
+your left hand."
+
+"_This_" is a thick gold band, set with three large diamonds of great
+brilliancy in gypsy fashion.
+
+"Oh! not for me!" says Monica, recoiling, and clasping her hands behind
+her back, yet with her eyes firmly fastened upon the beautiful ring.
+
+"Why not for you? Some day I shall give you all I possess; now I can
+give you only such things as this."
+
+"Indeed I must not take it," says Monica; but even as she utters the
+half-hearted refusal she creeps unconsciously closer to him, and, laying
+her hand upon his wrist, looks with childish delight and longing at the
+glittering stones lying in his palm.
+
+"But I say you must," says Desmond, taking a very superior tone. "It is
+yours, not mine. I have nothing to do with it. It was never meant for
+me. See," taking up her hand and slipping the ring on her engaged
+finger, "how pretty your little white hand makes it look!"
+
+It is always a difficult thing to a woman to bring herself to refuse
+diamonds, but doubly difficult once she has seen them positively
+adorning her own person.
+
+Monica looks at the ring, then sighs, then turns it round and round
+mechanically, and finally glances at Desmond. He returns the glance by
+passing his arm round her shoulders, after which there is never another
+word said about the ownership of the ring.
+
+"But it will put my poor little pigs in the shade, won't it?" says
+Monica, looking at her other hand, and then at him archly. "Oh! it is
+lovely--_lovely_!"
+
+"I think I might have chosen you a prettier one, had I run up to Dublin
+and gone to Waterhouse myself," says Desmond; "but I knew if I went I
+could not possibly get back until to-morrow evening, and that would mean
+losing two whole days of our precious seven."
+
+This speech pleases Monica, I think, even more than the ring.
+
+"I am glad you did not go," she says, softly.
+
+"So am I--especially as----" Here he pauses, and then goes on again
+hurriedly. "If I had gone, Monica, you would not have forgotten me?"
+
+"How could I forget you in two little days?"
+
+"They would have been two very big days to me. But tell me, if I were to
+go away from you for a far longer time--say for a whole month--would you
+still be faithful? Should I find you as I left you,--indifferent to
+others at least, if not wholly mine?"
+
+"Why should I change?"
+
+"Darling, there are so many reasons." He draws his breath quickly,
+impatiently. "Some day, you may meet some one else--more suited to you,
+perhaps, and----"
+
+"I shall never do that." She interrupts him slowly, but decidedly.
+
+"You are sure?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The answer in words perhaps is meagre; but he, looking into the depths
+of her soft eyes, sees a surer answer there, and is satisfied.
+
+The shadows are growing longer and slower. They do not dance and quiver
+now in mad glee, as they did an hour agone.
+
+"I think we must go back," says Monica, with unconcealed regret.
+
+"What! you will throw me again into temptation? into the very arms of
+the fair Bella?" says Desmond, laughing.
+
+"Reflect, I beg of you, before it is too late."
+
+"After all," says Monica, "I don't think I have behaved very nicely
+about her. I don't think now it would be a--a pretty thing to make you
+give me the roses before her. No, you must not do that; and you must not
+manage to forget them, either. You shall bring the handsomest you can
+find and give them to her,--but _publicly_ Brian, just as if there was
+nothing in it, you know."
+
+"There is nothing like adhering to the strict truth," says Brian. "There
+shall be nothing in my roses, I promise you,--except perfume."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+  How gossip grows rife at Aghyohillbeg--How Hermia parries the
+  question, and how Olga proves unkind.
+
+
+"She's _disgracefully_ ugly!--I saw her quite close," says Mr. Kelly, in
+an injured tone. "I wonder what on earth Madam O'Connor means by asking
+her here, where she can be nothing but a blot upon a perfect landscape;
+all the rest of us are so lovely."
+
+It is four o'clock, and hopelessly wet. The soft rain patters on the
+leaves outside, the grass and all the gardens are drowned in Nature's
+tears. There can be no lounging on sunny terraces, no delicious dreaming
+under shady beech-trees, this lost afternoon.
+
+Giving in to the inevitable with a cheerful resignation worthy of
+record, they have all congregated in the grand old hall, one of the
+chief glories of Aghyohillbeg.
+
+Through a vague but mistaken notion that it will add to their comfort
+and make them cosier and more forgetful of--or at least more indifferent
+to--the sunshine of yesterday, they have had an enormous fire of pine
+logs kindled upon the hearth. When too late, they discover it to be a
+discomfort; but, with a stoicism worthy a better cause, they decline to
+acknowledge their error, and stand in groups round the aggressive logs,
+pretending to enjoy them, but in reality dying of heat.
+
+Meanwhile, the fragrant pieces of pine roar and crackle merrily,
+throwing shadows up the huge chimney, and casting bright gleams of light
+upon the exquisite oaken carving of the ancient chimney-piece that
+reaches almost to the lofty ceiling and is now blackened by age and
+beautiful beyond description.
+
+Olga, in a sage-green gown, is lying back listlessly in a deep
+arm-chair; she has placed an elbow on either arm of it, and has brought
+her fingers so far towards each other that their tips touch. Hermia
+Herrick, in a gown of copper-red, is knitting languidly a little silk
+sock for the child nestling silently at her knee.
+
+Monica, in plain white India muslin, is doing nothing, unless smiling
+now and then at Brian Desmond be anything, who is lying on a bear-skin
+rug, looking supremely happy and full of life and spirits. He has come
+over from Coole very early, being generously urged so to do by Madam
+O'Connor when parting with him last night. Ryde is not on the field, so
+the day is his own.
+
+Miss Fitzgerald is looking rather handsome, in a dress of the very
+tiniest check, that is meant for a small woman only, or a child, and so
+makes her appear several sizes larger than she really is. Ulic Ronayne,
+standing leaning against the chimney-piece as close to Olga as
+circumstances will permit, is silent to a fault; and, indeed, every one
+but Mr. Kelly has succumbed to the damp depression of the air.
+
+They have had only one distraction all day,--the arrival of another
+guest, a distant cousin of their hostess, who has been lauding her for a
+week or so. On inspection she proves to be a girl of nineteen, decidedly
+unprepossessing in appearance,--in fact, as Mr. Murphy, the butler, says
+to Mrs. Collins, the housekeeper, "as ugly as if she was bespoke."
+
+A tall girl oppressed by freckles and with hair of a deep--well, let us
+emulate our polite French neighbors and call it _blond ardent_.
+
+"Who is she?" asks Lord Rossmoyne, who arrived about an hour ago, to
+Ulic Ronayne's discomfiture.
+
+"She's a fraud!" says Mr. Kelly, indignantly,--"a swindle! Madam assured
+us, last night, a charming girl was coming, to turn all heads and storm
+all hearts; and to-day, when we rushed in a body to the window and
+flattened our noses against the panes to see her, lo! a creature with
+red hair and pimples----"
+
+"No, no; freckled, my dear Owen," interrupts Olga, indolently.
+
+"It is all the same at a distance! general effect fatal in both cases,"
+says Mr. Kelly, airily. "It makes one positively uncomfortable to look
+at her. I consider her being thrust upon us like this a deliberate
+insult. I think if she continues I shall leave."
+
+"Oh, _don't_," says Desmond, in a tone of agonized entreaty. "How
+_should_ we manage to get on without you?"
+
+"Badly, badly, I know that," regretfully. "But it is a question of
+breaking either your hearts or mine. Some of us must go to the wall; it
+would be unfair to the world to make it me."
+
+"I don't believe you will go far," says Mrs. Herrick, slowly. Kelly
+glances at her quickly, but she does not lift her eyes from the little
+sock, and her fingers move rapidly, easily as ever.
+
+"London or Paris," he says,--"the city of fogs or the city of frogs. I
+don't know which I prefer."
+
+"Better stay where you are," says Brian.
+
+"Well, I really didn't think her so very plain," says Bella Fitzgerald,
+who thinks it pretty to say the kind thing always. "A large mouth _is_
+an affliction, certainly; and as for her complexion--but really, after
+all, it is better to see it as it is than painted and powdered, as one
+sees other people."
+
+This is a faint cut at Olga, who is fond of powder, and who has not
+scrupled to add to her charms by a little touch of rouge now and then
+when she felt pallor demanded it.
+
+"I think a little artificial aid might improve poor Miss Browne," says
+Hermia Herrick. Miss Browne is the new arrival.
+
+"I don't. I think it is an abominable thing to cheat the public like
+that," says Miss Fitzgerald, doggedly: "nobody respectable would do it.
+The _demi-monde_ paint and powder."
+
+"_Do_ they? how do you know, dear?" asks Olga Bohun, sweetly.
+
+Miss Fitzgerald, feeling she has made a _faux-pas_, colors violently,
+tries to get herself out of it, and flounders helplessly. Lord Rossmoyne
+is looking surprised, Ulic Ronayne and Desmond amused.
+
+"Every one says so," says the fair Bella, at last, in a voice that
+trembles with anger: "you know very well they do."
+
+"I don't, indeed, my dear Bella. My acquaintance with--er--that sort of
+person has been limited: I quite envy you your superior knowledge."
+
+Here Olga laughs a little, low, rippling laugh that completes her
+enemy's defeat. After the laugh there is a dead silence.
+
+"I think somebody ought to remove the poor little child," says Mr.
+Kelly, in a low, impressive tone, pointing to Mrs. Herrick's little
+girl. At which everybody laughs heartily, and awkwardness is banished.
+
+"Browne?--I knew an Archibald Browne once: anything to this girl?" asks
+Lord Rossmoyne, hurriedly, unwilling to let silence settle down on them
+again.
+
+"Big man with a loose tie?" asks Ulic.
+
+"Ye-es. There was something odd about his neck, now I remember," says
+Rossmoyne.
+
+"That was her father. He had an idea he was like Lord Byron, and always
+wore his necktie flying in the wind."
+
+"He couldn't manage it, though," says Mr. Kelly, with as near an attempt
+at mirth as he ever permits himself. "It always flew the wrong way.
+Byron's, if you call to mind his many portraits, always flew over his
+left shoulder; old Browne's wouldn't. By the bye," thoughtfully, "Byron
+must have had a wind of his own, mustn't he? our ordinary winds don't
+always blow in the same direction, do they?"
+
+"I would that a wind could arise to blow you in some direction, when you
+are in such an idle mood as now," says Mrs. Herrick, in a low tone.
+
+"If it would blow me in _your_ direction, I should say amen to that," in
+a voice as subdued as her own.
+
+"May the Fates avert from me a calamity so great!"
+
+"You will have to entreat them very diligently, if you hope to escape
+it."
+
+"Are you so very determined, then?"
+
+"Yes. Although I feel I am mocked by the hope within me, still I shall
+persist."
+
+"You waste your time."
+
+"I am content to waste it in such a cause. Yet I am sorry I am so
+distasteful to you."
+
+"That is not your fault. I forgive you that."
+
+"What is it, then, you can't forgive in me?"
+
+"Not more than I can't forgive in another. 'God made you all, therefore
+let you all pass for men.' I don't deal more hardly with you than with
+the rest, you see. You are only one of many."
+
+"That is the unkindest thing you ever said to me. And that is saying
+much. Yet I, too, will beseech the Fates in my turn."
+
+"To grant you what?"
+
+"The finding of you in a gentler mind."
+
+The faintest flicker of a smile crosses her lips. She lays her knitting
+on her knee for an instant, that she may the more readily let her
+tapered fingers droop until they touch the pale brow of the child at her
+feet; then she resumes it again, with a face calm and emotionless as
+usual.
+
+"Old Browne's girl can't owe her father much," Desmond is saying
+_apropos_ of something both lost and gone before, so far as Kelly and
+Mrs. Herrick are concerned.
+
+"About a hundred thousand pounds," says Ronayne. "She is quite a catch,
+you know. No end of money. The old fellow died a year ago."
+
+"No, he didn't; he demised," says Kelly, emerging from obscurity into
+the light of conversation once more. "At least, so the papers said.
+There is a tremendous difference, you know. A poor man dies, a rich man
+demises. One should always bear in mind that important social
+distinction."
+
+"And the good man! What of him?" says Desmond, looking at his friend.
+"What does Montgomery say?"
+
+"Yes, that is very mysterious," says Kelly, with bated breath.
+"According to Montgomery, 'the good man _never_ dies.' Think of that!
+_Never_ dies. He walks the earth forever, like a superannuated ghost,
+only awfuller."
+
+"Have you ever seen one?" asks Olga, leaning forward.
+
+"What? a man that never died? Yes, lots of 'em. Here's one," laying his
+hand upon his breast.
+
+"No. A man that never will die?"
+
+"How can I answer such a question as that? Perhaps Ronayne, there, may
+be such a one."
+
+"How stupid you are! I mean, did you ever meet a man who _couldn't_
+die?"
+
+"Never,--if he went the right way about it."
+
+"Then, according to your showing, you have never seen a good man." She
+leans back again in her chair, fatigued but satisfied.
+
+"I'm afraid they are few and far between," says Hermia.
+
+"Now and again they _have_ appeared," says Mr. Kelly, with a modest
+glance. "Perhaps I shall never die."
+
+"Don't make us more unhappy than we need be," says Mrs. Herrick,
+plaintively.
+
+"How sad that good men should be so scarce!" says Miss Fitzgerald, with
+a glance she means to be funny, but which is only dull.
+
+"Don't make trite remarks, Bella," says Mrs. Bohun, languidly. "You know
+if you did meet one he would bore you to death. The orthodox good man,
+the oppressive being we read about, but never see, is unknown to me or
+you, for which I, at least, am devoutly grateful."
+
+"To return to old Browne," says Ulic: "he wasn't good, if you like. He
+was a horrid ill-tempered, common old fellow, thoroughly without
+education of any kind."
+
+"He went through college, however, as he was fond of boasting whenever
+he got the chance."
+
+"And when he didn't get it he made it."
+
+"In at one door and out at the other, that's how he went through
+Trinity," says Mr. Kelly. "Oh, how I hated that dear old man, and _how_
+he hated me!"
+
+"You admit, then, the possibility of your being hated?" says Mrs.
+Herrick.
+
+"I have admitted that ever since--I met--_you_! But old Browne bore me a
+special grudge."
+
+"And your sin against him?"
+
+"I never fathomed it. 'The atrocious crime of being a young man,'
+principally, I think. Once, I certainly locked him up in his own
+wine-cellar, and left him there for six hours, under the pretence that I
+believed him to be a burglar, but nothing more. He quite disliked being
+locked in the cellar, I think. It was very dark, I must admit. But I'm
+not afraid of the dark."
+
+"That's a good thing," says Madam O'Connor, entering, "because it will
+soon envelop you. Did any one ever see so dark an evening for the time
+of year? Well, I do think that fire looks cheerful, though it _is_ warm.
+Has Mary Browne come down yet?"
+
+"No. Come here, Madam; here's a cosey seat I have been keeping sacred
+for you for the past hour. Why have you denied us the light of your
+countenance all this weary time?"
+
+"Get out with you now, and your fine compliments to an old woman!" says
+Madam, laughing. "If I were _your_ sweetheart, Owen, I'd never believe a
+word out of your lips."
+
+Mrs. Herrick, laying down her knitting, raises her head, and looks full
+into Kelly's eyes. As she does so, a smile, lovely as it is unexpected,
+warms all her statuesque face into perfect beauty.
+
+"And this to me!" says Kelly, addressing his hostess, and pretending to
+be blind to Mrs. Herrick's glance. "All the afternoon I have been
+treated by your sex with the most consummate cruelty. With their tongues
+they have been stabbing me as with so many knives. But yours is the
+unkindest cut of all. It is, in fact, the--er--carving-knife!"
+
+"Oh! here's the tea," says Olga, in a pleased tone. "Madam, _please_ let
+me pour it out to-night?"
+
+"Of course, my love, and thank you too."
+
+"And may I to-morrow evening?" asks Monica, with childish eagerness and
+a quick warm blush.
+
+"You may, indeed, my pretty one; and I hope it won't be long before you
+pour me out my tea in your own house."
+
+Monica laughs, and kisses her, and Desmond, who is standing near them,
+stoops over Madam O'Connor and tells her he would like to kiss her
+too,--first, for her own sake, and secondly, for that sweet hope of hers
+just uttered.
+
+"Not a bit of it," says she, in return, in a tone as sprightly as it was
+twenty years ago, though too low for Monica to hear. "Your first and
+second reasons are all humbug. Say at once you want to kiss me because
+you think this child's caress still lingers on my lips. Ah ha!--you see
+I know more than you think, my lad. And hark you, Brian, come here till
+I whisper a word in your ear; I'm your friend, boy, in the matter, and I
+wish you luck, though Priscilla Blake kill me for it; that's what I want
+to say."
+
+"I couldn't desire a better friend," says Brian gratefully.
+
+"And where on earth _is_ Mary Browne?" says Madam O'Connor. "She is such
+a nice girl, though hardly a Venus. Owen, my dear, I want you to take
+her down to dinner, and to make yourself charming to her."
+
+"I shall be only too pleased," says Mr. Kelly, faintly; and then he
+sinks back in his chair and covers his face with his hands.
+
+"We were talking about Miss Browne's father; he was quite a millionaire,
+wasn't he?" says Lord Rossmoyne, who is standing at the tea-table beside
+Olga. He is a very rich man himself, and has, therefore, a due regard
+for riches in others.
+
+"He was,--and the most unpleasant person I ever met in my life, into the
+bargain," says Madam O'Connor. "I'm sure the life he led that poor
+Mary!--I never felt more relieved at anything than at the news of his
+death."
+
+"I feel as if I could weep for Mary," says Mr. Kelly, in an aside to
+Mrs. Herrick, who takes no notice of him. "I wonder if she has got a
+little lamb," he goes on, unrebuked.
+
+"What about the lamb?" says Madam, whose ears are young as ever.
+
+"I was only conjecturing as to whether your cousin Mary had a little
+lamb," says Mr. Kelly, genially. "The old Mary had, you know. A dear
+little animal with its
+
+      'Fleece as white as snow;
+    And everywhere that Mary went
+      The lamb was sure to go.'
+
+You recollect, don't you? What does Miss Browne do with hers? Has she
+got it upstairs in her room, now? After all,--though the idea is sweetly
+pretty,--I think there might be certain places into which it would be
+awkward to have even the whitest lamb trotting after one. Eh?"
+
+"I suppose Miss Browne is rich enough to indulge in any vagaries that
+may occur to her," says Bella Fitzgerald.
+
+"There's nothing like money," says Olga, with a sigh; at which Lord
+Rossmoyne looks hopeful, and young Ronayne despondent.
+
+"Like leather, you mean," says Owen Kelly: "that's the real thing to get
+hold of."
+
+"Some people would do _anything_ for money," says Miss Fitzgerald, with
+a spiteful glance in Olga's direction. "They would sell themselves for
+it." Here she turns her cold eyes upon Ronayne, who is standing erect,
+handsome, but unmistakably miserable.
+
+"They could hardly sell themselves for a more profitable article," says
+Olga, with a fine shrug of her soft shoulders.
+
+"So _they_ think. Croesus, we know, was, and is, allpowerful."
+
+"Oh, no," says Olga, with a little silvery laugh; "you forget my dear
+Bella. Read it up again, and you will see that Croesus was once
+conquered by Cyrus. What became of his power then?"
+
+Her lashes cover her eyes for a moment, and when she lifts them again
+they are fixed on Ronayne. By some coquettish art she gives him to
+understand in this single glance that he is Cyrus, Lord Rossmoyne
+Croesus. He can conquer the rich lord if he will.
+
+"How idle you are, Mr. Ronayne!" she says aloud. "Come here directly and
+help me. You know I cannot do without _your_ help." There is the most
+delicate emphasis possible upon the pronoun. Obedient to her command, he
+comes, as Rossmoyne, armed with the cups, crosses the hall to Hermia and
+Miss Fitzgerald.
+
+"Did your eyes speak true just now?" he asks, bending over her under
+pretext of helping her with the cups.
+
+"What is truth?" asks she, in turn, with a swift upward glance. "Who
+knows aught of her? She lies buried in a deep well, does she not? Who
+shall drag her forth?"
+
+She smiles, yet in a somewhat constrained fashion, that assorts ill with
+the inborn self-possession that as a rule characterizes her. She glances
+at him hurriedly. How young and handsome and earnest he looks! How full
+of tenderest entreaty! There is, too, a touch of melancholy in his dark
+eyes that never came to the birth (she is fain to acknowledge to herself
+with a pang of remorse) until that day when first they look on her.
+
+He loves her,--that she knows; but Rossmoyne loves her too; and though
+Ronayne's rent-roll is by no means to be despised, still it counts but
+as a small one beside that of Rossmoyne's.
+
+And Hermia is right! a title _is_ of use in the world; and nothing is so
+lasting or so satisfactory as a respectable book at one's banker's. A
+good match (Hermia again) is the one thing to be desired; it covers all
+sins. Advice such as this coming from Mrs. Herrick is thoroughly
+disinterested, as the late lamented Mr. Herrick, having behaved to her
+like a brute during their mercifully short married life, had died in the
+odor of sanctity, leaving her complete mistress of all his enormous
+wealth, and quite free to make a second marriage of her _own_ choosing.
+
+With her (Olga), however, the case is widely different; she is indeed
+without encumbrances so far as children may so be termed, and she has
+sufficient means to enable her to get her gowns and things from Paris,
+but there her independence ends.
+
+As she runs over all this hurriedly in her mind, the desire for riches
+grows upon her. Yes, there is certainly a great deal of good in
+Rossmoyne, besides his income; and perhaps a solid sternness is
+preferable to an airy gayety of manner (this with an irrepressible
+leaning towards the "airy gayety"); and--and--what a _pity_ it is that
+Rossmoyne is not Ulic!----
+
+"I will," says Ronayne, alluding to her last remark, in a low but
+determined tone. "Olga, tell me I am more to you than Rossmoyne."
+
+"The boy you are!" says Olga, with an adorable smile that reaches him
+through the flickering flashes of the firelight. "The baby!" He is
+bending over her, and with a light caressing touch she brushes back the
+hair from his temples. "In a year, nay, in a month, once we are
+separated, you will see some other face, newer, more desirable, and
+forget you ever cared for mine."
+
+"If I could believe that, I might find peace. Yet, for all that peace
+could give me, I would not so believe it. I am yours forever, boy though
+you deem me; and, yet, is one ever a boy again when one has once truly
+loved?"
+
+"How often have you truly loved?" with an attempt at lightness that is
+down-trodden by the intensity of her regard.
+
+"As often as I have seen you. Nay, more than that, every moment since I
+first saw you; because night and day, whether absent or present, I have
+been yours in heart and soul."
+
+"You have fatigued yourself!--A long two months!" laughingly.
+
+"A short two months."
+
+"There has been no time for fickleness."
+
+"There never will be, so far as I am concerned. So sure am I of that,
+that I do not mind praying that Cupid's curse may light upon me if ever
+I prove unfaithful. You know it?"
+
+"I have but small acquaintance with cursing of any sort."
+
+"Then learn this one,--
+
+    'They that do change old love for new,
+    Pray gods they change for worse!'
+
+Will you repeat that after me?"
+
+"Wait until I finish my tea; and--unkind as you are--you will give me a
+little bit of cake, won't you?"
+
+"I would give you everything I possess, if I could."
+
+"You don't possess this cake, you know: it is Madam O'Connor's."
+
+"Oh, Olga, why will you always press me backwards? Am I never to be
+nearer to you than I am now?"
+
+"I don't see how you could conveniently be very much nearer," says Mrs.
+Bohun, with a soft laugh.
+
+"After all, I suppose I come under the head of either madman or fool,"
+says Ronayne, sadly. "You are everything to me; I am less than nothing
+to you."
+
+"Is Lord Rossmoyne to come under the head of 'nothing'? How rude!" says
+Olga.
+
+"I never thought of him. I was thinking only of how hopelessly I love
+you."
+
+"Love! How should such a baby as you grasp even the meaning of that
+word?" says Olga, letting her white lids droop until their long lashes
+lie upon her cheeks like shadows, while she raises her cup with indolent
+care to her lips. "Do you really think you know what it means?"
+
+    "'The dredeful joy, alway that flit so yerne,
+    All this mene I by Love,'"
+
+quotes he, very gently; after which he turns away, and, going over to
+the fireplace again, flings himself down dejectedly at Monica's feet.
+
+"Are you tired, Mr. Ronayne?" says Monica, very gently. Something in his
+beautiful face tells her that matters are not going well with him.
+
+"Tired? no," lifting his eyes to her with a smile that belies his words.
+"It is good of you to ask, though. I wish," earnestly, "you would not
+call me 'Mr. Ronayne.' I can't bear it from any one I like. Desmond tell
+her to call me Ulic."
+
+It strikes both Monica and Brian as peculiar that he should appeal to
+the latter as to one possessed of a certain influence over the former.
+It strikes Miss Fitzgerald in the same light too, who has been listening
+to his impetuous entreaty.
+
+Seeing there is something wrong with him, something that might be termed
+excitement in his manner, Desmond whispers to Monica to do as he
+desires.
+
+"He is unhappy about something; let him feel you are his friend," he
+says, in a low tone.
+
+"Come a little farther from the fire, Ulic,--a little nearer to me,"
+says Monica, in a tone of shy friendliness, "and I think you will be
+more comfortable."
+
+He is more than grateful, I think, though he says nothing only he moves
+a good deal closer to her, and lays his head against her knee in a
+brotherly fashion,--need I say unrebuked?
+
+Something in this little scene sends the blood rushing with impatient
+fervor through Olga's veins. But that she knows Monica well, and that
+the girl is dear to her, she could have hated her heartily at this
+moment, without waiting to analyze the motive for her dislike. As it is,
+she gives the reins to her angry spirit, and lets it drive her where it
+will. She laughs quite merrily, and says some pretty playful thing to
+Lord Rossmoyne that all the world can hear,--and Ronayne, be assured,
+the first of all.
+
+Desmond, with a subdued touch of surprise in his eyes, turns to look at
+her. But the night has darkened with sullen haste--tired, perhaps, of
+the day's ill temper--and standing as he does within the magic circle of
+the firelight, he finds a difficulty in conquering the gloom beyond.
+This makes his gaze in her direction the more concentrated; and, indeed,
+when he has separated her features from the mist of the falling night,
+he still finds it impossible to pierce the impenetrable veil of
+indifference that covers her every feature.
+
+His gaze thus necessarily prolonged is distasteful to her.
+
+"Brian, don't keep staring at the teapot in that mean fashion," she
+says, playfully, yet with a latent sense of impatience in her tone. "It
+is unworthy of you. Go up to Madam O'Connor _nobly_, cup in hand, and I
+daresay--if you ask her prettily--she will grant me permission to give
+you a cup of tea."
+
+Desmond, recovering from his revery with a start accepts the situation
+literally.
+
+"Will you, Madam?" he says, meekly. "_Do._" His tone is of the most
+abject. There is a perceptible trembling about his knee-joints. "Is
+_this_ the 'air noble'?" he says to Olga, in an undertone. "Have I
+caught it?"
+
+"You'll catch it in a minute in real earnest, if you don't mend your
+manners," says Madam, with a laugh. "Give him his tea, Olga, my dear,
+though he doesn't deserve it."
+
+"Sugar?" says Olga, laconically.
+
+"Yes, please," mendaciously.
+
+"Then you shan't have even one lump, if only to punish you for all your
+misconduct."
+
+"I thought as much," says Brian, taking his cup thankfully. "Fact is, I
+can't bear sugar but I knew you would drop it in, in an unlimited
+degree, if I said the other thing. Not that I have the vaguest notion as
+to how I have misconducted myself. If I knew, I might set a watch upon
+my lips."
+
+"Set it on your _eyes_," says Olga, with meaning.
+
+At this moment a light footfall is heard, and somebody comes slowly
+across the hall. A merry tongue of fire, flaming upwards, declares it to
+be the plain Miss Browne.
+
+Mrs. O'Connor has just passed into an adjoining room. Olga is busy with
+her tray and with her thoughts. Mrs. Herrick, partly turned aside, and
+oblivious of the approaching guest, is conversing in low tones with Lord
+Rossmoyne.
+
+No one, therefore, is ready to give the stranger welcome and put her
+through the ceremony of introduction. Awkwardness is impending, when
+Monica comes to the rescue. Her innate sense of kindly courtesy
+conquering her shyness, she rises from her seat, and going up to Miss
+Browne, who has come to a standstill, lays her hand softly upon hers.
+
+"Come over here and sit by me," she says, nervously, yet with such a
+gracious sweetness that the stranger's heart goes out to her on the
+spot, and Brian Desmond, if it be possible, falls more in love with her
+than ever.
+
+"Thank you," says Miss Browne, pressing gratefully the little hand that
+lies on hers; and then every one wakes into life and says something
+civil to her.
+
+Five minutes later the dressing-bell rings, and the scene is at an end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+  How Mrs. Herrick grows worldly-wise and Olga frivolous--How Mr.
+  Kelly tells a little story; and how, beneath the moonlight, many
+  things are made clear.
+
+
+Dinner has come to an end. The men are still dallying with their wine.
+The women are assembled in the drawing-room.
+
+Olga, having drawn back the curtains from the central window, is
+standing in its embrasure, looking out silently upon the glories of the
+night. For the storm has died away; the wind is gone to sleep; the rain
+has sobbed itself to death; and now a lovely moon is rising
+slowly--slowly--from behind a rippled mass of grayest cloud. From out
+the dark spaces in the vault above a few stars are shining,--the more
+brilliantly because of the blackness that surrounds them. The air is
+sultry almost to oppressiveness, and the breath of the roses that have
+twined themselves around the railings of the balcony renders the calm
+night full of sweetest fragrance.
+
+Even as she gazes, spellbound, the clouds roll backward, and stars grow
+and multiply exceedingly, until all
+
+                    "the floor of heaven
+    Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold."
+
+Madam O'Connor is talking to Miss Browne of certain family matters
+interesting to both. Miss Fitzgerald has gone upstairs, either to put on
+another coating of powder, or else to scold her long-suffering maid. Her
+mother has fallen into a gentle, somewhat noisy snooze.
+
+A sudden similar thought striking both Monica and Mrs. Herrick at the
+same moment, they rise, and make a step towards the window where Olga is
+standing all alone.
+
+Hermia, laying her hand on Monica's arm, entreats her by a gesture to
+change her purpose; whereon Monica falls back again, and Hermia, going
+on, parts the curtains, and, stepping in to where Olga is, joins her
+uninvited.
+
+"Dreaming?" she says, lightly.
+
+"Who would not dream on such a night as this? the more beautiful because
+of the miserable day to which it is a glorious termination. See, Hermia,
+how those planets gleam and glitter, as though in mockery of us poor
+foolish mortals down below."
+
+"I don't feel a bit more foolish than I did this morning," says Hermia.
+"Do you, dear? You were giving yourself a great deal of credit for your
+common sense then."
+
+"'Common sense,'--worldly wisdom,--how I hate the sound of all that
+jargon!" says Olga, petulantly. "Let us forget we _must_ be wise, if
+only for one night. The beauty of that silent world of flowers beyond
+has somehow entered into me. Let me enjoy it. 'How sweet the moonlight
+sleeps upon that bank' down there! Watch it. Can you see how the roses
+quiver beneath its touch, as though stirred by some happy dream?"
+
+"It is indeed a perfect night!" says Hermia, looking at her in some
+surprise. There is a suspicion of excitement in Olga's manner--arising,
+as it were, from the desire to hide one emotion by the betrayal of
+another--that strikes her listener as strange.
+
+"How softly the air beats upon one's face!" says Mrs. Bohun, leaning a
+little forward. "The night is, as you say, perfect. Yet I don't know
+what is the matter with me: the more I feel the loveliness of all
+around, the sadder my heart seems to grow."
+
+"What!" says Hermia, lifting her brows, "am I to learn now that you--the
+gayest of all mortals--have at last succumbed to the insufferable
+dreariness of this merry world?"
+
+"You run too fast. I am a little perplexed, perhaps; but I have not
+succumbed to anything."
+
+"Or any _one_, I hope, unless it be to your advantage. You are playing a
+silly game, Olga."
+
+"The world would be lost unless it had a fool to sport with now and
+then."
+
+"But why should _you_ be the one to pander to its pleasures?"
+
+"Who more fitting? I am tired of hearing you apply that word 'silly' to
+me, morning, noon, and night."
+
+"It is too late to believe it possible that you and I should quarrel,"
+says Mrs. Herrick, in a perfectly even tone: "so don't try to get up an
+imaginary grievance. You know you are dearer to me than anything on
+earth, after the children."
+
+"Well, don't scold me any more," says Olga, coaxingly.
+
+"I never scold; I only reason."
+
+"Oh! but that is so much worse," says Olga. "It means the scolding, and
+a lot more besides. Do anything but reason with me, my dear Hermia."
+
+"I _will_ say that I think you are throwing yourself away."
+
+"Where? Over the balcony?"--wilfully. "I assure you, you misjudge me: I
+am far too great a coward."
+
+"You are not too great a coward to contemplate the committing of a much
+more serious _betise_. To-night his attentions were specially marked,
+and you allowed them."
+
+"I can't think what you mean."
+
+"Will you deny that Mr. Ronayne paid you very marked attention
+to-night?"
+
+"Marked! Where did he make his impression, then? He didn't _pinch_ me,
+if you mean that."
+
+"Of course you can follow your own wishes, dearest, and I shall neither
+gain nor lose; but it does seem a pity, when you might be a countess and
+have the world at your feet. I know few so altogether fitted to fill the
+position, and still you reject it. You are pretty, clever,
+charming,--everything of the most desirable."
+
+"Am I?" She steps into the drawing-room, and brings herself by a swift
+step or two opposite a huge mirror let into one of the walls. Standing
+before it, she surveys herself leisurely from head to foot, and then she
+smiles.
+
+"I don't know about the 'clever,'" she says; "but I am _sure_ I am
+pretty. In town last season--do you remember?--my hair created quite a
+furore, it is so peculiarly light. Ever so many people wanted to paint
+me. Yes, it was all very pleasant."
+
+"Do you think it will be as pleasant to live _here_ all your days, and
+find no higher ambition than the hope that your ponies may be prettier
+than Mrs. So-and-so's?"
+
+"Do you remember that fancy ball, and how the prince asked who I was,
+and all the rest of it? He said one or two very pretty things to me. He,
+like you, said I was charming. Do you know," naively, "I have never got
+over the feeling of being _obliged_ to any one who pays me a compliment?
+I am obliged to _you_ now."
+
+"And to the prince _then_. But you won't see many princes if you stay in
+Ireland, I fancy: they don't hanker after the soil."
+
+"Poor Ireland!" says Mrs. Bohun.
+
+"And compliments, I should say, will be almost as scarce."
+
+"Ah! now, _there_ you are wrong: _they_ fly beneath these murky skies.
+We absolutely revel in them. What true Irishman but has one ripping
+freely from his mouth on the very smallest chance? And then, my dear
+Hermia, consider, are we not the proud possessors of the
+blarney-stone?"
+
+"I wish, dearest, you would bring yourself to think seriously of
+Rossmoyne."
+
+"I do think seriously of him. It would be impossible to think of him in
+any other way, he is so dull and pompous."
+
+"He would make an excellent husband!"
+
+"I have had enough of husbands. They are very unsatisfactory people. And
+besides----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Rossmoyne has a temper."
+
+"And forty thousand a year."
+
+"Not good enough."
+
+"If you are waiting for an angel, you will wait forever. All men
+are----"
+
+"Oh, Hermia! really, I _can't_ listen to such naughty words, you know. I
+really wonder at you!"
+
+"I wasn't going to say anything of the kind," says Hermia, with great
+haste, not seeing the laughter lurking in Olga's dark eyes. "I merely
+meant that----"
+
+"Don't explain!--_don't!_" says Olga; "I couldn't endure any more of
+it." And she laughs aloud.
+
+"Rossmoyne is very devoted to you. Is there anything against him, except
+his temper?"
+
+"Yes, his beard. _Nothing_ would induce me to marry a man with hair all
+over his face. It isn't _clean_."
+
+"Give him five minutes and a razor, and he might do away with it."
+
+"Give him five minutes and a razor, and he might do away with himself
+too," says Olga, provokingly. "Really. I think one thing would please me
+just as much as the other."
+
+"Oh, then, you are bent on refusing him?" says Hermia, calmly. With very
+few people does she ever lose her temper; with Olga--never.
+
+"I am not so sure of that, at all," says Olga, airily. "It is quite
+within the possibilities that I may marry him some time or
+other,--sooner or later. There is a delightful vagueness about those two
+dates that gives me the warmest encouragement."
+
+"It is a pity you cannot be serious _sometimes_," says Mrs. Herrick,
+mildly.
+
+A little hand upon her gown saves further expostulation. A little face
+looking up with a certainty of welcome into hers brings again that
+wonderful softness into Hermia's eyes.
+
+"Is it you, my sweetest?" she says, fondly. "And where have you been? I
+have watched in vain for you for the last half-hour, my Fay."
+
+"I was in the dining-room. But nurse called me; and now I have come to
+say good-night," says the child.
+
+"Good-night, then, and God bless you, my chick. But where is my
+Georgie?"
+
+"I'm here," says Georgie, gleefully, springing upon her in a violent
+fashion, that one would have believed hateful to the calm Hermia, yet
+that is evidently most grateful to her. She embraces the boy warmly, and
+lets her eyes follow him until he is out of sight. Then she turns again
+to the little maiden at her side.
+
+"I must go with Georgie," says the child.
+
+"So you shall. But first tell me, what have you got in your hand?"
+
+"Something to go to bed with. See, mammy! It is a pretty red plum,"
+opening her delicate pink fist, for her mother's admiration.
+
+"Where did you get it, darling?"
+
+"In the dining-room."
+
+"From Lord Rossmoyne?"
+
+"No. From Mr. Kelly. I would not have the one Lord Rossmoyne gave me."
+
+Olga laughs mischievously, and Mrs. Herrick colors.
+
+"Why?" she says.
+
+"Because I like Mr. Kelly best."
+
+"And what did you give him?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Not even a kiss?" says Olga.
+
+"No," somewhat shamefacedly.
+
+"Her mother's own daughter!" says Olga, caressing the child tenderly,
+but laughing still. "A chilly mortal."
+
+"Good-night, my own," says Hermia, and the child, having kissed them
+both again, runs away.
+
+Olga follows her with wistful eyes.
+
+"I almost wish I had a baby!" she says.
+
+"_You?_ Why, you can't take care of yourself! You are the least fitted
+to have a child of any woman that I know. Leave all such charges to
+staid people like me. Why, you are a baby at heart, yourself, this
+moment."
+
+"That would be no drawback. It would only have created sympathy between
+me and my baby. I would have understood all her bad moods and condoned
+all her crimes."
+
+"If you had been a mother, you would have had a very naughty child."
+
+"I should have had a very happy child, at least." Then she laughs.
+"Fancy me with a dear little baby!" she says,--"a thing all my own, that
+would rub its soft cheek against mine and love me better than anything!"
+
+"And rumple all your choicest Parisian gowns, and pull your hair to
+pieces. I couldn't fancy it at all."
+
+Here the door opens to admit the men, the celestial half-hour after
+dinner having come to an end. With one consent they all converge towards
+the window, where Olga and Hermia are standing with Monica, who had
+joined them to bid good-night to little Fay. Miss Fitzgerald, who had
+returned to the drawing-room freshly powdered, seeing how the tide runs,
+crosses the room too, and mingles with the group in the window.
+
+"How long you have been! We feared you dead and buried," she says to
+Kelly, with elephantine playfulness.
+
+"We have, indeed. I thought the other men would never stir. Why did you
+not give me the chance of leaving them? The faintest suggestion that
+_you_ wanted me would have brought me here _hours_ ago."
+
+"If I had been sure of that, I should have sent you a message; it would
+have saved me a lecture," says Olga, flashing a smile at Hermia.
+
+"I should disdain to send a message," says the proud Bella, "I would not
+_compel_ any man's presence. 'Come if you will; stay away if you won't,'
+is _my_ motto; and I cannot help thinking I am right."
+
+"You are, indeed, quite right. Coercion is of small avail in _some_
+cases," says Olga, regarding her with the calm dignity of one who
+plainly considers the person addressed of very inferior quality indeed.
+
+"A woman can scarcely be too jealous of her rights nowadays," says Miss
+Fitzgerald. "If she has a proper knowledge of her position, she ought to
+guard it carefully."
+
+"A fine idea finely expressed!" says Kelly, as though smitten into
+reverence by the grandeur of her manner.
+
+"I wonder what is a man's proper position?" says Olga lazily.
+
+"He will always find it at a woman's feet," says Miss Fitzgerald,
+grandly, elated by Kelly's apparent subjection.
+
+That young man looks blankly round him. Under tables and chairs and
+lounges his eyes penetrate, but without the desired result.
+
+"So sorry I can't see a footstool anywhere!" he says, lifting regretful
+eyes to Miss Fitzgerald; "but for that I should be at your feet from
+this until you bid me rise."
+
+"Hypocrite!" says Olga in his ear; after which conversation becomes more
+general; and presently Miss Fitzgerald goes back to the fire under the
+mistaken impression that probably one of the men will follow her there.
+
+The _one_--whoever he is--_doesn't_.
+
+"Do you know," says Mr. Kelly, in a low tone, to the others, "the ugly
+girl's awfully nice! She is a pleasant deceit. 'She has no winsome
+looks, no pretty frowning,' I grant you; but she can hold her own, and
+is _so_ good-humored."
+
+"What a lovely night!" says Monica, gazing wistfully into the misty
+depths of the illuminated darkness beyond. "I want to step into it,
+and--we have not been out all day."
+
+"Then why not go now?" says Hermia, answering her glance in a kindly
+spirit.
+
+"Ah! _will_ you come?" says Monica, brightening into glad excitement.
+
+"Let us go as far as the fountain in the lower garden," says Olga: "it
+is always beautiful there when the moon is up."
+
+"Avoid the grass, however; wet feet are dangerous," says Lord Rossmoyne,
+carefully.
+
+"You will die an old bachelor," retorts Olga, saucily, "if you take so
+much 'thought for the morrow.'"
+
+"It will certainly not be my fault if I do," returns Rossmoyne, calmly,
+but with evident meaning.
+
+"Mrs. Bohun, bring your guitar," says Desmond, "and we will make Ronayne
+sing to it, and so imagine ourselves presently in the land of the olive
+and the palm."
+
+"Shall we ask the others to come with us?" says Monica, kindly, glancing
+back into the drawing-room.
+
+"Miss Browne, for example," suggests Owen Kelly. If he hopes by this
+speech to arouse jealousy in anybody present, he finds himself, later
+on, mightily mistaken.
+
+"If she is as good a sort as you say, I daresay she would like it," says
+Olga. "And, besides, if we leave her to Bella's tender mercies she will
+undoubtedly be done to death by the time we return."
+
+"Oh, do go and rescue her," says Mrs. Herrick, turning to Kelly. Her
+tone is almost appealing.
+
+"Perhaps Miss Fitzgerald will come too," says Monica, somewhat
+fearfully.
+
+"Don't be afraid," says Olga. "_Fancy_ Bella running the risk of having
+a bad eye or a pink nose in the morning! She knows much better than
+that."
+
+"Tell Miss Browne to make haste," says Mrs. Herrick, turning to Kelly.
+"Because we are impatient,--we are longing to precipitate ourselves into
+the moonlight. Come, Olga; come, Monica; they can follow."
+
+Miss Browne, however, on being appealed to, shows so honest a disregard
+for covering of any sort, beyond what decency had already clothed her
+with, that she and Kelly catch up with the others even before the
+fountain is reached.
+
+It is, indeed, a fairy dell to which they have been summoned,--a magic
+circle, closed in by evergreens with glistening leaves. "Dark with
+excessive light" appears the scene; the marble basin of the fountain,
+standing out from the deep background, gleams snow-white beneath Diana's
+touch. "The moon's an arrant thief." Perchance she snatches from great
+Sol some beauties even rarer than that "pale fire" he grants her--it may
+be, against his will. So it may well be thought, for what fairest day
+can be compared with a moonlit night in languorous July?
+
+The water of the fountain, bubbling ever upwards, makes sweet music on
+the silent air; but, even as they hark to it, a clearer, sweeter music
+makes the night doubly melodious. From bough to bough it comes and
+goes,--a heavenly harmony, not to be reproduced by anything of earthly
+mould.
+
+    "O nightingale, that on yon gloomy spray
+    Warbles at eve, when all the woods are still,
+    Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill."
+
+Clear from the depths of the pine woods beyond, the notes ascend,
+softly, tenderly. Not often do they enrich our Irish air, but sometimes
+they come to gladden us with a music that can hardly be termed of earth.
+The notes rise and swell and die, only to rise and to slowly fade again,
+like "linked sweetness long drawn out."
+
+Seating themselves on the edge of the fountain, they acknowledge
+silently the beauty of the hour. Olga's hand, moving through the water,
+breaks it into little wavelets on which the riotous moonbeams dance.
+
+"Where are your bangles, Olga? you used to be famous for them?" asks
+Desmond, idly.
+
+"I have tired of them."
+
+"Poor bangles!" says Ulic Ronayne, in a low tone heard only by her.
+
+"What a heavy sigh!"
+
+"A selfish one, too. More for myself than for the discarded bangles. Yet
+their grievance is mine."
+
+"I thought they suited you," says Desmond.
+
+"Did you? Well, but they had grown so common; every one used to go about
+laden with them. And then they made such a tiresome tinkle-tinkle all
+over the place."
+
+"What place?" says Lord Rossmoyne, who objects to slang of even the
+mildest description from any woman's lips, most of all from the lips of
+her whom he hopes to call his wife.
+
+"Don't be stupid!" says this prospective wife, with considerable
+petulance.
+
+"You are fickle, I doubt," goes on Rossmoyne, unmoved. "A few months ago
+you raved about your bangles, and had the prettiest assortment I think I
+ever saw. Thirty-six on each arm, or something like it. We used to call
+them your armor. You said you were obliged to wear the same amount
+exactly on each arm, lest you might grow crooked."
+
+"I know few things more unpleasant than having one's silly remarks
+brought up to one years afterwards," says Olga, with increasing temper.
+
+"_Months_ not _years_," says Rossmoyne, carefully. Whereupon Mrs. Bohun
+turns her back upon him, and Mrs. Herrick tells herself she would like
+to give him a good shake for so stupidly trying to ruin his own game,
+and Ulic Ronayne feels he is on the brink of swearing with him an
+eternal friendship.
+
+"Bangles?" breaks in Owen Kelly, musingly. "Harmless little circular
+things women wear on their wrists, aren't they? But awkward too at
+times,--amazingly awkward. As Olga has feelingly remarked, they _can_
+make a marvellously loud tinkle-tinkle at times. I know a little story
+about bangles, that ought to be a warning against the use of them. Would
+any one like to hear my little story? It is short, but very sweet."
+
+Every one instantly says "Yes," except Olga, who has drawn herself
+together and is regarding him with a stony glare.
+
+"Well, there was once on a time a young woman, who had some bangles, and
+a young man; she had other things too, such as youth and beauty, but
+they weren't half so important as the first two items; and wherever she
+and her bangles went, there went the young man too. And for a long time
+nobody knew which he loved best, the beauteous maiden or the gleaming
+bangles. Do I make myself clear?"
+
+"Wonderfully so, for _you_," says Mrs. Herrick.
+
+"Well one day the young man's preference was made 'wonderfully so' too.
+And it was in this wise. On a certain sunny afternoon, the young woman
+found herself in a conservatory that opened off a drawing-room, being
+divided from it only by a hanging Indian curtain; a _hanged_ Indian
+curtain she used to call it ever afterwards; but that was bad grammar,
+and bad manners too."
+
+"I feel I'm going to sleep," says Desmond, drowsily. "I hope somebody
+will rouse me when he has done, or pick me out of the water if I drop
+into it. Such a rigmarole of a story I never heard in my life."
+
+"Caviare can't be appreciated by the general; it is too strong for you,"
+says Mr. Kelly, severely. "But to continue----Anything wrong with you,
+my dear Olga?"
+
+"Nothing!" says Mrs. Bohun, with icy indignation.
+
+"Well. In this conservatory my heroine of the bangles found herself; and
+here, too, as a natural consequence, was found the young man. There was
+near them a lounge,--skimpy enough for one, but _they_ found it amply
+large for _two_. Curious fact in itself, wasn't it? And I think the
+young man so far forgot himself as to begin to make violent----and just
+as he was about to emb----the young woman, whose name was----, she very
+properly, but with somewhat mistaken haste, moved away from him, and in
+so doing set all her bangles a-tinkling. Into full cry they burst,
+whereupon the curtain was suddenly drawn back from the drawing-room
+side, giving the people there a full view of the conservatory _and_
+its--contents! The _denouement_ was full of interest,--positively
+thrilling! I should advise all true lovers of a really good novel to
+obtain this book from their libraries and discover it for themselves."
+
+Here Mr. Kelly stops, and looks genially around.
+
+"I think I shall take to writing reviews," he says, sweetly. "I like my
+own style."
+
+A dead silence follows his "little story," and then Mrs. Herrick lifts
+her eyes to his.
+
+"'I wonder that you will still be talking, Signor Benedick: nobody marks
+you,'" she quotes, with a touch of scorn.
+
+"_You_ do, my dear Lady Disdain, or else you would not have addressed me
+that contemptuous remark."
+
+"An absurd story, altogether!" says Olga, throwing up her head, a smile
+lightening her eyes as they meet Kelly's. At her tone, which is more
+amused than annoyed, Ronayne lets his hand fall into the water close to
+hers, and doubtless finds its cool touch (the water's, I mean, of
+course) very refreshing, as it is fully five minutes before he brings it
+to the surface again.
+
+"True, nevertheless," says Kelly. "Both the principals in my story were
+friends of mine. I knew--indeed, I may safely say I _know_--them well."
+
+"I am glad you said '_were_,'" says Olga, shaking her blonde head at
+him. Lord Rossmoyne, by this time, is looking as black as a
+thunder-cloud.
+
+"A questionable friend you must be, to tell tales out of school," says
+Mrs. Herrick.
+
+"I defy any one to say I have told anything," says Kelly, with
+much-injured innocence. "But I am quite prepared to hear my actions, as
+usual, grossly maligned. I am accustomed to it now. The benefit of the
+doubt is not for _me_."
+
+"There isn't a doubt," says Hermia.
+
+"Go on. I must try to bear it,"--meekly. "I know I am considered
+incapable of a pure motive."
+
+"Was it you drew back the curtain?"
+
+"Well, really, yes, I believe it was. I wanted my friend, you see, and I
+knew I should find him with the bangles. Yes; it was I drew the
+curtain."
+
+"Just what I should have expected from you," says Mrs. Herrick.
+
+"Ah! Thank you! Now at last you are beginning to see things in their
+true light, and to take my part," says Mr. Kelly, with exaggerated
+gratitude. "Now, indeed, I feel I have not lived in vain! You have,
+though at a late hour, recognized the extraordinary promptitude that
+characterizes my every action. While another might have been hesitating,
+I drew the curtain. I am seldom to be found wanting, I may, indeed,
+always be discovered just where----"
+
+"You _aren't_ wanting," interrupts Mrs. Herrick, with a sudden smile.
+
+"How can _that_ be," says Kelly, with reproachful sadness, "when I am
+generally to be found near you?"
+
+At this Hermia gives in, and breaks into a low soft laugh.
+
+"But I wish you had not told that story of Olga and Mr. Ronayne," she
+says, in a whisper, and with some regret. "You saw how badly Rossmoyne
+took it."
+
+"That is partly why I told it. I think you are wrong in trying to make
+that marriage: she would be happier with Ronayne."
+
+"For a month or two, perhaps."
+
+"Oh, make it _three_," says Kelly, satirically. "Surely the little
+winged god has so much staying power."
+
+"A few weeks ago you told me you did not believe in him at all."
+
+"I have changed all that."
+
+"Ah! _you_ can be fickle too."
+
+"A man is not necessarily fickle because when he discovers the only true
+good he leaves the bad and presses towards it. I think, too, his
+mentor," in a lowered tone, "should be the last to misjudge him."
+
+"Nothing is so lasting, at least, as riches," says Mrs. Herrick, with a
+chastened but unmistakable desire to change his mood. "Olga with
+unlimited means and an undeniable place in the world of society would be
+a happier Olga than as the wife of a country gentleman."
+
+"I don't agree with you; but you know best--_perhaps_. You speak your
+own sentiments, of course. A title is indispensable to you too, as well
+as to her?"
+
+His tone is half a question.
+
+"It counts," she says, slowly, trifling with firm though slender fingers
+with the grasses that are growing in the interstices of the marble.
+
+"Pshaw!" says Kelly. Rising with a vehemence foreign to him, he crosses
+to where Ulic Ronayne is standing alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+  How Olga drowns a faithful servant--How Mr. Kelly conjures up a
+  ghost--And how Monica, beneath the mystic moonbeams, grants the gift
+  she first denies.
+
+
+"Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" he says, lightly, laying his hand on
+Ulic's shoulder. The latter turns to him with a bright smile that
+renders his handsome face quite beautiful. Seeing its charm, Kelly asks
+himself, in half-angry fashion, how Olga can possibly hesitate for one
+moment between him and Rossmoyne. "But they are all alike heartless,"
+he decides, bitterly.
+
+"I am feeling neither pale nor wan," says Ronayne, still smiling. "It
+must be the moon, if anything. Look here, Kelly, something to-night has
+told me that it will all come right in the end. I shall gain her against
+the heaviest odds."
+
+"If you mean Rossmoyne, he's the heaviest mortal I know," says Kelly.
+
+"Well, he _isn't_ suited to her, is he?" There is a strange excitement
+in Ronayne's manner. "Putting me out of the question altogether, I don't
+believe he could make her happy. If I thought he could, of course I
+should then go away somewhere, and find contentment in the thought of
+hers; but----_you_ don't think she would do well to marry him do you
+Kelly?" He has controlled his features to an almost marvellous calm, but
+the agony of his question in his eyes cannot be hid.
+
+"I think the woman who could even _hesitate_ between you and him must be
+a fool and worse," says Kelly, whose temper is not his own to-night. "He
+is a pedantic ass, more in love with himself than he can ever be with
+anything else. While you----Look here, Ronayne; I wonder if any woman is
+_worth_ it."
+
+"Oh, _she_ is," says Ronayne, with tender conviction. "I don't think
+she is at all like other people; do you? There's something
+different--something _special_--about her."
+
+"I daresay," says Kelly, gently, which is rather good of him,
+considering his frame of mind.
+
+"You're an awfully kind sort of fellow, Kelly, do you know?" says
+Ronayne, slipping his arm through his. "You are the only one I ever talk
+to about _her_. And I suppose I must bore you, though you don't say it.
+It's the most generous thing I know, your sympathizing with me as you
+do. If you were in love yourself, I could understand it. But you are
+not, you know."
+
+"Oh, no; of course not," says Mr. Kelly.
+
+"Is that your guitar, Mrs. Bohun? I wish you would sing us something,"
+says Miss Browne at this moment.
+
+"I don't sing much,--and never out of doors, it hurts my throat so,"
+says Olga, smiling at her; "but if any else will sing, I will gladly
+play to them."
+
+"Mr. Ronayne,--Ulic,--come here," says Monica, half shyly, but very
+sweetly. "You can sing, I know."
+
+"Yes come here," says Olga, turning to him, and away from Lord
+Rossmoyne, who is talking to her in low, short, angry tones. But the
+latter, laying his hand on her arm, half compels her to turn to him
+again.
+
+"Let some one else accompany him if he _must_ sing," he says; "_any_ one
+but you."
+
+"No one else can."
+
+"I object to your doing it."
+
+"You won't when you hear him; he sings _so_ sweetly," with the
+prettiest, most enthusiastic smile. "You really should hear him."
+
+"You persist, then? you compel me to believe the worst,--to regard you
+as implicated in that story of Kelly's."
+
+"I compel you to nothing. And as for the story, I thought it very
+amusing: didn't you?"
+
+"_No!_" says Rossmoyne, with subdued fury.
+
+"Do you know, I often said you lacked humor?" says Mrs. Bohun, with a
+little airy laugh; "and now I am sure of it. I thought it intensely
+comic; such a situation! I should like to have seen your face when the
+curtain was drawn, if _you_ had been the young man."
+
+"I must beg you to understand that such a situation would be
+_impossible_ to _me_."
+
+"I am to understand, then, that you would not 'emb----' that was what he
+said, wasn't it?--a woman if you loved her?"
+
+"Not without permission, certainly," very stiffly.
+
+"Oh, dear!" says Olga; "what a stupid man! Well, I shouldn't think you
+would do it _often_. And so you wouldn't have liked to be that
+particular young man?"
+
+This is a poser; Lord Rossmoyne parries the thrust.
+
+"Would _you_ have liked to be that young woman,--who, as it appears to
+me, wasn't at all particular?" he asks, in turn.
+
+"That is no answer to my question," says Olga, who is angry with his
+last remark. "Are you afraid to say what you mean?"
+
+"Afraid! No. To give publicity to a thing means always to vulgarize it:
+therefore, on consideration, I should not have cared to be that young
+man."
+
+"Ah! I should have thought otherwise," says Olga, in an indescribable
+tone. "Well, there must be consolation for you in the thought that you
+never can be.--Mr. Ronayne," calling to Ulic lightly, "are you coming,
+or must I sit fingering my lyre in vain?"
+
+Ulic, coming slowly up to her, stands beside her, as she seats herself
+again upon the marble edge of the fountain, and runs her fingers
+gracefully over its strings.
+
+His voice, a rich sweet tenor, breaks upon the air, blends with the
+beauty of the night, and sinks into it until all seems one great
+harmony. "'Tis I" is the song he has chosen, and a wonderful pathos that
+borders on despair enriches every note. He has forgotten every one but
+her, the pretty dainty creature who holds his heart in the hollow of her
+small hand. She must hear the melancholy that is desolating and thereby
+perfecting his voice; but, if so, she gives no sign. Once only her
+fingers tremble, but she corrects herself almost before her error is
+committed, and never after gives way to even the faintest suspicion of
+feeling.
+
+Through the glade the music swells and throbs. Mary Browne, drawing
+instinctively nearer, seems lost in its enchantment. Monica, looking up
+with eyes full of tears into Desmond's face, finds his eyes fixed on
+her, and, with a soft, childish desire for sympathy, slips her hand
+unseen into his. How gladly he takes and holds it need not here be told.
+
+As he comes to the last verse, Ronayne's voice grows lower; it doesn't
+tremble, yet there is in it something suggestive of the idea that he is
+putting a terrible constraint upon himself:
+
+    "If regret some time assail thee
+        For the days when first we met,
+    And thy weary spirit fail thee,
+      And thine eyes grow dim and wet,
+            Oh, 'tis I, love,
+            At thy heart, love,
+    Murmuring, 'How couldst thou forget?'"
+
+The music lingers still for a moment, ebbs, and then dies away. Ronayne
+steps back, and all seems over. How Olga has proved so utterly unmoved
+by the passionate protest is exercising more minds than one, when
+suddenly she rises and with a swift movement bends over the fountain.
+Another moment, and she has dropped the guitar into the water. Some
+little silver ornament upon its neck flashes for an instant in the
+moonlight, and then it is gone.
+
+"Oh, Olga!" says Hermia, making an involuntary step towards her.
+
+"I shall never play on it again," says Olga, with a gesture that is
+almost impassioned. An instant, and it is all over,--her little burst of
+passion, the thought that led to it,--everything!
+
+"I hate it!" she says, with a petulant laugh. "I am glad to be rid of
+it. Somebody made me a present of it whom I learned to detest
+afterwards. No, Owen, do not try to bring it to life again: let it lie
+down there out of sight where I may learn to forget it."
+
+"As you will, madame," says Owen Kelly, who has been fruitlessly fishing
+for the drowned guitar.
+
+"It is curious how hateful anything, however pretty, can become to us if
+we dislike the giver of it," says Mary Browne, pleasantly.
+
+"Yes," says Hermia, quickly, glancing at her with a sudden gleam in her
+eyes,--of gratitude, perhaps. A moment ago there had been a certain
+awkwardness following on Olga's capricious action; now these few
+careless, kindly words from this ugly stranger have dispelled it. And is
+she so plain, after all? The fastidious Hermia, gazing at her intently,
+asks herself this question. Surely before that bright and generous gleam
+in her eyes her freckles sink into insignificance.
+
+"I knew you would like her," says Mr. Kelly, at this moment, speaking
+low in Hermia's ear.
+
+When a woman is startled she is generally angry. Mrs. Herrick is angry
+now, whether because of his words, or the fact that she did not know he
+was so close to her, let who will decide.
+
+"You are very, very clever," she says, glancing at him from under
+drooping lids, and then turning away.
+
+"So they all tell me," returns he, modestly.
+
+Rossmoyne, crossing the brilliant moonlit path that divides him from the
+group round Hermia, seats himself beside her, thereby leaving Olga and
+Ulic Ronayne virtually alone.
+
+"You will regret that guitar to-morrow," says Ronayne,--"at least not
+the thing itself (I can replace that), but----"
+
+"I regret nothing," says Mrs. Bohun, carelessly,--"unless I regret that
+you have taken an absurdly ill-tempered action so much to heart. I am
+ill-tempered, you know."
+
+"I don't," says Ronayne.
+
+"So courteous a liar must needs obtain pardon. But let us forget
+everything but this lovely night. Was there ever so serene a sky? see
+how the stars shine and glimmer through the dark interstices of the
+blue-gray clouds!"
+
+"They remind me of something,--of some words," says Ronayne, in a low
+voice. "They come to me now, I hardly know why, perhaps because of the
+night itself, and perhaps because--" he hesitates.
+
+Olga is staring dreamily at the studded vault above her.
+
+"About the stars?" she asks, without looking at him.
+
+"Yes:--
+
+          'A poet loved a star,
+          And to it whispered nightly,
+    Being so fair, why art thou, love, so far,
+    Or why so coldly shine who shin'st so brightly?'
+
+The poet was presumptuous, it seems to me."
+
+"Was he? I don't know. All things come to him who knows how to wait."
+
+"Who's waiting?" says Kelly's voice from the other side of the fountain;
+"and for what?"
+
+"_Toujours_ Owen," says Mrs. Bohun, with a shrug of her pretty
+shoulders. "Well, no one even in this life is altogether without a taste
+of purgatory: mine (this is a delicate compliment to you, Owen, so
+listen to it) might have been worse. Do you know I have sometimes
+thought----"
+
+"She has really!" interrupts Mr. Kelly, turning with cheerful
+encouragement to the others. "You wouldn't think it to look at her,
+would you? but I know her intimately, and can vouch for the truth of her
+words. Go on, my dear Olga."
+
+But "my dear Olga" has turned aside, and declines to take any notice of
+his remark beyond a faint grimace.
+
+"She's very shy," says Mr. Kelly, in an explanatory aside, "and _so_
+retiring. Can't bear to hear herself publicly praised, or feel herself
+the centre of attraction. Let us haste to change the subject." This with
+many becks, and nods, and wreathed smiles, meant to explain the delicacy
+of the feeling that prompts him to this course. "By the by, Desmond,
+doesn't this fairy-like spot, and the moonlight, and the pathos of the
+silent night, and everything, remind you forcibly of old O'Connor?"
+
+"But I always heard----" begins Monica, in a voice of much amazement;
+then she stops confusedly and presently goes on again, but in a
+different key. "Was The O'Connor, then, aesthetic?" she says.
+
+At this even Lord Rossmoyne, who was in the lowest depths of despair,
+gives way to open mirth.
+
+"Well, no, not exactly," says Ulic Ronayne. "There was a fatal
+healthiness about his appearance that disagreed with that idea. But he
+certainly was fond of this little place; he put up the fountain himself,
+had it brought all the way from Florence for the purpose; and he had a
+trick of lying here on his face and hands for hours together, grubbing
+for worms,--or studying the insect world I think he used to call it."
+
+"I have always thought," says Mr. Kelly, in a tone of reflective
+sadness, "what an uncomfortable position that must be."
+
+"What must be?"
+
+"Lying on one's face and hands. What becomes of the rest of one? Does
+one keep one's heels in the air whilst doing it? To me it sounds awful!
+Yet only last week I read in the papers of a fellow who was found on a
+road on his face and hands, and the doctors said he must have been in
+that position _for hours!_ Fancy--_your_ nose, for instance, Rossmoyne,
+in the mud, and your heels in the air, _for hours_!"
+
+Lord Rossmoyne, having vainly tried to imagine his dignified body in
+such a position, looks distinctly offended.
+
+"No, _nobody_ would like it," says Kelly, pathetically, answering his
+disgusted look exactly as if it had been put into words. "There is a
+shameful frivolity about it not to be countenanced for a moment. Yet
+good and wise men have been said to do it. Fancy the Archbishop of
+Canterbury, now, balancing himself on his nose and his palms! Oh! it
+_can't_ be true!"
+
+His voice by this time is positively piteous, and he looks earnestly
+around, as though longing for some one to support his disbelief.
+
+"You are really excelling yourself to-night," says Mrs. Herrick, in a
+delicately disdainful tone.
+
+"Am I? I am glad," humbly, "that _you_ have had an opportunity of seeing
+me at my poor best."
+
+"I wonder," says Desmond, suddenly, "if, when old O'Connor revisits the
+earth at the witching hour, he comes in the attitude so graphically
+described by Kelly? In acrobat fashion, I mean."
+
+At this Monica breaks into laughter so merry, so full of utterly
+childish _abandon_ and enjoyment, that all the others perforce join in
+it.
+
+"Oh! fancy a ghost standing on his head!" she says, when she can speak.
+
+"I shouldn't fancy it at all," says Mr. Kelly, gloomily. "I _won't_. Far
+from it. And I should advise you, Miss Beresford, to treat with less
+frivolity a subject so fraught with terror,--especially at this time of
+night. If that 'grand old man' were to appear now," with a shuddering
+glance behind him, "what _would_ become of us all?"
+
+"An unpleasant idea!" says Miss Browne,--"so unpleasant, indeed, that I
+think I should like to go for a little walk somewhere,--_any_where, away
+from the scene of the late Mr. O'Connor's nightly visitations."
+
+"Come to the end of the shrubbery, then," says Desmond, "and look at the
+sea. It should be worth the trouble on such a night as this. Come you
+too, Olga."
+
+"I should like it, but my head aches so," says Mrs. Bohun, plaintively.
+And, indeed, she is very pale. "It is either the moonlight which
+oppresses me, or--I don't know what. No! I shall go indoors, I think."
+
+"Then I shall go with you," says Mrs. Herrick, regarding her with a
+certain anxiety. "But you," turning to Mary Browne, "must not miss a
+glimpse of the coast by moonlight. Mr. Kelly will show it to you."
+
+She slips her arm through Olga's, and turns towards the house; Ulic
+Ronayne accompanies them; but Lord Rossmoyne and Owen Kelly move in the
+contrary direction with Miss Browne. Monica and Desmond have gone on
+before; and even when the others arrive at the point in the shrubbery
+from which a glimpse of the ocean can be distinctly seen, these last two
+people are not to be discovered anywhere.
+
+Yet they are not so distant as they seem. Desmond has led Monica to a
+rather higher spot, where the desired scene can be more vividly beheld,
+and where too they can be--oh, blessed thought!--_alone_.
+
+Through a belt of dark-green fir-trees, whose pale tips are touched with
+silver by the moon, can be seen the limitless ocean, lying in restless
+waiting in the bay below.
+
+A sort of enforced tranquillity has fallen upon it,--a troubled
+calm,--belied by the hoarse, sullen roar that rises now and again from
+its depths, as when some larger death-wave breaks its bounds, and,
+rushing inland, rolls with angry violence up the beach. Soft white
+crests lie upon the great sea's bosom, tossing idly hither and thither,
+glinting and trembling beneath the moon's rays, as though reluctantly
+subdued by its cold influence.
+
+Across the whole expanse of the water a bright path is flung, that has
+its birth in heaven, yet deigns to accept a resting-place on earth,--a
+transitory rest, for there in the far distance on the horizon, where the
+dull grays of sea and sky have mingled, it has joined them, and seems
+again to have laid hold of its earliest home.
+
+The birds are asleep in their sea-bound nests; the wind has died away.
+There is nothing to break the exquisite stillness of the night, save the
+monotonous beating of the waves against the rocks, and the faint
+rippling murmur of a streamlet in the ash-grove.
+
+The whole scene is so rich with a beauty mystical and idealistic that
+Monica draws instinctively nearer to Desmond, with that desire for
+sympathy common to the satisfied soul, and stirs her hand in his.
+
+Here, perhaps, it will be as well to mention, once for all, that
+whenever I give you to understand that Desmond is alone with Monica you
+are also to understand, without the telling, that he has her hand in
+his. What pleasure there can be for two people in standing, or sitting,
+or driving, as the case may be, for _hours_, palm to palm (this is how
+the poetical one expresses it), I leave all true lovers to declare. I
+only know for certain that it is a trick common to every one of them,
+rich and poor, high and low. I suppose there is consolation in the
+touch,--a sensation of nearness. I know, indeed, one young woman who
+assured me her principal reason for marrying Fred in a hurry (Fred was
+her husband) lay in the fact that she feared if she didn't she would
+grow left-handed, as he was always in possession of the right during
+their engagement.
+
+"Ah! you like it," says Desmond, looking down upon her
+tenderly,--alluding to the charming view spread out before them,--the
+dark firs, the floating moon, the tranquil stars, the illimitable ocean,
+"of Almightiness itself the immense and glorious mirror."
+
+Monica makes no verbal answer, but a sigh of intensest satisfaction
+escapes her, and she turns up to his a lovely face full of youth and
+heaven and content. Her eyes are shining, her lips parted by a glad,
+tremulous smile. She is altogether so unconsciously sweet that it would
+be beyond the power of even a Sir Percivale to resist her.
+
+"My heart of hearts!" says Desmond, in a low, impassioned tone.
+
+Her smile changes. Without losing beauty, it loses something ethereal
+and gains a touch of earth. It is more pronounced; it is, in fact,
+amused.
+
+"I wonder where you learned all your terms of endearment," she says,
+slowly, looking at him from under her curling lashes.
+
+"I learned them when I saw you. They had their birth then and there."
+
+An eloquent silence follows this earnest speech. The smile dies from
+Monica's lips, and a sudden thoughtfulness replaces it.
+
+"You never called any one your 'heart of hearts' before, then?" she
+asks, somewhat wistfully.
+
+"Never--_never_. You believe me?"
+
+"Yes." Her lids drop. Some inward thought possesses her, and then--with
+a sudden accession of tenderness very rare with her--she lifts her head,
+and lays her soft, cool cheek fondly against his.
+
+"My beloved!" says the young man, in a tone broken by emotion.
+
+For a moment he does not take her in his arms; some fear lest she may
+change her mind and withdraw her expression of affection deters him; and
+when at last he does press her to his heart, it is gently and with a
+careful suppression of all vehemence.
+
+Perhaps no man in all the world is so calculated to woo and win this
+girl as Desmond. Perhaps there is no woman so formed to gain and keep
+him as Monica.
+
+Holding her now in a light but warm clasp, he knows he has his heaven in
+his arms; and she, though hardly yet awake to the full sweetness of
+"Love's young dream," understands at least the sense of perfect rest and
+glad content that overfills her when with him.
+
+"What are you thinking of?" she says, presently.
+
+"'Myn alderlevest ladye deare,'" quotes he, softly.
+
+"And what of her?"
+
+"'That to the deth myn herte is to her holde,'--yes, for ever and ever,"
+says Desmond, solemnly.
+
+"I am very glad of that," says Monica, simply; and then she raises
+herself from his embrace and looks straight down to the sea again.
+
+At this moment voices, not approaching but passing near them, reach
+their ears.
+
+"They are going in," says Monica, hurriedly, and with a regret that is
+very grateful to him. "We must go too."
+
+"Must we?" reluctantly. "Perhaps," brightening, "they are only going to
+try the effect higher up."
+
+"No. They are crossing the gravel to the hall door."
+
+"They are devoid of souls, to be able to quit so divine a view in such
+hot haste. Besides, it is absurdly early to think of going indoors yet.
+By Jove, though!" looking at his watch, "I'm wrong: it is well after
+eleven. Now, who would have thought it?"
+
+"Are you sure you mean _eleven_?" with flattering incredulity.
+
+"Only too sure. _Hasn't_ the time gone by quickly? Well, I suppose I
+must take you in, which means candles and bed for you, and a dreary
+drive home for Kelly and me, and not a chance of seeing you alone
+again."
+
+"This time last week you couldn't have seen me at all," says Miss
+Beresford.
+
+"True. I am ungrateful. And altogether this has been such a delightful
+evening,--to me at least: were," doubtfully, "_you_ happy?"
+
+"Very, _very_ happy," with earnest, uplifted eyes.
+
+"Darling love!--I am afraid I must give you up to Mrs. O'Connor now," he
+goes on, presently, when an ecstatic thought or two has had time to come
+and go. "But, before going, say good-night to me here."
+
+"Good-night, Brian."
+
+He has never attempted to kiss her since that first time (and last, _so
+far_) in the orchard; and even now, though her pretty head is pressed
+against him, and her face is dangerously close to his, he still
+refrains. He has given her his word and will not break it; but perhaps
+he cannot altogether repress the desire to expostulate with her on her
+cruelty, because he gives voice to the gentle protest that rises to his
+lips.
+
+"That is very cold good-night," he says. "You would say quite as much as
+that to Kelly or any of the others."
+
+"I shouldn't call Mr. Kelly by his Christian name."
+
+"No; but you would, Ronayne."
+
+"Well, I shan't again, if you don't like it."
+
+"That has nothing at all to do with what I mean. I only think you might
+show me a little more favor than the rest."
+
+"Good-night, then, _dear_ Brian. Now, I certainly shouldn't dream of
+calling Mr. Ronayne dear Ulic."
+
+"Of course not. I should hope not, indeed! But still----there is
+something else that you might do for _me_."
+
+Miss Beresford draws herself a little--_a very_ little--away from him,
+and, raising her head, bestows upon him a glance that is a charming
+combination of mischief and coquetry. A badly-suppressed smile is
+curving the corner of her delicate lips.
+
+"What a long time it takes you to _say_ it!" she says, wickedly.
+
+At this they both break into low, soft laughter,--_delicious_
+laughter!--that must not be overheard, and is suggestive of a little
+secret existing between them, that no one else may share.
+
+"That is an invitation," says Desmond, with decision. "I consider you
+have now restored to me that paltry promise I made to you the other day
+in the orchard. And here I distinctly decline ever to renew it again.
+No, there is no use in appealing to me: I am not to be either softened
+or coerced."
+
+"Well," says Miss Beresford, "listen to me." She stands well back from
+him this time, and, catching up the tail of her white gown, throws it
+negligently over her arm. "If you _must_ have--you know what!--at least
+you shall earn it. I will race you for it, but you must give me long
+odds, and then, if you catch me before I reach that laurel down there,
+you shall have it. Is that fair?"
+
+Plainly, from her exultant look, she thinks she can win.
+
+"A bargain!" says Desmond. "And, were you Atalanta herself, I feel I
+shall outrun you."
+
+"_So_ presumptuous! Take care. 'Pride goeth before destruction, and a
+haughty spirit before a fall,' and you may trip."
+
+"I may not, too."
+
+"Well," moving cautiously away from him, "when I come to that branch
+there, and say one, two, three, you--will----_Now!_"
+
+At this, before he is half prepared, she cries, "one, two, three," with
+scandalous haste, and rushes away from him down the moonlit path. Swift
+and straight as a deer she flies, but, alas! just as the goal is all but
+reached, she finds the race is not to her, and that she is a prisoner in
+two strong arms!
+
+"Now, who was presumptuous?" says Desmond, gazing into her lovely face.
+Her head, with a touch of exhaustion about it, is thrown back against
+his chest; through her parted lips her breath is coming with a panting
+haste, born of excitement and her fruitless flight. He bends over her,
+lower, and lower still. She feels herself altogether in his power.
+
+"As you are strong, be merciful," she whispers, faintly. A warm flood of
+crimson has dyed her cheeks; her smile has faded; she struggles
+slightly, and then all in one moment Desmond becomes aware that tears
+have sprung into her eyes.
+
+Instantly he releases her.
+
+"Darling, forgive me," he says, anxiously. "See how your heart is
+beating now, and all for nothing! Of course I shall let you off your
+bargain. What do you take me for? Do you think I should make you unhappy
+for all the world could offer? Take those tears out of your eyes this
+instant, or I shall be seriously angry with you."
+
+Monica laughs, but in a rather nervous fashion, and lets her lover dry
+her eyes with his own handkerchief. Then she sits down with him upon a
+rustic seat close by, wishing to be quite mistress of herself again
+before encountering the glare of the drawing-room lamps and the still
+more searching light of her friends' eyes.
+
+For a full minute not a word is spoken by either of them She is inwardly
+troubled; he is downcast. Presently she rises with a little restless
+movement.
+
+"No, do not stir just yet," she says. "I only want to pick some of that
+syringa behind you, it is so sweet."
+
+Disinclined for action of any sort, he obeys her. She slips away behind
+him, and he sits there waiting listlessly for her return, and thinking,
+somewhat sadly, how small a way he has made with her, and that she is
+almost as shy with him now as on that day by the river when first they
+met.
+
+And then something marvellous happens that puts all his theories and
+regrets and fears to flight forever. Two soft arms--surely the softest
+in this wide glad world--steal round his neck; a gold-brown head is laid
+against his; a whisper reaches him.
+
+"You were very good to me about _that_!" says somebody, tremulously; and
+then two warm childish lips are laid on his, and Monica is in his arms.
+
+"I wonder what it was that frightened you?" says Desmond, in a tender
+whisper, drawing her down on his knees and enfolding her closely as
+though she were in form the child that verily at heart she still is.
+"Tell me."
+
+"I don't know." She has twined her bare beautiful arms around him, and
+is rubbing her cheek softly up and down against his in a fresh access of
+shyness.
+
+"I think you do, my dearest."
+
+"It was only this; that when I found I couldn't get away from you, I was
+frightened. It was very foolish of me, but whenever I read those stories
+about prisoners of war, and people being confined in dungeons, and that,
+I always know that if I were made a captive I should _die_."
+
+"But surely your lover's arms cannot be counted a prison, my life!"
+
+"Yes, if they held me when I wanted to get away."
+
+"But," reproachfully, "would you want to get away?"
+
+She hesitates, and, lifting one arm, runs her fingers coaxingly through
+the hair fashion has left him.
+
+"I don't want to go away now, at all events," she temporizes sweetly.
+Then, a moment later, "But I _must_, nevertheless. Come," nervously, "we
+have been here a long time, and Madam O'Connor will be angry with me;
+and besides," pityingly, "you have all that long drive home still before
+you."
+
+"I forgot all about the time," says Desmond, truthfully. "You are right:
+we must go in. Good-night again, my own."
+
+Without waiting for permission this time, he stoops and presses his lips
+to hers. An instant later he knows with a thrill of rapture that his
+kiss has been returned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+  How Mary Browne makes confession, though not by creed a Romanist;
+  and how those who receive it are far removed from being holy
+  fathers!--Moreover, I would have you see there is more acting off
+  the stage than on it.
+
+
+Monica's week at Aghyohillbeg is drawing to a close. The day has dawned
+that is to usher in at even the famous representation of "The School for
+Scandal," as given by Miss Fitzgerald, Captain Cobbett, etc.
+
+The whole house is topsy-turvy, no room being sacred from the actors and
+actresses (save the mark!), and all the servants are at their wit's end.
+There have been men down from the Gayety Theatre, Dublin, who have seen
+about the stage, and there have been other men from the village of
+Rossmoyne to help in the decoration of the ballroom, and between these
+two different sets of men an incessant war has been raging for many
+days.
+
+Now at last the house is comparatively quiet, and, as four o'clock
+strikes, Madam O'Connor finds herself in her own special den (the only
+spot that has not been disturbed), with a tea-equipage before her, and
+all her ladies-in-waiting round her.
+
+These ladies, for the most part, are looking full of suppressed
+excitement, and are in excellent spirits and irreproachable tea-gowns.
+Mary Browne, who has developed into a general favorite, is making some
+laughing remark about Lord Rossmoyne, who, with all the other men, is
+absent.
+
+"D'ye know what it is, Mary?" says Madam O'Connor, in her unchecked
+brogue; "you might do something else with Rossmoyne besides making game
+of him."
+
+"What?" says Mary Browne.
+
+"Marry him, to be sure. A young woman like you, with more money than you
+know what to do with, ought to have a protector. Faith, you needn't
+laugh, for it's only common sense I'm talking. Tenants, and the new
+laws, will play the mischief with your soft heart and your estate, if
+you don't get some one to look after them both."
+
+"Well?" says Mary Browne.
+
+"Well, there's Rossmoyne, as I said before, actually going a begging for
+a wife. Why not take him?"
+
+"I don't care about beggars," says Miss Browne, with a slight smile. "I
+am not one of those who think them picturesque."
+
+"He isn't a beggar in any other sense than the one I have mentioned. He
+is a very good match. Think of it, now."
+
+"I am thinking. Indeed, ever since my first day here I been thinking how
+deeply attached he is to Mrs. Bohun. Forgive me, Mrs. Bohun."
+
+Olga laughs lightly. There is something about this plain girl that
+repels the idea of offence.
+
+"What on earth put that idea into your head?" says her hostess, opening
+her eyes, who talks too much both in season and out of it to be able to
+see all the by-play going on around her. "You aren't setting your cap at
+him, are you, Olga my dear?"
+
+"Indeed, no," says Olga, still laughing. "How could so absurd a notion
+have got into _any_body's head?"
+
+"How, indeed?" says Monica, gayly.
+
+"There's Owen Kelly, then; though he isn't as well off as Rossmoyne,
+still he will be worth looking after by and by, when the old man drops
+off. He's as good hearted a fellow as ever lived, when you know what
+he's at,--which isn't often, to do him justice. It struck me he was very
+civil to you last night."
+
+"He was," says Miss Browne, whose merriment is on the increase. "But I
+never met any one who wasn't civil to me: so I found him commonplace
+enough. Ah! if he had only been uncivil, now!"
+
+"Well, there he is, at all events," says Madam O'Connor, sententiously.
+
+"I hope he's comfortable," says Miss Browne, kindly, "I shan't try to
+make him less so, at least. Why don't you recommend Mr. Desmond or Mr.
+Ronayne to my notice?" with a mischievous glance at Monica and Olga
+Bohun.
+
+"I'm afraid they are done for," says Madam, laughing now herself. "And I
+only hope that handsome boy Ronayne isn't laying up sorrow for himself
+and living in a fool's paradise. Indeed, Olga, pretty as you are, I'll
+be very angry with you if I hear you have been playing fast and loose
+with him."
+
+The old lady shakes her head grimly at Mrs. Bohun, who pretends to be
+crushed beneath her glance.
+
+"To prevent you offering me any more suitors," says Mary Browne,
+steadily, but with a rising blush, "I may as well tell you that I am
+engaged to be married."
+
+"Good gracious, my dear! then why didn't you say so before?" says Madam,
+sitting bolt upright and letting her _pince-nez_ fall unheeded into her
+lap.
+
+"I really don't know; but I daresay because you took it for granted I
+wasn't."
+
+"Mary," says Mrs. Herrick, speaking for the first time, and for the
+first time, too, calling Miss Browne by her Christian name, "tell us all
+about it."
+
+"Yes, _do_," says Monica, and all the women draw their chairs
+instinctively a degree closer to the heroine of the hour, and betray in
+her a warm interest. After all, what can equal a really good
+love-affair?
+
+"Go on, my dear," says Madam O'Connor, who is always full of life where
+romance is concerned. "I hope it is a good marriage."
+
+"The best in the world, for me," says Mary Browne, simply, "though he
+hasn't a penny in the world but what he earns."
+
+As she makes this awful confession, she isn't in the least confused, but
+smiles brightly.
+
+"Well, Mary, I must say I wouldn't have believed it of you," says Madam.
+
+"I would," says Monica, hastily laying her hand on one of Mary's. "It is
+just like her. After all, what has money got to do with it? Is he
+_nice_, Mary?"
+
+"So nice!" says Mary, who seems quite glad to talk about him, "and as
+ugly as myself," with a little enjoyable laugh, "so we can't call each
+other bad names; and his name is Peter, which of course will be
+considered another drawback, though I like the name myself. And we are
+very fond of each other--I have no doubt about that: and that is all, I
+think."
+
+"No, it is not all," says Madam O'Connor, severely. "May I ask when you
+met this young man?"
+
+"I must take the sting out of your tone at once, Gertrude," says her
+cousin, pleasantly, "by telling you that we were engaged long _before_
+poor Richard died." (Richard was the scampish brother by whose death she
+inherited all.)
+
+"Then why didn't you marry him?" says Madam.
+
+"I was going to,--in fact, we were going to run away," says Miss Browne,
+with intense enjoyment at the now remote thought,--"doesn't it sound
+absurd?--when--when the news about Dick reached us, and then I could not
+bring myself to leave my father, no matter how unpleasant my home be."
+
+"What is he?" asks Olga, with a friendly desire to know.
+
+"A doctor. In rather good practice, too, in Dublin. He is very clever,"
+says Miss Browne, telling her story so genially, so comfortably, that
+all their hearts go out to her, and Madam O'Connor grows lost in a
+revery about what will be the handsomest and most suitable thing to give
+"Peter" as a wedding-present. As she cannot get beyond a case of
+dissecting-knives, this revery is short.
+
+"Perhaps if you saw some one else you might change your mind," she says,
+a new thought entering her head (of course there would be a difficulty
+about offering dissecting-knives to a barrister or quiet country
+gentleman).
+
+"I have had five proposals this year already," says Miss Browne,
+quietly, "but, if I could be a princess by doing so, I would not give up
+Peter."
+
+"Mary Browne, come here and give me a kiss," says Madam O'Connor, with
+tears in her eyes. "You are the best girl I know, and I always said it.
+I only hope your Peter knows the extent of his luck."
+
+Miss Browne having to leave the room some few minutes later Olga raises
+herself from the lounging position she has been in, with her hands
+clasped behind her head, and says, slowly,--
+
+"I don't think she is so plain, after all."
+
+"Neither do I," says Monica, eagerly, "there is something so sweet about
+her expression."
+
+"I am perfectly certain that man Peter is awfully in love with her,"
+says Mrs. Herrick solemnly, "and that without the slightest thought of
+her money."
+
+"What would he think of her money for?" says Madam O'Connor, testily,
+who had firmly believed him a fortune-hunter only two minutes ago.
+"Isn't she a jewel in herself?"
+
+"By the bye, where is our Bella all this time?" says Olga, suddenly.
+"It now occurs to me that of course we have been missing her all this
+time."
+
+"I know," says Monica, mysteriously: "she is _asleep_,--getting herself
+up for her Lady Teazle. I was running along the corridor, outside her
+room, half an hour ago, when her mother came out on tiptoe and implored
+me to go gently, lest I should wake her."
+
+"Gentle dove," says Mrs. Herrick.
+
+"I shall go and dance the _can-can_ up and down that corridor this
+moment," says Mrs. Bohun, rising to her feet with fell determination in
+her eye.
+
+"I think you had all better go to your rooms and get ready for dinner.
+It is painfully early to-night," says Madam, "on account of all this
+nonsense of Olga's. But no dressing mind, as I have told the men to come
+as they are. There will be plenty of that by and by."
+
+One by one they all dwindle away at the word of command, Olga, true to
+her word, making such a clatter as she passes Miss Fitzgerald's door as
+might readily be classed with those noises popularly supposed to be able
+to wake the silent dead. Whether it wakes Miss Fitzgerald is unknown to
+all save her mother and her maid.
+
+It makes Monica laugh, however who, sitting in her own room, is gazing
+with dreamy delight at the pretty gown Miss Priscilla has ordered from
+Mrs. Sim's for her all the way from Dublin, and which has been spread
+upon her bed by Olga's maid, Mrs. Bohun having insisted on sharing that
+delightful young person with her ever since her first night at
+Aghyohillbeg.
+
+Yet Aunt Priscilla will not be here to-night to see her favorite niece
+dressed in her charming present.
+
+At the last moment, not two hours agone, had come a letter from Moyne to
+Madame O'Connor telling how Miss Penelope had been seized by a bad
+neuralgic headache and was in such pain that Miss Priscilla could not
+find it in her heart to leave her. Kit, escorted by Terence, would
+arrive, however, in time for the opening act; and it would be impossible
+to say how disappointed the two old ladies were (which indeed was the
+strict truth), and they hoped all would be successful, etc., etc.
+
+With a remorseful pang, Monica acknowledges to herself now that she had
+felt a secret gladness when first the news had been retailed to her by
+Madame O'Connor. A sense of being under an obligation to that dire
+neuralgic headache, is oppressing her. It is wicked of her, and most
+cruel, but the secret exultation cannot be denied.
+
+And see how the case stands. Poor Aunt Penelope in vile suffering, Aunt
+Priscilla enduring bitter disappointment,--for she had, as Monica well
+knew, set her heart on witnessing these theatricals,--and Monica herself
+actually glad and light at heart _because_ of the misfortunes that have
+befallen them. Alas! how fiendish it all sounds!
+
+And again, to add to the iniquity of it, for how slight a cause has she
+welcomed the discomfiture of her best friends! For a few dances with
+their enemy, a freedom for happy smiles and unrestrained glances,--_all_
+to be made over to the enemy. For how, with Miss Priscilla's reproachful
+angry eyes upon her, could she have waltzed or smiled or talked with a
+Desmond?
+
+And what is to be the end of it all? A vague feeling of terror compasses
+her round about as she dwells on her forbidden lover. Will she have to
+give him up at the last?--it must be either him or Aunt Priscilla; and
+she owes so much to Aunt Priscilla; while to him--oh, no! she owes him
+nothing; of course he is only--only--and yet----
+
+A bell sounds in the distance; she starts and glances at the tiny clock
+upon her chimney-piece. Yes, it is almost six, and dinner will be ready
+in ten minutes. And afterwards comes "The School for Scandal," and after
+that the tableaux, and after that again dancing,--delights threefold for
+happy eighteen. Her spirits rise; her fears fall; self-contempt,
+remorse, regret, all sink into insignificance, and with a beating heart
+she coils afresh her tinted hair, and twines some foreign beads about
+her slender throat to make herself a shade more lovable in the eyes of
+the man she must not encourage, and whose very existence she has been
+forbidden to acknowledge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The curtain has risen, has fallen and risen again, and now has descended
+for the last time. A flutter--is it rapture or relief?--trembles through
+the audience. "The School for Scandal" has come to a timely end!
+
+I selfishly forbear from giving my readers a lengthened account of it,
+as they (unless any of the Aghyohillbeg party takes up this book) have
+mercy--that is, unfortunately, been debarred by fate from ever
+witnessing a performance such as this, that certainly, without servile
+flattery, may be termed unique. Words (that is, _my_ words) would fail
+to give an adequate idea of it, and so from very modesty I hold my pen.
+
+"It was marvellous," says Sir Mark Gore, who is paying a flying visit to
+Lord Rossmoyne. He says this with the profoundest solemnity, and
+perhaps a little melancholy. His expression is decidedly pensive.
+
+"It was indeed wonderful," says the old rector, in perfect good faith.
+
+And wonderful it was indeed. Anything so truly remarkable, I may safely
+declare, was never seen in this or any other generation.
+
+Miss Fitzgerald's Lady Teazle left nothing to be desired, save perhaps
+an earlier fall of the curtain, while Captain Cobbett's Joseph Surface
+was beyond praise. This is the strict truth. He was indeed the more
+happy in his representation of the character in that he gave his
+audience a Joseph they never had seen and never would see again on any
+stage, unless Captain Cobbett could kindly be induced by them to try it
+on some other occasion.
+
+A few ignorant people, indeed, who plainly found such a splendid
+rendering of the part too much for their intellectual capacity, were
+seized with a laughter profane, if smothered, whenever the talented
+captain made his appearance, giving the rest of the company (who could
+see them shaking behind their fans) to understand that they at least
+were "not for Joe,"--that is, Captain Cobbett's Joe. But the majority
+very properly took no notice of these Philistines, and indeed rebuked
+them by maintaining an undisturbed gravity to the very end.
+
+Sir Peter (Mr. Ryde) was most sumptuously arrayed. Nothing could exceed
+the magnificence of his attire. Upon an amateur stage, startling
+habiliments copied from a remote period are always attractive, and Mr.
+Ryde did all he knew in this line, giving even to the ordinary Sir Peter
+of our old-fashioned knowledge certain garments in vogue quite a century
+before he could possibly have been born. This gave a charming wildness
+to his character, a devil-may-care sort of an air, that exactly suited
+his gay and festive mood. After all, why should Sir Peter be old and
+heavy? why indeed?
+
+The effect was altogether charming. That there were a few disagreeable
+people who said they would have liked to know what he was _at_ (_such_ a
+phrase, you know!), what he _meant_, in fact, and who declared that, as
+a mere simple matter of choice, they liked to hear a word now and again
+from an actor, goes without telling. There are troublesome people in
+every grade of society,--gnats that _will_ sting. Silence is golden, as
+all the world knows; and Mr. Ryde is of it: so of course he forgot his
+part whenever he could, and left out all the rest!
+
+This he did with a systematic carefulness very praiseworthy in so young
+a man.
+
+On the whole, therefore, you will see that the affair was an
+unprecedented success; and if some did go away puzzled as to whether it
+was a burlesque or a tragedy, nobody was to blame for their obtuseness.
+There certainly are scenes in this admirable comedy not provocative of
+laughter; but such was the bad taste of Madam O'Connor that she joined
+in with the Philistines mentioned farther back, and laughed straight
+through the piece from start to finish, until the tears ran down her
+cheeks.
+
+She said afterwards she was hysterical, and Olga Bohun, who was quite as
+bad as she, said, "_no wonder_."
+
+Now, however, it is all over, and the actors and actresses have
+disappeared, to make way for the gauze, the electric light, and the
+tableaux; whilst the audience is making itself happy with iced champagne
+and conversation, kind and otherwise (very much otherwise), about the
+late performance.
+
+Olga Bohun, who is looking all that the heart of man can desire in white
+lace and lilies, leaving the impromptu theatre, goes in search of
+Hermia, who, with Owen Kelly, is to appear in the opening tableau. She
+makes her way to the temporary green-room, an inner hall, hidden from
+the outer world by means of a hanging velvet curtain, and with a
+staircase at the lower end that leads to some of the upper corridors.
+Here she finds Ulic Ronayne, Miss Browne, Monica, Desmond, and Kelly.
+
+She has barely time to say something trivial to Miss Browne, when a pale
+light appearing at the top of the staircase attracts the attention of
+all below. Instinctively they raise their eyes towards it, and see a
+tall figure clad in white descending the stairs slowly and with a
+strange sweet gravity. Is it an angel come to visit them, or Hermia
+Herrick?
+
+It resolves itself into Hermia at last, but a beautiful Hermia,--a
+lovely apparition,--a woman indeed still, but "with something of an
+angel-light" playing in her dark eyes and round her dusky head. Always a
+distinguished-looking woman, if too cold for warmer praise, she is now
+at least looking supremely beautiful.
+
+She is dressed as Galatea, in a clinging garment of the severest Greek
+style, with no jewels upon her neck, and with her exquisite arms bare to
+the shoulder. One naked sandalled foot can be seen as she comes
+leisurely to them step by step. She is holding a low Etruscan lamp in
+one hand upon a level with her head, and there is just the faintest
+suspicion of a smile about her usually irresponsive lips.
+
+No one speaks until her feet touch the hall, when a little murmur,
+indistinct, yet distinctly admiring, arises to greet her.
+
+"I hope I don't look foolish," she says, with as much nervousness in her
+tone as can possibly be expected from her.
+
+"Oh, Hermia, you are looking too lovely," says Olga, with a burst of
+genuine enthusiasm. "Is she not, Owen?"
+
+But Mr. Kelly makes no reply.
+
+A slight tinge of color deepens Mrs. Herrick's complexion as she turns
+to him.
+
+"Poor Mr. Kelly!" she says, the amused flicker of a smile flitting over
+her face, which has now grown pale again. "What a situation! There!
+don't sully your conscience: I will let you off your lie. That is where
+an old friend comes in so useful, you see."
+
+"At all events, I don't see where the lie would come in. But, as you do,
+of course I shall say nothing," says Kelly.
+
+"What a Pygmalion!" says Olga, in high disgust. "And what a speech!
+Contemptible! I don't believe any Galatea would come to life beneath
+_your_ touch. It would be cold as the marble itself!"
+
+So saying, she moves away to where Monica is standing, looking quite the
+sweetest thing in the world, as
+
+    "A nun demure, of lowly port."
+
+"She has prophesied truly," says Kelly, in a low tone, turning to Mrs.
+Herrick. "I fear _my_ Galatea will never wake to life for _me_."
+
+A subdued bell tinkles in the distance.
+
+"Our summons," says Mrs. Herrick, hastily, as though grateful to it; and
+presently she is standing upon a pedestal, pale motionless, with a rapt
+Pygmalion at her feet, and some Pompeian vases and jugs (confiscated
+from the drawing-room) in the background.
+
+And then follow the other tableaux, and then the stage is deserted, and,
+music sounding in the distant ballroom, every one rises and makes a step
+in its direction, the hearts of some of the younger guests beating in
+time to it.
+
+"Where are you going?" says Ulic Ronayne, seeing Olga about to mount the
+stairs once more.
+
+"To help the others to get into civilized garb,--Hermia and Monica, I
+mean. Lady Teazle I consider capable of looking after herself."
+
+"H'm! you say that? I thought Miss Fitzgerald was a friend of yours."
+
+"Then you thought like the baby you are. No! Women, like princes, find
+few real friends. But one in a hundred can fill that character
+gracefully, and Bella is _not_ that one."
+
+She turns to run up the stairs. "Well, don't be long," says Mr. Ronayne.
+
+"I'll be ready in a minute," she says; and in twenty-five she really
+_is_.
+
+Monica, who has had Kit to help her,--such an admiring, enthusiastic,
+flattering Kit,--is soon redressed, and has run down stairs, and nearly
+into Desmond's arms, who, of course, is waiting on the lowest step to
+receive her. She is now waltzing with him, with a heart as light as her
+feet.
+
+Hermia's progress has been slow, but Miss Fitzgerald's slowest of all,
+the elaborate toilet and its accessories taking some time to arrange
+themselves; she has been annoyed, too, by Olga Bohun, during the earlier
+part of the evening, and consequently feels it her duty to stay in her
+room for a while and take it out of her maid. So long is she, indeed,
+that Madam O'Connor (most attentive of hostesses) feels it her duty to
+come upstairs to find her.
+
+She _does_ find her, giving way to diatribes of the most virulent, that
+have Olga Bohun for their theme. Mrs. Fitzgerald, standing by, is
+listening to, and assisting in, the defamatory speeches.
+
+"Hey-day! what's the matter now?" says Madam, with a _bonhommie_
+completely thrown away. Miss Fitzgerald has given the reins to her
+mortification, and is prepared to hunt Olga to the death.
+
+"I think it is disgraceful the license Mrs. Bohun allows her tongue,"
+she says, angrily, still smarting under the speech she had goaded Olga
+into making her an hour ago. "We have just been talking about it. She
+says the most wounding things, and accuses people openly of thoughts and
+actions of which they would scorn to be guilty. And this, too, when her
+own actions are so hopelessly faulty, so _sure_ to be animadverted upon
+by all decent people."
+
+"Yes, yes, indeed," chimes in her mother, as in duty bound. Her voice is
+feeble, but her manner vicious.
+
+"The shameful way in which she employs nasty unguents of all kinds, and
+tries by every artificial means to heighten any beauty she may possess,
+is too absurdly transparent not to be known by all the world," goes on
+the irate Bella. "Who run may read the rouge and veloutine that cover
+her face. And as for her lids, they are so blackened that they are
+positively _dirty_! Yet she pretends she has handsome eyes and lashes!"
+
+"But, my dear, she may well lay claim to her lashes. All the Egyptian
+charcoal in the world could not make them long and curly. Nature is to
+be thanked for them."
+
+"You can defend her if you like," says Bella, hysterically, "but to my
+mind her conduct is--is positively _immoral_. It is cheating the public
+into the belief that she has a skin when she hasn't."
+
+"But I'm sure she has: we can all see it," says Madam O'Connor, somewhat
+bewildered by this sweeping remark.
+
+"No, you can't. I defy you to see it, it is so covered with pastes and
+washes, and everything; she uses every art you can conceive."
+
+"Well, supposing she does, what then?" says Madam, stoutly. She is
+dressed in black velvet and diamonds, and is looking twice as important
+and rather more good-humored than usual. "I see nothing in it. My
+grandmother always rouged,--put on patches as regularly as her gown.
+Every one did it in those days, I suppose. And quite right, too. Why
+shouldn't a woman make herself look as attractive as she can?"
+
+"But the barefaced fashion in which she hunts down that wretched young
+Ronayne," says Mrs. Fitzgerald, "is dreadful! You can't defend that,
+Gertrude. I quite pity the poor lad,--drawn thus, _against his will_,
+into the toils of an enchantress." Mrs. Fitzgerald pauses after this
+ornate and strictly original speech, as if overcome by her own
+eloquence. "I think he should be warned," she goes on presently. "A
+woman like that should not be permitted to entrap a mere boy into a
+marriage he will regret all his life afterwards, by means of abominable
+coquetries and painted cheeks and eyes. It is horrible!"
+
+"I never thought you were such a fool, Edith," says Madam O'Connor, with
+the greatest sweetness.
+
+"You may think as you will, Gertrude," responds Mrs. Fitzgerald, with
+her faded air of juvenility sadly lost in her agitation, and shaking her
+head nervously, as though afflicted with a sudden touch of palsy that
+accords dismally with her youthful attire. "But I shall cling to my own
+opinions. And I utterly disapprove of Mrs. Bohun."
+
+"For me," says Bella, vindictively, "I believe her capable of
+_anything_. I can't bear those women who laugh at nothing, and powder
+themselves every half-hour."
+
+"You shouldn't throw stones, Bella," says honest Madam O'Connor, now
+nearly at the end of her patience. "Your glass house will be shivered if
+you do. Before I took to censuring other people I'd look in a mirror, if
+I were you."
+
+"I don't understand you," says Miss Fitzgerald, turning rather pale.
+
+"That's because you won't look in a mirror. Why, there's enough powder
+on your right ear to whiten a Moor!"
+
+"I never----" begins Bella, in a stricken tone; but Madam O'Connor stops
+her.
+
+"Nonsense! sure I'm looking at it," she says.
+
+This hanging evidence is not to be confuted. For a moment the fair Bella
+feels crushed; then she rallies nobly, and, after withering her
+terrified mother with a glance, sweeps from the room, followed at a
+respectful distance by Mrs. Fitzgerald, and quite closely by Madam, who
+declines to see she has given offence in any way.
+
+As they go, Mrs. Fitzgerald keeps up a gentle twitter, in the hope of
+propitiating the wrathful goddess on before.
+
+"Yes, yes, I still think young Ronayne should be warned; she is very
+designing, very, and he is very soft-hearted." She had believed in young
+Ronayne at one time, and had brought herself to look upon him as a
+possible son-in-law, until this terrible Mrs. Bohun had cast a glamour
+over him. "Yes, yes, one feels it quite one's duty to let him know how
+she gets herself up. His eyes should be opened to the rouge and the
+Egyptian eye-stuff."
+
+While she is mumbling all this, they come into a square landing, off
+which two rooms open. Both are brilliantly lighted and have been turned
+into cosey boudoirs for the occasion.
+
+In one of them, only half concealed by a looped curtain from those
+without, stand two figures, Olga Bohun and the "poor lad" who is to have
+his eyes opened.
+
+They are as wide open at present as any one can desire, and are staring
+thoughtfully at the wily widow, who is gazing back just as earnestly
+into them. Both he and Olga are standing very close together beneath the
+chandelier, and seem to be scanning each other's features with the
+keenest scrutiny.
+
+So remarkable is their demeanor, that not only Bella but her mother and
+Madam O'Connor refrain from further motion, to gaze at them with growing
+curiosity.
+
+There is nothing sentimental about their attitude; far from it; nothing
+even vaguely suggestive of tenderness. There is only an unmistakable
+anxiety that deepens every instant.
+
+"You are sure?" says Olga, solemnly. "Certain? Don't decide in a hurry.
+Look again."
+
+He looks again.
+
+"Well, _perhaps_! A _very_ little less would be sufficient," he says,
+with hesitation, standing back to examine her countenance more safely.
+
+"There! see how careless you can be," says Olga, reproachfully. "Now,
+take it off with this, but lightly, _very_ lightly."
+
+As she speaks, she hands him her handkerchief, and, to the consternation
+of the three watchers outside, he takes it, and with the gentlest touch
+rubs her cheeks with it, first the one, and then the other.
+
+When he had finished this performance, both he and she stared at the
+handkerchief meditatively.
+
+"I doubt you have taken it _all_ off," she says, plaintively. "I
+couldn't have put more than that on, and surely the handkerchief has no
+need of a complexion; whilst I----It must be all gone now, and I was
+whiter than this bit of cambric when I put it on. Had I better run up to
+my room again, or----"
+
+"Oh, no. You are all right; indeed you are. I'd say so at once if you
+weren't," says Ronayne, reassuringly. "You are looking as lovely as a
+dream."
+
+"And my eyes?"
+
+"Are beautifully done. No one on earth could find you out," says Ulic,
+comfortably; after which they both laugh merrily, and, quitting the
+impromptu boudoir, go down to the ballroom.
+
+Mrs. Fitzgerald shows a faint disposition to sob, as they pass out of
+sight. Madam O'Connor is consumed with laughter.
+
+"I don't think I should trouble myself to open 'that poor young
+Ronayne's' eyes, if I were you, Edith," she says, with tears of
+suppressed amusement in her eyes.
+
+"He is lost!" says Mrs. Fitzgerald, with a groan; but whether she means
+to Bella or to decency never transpires.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+  How Madam O'Connor tells how lovers throve in the good old days when
+  she was young; and Brian Desmond thrives with his love in these our
+  days, when he and she are young.
+
+
+The day is near; the darkest hour that presages the dawn has come, and
+still every one is dancing, and talking, and laughing, and some are
+alluring, by the aid of smiles and waving fans, the hearts of men.
+
+Kit Beresford, in spite of her youth and her closely-cropped
+head,--which, after all is adorable in many ways,--has secured, all to
+her own bow, a young man from the Skillereen Barracks (a meagre town to
+the west of Rossmoyne). He is a _very_ young, young man, and is by this
+time quite _bon comarade_ with the sedate Kit, who is especially lenient
+with his shortcomings, and treats him as though he were nearly as old as
+herself.
+
+Monica is dancing with Mr. Ryde. To do him justice, he dances very well;
+but whether Monica is dissatisfied with him, or whether she is tenderly
+regretful of the fact that at this moment she might just as well--or
+rather better--be dancing with another, I cannot say; but certainly her
+fair face is clothed with a pensive expression that heightens its beauty
+in a considerable degree.
+
+"Look at that girl of Priscilla Blake's," says Madam O'Connor, suddenly,
+who is standing at the head of the room, surrounded, as usual, by young
+men. "Look at her. Was there ever such a picture? She is like a martyr
+at the stake. That intense expression suits her."
+
+Brian Desmond flushes a little, and Kelly comes to the rescue.
+
+"A martyr?" he says. "I don't think Ryde would be obliged to you if he
+heard you. I should name him as the martyr, if I were you. Just see how
+hopelessly silly--I mean, sentimental--he looks."
+
+"Yet I think she fancies him," says Lord Rossmoyne, who is one of those
+men who are altogether good, respectable, and dense.
+
+"Nonsense!" says Madam O'Connor, indignantly. "What on earth would she
+fancy that jackanapes for, when there are good men and true waiting for
+her round every corner?"
+
+As she says this, she glances whole volumes of encouragement at Desmond,
+who, however, is so depressed by the fact that Monica has danced five
+times with Ryde, and is now dancing with him again, that he gives her no
+returning glance.
+
+At this apparent coldness on his part, the blood of all the kings of
+Munster awakes in Madam O'Connor's breast.
+
+"'Pon my conscience," she says, "I wouldn't give a good farthing for the
+lot of you, to let that girl go by! She came into Rossmoyne on the top
+of a hay-cart, I hear,--more luck to her, say I; for it shows the pluck
+in her, and the want of the sneaking fear of what he and she will say
+(more especially _she_) that spoils half our women. When I was her age
+I'd have done it myself. Rossmoyne, get out of that, till I get another
+look at her. I like her face. It does me good. It is so full of life _et
+le beaute du diable_," says Madame O'Connor, who speaks French like a
+native, and, be it understood, Irish too.
+
+"_We_ like to look at her, too," says Owen Kelly.
+
+"To look, indeed! That would be thought poor comfort in my days when a
+pretty woman was in question, and men were men!" says Madam, with
+considerable spirit. "If I were a young fellow, now, 'tis in the
+twinkling of an eye I'd have her from under her aunt's nose and away in
+a coach and four."
+
+"The sole thing that prevents our _all_ eloping with Miss Beresford on
+the spot is--is--the difficulty of finding the coach and four and the
+blacksmith," says Mr. Kelly, with even a denser gloom upon his face than
+usual. Indeed, he now appears almost on the verge of tears.
+
+"We never lost time speculating on ways and means in _those_ days," says
+Madame O'Connor, throwing up her head. "Whoo! Times are changed indeed
+since my grandfather played old Harry with the countrymen and my
+grandmother's father by running away with her without a word to any one,
+after a big ball at my great grandmother's, and that, too, when she was
+guarded as if she was the princess royal herself and had every man in
+the South on his knees to her."
+
+"But how did he manage it?" says Desmond, laughing.
+
+"Faith, by making the old gentleman my great-grandfather as drunk as a
+fiddler, on drugged potheen," says Madam O'Connor, proudly. "The butler
+and he did it between them; but it was as near being murder as anything
+you like, because they put so much of the narcotic into the whiskey that
+the old man didn't come to himself for three days. That's the sort of
+thing for _me_," says Madam, with a little flourish of her shapely
+hand.
+
+"So it would be for me, too," says Kelly, mournfully. "But there's no
+one good enough to risk my neck for, now you have refused to have
+anything to do with me."
+
+"Get along with you, you wicked boy, making fun of an old woman!" says
+Madam, with her gay, musical laugh. "Though," with a touch of pride, "I
+won't deny but I led the lads a fine dance when I was the age of that
+pretty child yonder."
+
+"I wonder you aren't ashamed when you think of all the mischief you
+did," says Desmond, who delights in her.
+
+"Divil a bit!" says Madam O'Connor.
+
+"Still, I really think Ryde affects her," says Rossmoyne, who, being a
+dull man, has clung to the first topic promulgated.
+
+"That's nothing, so long as she doesn't affect him," says Kelly,
+somewhat sharply.
+
+"But perhaps she does; and I daresay he has money. Those English fellows
+generally have a reversion somewhere."
+
+"Not a penny," says Mr. Kelly. "And, whether or no, I don't believe she
+would look at him."
+
+"Not she," says Madam O'Connor.
+
+"I don't know that. And, even allowing what you say to be true, women
+are not always to be won by wealth" (with a faint sigh), "and he is a
+very good-looking fellow."
+
+"Is he?" says Desmond, speaking with an effort. "If flesh counts, of
+course he is. 'Let me have men about me that are fat; sleek-headed men,
+and such as sleep o' nights.' To look at Ryde, one would fancy he slept
+well, not only by night but by day."
+
+"I feel as if I was going to be sorry for Ryde presently," says Mr.
+Kelly.
+
+"Well, he's not the man for Monica," says Madam O'Connor, with
+conviction. "See how sorrow grows upon her lovely face. For shame! go
+and release her, some one, from her durance vile. Take heart of grace,
+go in boldly, and win her, against all odds."
+
+"But if she will not be won?" says Desmond, smiling, but yet with an
+anxious expression.
+
+"'That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man if with his tongue he
+cannot win a woman,'" quotes Madam, in a low voice, turning to Desmond
+with a broad smile of the liveliest encouragement; "and as for you,
+Desmond, why, if I were a girl, I'd be won by yours at once."
+
+Desmond laughs.
+
+"I'm sorry I'm beneath your notice now."
+
+"Where's your uncle? Couldn't even my letter coax him here to-night?"
+
+"Not even that. He has gone nowhere now for so many years that I think
+he is afraid to venture."
+
+"Tut!" says Madam, impatiently; "because _he_ jilted a woman once is no
+reason why the rest of us should jilt _him_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is an hour later, and all the guests have gone except indeed Kit, who
+has been sent upstairs tired and sleepy to share Monica's room, and
+Terence and Brian Desmond, who with his friend Kelly are struggling into
+their top-coats in the hall. The rain is descending in torrents, and
+they are regarding with rather rueful countenances the dog-cart awaiting
+them outside, in which they had driven over in the sunny morning that
+seems impossible, when Madam O'Connor sweeps down upon them.
+
+"Take off those coats at once," she says. "What do you mean, Brian? I
+wouldn't have it on my conscience to send a rat out of my house on such
+a night as this, unless under cover." Her conscience is Madam's strong
+point. She excels in it. She ofttimes swears by it! Her promise to Miss
+Priscilla that Desmond shall not sleep beneath her roof during Monica's
+stay is forgotten or laid aside, and finally, with a smile of
+satisfaction, she sees the two young men carried off by Ronayne for a
+final smoke before turning in.
+
+"I don't feel a bit sleepy myself," says Monica, who is looking as fresh
+and sweet as if only now just risen.
+
+"Neither do I," says Olga. "Come to my room, then, and talk to me for a
+minute or two."
+
+They must have been long minutes, because it is quite an hour later when
+a little slender figure, clad in a pretty white dressing-gown, emerges
+on tiptoe from Mrs. Bohun's room and steals hurriedly along the deserted
+corridor.
+
+Somebody else is hurrying along this corridor, too. Seeing the childish
+figure in the white gown, he pauses; perhaps he thinks it is a ghost;
+but, if so, he is a doughty man, because he goes swiftly up to it with a
+glad smile upon his lips.
+
+"My darling girl," he says, in a subdued voice, "I thought you were in
+the middle of your first happy dream by this."
+
+Monica smiles, and leaves her hand in his.
+
+"I am not such a lazy-bones as you evidently thought me," she says. "But
+I must hurry now, indeed. All the world is abed, I suppose; and if Kit
+wakes and finds me not yet come, she will be frightened."
+
+"Before you go, tell me you will meet me somewhere to-morrow. You,"
+uncertainly, "_are_ going home to-morrow, are you not?"
+
+"Yes. But--but--_how_ can I meet you? I have almost given my word to
+Aunt Priscilla to do nothing--clandestine--or that; and how shall I
+break it? You are always tempting me, and"--a soft glance stealing to
+him from beneath her lashes--"I should _like_ to see you, of course, but
+so much duty I owe to her."
+
+"Your first duty is to your husband," responds he, gravely.
+
+She turns to him with startled eyes.
+
+"Who is that?" she asks.
+
+"I am," boldly; "or at least I soon shall be: it is all the same."
+
+"How sure you are of me!" she says, with just the faintest touch of
+offence in her tone that quickens his pulses to fever-heat.
+
+"_Sure!_" he says, with a melancholy raised by passion into something
+that is almost vehemence. "Was I ever so _unsure_ of anything, I wonder?
+There is so little certainty connected with you in my mind that half my
+days are consumed by doubts that render me miserable! Yet I put my trust
+in you. Upon your sweetness I build my hope. I feel you would not
+willingly condemn any one to death, and what could I do but die if you
+now throw me over? But you _won't I think_."
+
+"No, no," says Monica, impulsively, tears in her eyes and voice.
+Tremblingly she yields herself to him, and let him hold her to his heart
+in a close embrace. "How could you think that of me? Have you forgotten
+that I _kissed_ you?"
+
+Plainly she lays great stress upon that rash act committed the other
+night beneath the stars.
+
+"_Forget it!_" says Desmond, in a tone that leaves nothing to be
+desired. "You are mine, then, now,--now and forever," he says,
+presently.
+
+"But there is always Aunt Priscilla," says Monica, nervously. Her tone
+is full of affliction. "Oh, if she could _only_ see me now!"
+
+"Well, she _can't_, that's one comfort; not if she were the hundred-eyed
+Argus himself."
+
+"I feel I am behaving very badly to her," says Monica, dolorously. "I
+am, in spite of myself, deceiving her, and to-morrow, when it is all
+over,----"
+
+"It shan't be over," interrupts he, with considerable vigor. "What a
+thing to say!"
+
+"I shall feel _so_ guilty when I get back to Moyne. Just as if I had
+been doing something dreadful. So I have, I think. How shall I ever be
+able to look her in the face again?"
+
+"Don't you know? It is the simplest thing in the world. You have only to
+fix your eyes steadily on the tip of her nose, and there you are!"
+
+This disgraceful frivolity on the part of her lover rouses quick
+reproach in Monica's eyes.
+
+"I don't think it is a nice thing to laugh at one," she says, very
+justly incensed. "I wouldn't laugh at _you_ if you were unhappy. You are
+not the least help to me. What _am_ I to say to Aunt Priscilla?"
+
+"'How d'ye do?' first; and then--in an _airy_ tone, you know--'I am
+going to be married, as soon as time permits, to Brian Desmond.' No,
+no," penitently, catching a firmer hold of her as she makes a valiant
+but ineffectual effort to escape the shelter of his arms, "I didn't mean
+it. I am sorry, and I'll never do it again. I'll sympathize with
+_anything_ you say, if you will promise not to desert me."
+
+"It is you," reproachfully, "who desert me, and in my hour of need. I
+don't think," wistfully, "I am so _very_ much to blame, am I? I didn't
+_ask_ you to fall in love with me, and when you came here all this week
+to see Madam O'Connor I couldn't possibly have turned my back upon you,
+could I?"
+
+"You could; but it would have brought you to the verge of suicide and
+murder. Because, as you turned, I should have turned too, on the chance
+of seeing your face, and so on, and on until vertigo set in, and death
+ensued, and we were both buried in one common grave. It sounds awful,
+doesn't it? Well, and where, then, will you come to meet me to-morrow?"
+
+"To the river, I suppose," says Monica.
+
+"Do you know," says Desmond, after a short pause, "I shall have to leave
+you soon? Not now; not until October, perhaps; but whenever I do go it
+will be for a month at least."
+
+"A _month_?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A whole long month!"
+
+"The longest month I shall have ever known," sadly.
+
+"I certainly didn't think you would go and do a thing like _that_," says
+his beloved, with much severity.
+
+"My darling, I can't help it; but we needn't talk about it just yet.
+Only it came into my head a moment ago, that it would be very sweet to
+get a letter from you while I was away: a letter," softly, "a letter
+from my own wife to her husband."
+
+Monica glances at him in a half-perplexed fashion, and then, as though
+some thought has come to her for the first time, and brought merriment
+in its train, her lips part, and all her lovely face breaks into silent
+mirth.
+
+"What is it?" asks he, a little--just a very little--disconcerted.
+
+"Oh, nothing; nothing, really. Only it _does_ seem so funny to think I
+have got a husband," she says, in a choked whisper, and then her mirth
+gets beyond her control, and, but that Brian presses her head down on
+his chest, and so stifles it, they might have had Miss Fitzgerald out
+upon them in ten seconds.
+
+"Hush!" whispers the embryo husband, giving her a little shake. But he
+is laughing, too.
+
+"I don't feel as if I honored you a bit," says Miss Beresford; "and as
+to the 'obey,' I certainly shan't do that."
+
+"As if I should ask you!" says Desmond. "But what of the _love_,
+sweetheart?"
+
+"Why, as it is yours, you ought to be the one to answer _that_
+question," retorts she, prettily, a warm flush dyeing her face.
+
+"But why must you leave me?" she says, presently.
+
+"The steward has written to me once or twice. Tenants nowadays are so
+troublesome. Of course I could let the whole thing slide, and the
+property go to the dogs; but no man has a right to do that. I am talking
+of my own place now, you understand,--_yours_, as it will be soon, I
+hope."
+
+"And where is--_our_ place?"
+
+The hesitation is adorable, but still more adorable are the smile and
+blush that accompany it.
+
+"In Westmeath," says Brian, when some necessary preliminaries have been
+gone through. "I hope you will like it. It is far prettier than Coole in
+every way."
+
+"And I think Coole lovely, what I've seen of it," says Monica, sweetly.
+
+Here the lamp that has hitherto been lighting the corridor, thinking,
+doubtless (and very reasonably, too), that it has done its duty long
+enough, flickers, and goes out. But no darkness follows its defection.
+Through the far window a pale burst of light rushes, illumining in a
+cold and ghostly manner the spot on which they stand. "The meek-eyed
+morn, mother of dews," has come, and night has slipped away abashed,
+with covered front.
+
+Together they move to the window and look out upon the awakening world;
+and, even as they gaze enraptured at its fairness, the sun shoots up
+from yonder hill, and a great blaze of glory is abroad.
+
+          "Over the spangled grass
+    Swept the swift footsteps of the lovely light,
+    Turning the tears of Night to joyous gems."
+
+"Oh, we have delayed too long," says Monica, with a touch of awe
+engendered by the marvellous and mystic beauty of the hour. "Good-night,
+good-night!"
+
+"Nay, rather a fair good-morrow, my sweet love," says Desmond, straining
+her to his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+  How The Desmond's mind is harrassed by a gentle maiden and two
+  ungentle roughs; and how the Land League shows him a delicate
+  attention.
+
+
+"By the by," says old Mr. Desmond, looking at his nephew across the
+remains of the dessert, "You've been a good deal at Aghyohillbeg of
+late: why?"
+
+It is next evening, and, Monica being at Moyne and inaccessible, Brian
+is at Coole. Mr. Kelly is walking up and down on the gravelled walk
+outside, smoking a cigar.
+
+"Because Miss Beresford was there," says Brian, breaking a grape
+languidly from the bunch he holds in his hand.
+
+"_What!_" says Mr. Desmond, facing him.
+
+"Because Miss Beresford was there."
+
+"What am I to understand by that?"
+
+"That she was there, I suppose," says Brian, laughing, "and that I am
+head over ears in love with her."
+
+"How dare you say such a thing as that to me?" says the squire, pushing
+back his chair and growing a lively purple. "Are you going to tell me
+next you mean to marry her?"
+
+"I certainly do," says Brian; "and," with a glance of good-humored
+defiance at the squire, "I'm the happiest man in the world to-day
+because she last night told me she'd have me."
+
+"You shan't do it!" says the squire, now almost apoplectic. "You shan't
+do it!--do you hear? I'm standing in your poor father's place, sir, and
+I _forbid_ you to marry one of that blood. What! marry the
+daughter--of--of--" something in his throat masters him here,--"the
+niece of Priscilla Blake, a woman with a tongue! Never!"
+
+"My dear George, you wouldn't surely have me marry a woman _without_
+one?"
+
+"I think all women would be better without them; and as for Priscilla
+Blake's, I tell you, sir, Xantippe was an angel to her. I insist on your
+giving up this idea at once."
+
+"I certainly shan't give up Miss Beresford, if that is what you mean?"
+
+"Then I'll disinherit you!" roars the squire. "I will, I swear it! I'll
+marry myself. I'll do something desperate!"
+
+"No, you won't," says Brian, laughing again; and going over to the old
+man, he lays his hands upon his shoulders and pushes him gently back
+into his chair. "When you see her you will adore her, and she sent her
+love to you this morning, and this, too," laying a photograph of Monica
+before the Squire, who glances at it askance, as though fearful it may
+be some serpent waiting to sting him for the second time; but, as he
+looks, his face clears.
+
+"She is not like her mother," he says, in a low tone.
+
+"I never met such a remorseful old beggar," thinks Desmond, with wonder;
+but just at this moment a servant enters with a message to the squire;
+so the photograph is hastily withdrawn, and the conversation--or rather
+discussion--comes to an end.
+
+"Two of the tenants are asking to see you, sir," says the butler,
+confidentially.
+
+"What two?"
+
+"Donovan, from the East, and Moloney, from the Bog Road, sir."
+
+"Very well; show Moloney into the library, and tell Donovan to wait
+downstairs until I send for him."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, Moloney, come to pay your rent?" says the squire, cheerfully,
+entering the library and gazing keenly at the man who is awaiting him
+there. He is a fellow of ordinary build, with a cringing, servile
+expression and shifting eyes. He smiles apologetically, and shuffles
+uneasily from one foot to the other as he feels the squire's eye upon
+him.
+
+"No, sir; I can't bring it, sir. I'd be in dhread o' my life wid the
+boys to do it."
+
+"I don't know who the gentlemen in question you designate as 'the boys'
+may be," says the squire, calmly. "I can only tell you that I expect my
+rent from you, and intend to get it."
+
+"That's what I come to spake about, yer honor. But the Land League is a
+powerful body, an' secret too; look at the murdher o' Mr. Herbert and
+that English Lord in Faynix Park, and the rewards an' all, an' what's
+come of it?"
+
+"A good deal of hanging will come of it, I trust," says The Desmond,
+hopefully. "In the mean time, I am not to be detered from doing my duty
+by idle threats. I thought you, Moloney, were too respectable a man to
+mix yourself up with this movement."
+
+"I'm only a poor man, sir, but my life is as good to me as another's;
+an' if I pay they'll murdher me, an' what'll become o' me then? An'
+besides, I haven't it, sir; 'tis thrue for me. How can I be up to time,
+wid the crop so bad this year."
+
+"It is as good a year as I have ever known for crops," says Desmond. "I
+will have no excuses of that sort: either you pay me or turn out; I am
+quite determined on this point."
+
+"Ye wouldn't give me an abatement, yer honor?"
+
+"No, not a penny. Not to men such as you, who come here to demand it as
+a right and are very well to do. There are others whose cases I shall
+consider; but that is my own affair, and I will not be dictated to. On
+Monday you will bring me your rent, or give up the land."
+
+"I think ye're a bit unwise to press matthers just now," says the man,
+slowly, and with a sinister glance from under his knitted brows. "I
+don't want to say anything uncivil to ye, sir, but--I'd take care if I
+were you. The counthry is mad hot, an', now they think they've got
+Gladstone wid 'em, they wouldn't stick at a trifle."
+
+"The trifle being my assassination," says old Desmond, with a laugh. He
+draws himself up, and, in spite of his ugly face, looks almost princely.
+"Tut, man! don't think, after all these years among you, I am to be
+intimidated: you should know me better."
+
+The man cowers before the haughty glance the old squire casts upon him,
+and retreats behind his cringing manner once again.
+
+"I thought ye might take into considheration the fact that I'm of yer
+own religion," he says cunningly.
+
+"That you are a Protestant does not weigh with me one inch. One tenant
+is as worthy of consideration as another; and, to tell the truth, I find
+your Roman Catholic brethren far easier to deal with, I will have no
+whining about differences of that sort. All I require is what is justly
+due to me; and that I shall expect on Monday. You understand?"
+
+"Ye're a hard man," says Moloney, with an evil glance.
+
+"I expected you to say nothing else. All the kindness of years is
+forgotten because of one denial. How often have I let you off your rent
+entirely during these twenty years we have been landlord and tenant
+together! There, go! I have other business to attend to. But on Monday,
+remember."
+
+"Ye won't see me that day or any other," says the fellow, insolently,
+sticking his hat on his head with a defiant gesture.
+
+"Very good. That is your own lookout. You know the consequences of your
+non-arrival. Denis," to the footman, "show this man out, and send
+Donovan here."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, Donovan, what is it?" says Desmond, a few minutes later, as the
+library door again opens to admit the other malcontent. He is a stout,
+thick-set man, with fierce eyes and a lowering brow, and altogether a
+very "villanous countenance." He has mercifully escaped, however, the
+hypocritical meanness of the face that has just gone. There is a
+boldness, a reckless, determined daring about this man, that stamps him
+as a leading spirit among men of evil minds.
+
+"I've come here to spake to ye to-night, Misther Desmond, as man to
+man," he says, with a somewhat swaggering air.
+
+"With all my heart," says The Desmond; "but be as fair to me as I have
+ever been to you and yours, and we shall come to amicable terms soon
+enough."
+
+"As to fairness," says the man, "I don't see how any landlord in Ireland
+can spake of it without a blush."
+
+Strange to say, the aggressive insolence of this man fails to rouse in
+Mr. Desmond's breast the anger that the servile humility of the last
+comer had brought into active being.
+
+"Look here, Donovan," he says, "I've been a good landlord to you; and I
+expect you, therefore, to be a good tenant to me. You hint that I, along
+with the rest, have dealt unfairly with my people; but can you prove it?
+You can lay to my charge no tales of harshness. In famine times, and
+when potatoes failed, in times of misfortune and sickness, I have always
+stood your friend, and the friend of every man, woman, and child on my
+estate; yet now what harvest do I reap, save grossest ingratitude? yet
+what more can I hope for in this most unhappy time, when blood is
+unrighteously poured upon the land, and the laws of God and my queen are
+set at naught?"
+
+There is a touch of passionate old-world grandeur in the squire's face
+and manner that works a sense of admiration in Donovan's breast. But it
+quickly gives way to the carefully-cultivated sense of injury that has
+been growing within him for months.
+
+"Ye can talk, there's no doubt," he mutters; "but words go for little;
+and the fact is, I've got no rent to pay ye."
+
+His tone conveys the idea that he _has_ the rent, but deliberately
+refuses to pay it.
+
+"You will bring it on Monday, or I shall evict you," says the Squire
+quietly. "You hear?"
+
+"I hear," says the man, with an evil frown. "But ye can't have it all
+yer own way now, Misther Desmond. There's others have a voice in the
+matther."
+
+"I don't care for innuendoes of that sort, or for any insolence
+whatever; I only mean you to fully know that I must live as well as you,
+and that therefore I must have my rents."
+
+"I know well enough what ye mane," says the man, with increasing
+insolence. "But I'd have you know this, that maybe before long ye'll
+whistle another tune. There's them I could mention, as has their eye
+upon ye, an' will keep it there till justice is done."
+
+"Meaning, until I give up Coole itself to the mob," says the squire,
+with a sneer.
+
+"Ay, _even_ that, it may be," says the man, with unswerving defiance.
+
+"You dare to threaten me?" says The Desmond, throwing up his head
+haughtily, and drawing some steps nearer to his tenant.
+
+"I only say what is likely to prove truth before long," returns the man,
+sturdily, and giving in an inch. "That we'll have no more tyranny, but
+will have a blow for our rights, if we swing for it."
+
+"You can shoot me when and where you like," says Desmond, with a shrug.
+"But I am afraid it will do you no good."
+
+"It will be a lesson to the others," says the man between his teeth.
+
+"To _you_ others,--yes; because it will make my heir somewhat harder on
+you than I am. The Desmonds never forgive. However, that is more your
+lookout than mine. A last word, though: if you were not the consummate
+idiots this last revolt has proved you, you would see how you are being
+led astray by a few demagogues (a butcher's boy, perchance, or an
+attorney's clerk pushed by you from absolute obscurity into a
+Parliament ashamed to acknowledge them), who will save their skins at
+the expense of yours at the last, and who meanwhile thrive royally upon
+the moneys you subscribe!"
+
+"That's a damned lie for ye," says Donovan losing his temper altogether.
+
+At this outbreak The Desmond rises slowly, and, ringing the bell, calmly
+pares his nails until a servant comes in answer to his summons.
+
+"Ask Mr. Brian to come here for a moment," he says, calmly, not lifting
+his eyes from the fourth finger of his left hand, upon the nail of which
+he is just now employed.
+
+Brian lounging in, in a few moments, his uncle pockets his penknife,
+and, waving his hand lightly in Donovan's direction, says, gravely,--
+
+"This man, Donovan, will be one of your tenants, some time,
+Brian,"--plainly, he has forgotten all about his determination to marry
+again, and so dispossess his nephew of Coole and other things, or else
+one glance at Monica's portrait (in which she had appeared so _unlike_
+her mother) has done wonders: "it is therefore as well you should learn
+his sentiments towards his landlord, especially as he is apparently the
+mouthpiece of all the others. Oblige me, Donovan, by repeating to Mr.
+Brian all you have just said to me."
+
+But the man is far too clever a lawyer to commit himself before a third
+party.
+
+"I have nothing to say," he answers, sullenly, "but this, that times are
+hard an' money scarce, an'----"
+
+"We will pass over all that. It is an old story now; and, as you decline
+to speak, I will just tell you again, I intend to have my rent on
+Monday, and if I don't I shall evict you."
+
+"Ay! as you evicted Ned Barry last month, throwing him on the open road,
+with his wife beside him, an' a baby not a month old."
+
+"Nonsense! the child was six months old, and Barry was better able to
+pay than any tenant I have, and more willing, too, until this precious
+Land League tampered with him. He has proved he had the money since, by
+paying a sum to Sullivan yonder for board and lodging that would have
+kept him in his own house for twice the length of time he has been
+there. I know all about it: I have made it my business to find it out."
+
+"Ye're mighty well informed entirely," says Donovan with a wicked sneer.
+
+"If you can't keep a civil tongue in your head, you had better leave
+this room," says Brian, flushing darkly and making a step towards him.
+
+"Who are _you_, to order me about?" says the man, with a fierce glance.
+"Ye're not my master yet, I can tell ye, an' maybe _ye never will be_."
+
+"Leave the room," says Brian, white with rage, pointing imperiously to
+the door.
+
+"Curse ye!" says the man; yet, warned by the expression on Brian's face,
+he moves in a rebellious manner to the door, and so disappears.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"They are the most unpleasant peasantry in the world," says the squire,
+some hours later,--the words coming like a dreary sigh through the
+clouds of tobacco-smoke that curl upwards from his favorite meershaum.
+
+He and Brian and Owen Kelly are all sitting in the library, the scene of
+the late encounter, and have been meditating silently upon many matters,
+in which perhaps Love has the largest share, considering his votaries
+are two to one, when the squire most unexpectedly gives way to the
+speech aforesaid.
+
+"The women are very handsome," says Mr. Kelly.
+
+"Handsome is as handsome does," says the squire with a grunt.
+
+"Don't the Protestant tenants pay?" asks Owen, presently, who is in a
+blissful state of ignorance about the tenant-right affair generally.
+
+"They're just the worst of the lot," says old Desmond, testily: "they
+come whimpering here, saying they would gladly pay, but that they are
+afraid of the others, and won't I let them off? and so forth."
+
+"I wonder," says Brian, dreamily,--it is very late, and he is in a
+gently, kindly, somnolent state, born of the arm-chair and his pipe,--"I
+wonder if one was to give in to them entirely, would they be generous
+enough to----"
+
+"If you can't talk sense," interrupted his uncle, angrily, "don't talk
+at all. I am surprised at you, Brian! Have you seen or noticed nothing
+all these years, have you been blind to the state of the country, that
+you give sound to such utter trash? Pshaw! the weakly sentiment of the
+day sickens me."
+
+"But suppose one was to humor them. I am not alluding to you, my dear
+George," to his uncle,--"I know you have humored them considerably,--but
+I mean landlords generally: would not peace be restored? That fellow
+Donovan to-day was beyond doubt impertinent to the last degree; but of
+course he meant nothing: they would, I should think, hesitate, in their
+own interest, before falling foul of you."
+
+"You don't understand them as I do," says the squire, slowly.
+
+"I still think peace, and not war, should be instilled into them," says
+Brian. "Too many landlords are harsh and unyielding in an aggravated
+degree, when a little persuasion and a few soft words would smooth
+matters. They, of course, are visited with the revenge of the League,
+whilst such as you escape."
+
+These complacent words are still upon his lips, he has had time to lean
+back in his chair with the languid air of one who has given to the world
+views not admitting of contradiction, when a sharp whirring noise is
+heard, followed by a crash of broken glass and the dull thud of a bullet
+that has found its home in the wall right opposite the squire. Right
+opposite Brian, too, for they had been side by side with Owen Kelly,
+fortunately not _quite_, but very nearly, opposite.
+
+For a moment nobody quite knows what has happened, so sudden is the
+thing; and then they spring to their feet, full of the knowledge that a
+bullet has been fired into their midst.
+
+It had passed right over The Desmond's shoulder, close to his ear,
+_between_ him and Brian, and had grazed the sleeve of Kelly's coat, who,
+as I have said, was sitting _almost_ opposite.
+
+With an oath Brian rushes to the window, tears open the shutters, throws
+up the sash, and jumps down into the garden, followed by Kelly and the
+Squire.
+
+It is a dark night, murky and heavy with dense rain-laden clouds, and so
+black as to render it impossible to see one's hand before one. Search
+after a while is found to be impossible and the cowardly would-be
+assassin so far is safe from arrest. Dispirited and indignant, they
+return to the room they left, to discuss the outrage.
+
+"Now, who will preach to me of peace again?" says the squire turning to
+Brian a face pale with excitement.
+
+"Not I," says Brian, with a face pale as his own, and eyes that burn
+fiercely with the wrath of an incomplete revenge.
+
+"I retract every foolish word I said a few minutes since. Henceforth it
+shall be war to the knife between me and my tenantry, as well as yours."
+
+"War to the bullet would be more in harmony," says Mr. Kelly, seriously.
+He has extracted the bullet in question from the wall with the aid of a
+stout penknife, and is now regarding it mournfully as it lies in the
+palm of his hand. "Don't you think they take a very unfair advantage of
+you?" he says, mildly. "They come here and shoot at you; why don't you
+go to their cabins and shoot at them?"
+
+"Let them keep their advantage," says Brian, disdainfully. "We shall
+conquer at last, no matter how many lives it costs us."
+
+"At all events, they won't get a glimpse of the white feather _here_,"
+says the squire, who is looking quite ten years younger. There is
+nothing like a row for an Irishman, after all.
+
+"Still, I think I wouldn't sit with my back to that window any more, if
+I were you," suggests Mr. Kelly, meekly, seeing the squire has sunk into
+his usual seat again.
+
+"It will be a bad winter, I fear," says the squire shaking his head.
+
+"A lively one, no doubt. I quite envy you. I should rather like to stay
+here and see you through it. My dear sir, if you and that enormous chair
+are inseparables, let me entreat you to move it at least a _little_ to
+the left."
+
+    "'I love it, I love it, and who shall dare
+    To chide me from loving this old arm-chair?'"
+
+quotes the squire, with quite a jolly laugh. "Eh? well, Kelly, this is
+hardly a pleasant time to ask a fellow on a visit, and I expect you'll
+be glad to get back to more civilized parts; but we'll write and tell
+you how we're getting on, my lad, from time to time. That is, as long as
+we are alive to do it."
+
+"You shall hear of our mishaps," says Brian laughing too.
+
+"It is rather inhospitable of you not to take the hint I have thrown
+out," says Kelly, with a faint yawn. "_Won't_ you ask me to spend this
+winter with you?"
+
+"My _dear_ fellow, you really mean it?" says Brian, looking at him.
+
+"Oh, yes, I really mean it. Excitement of the sort I have been treated
+to to-night seldom comes in my way. I should like to see this affair
+through with you."
+
+"You're a brave lad!" says the squire; "but there is always a risk in
+this kind of thing, and it is quite probable you will have the roof
+burned over your head one of these dark nights to come. You will have to
+chance that if you stay, as I intend to persevere with these
+blackguardly tenants and fight it out with them to the last."
+
+"To the very last," says Brian, regarding his friend meaningly.
+
+"That's why I'm staying," returns his friend, languidly. Which is half,
+but not the whole, truth, as the fact that Mrs. Bohun and her cousin
+Hermia are going to spend the winter at Aghyohillbeg has a good deal to
+do with it too.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+  How rations fall short in the enemy's camp; and how Monica, armed
+  with a strange ammunition, marches into the hostile land.
+
+
+"Did ye hear, miss? Oh, faix, there's terrible news, ma'am!" says old
+Timothy, trotting into the breakfast-room at Moyne the following
+morning, his face pale with excitement.
+
+"You alarm me, Ryan! what is it?" says Miss Priscilla, laying down her
+fork.
+
+"Oh, it's beyant everything, ma'am! Oh, the blackguards o' the world! It
+was last night, miss, it happened. The ould squire, there below, was
+sittin' in his library, as paceable as ye plaze, ma'am, when they fired
+a bullet at him, an' shot him an' wounded Misther Brian----No, be the
+powers, I b'lave I'm wrong; they kilt Misther Brian an' wounded the
+Squire; an' there's the greatest commotion ye iver see down below,
+miss."
+
+For one awful moment Monica thinks she is going to faint. A mist rises
+between her and Timothy's face; his voice sounds far away, in the next
+county as it were, and then ceases altogether. Then a sharp sting of
+pain rushing through her veins rouses her, and sends the blood back with
+a tumultuous haste to cheek and neck and brow. The pain is short but
+effective, and is, indeed, nothing more than a pinch of a pronounced
+type, administered by the watchful Kit, with a promptitude very
+creditable to her.
+
+"He is exaggerating," says the astute Kit, in a subdued whisper
+apparently addressed to her plate. "Don't believe him; take courage;
+and, at all events, remember their eyes are upon you!" Her tone is great
+with mystery and kindly encouragement. More revived by it than even by
+the pinch, Monica takes heart of grace, and listens with maddening
+impatience for what is yet to come. Glancing at Miss Priscilla, she can
+see that her aunt is as pale as death, and that her hands are trembling
+excessively. Miss Penelope is looking with anxiety at her, whilst trying
+to elicit the truth from Ryan.
+
+"Collect yourself, Ryan," she says, severely. "Who was killed?"
+
+"No one outright, I'm tould, miss,--but----"
+
+"Then who is wounded?"
+
+"The bullet went right through them, miss."
+
+"Through _both_! But that is impossible. I must beg you again to collect
+yourself, Timothy; all this is most important, and naturally Miss
+Blake--that is, _we_--are much upset about it. Through whom did the
+bullet go?"
+
+"The ould squire an' his nephew, miss."
+
+"Through their bodies?" cries Miss Penelope, throwing up hope and both
+her hands at the same time.
+
+"No, ma'am, jist between them, as it might be between you an' Miss
+Priscilla now." He illustrates the real truth as he says this.
+
+"Bless me, man! sure they weren't touched at all so," says Miss
+Penelope.
+
+"No more they were, miss. Sorra a bit, praise be----"
+
+"Then why did you say they were killed?" says Terence, indignantly, who
+has been stricken dumb by the appalling fate of his dear Desmond.
+
+"An' sure how much nearer could they be to it? What saved thim, but
+maybe the hitch of a chair? Oh! wirrasthrue this day!" says old Ryan,
+beginning to cry.
+
+"Timothy sit down directly. Terence get him a glass of whiskey," says
+Miss Penelope. "Now, don't excite yourself, Timothy; you know it is very
+bad for you at your age. Take time, now. Collect yourself!"
+
+"Have the assassins been discovered?" asks Miss Priscilla, in a
+trembling tone.
+
+"No, miss. But I'm tould the polis is very eager afther 'em."
+
+"Was nobody hurt, Timothy?"
+
+"No one, ma'am."
+
+Here Monica, feeling the relief greater than she can support, gives way
+to a dry but perfectly audible sob.
+
+"Don't be afeard, miss, dear," says old Ryan, with heartfelt but most
+ill-judged sympathy: "the _young gentleman_ is all right. Not a single
+scratch on him, they say; so you needn't be cryin' about him, honey."
+
+"Miss Monica is in no wise anxious about Mr. Brian Desmond," says Miss
+Priscilla, recovering from her nervousness with as much haste as though
+she had been subjected to an electric shock. "She is only distressed--as
+I am--by these lawless proceedings."
+
+"An' we hear they're boycotted, too, ma'am," says old Ryan, still
+oppressed with news that must be worked off. "John Bileman, the
+Protestant baker in the village they always dealt wid, has been
+forbidden to give 'em another loaf, and the butcher is threatened if he
+gives 'em a joint, an' the Clonbree butcher has been telegraphed to
+also, miss, an' there's the world an' all to pay!"
+
+"Do you mean that they are going to treat him as they did Mr. Bence
+Jones?" says Miss Penelope, indignantly.
+
+"Troth, I believe so, ma'am."
+
+"Will Mr. Brian have to milk the cows?" says Terence, at which
+astounding thought both he and Kit break into merry laughter until
+checked by Monica's reproachful gaze. How _can_ they laugh when Brian
+may be _starving_?
+
+"Faix, it's awful, miss; an' the ould man to be wantin' for things
+now,--he that allus kep' a fine table, to spake truth of him, and liked
+his bit an' sup amazin', small blame to him. I'm thinkin' 'tis hungry
+enough he'll be now for the future, the crathur! Oh, wirra! wirra!" says
+Timothy, sympathetically, as he shambles towards the door.
+
+When he is gone, Miss Priscilla turns upon Terence and Kit.
+
+"I must say, I think your mirth at such a time most unseemly," she says.
+"I am glad Monica takes no part in it. Terence, did you go up to the
+widow Driscoll with my message this morning?"
+
+"Yes, aunt."
+
+She had evidently expected him to say "no," because her tone is
+considerably mollified when she speaks again.
+
+"Was she pleased, do you think?"
+
+"Yes, aunt."
+
+"She said so, perhaps?"
+
+"No, aunt."
+
+"Then what _did_ she say? I wish, my dear boy, you would try to be a
+little less reticent."
+
+"She said, 'Her duty to you, aunt, and her very coarse veins were worse
+than ever.'"
+
+"Varicose, Terence--varicose!"
+
+"She said very coarse, aunt, and I suppose she knows more about them
+than any one else."
+
+He has a very sweet face, and it is more than usually so as he says all
+this.
+
+"And her son, how is he, poor soul?" asks Miss Penelope, as Miss
+Priscilla withdraws, beaten, into the background.
+
+"His duty to you, too, and 'he is better, but has been much afflicted
+with the egg-cups for the last two days.'"
+
+"_The what!_" says Miss Penelope, shifting her _pinceneze_ uneasily, and
+looking perplexed in the extreme.
+
+"Oh, Terry! how can you be so silly?" says Kit, with another merry
+laugh.
+
+"How am I silly?" with an impassible countenance. "Young Driscoll is
+silly, of course, and evidently looks upon part of the breakfast-ware as
+enemies of some sort. But that is not _my_ fault."
+
+"Hiccoughs he must have meant, my dear," says Miss Priscilla, hastily.
+"Dear--dear--dear! what a terrible shock he--they--must have got last
+night at Coole!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When day is deepening into eventide, Monica, finding Kit alone, kneels
+down beside her, and lays her cheek to hers.
+
+All day long she has been brooding miserably over her lover's danger,
+and dwelling with foolish persistency upon future dangers born of her
+terrified imagination.
+
+She had been down to their trysting-place at the river, hardly hoping to
+find him there, yet had been terribly disappointed when she had _not_
+found him, Brian at that very moment being busy with police and
+magistrates and law generally.
+
+"What is it, ducky?" says Kit, very tenderly, laying down her book and
+pressing her pretty sister close to her.
+
+"Kit," says Monica, with tearful eyes, "_do_ you think it is all true
+that Timothy said this morning about their--their _starving_ at Coole?
+Oh Kit, I can't bear to think he is _hungry_!"
+
+"It is dreadful! I don't know what to think," says Kit. "If nobody will
+sell them anything, I suppose they have nothing to eat."
+
+At this corroboration of her worst fears, Monica dissolves into tears.
+
+"I couldn't eat my chicken at lunch, thinking of him," she sobs. "It
+stuck in my throat."
+
+"Poor sweet love!--it _was_ dry," says Kit, expanding into the wildest
+affection. She kisses Monica fondly, and (though you would inevitably
+have suffered death at her hands had you even hinted at it) is beginning
+to enjoy herself intensely. Once again this luckless couple look to
+_her_ for help. She is to be the one to raise them from their "Slough of
+Despond,"--difficult but congenial task! "Then you have been existing on
+lemon tart and one glass of sherry since breakfast time?" she says, with
+the deepest commiseration. "Poor darling! I saw it; I noticed you ate
+nothing _except_ the tart. You liked that, didn't you?"
+
+"I didn't," says Monica. "I _hated_ it. And I was a cruel, cold-hearted
+wretch to _touch_ it. But it was sweet--and--I--it--somehow
+disappeared."
+
+"It did," says Kit, tenderly.
+
+"Oh, Kit, help me!"
+
+"You mean you want to take him something wherewith to stave off the
+pangs of hunger," says the younger Miss Beresford, with that grandeur of
+style she usually affects in moments of strong excitement, and with the
+vigor that distinguishes her. "I see; certainly." She grows abstracted.
+"There's a leg of mutton hanging in the larder, with some fowl, and a
+quarter of lamb," she says, presently. "But I suppose if we took _them_,
+Aunt Priscilla would put us in the hue and cry."
+
+"It mustn't be thought of. No, no; think of something else."
+
+"Bread, then. Ordinary, of course, very ordinary, but yet the staff of
+life."
+
+"I _couldn't_ take him anything so nasty as mere bread," says Monica, in
+despair. "But, if cook would make us a cake----"
+
+"A big one, with currants! The very _thing_!" says Kit, with decision.
+"And she will never betray us. Reilly, in little affairs of this
+kind,--though sadly wanting where soups are concerned,--is quite all she
+ought to be."
+
+"When will it be baked? He _must_ get it to-night," says Monica, who is
+evidently afraid her lover, if not succored, will die of want before
+morning.
+
+"Leave all to me," says Kit, flitting away from her through the
+gathering gloom to seek the lower region and its presiding goddess.
+
+Leaving all to Kit means that when dinner is over, about half-past
+eight, the two Misses Beresford may be seen crossing the boundary that
+divides Moyne from Coole with anxious haste and a hot cake.
+
+This last is hugged to Monica's breast, and is plainly causing her the
+greatest inconvenience. It is a _huge_ cake, and has to be carried
+parcelwise, being much too big for the smaller basket they had, and
+much too small for the bigger. But Monica--though it is heavy beyond
+description (though, I hope, light in every other way for the sake of
+Reilly's reputation) and still appallingly _hot_--trudges along with it
+bravely, resisting all Kit's entreaties to be allowed to share the
+burden.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Who are those coming towards us through the elms down there?" says Mr.
+Kelly, suddenly.
+
+He and Brian Desmond are sitting upon a garden seat outside the
+dining-room windows, enjoying an after dinner cigar.
+
+"There?" says Brian, following his glance. "Eh?--What?" There is a
+second pause, then, rising to his feet with much precipitancy, he flings
+his cigar to the winds, and, before Owen has time to recover from his
+astonishment at these proceedings, is well out of sight. A turn in the
+lawn has hidden Brian and the advancing figures from his view.
+
+"Monica!" says Desmond, as he reaches her; "what has brought you here at
+this hour? My darling! how pale and tired you look!"
+
+"She has been much perturbed," says Kit, solemnly. She has been
+meditating this remark for some time.
+
+"We heard all about last night," murmurs Monica, with a sweet troubled
+face, out of which her eyes look into his, full of a tender pathos, like
+violets drowned. "And you were not at the river this afternoon, and so I
+came here to find you, and----" Her voice trembles ominously.
+
+"I was obliged to be with the sergeant and the other men all day," says
+Desmond, hurriedly. "Do not blame me, my _love_. When I went to the
+river towards evening it was then of course too late. I meant to go up
+to Moyne when the moon was up----But what have you got there, dearest?"
+pointing to the enormous thing she is still holding tightly to her
+breast.
+
+She colors and hesitates; seeing which, the faithful Kit comes once more
+to the rescue.
+
+"It's a cake!" she says, with a nod of her sleek head. "We knew of you
+being boycotted, and we thought you would be hungry, so we brought it to
+you. But," eyeing him with disfavor, and as one might who feels herself
+considerably _done_, "you are evidently not. You are looking just the
+same as ever, and not a bit _pinched_ or _drawn_, as people are when
+they are found starved in garrets."
+
+"Yes, I was afraid you would get nothing to eat," says Monica, timidly.
+There is in her lovely eyes a certain wistfulness suggestive of the
+idea that she hopes her cake has not been made in vain.
+
+Mr. Desmond, seeing it, grasps the situation.
+
+"I _am_ hungry," he says; and I hope, and think, the gentle lie will be
+forgiven him. "We have had nothing in the house all day but bread, and
+that is not appetizing."
+
+"_There!_" says Monica, turning to Kit with sparkling eyes, "I _told_
+you he wouldn't like bread."
+
+"But," goes on Desmond, with a view to making her future happier,
+"to-morrow all will be right again. We know of a few faithful people who
+will smuggle us in all we may require. So do not be unhappy about me
+again. Sweetheart, what a terrible weight you have been carrying!"
+
+"It _is_ a fine one, isn't it?" says Kit. "But give it to me now,
+Monica," taking the cake from her, "while you talk to Brian: when you
+are ready to come home, I can give it to him."
+
+So saying, this inestimable child withdraws herself and Monica's
+offering to a safe distance, and pretends for the remainder of the
+interview an absorbing interest in some wild flowers growing near.
+
+"I have only a moment to stay," says Monica, nervously. "I shall be
+missed; and now I have _seen_ you safe and unhurt," with a very sweet
+smile, "I shall be able to sleep. But all day long I have been haunted
+by timid thoughts," she sighs.
+
+"I doubt it was a sorry day for you, that first one when we met," says
+Desmond, remorsefully. "I have brought you only trouble. By and by you
+will regret you ever knew me."
+
+"Do not say that. I have no regrets,--none! Even if--if--we cannot be--"
+reddening vividly, "more to each other than we are now, I can still be
+happy in the thought that you love me and are near me, and that I can
+sometimes, in spite of _every one_--" with a recklessness that sits very
+funnily upon her--"see you."
+
+"But we shall be more to each other, Monica," says the young man,
+earnestly. "We shall be all in all to each other. No human being has the
+right to separate two hearts for the sake of a mere whim."
+
+"There are so many things. But now, indeed, I must go. Good-night."
+
+"Good-night, my own. But I shall go with you as far as the boundary
+fence."
+
+"No, no, indeed!"
+
+"But indeed I shall!" and of course he has his own way, and parts from
+her and Kit there, and answers her parting injunction "to take care of
+himself for _her_ sake"--this last very low--with a lingering lover's
+kiss, and watches the two slight figures with a beating heart, until
+they are out of sight.
+
+Then, picking up the cake, he goes back again to where Mr. Kelly is
+still awaiting him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+  How Monica's gift receives due attention, and is thoroughly
+  appreciated; and how a torpedo falls into a morning-room at Moyne.
+
+
+"Well," says Kelly, "was it Miss Beresford?"
+
+"Yes, and her sister. I saw them back to the boundary fence, but they
+would let me go no farther. It was rather----"
+
+"What on earth have you got there?" says his friend, sticking his
+eyeglass in his eye, and staring with bent head and some suspicion at
+the mysterious thing in Desmond's arms.
+
+"This! oh, ah! yes." Then, desperately, "Kelly, if you laugh at it I'll
+never forgive you."
+
+Mr. Kelly drops the eyeglass and looks afflicted.
+
+"My dear fellow, do I _ever_ laugh?" he says.
+
+"Well, it--it's _a cake_!" says Brian, who (in spite of the warning just
+delivered to his friend) is now indulging in wild mirth and can scarcely
+speak for laughter. "She--Monica--heard we were boycotted, and, thinking
+we were starving, the dear angel! she brought this up herself to us."
+
+"Desmond, I'm ashamed of you," says Kelly, who has not moved a muscle of
+his face. "Such an action as hers calls for reverence,--not this
+unseemly gayety."
+
+"It's not the action I'm laughing at," says Brian, still convulsed;
+"it's the _cake_. The action is divine--the cake hot!" Here he sinks
+upon the garden-seat again, as if exhausted, and dries his eyes.
+
+"I see nothing to laugh at in that, either. It seems an excellent cake,
+and, as you say, _hot_," says Mr. Kelly, prodding it meditatively with
+his finger,--"a merit in a cake of this sort, I should say; and nicely
+browned, too, as far as I can see. I can see, too, that it is quite the
+biggest cake I ever made acquaintance with. _Another_ merit! Did she
+carry it herself all the way?"
+
+"All the way, poor darling! and just because she was afraid we should
+be hungry." Mr. Desmond's laughter has subsided, and he now looks rather
+absent. "It quite weighed her down," he says, in a low tone.
+
+"Poor child! I said yesterday, you remember, that I thought her one of
+the nicest girls I have met. The cake has finished me. I think her now
+_the_ nicest." He says this with a cheerful conscience. Between girls
+and widows a deep margin lies.
+
+"But what are we to do with it?" says Brian, regarding the cake, which
+is now lying upon the garden seat, with a puzzled expression.
+
+"Say a repentant tenant--no, that sounds like tautology--say a
+remorseful tenant brought it to you."
+
+"That wouldn't do at all."
+
+"Then say you found it in the garden."
+
+"Nonsense, Kelly! they don't _grow_. Think of something more plausible."
+
+"Give me time, then." As he speaks he absently breaks off a piece of the
+cake and puts it in his mouth. Desmond, in quite as abstracted a manner,
+does likewise. Silence ensues.
+
+"I think the idea was so sweet," says Desmond, presently, his thoughts
+being (as they should be) with Monica.
+
+"As honey and the honeycomb!" says Mr. Kelly, breaking off another
+piece, with a far-off, rapt expression.
+
+"She said she couldn't be happy, thinking we were hungry. Her dear heart
+is too big for her body."
+
+"Her cake is certainly," says Mr. Kelly: here he takes a third enormous
+pinch out of it, and Desmond follows his example.
+
+"I didn't tell her we had had dinner," says Brian. "It would have taken
+the gloss off it."
+
+"Off this?" pointing to the smoking structure between them. "I don't
+believe it."
+
+"No, the deed."
+
+Another silence.
+
+"It's a capital cake," says Mr. Kelly, pensively, who has been eating
+steadily since the first bite. "After all, give me a good sweet,
+home-made cake like this! Those bought ones aren't to be named in the
+same day with it. There is something so light and wholesome about a cake
+like this."
+
+"Wholesome!" doubtfully: "I don't know about that. What _I_ like about
+it is that it is hot and spongy. But, look here, you haven't yet said
+what we are to do with it."
+
+"I think we are doing uncommonly well with it," says Kelly, breaking off
+another piece.
+
+"But what are we to do with the remains, provided we leave any, which at
+present seems doubtful?"
+
+"Keep, them, of course. You ought to, considering she gave it you whole
+as a present."
+
+"You are right: no one shall touch a crumb of it save you and me," says
+Mr. Desmond, as though inspired. "Let us smuggle it up to my room and
+keep it there till it is finished."
+
+"I feel as if I was at school again with a plum-cake and a chum," says
+Mr. Kelly.
+
+"Well, come and follow me up with it now, and distract my uncle's
+attention if we meet him."
+
+"To _my_ room or yours?" insinuatingly.
+
+"To _mine_," firmly.
+
+"I'd take the greatest care of it, if you like to trust it to me," with
+what Kit would certainly have termed "an obliging air."
+
+"I don't doubt you," sardonically. "But certainly _not_. It was given to
+me, and I feel myself bound to look after it."
+
+"Pity we can't have it petrified," says Mr. Kelly, thoughtfully. "Then
+you might hang it round your neck as a trophy." At this they both laugh,
+and finally the trophy, after much difficulty is satisfactorily stored
+away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is a fortnight later, and desolation has overtaken Monica. Brian has
+passed out of her active life, has ceased from that seeing and hearing
+and that satisfaction of touch that belong to a daily intercourse with
+one beloved. Only in thought can she find him now. He has gone upon that
+threatened journey to those detested estates of his in Westmeath.
+
+Yesterday he went; and to-day as she wakes it seems to her that a cold
+and cruel mist has wrapped her world in its embrace. We never know how
+we prize a thing until we lose it (N. B.--Mark the novelty of this
+idea;) and now, for the first time, Monica finds herself fully awake to
+the fact of how necessary Desmond is to her everyday happiness.
+
+She had gone down to the river-side to bid him farewell, and had been
+calm, almost careless, throughout the interview,--_so_ calm that the
+young man's heart dies within him, and a latent sense of hope deferred
+had made it sick.
+
+But just at the very last she had given way, and had flung herself into
+his embrace, and twined her arms around his neck,--dear, clinging
+arms--and had broken into bitter weeping. And--
+
+"Don't be long, Brian! don't be _long_!" she had sobbed, with deep
+entreaty, and with such a tender passion as had shaken all her slender
+frame.
+
+So they had "kissed and kissed," and parted. And Desmond, though sad as
+man may be at the thought that he should look upon her face no more for
+four long weeks, still left her with a gladder heart than he had ever
+known. Her tears were sweet to him, and in her grief he found solace for
+his own.
+
+And, indeed, as the days flew by, they found the pain of absence was
+checkered by dreams of the reunion that lay before them; and each day,
+as it was born, and grew, and died, and so was laid upon the pile of
+those already gone, was a sad joy to them, and counted not so much a day
+lost as one gained.
+
+"We take no note of time but from its loss." This loss in the present
+instance was most sweet to Monica and her lover. To them Time was the
+name of a slow and cruel monster, whose death was to be desired.
+
+And now the monster is slain, and to-day Brian will return to Coole. A
+few lines full of joyful love and glad expectancy had been brought to
+her yesterday by the sympathetic Bridget, who affected an ignorance
+about the whole matter that utterly imposed on Monica, who would have
+found a bitterness in sharing her heart's secret with her maid. Yet
+Bridget knows quite as much about it as she does. To Kit alone has
+Monica unburdened her soul, and talked, and talked, and talked, on her
+one fond topic, without discovering the faintest symptom of fatigue in
+that indefatigable person.
+
+Yes, to-day he comes! Monica had risen with the lark, unable to lie abed
+with the completion of a sweet desire lying but a few short hours away
+from her, and had gone through the morning and afternoon in a dreamy
+state of tender anticipation.
+
+Yet surely not short, but of a terrible length, are these hours. Never
+has the old clock ticked with such maddening deliberation; yet--
+
+    "Be the day weary, or never so long,
+    At length it ringeth to evensong;"
+
+and at last the old clock, tick it never so slowly, must bring round the
+hour when she may go down to the river to meet her love again.
+
+But the relentless Fates are against her, and who shall interfere with
+their woven threads? As though some vile imp of their court had
+whispered in Miss Priscilla's ear the whole story of her forbidden
+attachment, she keeps Monica in the morning-room with her, copying out
+certain recipes of a dry nature, that could have been copied just as
+well to-morrow, or next year, or _never_.
+
+As the hour in which she ought to meet her lover comes and goes by, the
+poor child's pulses throb and her heart beats violently. Kit has gone to
+the village, and so cannot help her. All seems lost. Her eyes grow large
+and dark with repressed longing, her hand trembles.
+
+"There, that will do, dear child; thank you," says Miss Priscilla,
+gratefully, folding up the obnoxious papers and slipping them into the
+davenport.
+
+It is now quite half an hour past the time appointed by Desmond in his
+letter. Monica, rising impetuously, moves towards the door.
+
+"Is the writing at an end?" Miss Penelope's voice comes to her from the
+other end of the room, with a plaintive ring in it. It casts despair
+upon the hopes that are kindling afresh within her bosom. "Dear, dear!
+I'm so glad! Monica, come to me, and help me with this wool. It has got
+so entangled that only bright eyes like yours," with a loving smile,
+"can rescue it from its hopeless state."
+
+Poor Monica! after one passionate inclination to rebel, her courage
+fails her, and she gives in, and taking the tangled skein of wool (that
+reminds her in a vague, sorrowful fashion of her own hapless love story)
+between her slender fingers, bends over it.
+
+Her cheeks are aflame. Her eyes are miserable but tearless. It all seems
+too cruel. There sits Aunt Priscilla at the davenport, with a smile of
+triumph on her lips, as she finds her accounts right to a halfpenny.
+Here sits Aunt Penelope fanning herself with soft complacency, because
+the day, though of September, is sultry as of hot July. And all this
+time Brian is walking impatiently to and fro upon the tiny beach,
+thinking her cold, unloving, indifferent, watching with straining,
+reproachful eyes the path along which she ought to come.
+
+This last thought is just too much. A great fire kindles in her
+beautiful eyes; the spirit of defiance seizes on her gentle breast; her
+lips quiver; her breath comes from between them with a panting haste.
+"Yes! she will go to him, she will!" She rises to her feet.
+
+Just at that moment the door is flung wide open, and Desmond enters the
+room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+  How the Misses Blake receive the nephew of their sworn foe--How
+  Monica at all hazards proclaims her truth--And how Miss Priscilla
+  sees something that upsets her and the belief of years.
+
+
+One moment of coma ensues. It is an awful moment, in which nobody seems
+even to breathe. The two Misses Blake turn into a rigidity that might
+mean stone; the young man pauses irresolutely, yet with a sternness
+about his lips that bespeaks a settled purpose not to be laid aside for
+any reason, and that adds some years to his age.
+
+Monica has turned to him. The tangled wool has fallen unconsciously from
+her hands to her feet. Her lips are parted, her eyes wide: she sways a
+little. Then a soft rapturous cry breaks from her, there is a
+simultaneous movement on his part and on hers; and then--she is in his
+arms.
+
+For a few moments speech is impossible to them: there seems nothing in
+the wide world but he to her, and she to him.
+
+Then he lifts her face, and looks at her long and eagerly.
+
+"Yes, I have found you again, my love,--_at last_," he says.
+
+"Ah! how long it has seemed!" whispers she, with tears in her eyes.
+
+The old ladies might have been in the next county, so wrapt are they in
+their happy meeting. Their hearts are beating in unison; their souls are
+in their eyes. She has reached her home,--his breast,--and has laid her
+heart on his. The moment is perfect, and as near heaven as we poor
+mortals can attain until kindly death comes to our aid.
+
+It is but a little moment, however. It passes, and recollection returns.
+Monica, raising her head, sees the two Misses Blake standing side by
+side, with folded, nerveless hands, and fixed eyes, and horror-stricken
+faces. Shrinking still closer to her lover, Monica regards them with a
+troubled conscience and with growing fear. She is at last discovered,
+and her sin is beyond redemption.
+
+She trembles in Desmond's arms, and pales visibly. But the frantic
+beating of her heart against his renders him strong and bold. He throws
+up his head, with the action of one determined to fight to the death.
+No one shall ever take her from him. He is only too anxious to enter the
+lists and do battle for his love.
+
+And then, as his eyes light upon his foes, his spirit dies. Poor old
+ladies, so stupefied, so stricken! are they not already conquered?
+Looking at the frail front they present, he feels his weapons must be
+blunted in this fight, his gloves anything but steel.
+
+A terrible silence fills the room,--a silence that grows almost
+unbearable, until at length it is broken by Miss Priscilla. Her voice is
+low, and hushed and broken.
+
+"Monica, why did you deceive us?" she says.
+
+There is reproach, agonized disappointment, in her tone, but no anger.
+
+To these poor old women the moment is tragical. The child of their last
+years--the one thing they had held most dear and sacred--has proved
+unworthy, has linked herself with the opposition, has entered the lists
+of the enemy. They are quite calm, though trembling. Their grief is too
+great for tears. But they stand together, and there is a lost and
+heart-broken look about them.
+
+Monica, seeing it, breaks away from her lover's restraining arms, and,
+running to Miss Priscilla, falls down on her knees before her, and,
+clasping her waist with her soft, white arms, bursts into bitter tears.
+She clings to Miss Priscilla; but the old lady, though her distress is
+very apparent, stands proudly erect, and looks not at her, but at
+Desmond. The tears gather slowly in her eyes--tears come ever slowly to
+those whose youth lies far behind--and fall upon the repentant sunny
+head; but the owner shows no sign of forgiveness; yet I think she would
+have dearly liked to take the sweet sinner in her arms, to comfort and
+forgive her, but for the pride and wounded feeling that overmastered
+her.
+
+"Your presence here, sir, is an insult," she says to Desmond, meaning to
+be stern; but her grief has washed away the incivility of her little
+speech and has left it only vaguely reproachful. Desmond lowers his head
+before her gaze, and refrains from answer or explanation. A great sorrow
+for the defencelessness of _their_ sorrow has arisen in his breast for
+these old aunts, and killed all meaner thoughts. I think he would have
+felt a degree of relief if they had both fallen upon him, and said hard
+things to him, and so revenged themselves in part.
+
+Monica is sobbing bitterly. Not able to endure her grief, Desmond,
+going even to the feet of Miss Priscilla, tries to raise her from the
+ground. But she clings even more closely to Miss Priscilla, and so
+mutely refuses to go to him.
+
+A pang, a sudden thought, shoots through him, and renders him desperate.
+Will they be bad to his poor little girl when he is gone? will they
+scold her?
+
+"Oh, madam," he says to Miss Priscilla, with a break in his voice,
+"_try_ to forgive her; be gentle with her. It was all my fault,--mine
+entirely. I loved her, and when she refused to hear me plead my cause,
+and shrunk from me because of that unhappy division that separates my
+family from yours, and because of her reverence for your wishes, I still
+urged her, and induced her to meet me secretly."
+
+"You did an evil deed, sir," says Miss Priscilla.
+
+"I acknowledge it. I am altogether to blame," says Desmond, hastily.
+"She has had nothing to do with it. Do not, I beseech you, say anything
+to her when I am gone that may augment her self-reproach." He looks with
+appealing eyes at Miss Blake, his hand on Monica's shoulder, who has her
+face hidden in a fold of her aunt's gown.
+
+"Sir," says Miss Priscilla, drawing herself up, with a touch of
+old-world grandeur in her manner, but a sad tremulousness in her tone,
+"my niece has been with us now for some time, and we have dared to hope
+she has been treated in accordance with the great love we feel for her."
+
+"The _great_ love," echoes Miss Penelope, gently. Though deeply
+distressed, both old ladies are conscious of a subdued admiration for
+the young man, because of the tenderness of his fears for his beloved.
+
+"But if," says Miss Priscilla, with a mournful glance at the pretty
+bowed head--"if _she_ thinks we have failed in our love towards her, as
+indeed it seems it may be, by your finding it necessary to ask us to
+treat her with kindness in this trouble,--we can only say to her that we
+regret,--that we----" Here she breaks down, and covers her sad old face
+with her trembling hands.
+
+Monica springs to her feet.
+
+"Oh, auntie!" she says, a world of love and reproach and penitence in
+her voice. She throws her arms round her aunt's neck; and, Miss
+Priscilla clasping her in turn, somehow in one moment the crime is
+condoned, and youth and age are met in a fond embrace.
+
+"Go, sir," says Miss Priscilla, presently, without lifting her eyes.
+There is so much gentleness in her tone that the young man is emboldened
+to ask a question.
+
+"You will permit me to come to-morrow, to--to--plead my cause?" he says,
+anxiously.
+
+Miss Priscilla hesitates, and a pang of apprehension rushes through his
+heart. He is almost in despair, when Miss Penelope's voice breaks the
+oppressive silence.
+
+"Yes. Come to-morrow," she says, pressing Miss Priscilla's arm. "To-day
+we are too tired, too upset. To-morrow let it be."
+
+"I thank you madam," says Desmond, humbly; and then he turns to go, but
+still lingers, with grieved eyes fixed on Monica.
+
+"Monica, you will give me one parting word?" he says, at last, as though
+the petition is wrung from him.
+
+Still holding Miss Priscilla's hand, she turns to him, and, raising her
+other arm, places it softly round his neck. Holding them both thus, she
+seems the embodiment of the spirit that must in the end unite them. Her
+position compels her to throw back her head a little, and she smiles at
+him, a sad little smile, but bright with love and trust.
+
+"Not a _parting_ word," she says, with a sweetness so grave as to be
+almost solemn.
+
+"You will be true to me?" says Desmond, reckless of listeners. He has
+his arms round her, and is waiting for her answer with a pale, earnest
+face. Something in the whole scene touches the two kindly old maids with
+a sense of tender reverence.
+
+"Until my death," says the girl, with slow distinctness, laying her head
+against the gray sleeve of his coat.
+
+A great wave of color--born of emotion and love that is stronger than
+the grave--sweeps over his face. He stoops and lays his lips on hers.
+When he is gone, Monica turns suddenly upon Miss Priscilla.
+
+"Do not say a word to me!" she cries, feverishly; "I could not bear
+it--_now_. I may have done wrong, but I am not sorry for it. I love him.
+That should explain everything to you; it means _all_ to me! Nothing can
+alter that! And I will have nothing said,--nothing; and----"
+
+"Nothing shall be said, dear child," says Miss Penelope, gently.
+"Everything shall be as you wish with regard to us. Can you not trust us
+to spare you where we _can_?"
+
+"I am ungrateful. I must go and think it all out," says Monica,
+stoutly, pressing her hands against her head. She turns away. A little
+cry breaks from Miss Priscilla.
+
+"Oh! not without kissing us _too_, Monica!" she says, in a broken voice,
+holding out her arms to her niece. Monica throws herself into them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Long and eager is the discussion that follows on the girl's
+disappearance.
+
+The two Misses Blake, side by side, argue (with what they erroneously
+term dispassionate calmness) the case just laid before them.
+
+"I don't know what is to be done," says Miss Priscilla, at length: "all
+I do know is that, for her sake, consent will be impossible."
+
+"And what is to be said to him to-morrow? He looks so earnest, so--full
+of her. _What_ is to be said to him?"
+
+"So his uncle looked at her mother," says Miss Priscilla, with a
+terrible bitterness; "and what came of that? Is this young man to steal
+from us our best and dearest--as _he_ did? Be firm, Penelope. For her
+sake crush this attachment before the fickleness that is in his blood
+asserts itself to break her heart."
+
+"I fear it will be broken either way," says Miss Penelope, who has a
+secret hankering after all true lovers.
+
+"At least her self-respect will be spared, and for that she will thank
+us later on. She must give him up!"
+
+"Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, in a low tone, "supposing she _refuses_
+to do it?"
+
+"When I have fully explained the matter to her, she will withdraw her
+refusal," says Miss Priscilla, very grandly, but her expression is not
+up to her tone in anyway. It is, indeed, depressed and uncertain.
+
+"He struck me as being a very attractive young man," ventures Miss
+Penelope absently.
+
+"Humph!" says Miss Priscilla.
+
+"And--but that would be impossible in one of his name--a very _lovable_
+young man," says Miss Penelope, timidly.
+
+"Hah!" says Miss Priscilla: this ejaculation is not meant for surprise
+or acquiescence, but is merely a warlike snort.
+
+"And very loving, too," says Miss Penelope, dreamily. "I never saw such
+eyes in my life! and he never took them off her."
+
+"Penelope," says Miss Priscilla, with such a sudden and awful amount of
+vehemence as literally makes Miss Penelope jump, "I am ashamed of you.
+Whatever we--that is" (slightly confused) "_you_ may think about that
+young man, please keep it to yourself, and at least let me never hear
+you speak of a Desmond in admiring terms."
+
+So saying, she stalks from the rooms and drives down to the village to
+execute a commission that has been hanging over her for a fortnight, and
+which she chooses to-day to fulfil, if only to prove to the outer world
+that she is in no wise upset by the afternoon excitement.
+
+Yet in a very short time she returns from her drive, and with a
+countenance so disturbed that Miss Penelope's heart is filled with fresh
+dismay.
+
+"What is it?" she says, following Miss Priscilla into her own room. "You
+have heard something further; you have seen----"
+
+"Yes, I have seen _him_--young Desmond," says Miss Priscilla, with an
+air of much agitation. "It was just outside the village, on my way home;
+and he was carrying a little hurt child in his arms, and he was hushing
+it so tenderly; and--the little one was looking up in his face--and he
+kissed it--and----_Why_ isn't he a _bad_, _wicked_ young man?" cries
+Miss Priscilla, in a frenzy of despair, bursting into tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+  How Miss Priscilla is driven to enter Coole--How she there receives
+  an important proposal, but with much fortitude declines it--And how
+  The Desmond suffers more from a twinge of conscience than from a
+  bullet.
+
+
+In the morning, a certain amount of constraint prevails with every one.
+Kit is, of course, aware of all that has happened, and of the day's
+expected visitor for Monica, who has refused to come down to breakfast,
+and who is as unsettled and miserable as she well can be. Kit has
+espoused her cause _con amore_, and is (I need hardly say) ready for
+open war at a moment's notice. She has indeed arranged a plan of action
+that will bring her on the battle-field at a critical moment to deliver
+a speech culled from some old novels in her room and meant to reduce
+both her aunts to annihilation.
+
+When breakfast is over she disappears to study her part afresh, and the
+Misses Blake, too, separate and go to their own rooms, with an air of
+careful unconcern, that would not have imposed upon a one-year babe.
+
+When again they reappear, they seem desirous of avoiding each other's
+glances, whereupon it occurs suddenly to everybody that they have both
+put on their very best silk gowns and lace caps, and have in fact got
+themselves up with elaborate care to receive--a _Desmond_! No wonder
+they are ashamed of themselves!
+
+Still keeping up the outward symptoms of supreme indifference, they seat
+themselves in the drawing-room, Miss Penelope attacking her knitting
+with tremendous vigor, whilst Miss Priscilla gets apparently lost in the
+pages of "Temple Bar." Monica, sliding in presently like a small ghost,
+in her clinging white gown, slips into a seat in the window that
+overlooks the avenue, and hides herself and her pretty anxious face
+behind the lace curtains.
+
+An hour glides by with aggravating slowness; and then a sound of wheels
+upon the gravel makes Monica's heart beat almost to suffocation. The two
+Misses Blake, suddenly forgetful of their _role_ of unconcern, start
+from their seats and go to the window where Monica now is standing. A
+brougham and pair of horses drive up to the door, and a young man,
+opening the door, springs to the ground. It is Desmond.
+
+"To come here in a close carriage!" says Miss Priscilla, with much
+contempt. "Is he afraid of catching cold, I wonder? I never heard of
+such foppery in my life."
+
+"He is not a fop," says Monica, indignantly, and then she catches sight
+of her lover's face, and something in it awakes within her a prescience
+of coming evil.
+
+Then the drawing-room door is thrown open with rather unceremonious
+haste, and the young man, entering, goes straight to where Miss
+Priscilla is standing, merely taking and holding Monica's hand as he
+reaches her, but addressing to her neither word nor look. He seems
+greatly agitated, and altogether unlike the man who stood here yesterday
+and almost defied them. His face is very pale, and full of honest grief
+and indignation.
+
+"My uncle is at death's doors," he says in a voice that quivers with
+rage and excitement. "Coming home late last night he was shot at by some
+ruffians from behind the blackthorn hedge on the Coole road. He wants
+you Miss Blake" (to Priscilla). "He is asking for you. You will not
+refuse to come to a man who may be dying for all we know! I have
+brought the carriage for you, and I implore you not to delay, but to
+come to him at once."
+
+Miss Priscilla has sunk into a chair, and is quite colorless; Miss
+Penelope clasps her hands.
+
+"Oh, poor George!" she says, involuntarily, almost unconsciously. His
+present danger has killed remembrance of all the angry years that stand
+between to-day and the time when last she called him by his Christian
+name.
+
+"When did it happen? How?" asks Monica, tightening her fingers round
+his, and trembling visibly.
+
+"About ten o'clock last evening. Both Kelly and I were with him, and a
+groom. Two shots were fired. Kelly and I jumped off the dog-cart and
+gave chase and succeeded in securing one of them. There were four
+altogether, I think. We did not know my uncle was wounded when we ran
+after them, but when we came back we found Murray the groom holding him
+in his arms. He was quite insensible. I left Kelly and Murray to guard
+our prisoner, and drove my uncle home myself. He is very badly hurt.
+Miss Blake," turning again to Miss Priscilla, "you will come with me?"
+
+"Oh, yes, yes," says Miss Priscilla, faintly.
+
+"And I shall go with you, my dear Priscilla," says Miss Penelope,
+heroically. "Yes, you will want me. To find yourself face to face with
+him after all these years of estrangement and in so sad a state will be
+distressing. It is well I should be on the spot to lend you some
+support."
+
+Miss Priscilla lays her hand on her arm.
+
+"I think I shall go alone, Penelope," she says, falteringly. For one
+moment Miss Penelope is a little surprised, and then in another moment
+she is not surprised at all. But I believe in her heart she is a good
+deal disappointed: there is a flavor of romance and excitement about
+this expedition she would gladly have tasted.
+
+"Well, perhaps it will be better so," she says, amiably. "I am glad he
+has sent for you. He will be the easier for _your_ forgiveness, though
+he cannot obtain _hers_, now. Come upstairs: you should not keep Mr.
+Desmond waiting." There is a kindly light in her eyes as she glances at
+the young man. And then she takes Miss Priscilla away to her room, and
+helps her carefully with her toilet, and accepts the situation as a
+matter of course, though in her secret soul she is filled with amazement
+at The Desmond's sending for Miss Priscilla even though lying at death's
+door.
+
+And indeed when the old man had turned to Brian and asked him to bring
+Miss Blake to Coole, Brian himself had known surprise too, and some
+misgivings. Was he going to make her swear never to give her consent to
+his (Brian's) marriage with her niece? or was he going to make open
+confession of that dishonorable action which caused Miss Blake's pretty
+stepsister to suffer dire tribulation, according to the gossips round?
+
+"I should like to see Priscilla Blake," the old squire had said, in a
+low whisper, his nephew leaning over him to catch the words, and then he
+had muttered something about "old friends and forgiveness," that had not
+so easily been understood.
+
+"You shall see her," the younger man says, tenderly. "I'll go for her
+myself. I am sure she won't refuse to come."
+
+"_Refuse!_" There is something in the squire's whisper that puzzles
+Brian.
+
+"I am certain she will not," he repeats, mechanically, whilst trying to
+translate it. But the look has faded from the old man's face, and his
+tone is different, when he speaks again.
+
+"If she is afraid to come," he says, generously, having evidently
+settled some knotty point of inward discussion to his entire
+satisfaction, "tell her from me that I am ready and willing to forgive
+_all_."
+
+"You mean you are anxious to obtain her forgiveness," says Brian, with
+the kindly intention of assisting the old man's wandering imagination.
+
+"Eh?" says the squire, sharply. "What d'ye mean, Brian? Speak, lad, when
+I desire you."
+
+"Look here, George! if you excite yourself like this, you know what the
+consequences will be," says Brian, sharply, in his turn. "I only meant
+that, as you--er--jilted their stepsister, I suppose you are anxious to
+obtain their pardon, now you feel yourself pretty low. But I'd advise
+you to wait and see about that when you have recovered your strength a
+little."
+
+"And you believed that old story too!" says the poor squire, forlornly.
+"I didn't jilt her at all, Brian. _It was she jilted me!_"
+
+"_What!_" says Brian, turning to see if the bullet had touched his brain
+instead of his ribs.
+
+"'Tis true. I tell you, that girl broke my heart. She was the prettiest
+creature I ever saw, with soft dove's eyes, and a heavenly smile, and no
+more heart than _that_," striking the post of the old-fashioned bedstead
+with his uninjured arm. "I gave myself up to her, I worshipped the very
+ground she walked on, and within a fortnight of our wedding she calmly
+wrote to tell me she could not marry me!"
+
+"Giving a reason?"
+
+"No. Even _she_, I presume, could not summon sufficient courage to tell
+the wretch she had deluded of her love for another. She gave me no
+reason. She entreated me, however, to keep silence about the real author
+of the breach between us,--that is, herself. _I_ was the one to break
+off our engagement! I was to bear all the blame! She implored me to
+conceal her share in it, and finally demanded of me, as a last favor,
+that I would give the world to understand I had thrown _her_ over."
+
+"A charmingly disinterested specimen of womankind," says Brian, raising
+his brows.
+
+"And this to _me_," says The Desmond, an indignant sob making his weak
+voice weaker,--"a man who had always kept himself straight in the eyes
+of the world. I was required to represent myself as a low, despicable
+fellow, one of those who seek a woman's affections only to ignore them
+at the sight of the next pretty face."
+
+"But you refused to comply with her request?" says Brian, hastily.
+
+"No, sir, I didn't," says the squire, shame struggling with his
+excitement. "On the contrary, I gave in to her in every respect. I
+believe at that time I would cheerfully have allowed myself to be
+branded as a _thief_ if she had desired it and if it would have saved
+her one scrap of discomfort. She was afraid of her sisters, you see. I
+blamed them then, Brian, but I think now her fear of them arose from the
+fact that _they_ were as true as _she_ was----Well, well!"
+
+"This is indeed a revelation," says Brian.
+
+"Yes; you wouldn't think they would behave like that, would you?" says
+Mr. Desmond, eagerly.
+
+"Who? The Misses Blake?" says Brian, startled.
+
+"Yes. It wasn't like them to keep silent all these years, and let me
+bear the brunt of the battle, when they knew I was innocent and that it
+was their own flesh and blood who was in fault. Yet they turned their
+backs upon me, and have treated me ever since as though I were in
+reality the miscreant they have succeeded in making me out."
+
+"There is a terrible mistake somewhere," says Brian. "They do verily
+believe you to be the miscreant you describe."
+
+"Brian, come here!" says the old man, in an ominously calm tone. "Do you
+mean to tell me Priscilla Blake believes me guilty of having behaved
+dishonestly to her sister Katherine? You positively think this?"
+
+"I _know_ it," says Brian, who feels it is better to get out the plain
+unvarnished truth at once.
+
+"You have no doubt? Think, Brian; think."
+
+"I needn't.--There is no doubt on my mind."
+
+"Then she deceived us _all_," says the squire, in a stricken tone. Then
+he roused himself again. He seems to have recovered his strength
+wonderfully during the past hour. "Go, get me Priscilla Blake," he says.
+"Hurry, boy! hurry! I must make it right with her before I die."
+
+"Before you recover, you mean," says Brian, cheerily. "There! lie down
+now, and keep yourself quiet, or you won't be looking your best when she
+comes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now Miss Priscilla has come, and is standing beside the bed of her
+quondam friend, looking down upon him with dim eyes.
+
+"I am sorry to meet you again like this, George Desmond," she says, at
+last, in tones meant to be full of relentless displeasure, but which
+falter strangely.
+
+"She made as great a fool of _you_ as of _me_, Priscilla," is the
+squire's answer, whose tired mind can only grasp one thought,--the
+treachery of the woman he had loved! And then it all comes out, and the
+letter the false Katherine had written him is brought out from a little
+secret drawer, bound round with the orthodox blue ribbon, and smelling
+sadly of dust, as though to remind one of all things, of warmest
+sweetest love, of truest trust, and indeed of that fair but worthless
+body from whose hand it came, now lying mouldering and forgotten in a
+foreign land.
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't have believed it of her!" says Miss Priscilla, weeping
+bitterly. "But there must have been something wrong with her always,
+though we could never see it. What an angel face she had! But the
+children, they speak terribly of her, and they say--that she--and James
+Beresford--did not get on at all."
+
+"Eh?" says the squire. He rises himself on his sound elbow, and quite a
+glow of color rushes into his pallid cheeks. When, with a groan of
+self-contempt, he sinks back again, and the light in his eye (was it of
+satisfaction?) dies.
+
+"You have met Brian," he says presently. "What do you think of him,
+Priscilla? He is a good lad,--a _very_ good lad."
+
+"He looks it," says Miss Priscilla, shortly.
+
+"He does," heartily. "Well, I'm told this boy of mine is in love with
+your girl."
+
+"Who told you?" says Miss Priscilla.
+
+"Brian himself," says the Squire.
+
+"I like that in him," says Miss Priscilla. "Well, George, if you will
+look upon that as settled, so shall I."
+
+"So be it," says the squire--"Eh, my dear? but doesn't it make us feel
+old to be discussing the love-affairs of these young things, when it
+seems only yesterday that we--that you and I, Priscilla----"
+
+"That is all buried long ago: don't rake it up. It died when first your
+eyes fell on _her_," says Miss Blake, hurriedly.
+
+"I was a fool," says the squire. "But, somehow, since I have been
+talking to you, I don't think I'm going to die this time, and old scenes
+came back to me, and--I suppose it is too late now, Priscilla?"
+
+There is no mistaking his meaning.
+
+"Oh, yes; a whole lifetime too late," says Miss Priscilla, with a soft,
+faint blush that would not have misbecome a maiden in her teens. "But I
+am glad we are friends again, George."
+
+She pressed his hand with real affection, and then colors again warmly,
+as though afraid of having discovered herself in the act of committing
+an indiscretion. Could that gentle pressure be called forward, or light,
+or unseemly? Terrible thought!
+
+"So am I, my dear," says the squire. And then again, "You won't think of
+it, then, Priscilla?"
+
+"No, no," says Miss Blake, feeling flattered at his persistence, and
+then she actually laughs out loud, and The Desmond laughs too, though
+feebly; and then the doctor comes in again, and Miss Priscilla goes
+home, to tell Miss Penelope, in the secrecy of her chamber, and with the
+solemnity that befits the occasion, all about the squire's proposal, its
+reception, and its rejection.
+
+Be assured no minutest detail is forgotten; Miss Penelope is soon in
+possession of every smallest look and word connected with it, and deeply
+gratifying is the manner in which the great news is received by that
+gentle maiden.
+
+"Though late in the day, Penelope," says Miss Priscilla, as a sort of
+wind-up to her recital, "it was an offer of marriage _any_ woman might
+be proud of, be she young or old; and he _meant_ it, too. He was quite
+_pressing_. Twice he asked me, although my first was a most decided
+'No.'"
+
+"It seems terrible, your having been so cold to him, poor fellow!" says
+Miss Penelope, with a regretful sigh for the griefs of the rejected
+Desmond.
+
+"What could I do?" says Miss Priscilla, with an air of self-defence.
+This thought, that she can actually be accused of having treated the
+sterner sex in a hardhearted fashion, is cakes and ale to her.
+
+"We must not talk of this, Penelope," she says, presently. "It would be
+unfair. It must never transpire through _us_ that George Desmond laid
+his heart and fortune at my feet only to be rejected."
+
+To her these old-world phrases sound grand and musical and full of fire
+and sentiment.
+
+"No, no," says Miss Penelope, acquiescing freely, yet with a sigh; she
+would have dearly liked to tell her gossips of this honor that has been
+done her dear Priscilla. And, after all, she has her wish, for the story
+gets about, spread by the hero of it himself.
+
+The squire, tired, no doubt, of keeping secrets, and perhaps (but this
+in a whisper) grateful to her because of her refusal, goes about
+everywhere, and tells people far and near of his offer; so that when
+their friends flock to Moyne, and, giving The Desmond as their authority
+for it, accuse Miss Priscilla of her refusal, and she still, with
+maidenly modesty, parries their questions, Miss Penelope, feeling
+herself absolved from further reticence, comes to the front and gives
+them a full and true account of the wonderful event.
+
+"Yes, Priscilla might indeed have reigned as queen at Coole had she so
+wished it, and well graced the position too," winds up Miss Penelope, on
+all these occasions, with much pride and dignity.
+
+Brian, who had been busy all the morning swearing informations, and so
+forth, with Mr. Kelly and the groom, before magistrates and others,
+coming into his uncle's room about half an hour after Miss Blake's
+departure, finds him considerably better both in mind and in body,
+though feeble in spirit, as is only natural. Indeed, the bullet had done
+him little harm, causing merely a flesh-wound, but the shock had been
+severe to a man of his years.
+
+"Come here, Brian; I want to tell you something," he says, as the young
+man leans over him.
+
+"You are not to talk," says his nephew, peremptorily.
+
+"If you won't listen to me, I'll send for Bailey, the steward," says the
+squire. "Nonsense! it does me good." And then he tells him all the
+particulars of Miss Priscilla's visit relating to his engagement with
+Katherine Beresford, with one reservation.
+
+"It is all right between us now," he says, in a pleased tone. "She told
+me everything, and it appears we were both sadly taken in, though I
+don't wish to say anything against her even now. I daresay she had her
+own grievances, poor soul; and indeed Priscilla said----"
+
+Here he pauses, and a guilty flush covers his pale face. He hesitates,
+and then beckons Brian to come even nearer.
+
+"Look you, lad! I'm not quite at ease even yet. There's something wrong
+here!" laying his hand upon his heart.
+
+"Is it pain?" asks his nephew, anxiously. "I told you you were talk----"
+
+"No, no, boy. It's only mental pain. I want to be ashamed of myself, and
+I _can't_. I'm feeling a satisfaction about something that I shouldn't.
+It's not right, Brian. It's not a gentlemanly feeling, but I can't curb
+it. The more I think of it, the more pleased I feel. Eh? You don't look
+as if you understood me."
+
+"I don't, much," confesses Brian, seating himself on the edge of the
+bed. "You see, you haven't told me what it is all about."
+
+"It is about Katherine Beresford. Priscilla told me, and I should like
+to tell you. I say, Brian, you won't throw it in my teeth, now, when I'm
+better, eh?"
+
+"I swear I won't," says Brian.
+
+"Well, she told me Katherine had a regular _devil_ of a life with her
+husband, and _I'm glad of it_! _There!_" says the squire; after which
+disgraceful confession he regularly scrambles under the bedclothes, with
+a view to hiding his shame and his exultation from public view.
+
+Brian fairly roars with laughter. At the sound of his welcome mirth, the
+old man slowly emerges from the sheets again, and looks at him
+doubtfully, but with growing hope.
+
+"_She_ had the best of it, of course; any one would have the best of it
+with James Beresford," he says. "But she couldn't have been altogether
+comfortable; that's what I mean. I don't want you to think I should
+rejoice at her having received bad treatment at her husband's hands. He
+had all the bad treatment to himself, I expect."
+
+"So do I," says Brian, who is laughing still.
+
+"And you don't think so badly of me for it?" says the Squire, anxiously.
+
+"Not I," says Brian.
+
+"Still, it's rather a mean sort of feeling, isn't it, now? It's very
+low--eh?"
+
+"Low or not," says Brian, with decision, "I'm perfectly certain if it
+was _my_ case I should feel just like that myself."
+
+"You're the comfort of my life, Brian," says his uncle, gratefully; and
+then he indulges in a covert smile himself, after which he drops off
+into a slumber, sound and refreshing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+  How Madam O'Connor gives her opinion on certain subjects--How Fay
+  electrifies an entire audience--And how Olga makes up her mind.
+
+
+It is growing towards evening, and as yet at Aghyohillbeg they have not
+grown tired of discussing the terrible event of last night.
+
+"When I called just now, Priscilla Blake was with him," says Madam
+O'Connor. "Brian told me The Desmond had sent for her. I suppose the old
+quarrel about Katherine will be patched up now, and I shouldn't wonder
+if our two lovers, Monica and Brian, get married quite comfortably and
+in the odor of sanctity, after all."
+
+"I suppose they couldn't have managed it without the old people's
+consent," says Mrs. Herrick, who is rocking herself lazily to and fro in
+a huge American chair.
+
+"Nonsense, my dear!" says Madam, throwing up her chin. "Accredit them
+with some decent spirit, I beg of you. Of course they would have got
+married whether or not,--there is nothing like opposition for that kind
+of thing, and no doubt would have enjoyed it all the more for the fun of
+the thing, because there must be an excitement in a runaway match
+unknown to the orthodox affair."
+
+"I don't think I should like to run away," says Olga Bohun; "there is
+always a difficulty about one's clothes."
+
+"What's the good of being in love if you can't get over a few paltry
+obstacles?" says Madam, whose heart is still young. "Well, I expect we
+shall have a gay wedding here before long, and be able to give that
+pretty child our presents without any trouble."
+
+"How long the day has been!" says Olga, with a little affected yawn,
+meant to reduce Ulic Ronayne to despair, who is sitting in a distant
+window touching up one of her paintings. "I don't know when I have been
+so bored,--no one to speak to. Madam, darling, you shall never go out
+again without me; remember that. Nobody has called,--I suppose they are
+afraid of being shot,--not even Owen Kelly; and one would _like_ to see
+him and Brian, to make sure they are all there."
+
+"Talk of somebody," says Madam, looking out of the window, "here comes
+Owen."
+
+As Olga puts her hand in his presently, she says, laughing,--
+
+"Madam O'Connor says you are, in polite language, his sable majesty
+himself. So you must be, to escape as you did last night. Now tell us
+all about it. We have heard so many garbled accounts that a _real_ one
+will set our minds at rest."
+
+Then he tells them all about it, dropping as though unconsciously into a
+low chair very close to Hermia's.
+
+"So, you see," he says, when he had finished, "it might have been a very
+sensational affair, and covered us all with glory, only it didn't."
+
+"I think it did," says Mrs. Herrick, gently. She doesn't raise her eyes
+from her work to say this, but knits calmly on; only a _very_ careful
+observer could have noticed the faint trembling of her fingers, or the
+quivering of her long, downcast lashes.
+
+"How can you say such a thing, Owen?" says Olga. "Look at all the cases
+we have known where the assassins have got away quite free, and here we
+have the principal secured."
+
+"Yes, that was very clever of Brian," says Mr. Kelly.
+
+"Did he capture him, then, single-handed? Were not you with him? Were
+_you_ in no danger of your life, too?" exclaims Hermia, with such
+unwonted animation that every one looks at her. She takes no notice of
+their regard, but fixes her kindling eyes on Kelly, who, in returning
+her mute protest, forgets that any other more open answer may be
+required of him. Then she lets her eyes fall from his, and her face
+grows calm and statuesque again, and only the rapid clicking of her
+needles show the perturbation of the mind within.
+
+"Did the fellow give you much trouble, Kelly?" asks Ronayne, who in his
+secret soul is bitterly regretful he had not been on the scene of
+action.
+
+"Not he, the fool!" says Mr. Kelly, with something approaching a smile.
+"Brian fired his revolver and grazed his arm slightly,--a mere scratch,
+you will understand,--and the miserable creature rolled upon the ground,
+doubled himself in two, and, giving himself up as dead, howled dismally.
+Not knowing at that time that the poor squire was hurt, Brian and I
+roared with laughter: we couldn't help it, the fellow looked so absurd."
+
+They all laugh at this, but presently Olga, holding up her finger, says,
+seriously,--
+
+"Owen, recollect yourself. You said you _laughed_. Oh! it _can't_ be
+true."
+
+"I regret to say it is," says Mr. Kelly, with intensest self-abasement.
+"For once I forgot myself; I really _did_ do it; but it shan't occur
+again. The exquisite humor of the moment was too much for me. I hope it
+won't be placed to my account, and that in time you will all forgive me
+my one little lapse."
+
+"Well, Owen, you are the drollest creature," says Madam O'Connor, with a
+broad sweet smile, that is copied by Olga and Ronayne. Mrs. Herrick
+remains unmoved, and her needles go faster and faster: Mr. Kelly stares
+at them uneasily.
+
+"They'll give out sparks in another minute or so," he says, warningly,
+"and if they do there will be a general conflagration. Spare me that: I
+have had enough excitement for a while."
+
+Mrs. Herrick lets her knitting fall into her lap.
+
+"The squire may be thankful he got off so easily," says Madam O'Connor
+at this moment.
+
+"He may, indeed," says Kelly. "Fay," to the child who is standing at a
+distance gazing thoughtfully with uplifted head at the blue sky without,
+"what are you wondering about now?"
+
+The child turns upon him her large blue eyes, blue as Nankin china, and
+answers him in clear sweet tones, indifferent to the fact that every one
+in the room is regarding her.
+
+"I was wondering," she says, truthfully, "why Ulic says his prayers to
+Olga."
+
+A most disconcerting silence follows this speech. Madam hums a tune;
+Mrs. Herrick loses herself in her knitting; but Mr. Kelly, who is always
+alive, says "Eh?"
+
+"I saw him," says Fay, dreamily.
+
+Olga, who is as crimson as the heart of a red rose, makes here a frantic
+but subdued effort to attract the child's attention; Mr. Kelly, however,
+gets her adroitly on to his knees before she can grasp the meaning of
+Olga's secret signals.
+
+"Where did you see him?" he says, mildly.
+
+"In the summer-house, this morning. He was kneeling down before her,
+just as I kneel to mamma, and he had his head in her lap, and he was
+whispering his prayers. I could not hear what he said." At this instant
+an expression of the most devout thankfulness overspreads Mrs. Bohun's
+features. "But they were very _long_ prayers; and I think he was _sorry_
+for something he had done."
+
+"I haven't a doubt of it," says Mr. Kelly, mournfully. "Go on, my
+child."
+
+"I'm not your child; I'm mamma's," says Fay, firmly; but, having so far
+vindicated her mother's character, she goes on with her tale: "When he
+got up he didn't look a bit better," she says. "He looked worse, I
+think. Didn't you, Ulic?" addressing the stricken young man in the
+window. "And I always thought it was only children who said their
+prayers to people, and not the grown-up ones. And why did he choose
+Olga? Wasn't there mamma? And wasn't there Madam? You would have let him
+say his prayers to you, Madam, wouldn't you?" turning placidly to her
+hostess.
+
+"I should have been only too charmed,--too highly flattered," says
+Madam, in a stifled tone; and then she gives way altogether, and breaks
+into a gay and hearty laugh, under cover of which Olga beats an
+ignominious retreat.
+
+Mr. Ronayne, feeling rather than seeing that his colleague in this
+disgraceful affair has taken flight, puts down his brushes softly and
+jumps lightly from the open window to the grass beneath. Then with a
+speed that belongs to his long limbs, he hurries towards that corner of
+the house that will lead him to the hall door: as he turns it, he
+received Olga almost in his arms.
+
+"You here?" she says. "Oh, that terrible child!"
+
+"She didn't understand, poor little soul." And then, as though the
+recollection overcomes him, he gives away to uncontrollable mirth.
+
+"Such unseemly levity!" says Mrs. Bohun, in a disgusted tone; but, after
+the vaguest hesitation, she laughs too.
+
+"Come to the orchard," says Ronayne; and to the orchard they go. Here,
+finding a rustic seat at the foot of a gnarled and moss-grown
+apple-tree, they take possession of it.
+
+"It is very unfortunate," says Olga, with a sigh. Her fair hair is being
+blown like a silver cloud hither and thither and renders her
+distractingly pretty.
+
+"You mean our betrayal by that child?"
+
+"Yes. I hope it will cure you of ever being so silly as to go on your
+knees to any woman again."
+
+"I shall never go on my knees to any woman but you, whether you accept
+or reject me."
+
+"I am sure I don't know how I am ever to face those people inside
+again." Here she puts one dainty little finger to her lips and bites it
+cruelly.
+
+"There is nothing remarkable in having one's _accepted_ lover at one's
+feet."
+
+"But you are not that," she says, lifting her brows and seeming half
+amused at his boldness.
+
+"By one word you can make me so."
+
+"Can I? What is the word?"
+
+This is puzzling; but Mr. Ronayne, nothing daunted says,--
+
+"You have only to say, 'you are,' and I am."
+
+"It isn't Christmas yet," says Mrs. Bohun: "you shouldn't throw
+conundrums at me out of season. It is too much? 'you _are_ and I _am_.'
+I couldn't guess it, indeed; I'm anything but clever."
+
+"If you say the 'I will,' you will find the solution to _our_ conundrum
+at once."
+
+"But that is two words."
+
+"Olga, does the fact that I love you carry no weight with it at all."
+
+"But do you love me--_really_?"
+
+"Need I answer that?"
+
+"But there are others, younger, prettier."
+
+"Nonsense! There is no one prettier than you in this wide world."
+
+"Ah!" with a charming smile, "now indeed I believe you do love me, for
+the Greek Cupid is blind. What a silly boy you are to urge this matter!
+For one thing I am older than you."
+
+"A year or two."
+
+"For another----"
+
+"I will not listen. 'Stony limits cannot hold love out:' why, therefore,
+try to discourage me?"
+
+"But you should think----"
+
+"I think only that if you will say what I ask you, I shall be always
+with you, and you with me."
+
+"What is _your_ joy is _my_ fear. Custom creates weariness! And--'the
+lover in the husband may be lost!'"
+
+"Ah! you have thought of me in that light," exclaims the young man,
+eagerly. "Beloved if you will only take me, you shall find in me both a
+lover and husband until your life's end."
+
+The smile has died from Olga's lips; she holds out her hands to him.
+
+"So be it," she says gravely.
+
+"You mean it?" says Ronayne, as yet afraid to believe in his happiness.
+
+"Yes. But if ever you repent blame yourself."
+
+"And if you repent?"
+
+"I shall blame you too," she says, with a sudden return to her old
+archness.
+
+"And you will refuse Rossmoyne?"
+
+She laughs outright at this, and glances at him from under drooping
+lashes.
+
+"I can't promise that," she says, with carefully simulated
+embarrassment--"because----"
+
+"What?" haughtily, moving away from her.
+
+"I _did so yesterday_."
+
+"Oh, darling, how cruelly I misjudged you! I thought--I feared----"
+
+"Never mind all that. I know--I forgive you. I've a _lovely_ temper,"
+says Olga, with self-gratulation.
+
+"Why did you refuse him? Was it," hopefully, "because you didn't like
+him?"
+
+"N--o. Not so much that--as----" again this shameless coquette
+hesitates, and turns her head uneasily from side to side, as though
+afraid to give utterance to the truth.
+
+"What? Explain, Olga," says her lover, in a fresh agony.
+
+"As that I----_loved you_!" returns she, with a heavenly smile.
+
+His arms close round her, and at this moment she lets all her heart be
+seen by him. The mocking light dies out of her eyes, her face grows
+earnest. She lets her heart beat with happy unrestraint against his. The
+minutes fly, but time was never made to be counted by blissful lovers.
+
+A gong sounding in the distance rouses them from their contented
+dreaming.
+
+"I must go and tell Hermia," she says, starting to her feet: "that is
+the dressing-bell."
+
+"You won't let her influence you against me?"
+
+"Nobody could do that." She moves away from him, and then runs back to
+him again and lays her arms round his neck.
+
+"You are more to me now than Hermia and _the world_!" she says, softly.
+
+Yet presently, when she finds herself in Hermia's calm presence, her
+courage somewhat fails her. It is not that she for a moment contemplates
+the idea of having to give up her lover, but she is afraid of her
+cousin's cold disparagement of both him and her.
+
+"I have just promised to marry Ulic," she says, plunging without preface
+into her story, with a boldness born of nervous excitement.
+
+"To _marry_ him! Why, I thought you looked upon him as a mere boy! Your
+'baby,' you used to call him."
+
+"Probably that is why I have accepted him. A baby should not be allowed
+to roam the world at large without some one to look after him."
+
+"Do you love him, Olga?"
+
+"Yes, I do," says Olga, defiantly. "You may scold me if you like, but a
+title _isn't_ everything, and he is worth a dozen of that cold, stiff
+Rossmoyne."
+
+"Well, dearest, as you have given him the best part of you,--your
+heart,--it is as well the rest should follow," says Mrs. Herrick,
+tenderly. "Yes, I think you will be very happy with him."
+
+This speech is so strange, so unexpected, so exactly unlike anything she
+had made up her mind to receive, that for a moment Olga is stricken
+dumb. Then with a rush she comes back to glad life.
+
+"'Do I wake? do I dream? are there visions about?'" she says. "Why, what
+sentiments from _you_! You have 'changed all that,' apparently."
+
+"I have," says Hermia, very slowly, yet with a vivid blush. Something in
+her whole manner awakes suspicion of the truth in Olga's mind.
+
+"Why," she says, "you don't mean to tell me that----Oh, no! it can't be
+true! and yet----I verily believe you have----_Is_ it so, Hermia?"
+
+"It is," says Hermia, who has evidently, by help of some mental process
+of her own, understood all this amazing farrago of apparently
+meaningless words.
+
+There is a new sweetness on Mrs. Herrick's lips. One of her rare smiles
+lights up all her calm, artistic face.
+
+"After all your vaunted superiority!" says Olga, drawing a deep sigh.
+"Oh, _dear_!" Then, with a wicked but merry imitation of Mrs. Herrick's
+own manner to her, she goes on!--
+
+"You are throwing yourself away, dearest. The world will think nothing
+of you for the future; and you, so formed to shine, and dazzle,
+and----"
+
+"_He_ will be a baronet at his father's death," says Mrs. Herrick,
+serenely, with a heavy emphasis on the first pronoun; and then suddenly,
+as though ashamed of this speech, she lets her mantle drop from her, and
+cries, with some tender passion,----
+
+"I don't care about that. Hear the truth from me. If he were as ugly and
+poor as Mary Browne's Peter, I should marry him all the same, just
+because I love him!"
+
+"Oh, Hermia, I am so _glad_," says Olga. "After all what is there in the
+whole wide world so sweet as love? And as for Rossmoyne,--why, he
+couldn't make a tender speech to save his life as it should be made;
+whilst Ulic--_oh he's charming!_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+  How Monica's heart fails her; and how at last Hope (whose name is
+  Brian) comes back to her through the quivering moonlight.
+
+
+And now night has fallen at last upon this long day. A gentle wind is
+shivering through the elms; a glorious moon has risen in all its beauty,
+and stands in "heaven's wide, pathless way," as though conscious of its
+grandeur, yet sad for the sorrows of the seething earth beneath. Now
+clear, now resplendent she shines, and now through a tremulous mist
+shows her pure face, and again for a space is hidden,
+
+    "As if her head she bow'd
+    Stooping through a fleecy cloud."
+
+Miss Priscilla, with a sense of now-found dignity upon her, has gone
+early to bed. Miss Penelope has followed suit. Terence, in the privacy
+of his own room, is rubbing a dirty oily flannel on the bright barrels
+of his beloved gun, long since made over to him as a gift by Brian.
+
+Kit is sitting on the wide, old-fashioned window-seat in Monica's room
+at her sister's feet, and with her thin little arms twined lovingly
+round her. She is sleepy enough, poor child, but cannot bear to desert
+Monica, who is strangely wakeful and rather silent and _distraite_. For
+ever since the morning when he had come to carry Miss Priscilla to
+Coole, Brian has been absent from her; not once has he come to her; and
+a sense of chill and fear, as strong as it is foolish, is overpowering
+her.
+
+She rouses herself now with a little nervous quiver that seems to run
+through all her veins and lets her hand fall on Kit's drooping head.
+
+"It grows very late. Go to bed, darling," she says, gently.
+
+"Not till you go," says Kit, tightening the clasp of her arms.
+
+"Well, that shall be in a moment, then," says Monica, with a stifled
+sigh. All through the dragging day and evening she has clung to the
+thought that surely her lover will come to bid her "good-night." And now
+it is late, and he has not come, and----
+
+She leans against the side of the wide-open casement, and gazes in sad
+meditation upon the slumbering garden underneath. The lilies,--"tall
+white garden-lilies,"--though it is late in the season now, and
+bordering on snows and frosts, are still swaying to and fro, and giving
+most generously a rich perfume to the wondering air. Earth's stars they
+seem to her, as she lifts her eyes to compare them with the
+"forget-me-nots of the angels," up above.
+
+Her first disappointment about her love is desolating her. She leans her
+head against the woodwork, and lifts her eyes to the vaguely-tinted sky.
+Thus, with face upturned, she drinks in the fair beauty of the night,
+and, as its beauty grows upon her, her sorrow deepens.
+
+      "With how sad steps, O moon! thou climb'st the skies!
+      How silently, and with how wan a face,
+      Thou feel'st a lover's case!
+      I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace,
+    To me, that feel the like, thy state descries."
+
+As she watches the pale moon, Sidney's sad words return to her. Just now
+Diana is resting in a path of palest azure, whilst all around her
+clouds, silver-tinged, are lying out from her, trembling in mid-air.
+
+Great patches of moonlight lie upon the garden sward. One seems brighter
+than its fellows, and as her eyes slowly sink from heaven to earth they
+rest upon it, as though attracted unconsciously by its brilliancy. And,
+even as she looks, a shadow falls athwart it, and then a low, quick cry
+breaks from her lips.
+
+"What is it?" says Kit, scrambling to her knees.
+
+"Only Brian," says Monica, with a hastily-drawn breath. A rich color has
+rushed into her cheeks, her eyes are alight, her lips have curved
+themselves into a happy smile.
+
+"It's all right now, then, and I can go," says Kit, joyfully.
+
+"Go? To bed, you mean, darling?"
+
+"Yes, now I know you are _happy_," says Kit, tenderly; and then the
+sisters embrace, and presently Monica is alone, but for the shadow in
+the moonlight.
+
+"It is you, Monica?" says Brian, coming close beneath her window, and
+looking upwards.
+
+She leans out to him, her white gown gleaming softly in the moon's rays.
+
+"Oh, why venture out at this hour?" she says, nervously. Now he is
+here,--woman-like,--fears for his safety, forgotten before, arise in all
+their horror. "They may have followed you; they may----"
+
+"Come down to the balcony," he interrupts her, with a light laugh. "I
+want to talk to you. Nonsense, dear heart! I am as safe as a church. Who
+would touch me, with an angel like you near to protect me?"
+
+His shadow, as he moves away, may again be seen for an instant, before
+he turns the corner of the old house; and Monica, opening her door
+softly, runs lightly down the corridor and the staircase, and across the
+hall and the drawing-room floor until she reaches the balcony beyond,
+where she finds his arms awaiting her.
+
+"You have missed me all day?" he says, after a pause that to them has
+been divine.
+
+"Oh, Brian, what a day it has been!" she clings to him. "All these past
+hours have been full of horror. Whenever I thought of your danger last
+night, I seemed to grow cold and dead with fear; and then when the
+minutes slipped by, and still you never came to me, I began to picture
+_you_ as cold and dead, and then----Ah!" she clings still closer to him,
+and her voice fails her. "I never knew," she whispers, brokenly, "how
+well I loved you until I so nearly lost you. I could not live without
+you now."
+
+"Nor shall you," returns he, straining her to his heart with passionate
+tenderness. "My life is yours, to do what you will with it. And somehow
+all day long I knew (and was happy in the knowledge, forgive me that)
+that you were lonely for want of me; but I could not come to you, my
+soul, until this very moment. Yet, believe me, I suffered more than you
+during our long separation." (If any one laughs here, it will prove he
+has never been in love, and so is an object of pity. This should check
+untimely mirth.)
+
+"You felt it long too, then?" says Monica, hopefully.
+
+"How can you ask me that? Your darling face was never once out of my
+mind, and yet I _could_ not come to you. I had so many things to do, so
+many people to see, and then the poor old fellow was so ill. But have we
+not cause to be thankful?--at last the breach between our houses is
+healed, and we may tell all the world of our love."
+
+"You should have heard Aunt Priscilla, how she talked of you when she
+came back to-day from Coole," says Monica, in a little fervent glow of
+enthusiasm. "It was beautiful! You know she must have _understood_ you
+all along to be able to say the truth of you so well. She said so much
+in your favor that she satisfied even me."
+
+She says this with such a graceful _naivete_, and such an utter belief
+in his superiority to the vast majority of men, that Mr. Desmond does
+well to feel the pride that surges in his heart.
+
+"I really think she has fallen in love with you," says Miss Beresford,
+at the last, with a little gay laugh.
+
+"Perhaps that is why she refused the squire," says Brian; and then he
+basely betrays trust, by telling her all that tale of the late wooing of
+Miss Priscilla, and its result, which awakens in the breast of that
+ancient lady's niece a mirth as undutiful as it is prolonged.
+
+"And what were you doing all day?" she says, when it has somewhat
+subsided.
+
+"Trying to keep my uncle--did I tell you he has fallen in love with your
+photograph?--from talking himself into a brain fever, and I was swearing
+hard, and----"
+
+"_Brian!_"
+
+"Only informations, darling! And I wouldn't have done that either, only
+I had to. They made me. Lay the blame on '_they_.' It wasn't my fault,
+indeed. If I had thought for a moment you had the slightest objection to
+that sort of----"
+
+"Nonsense! don't be silly; go on," says Miss Beresford, austerely.
+
+"Well, then, I listened patiently to a good deal of raving from Kelly on
+the subject of Hermia Herrick. I don't suppose I should have exhibited
+as much patience as I did, but for the fact that I was waiting on
+George--my uncle--at the time, and couldn't get away. And after that I
+listened with even more patience to a perfect farrago of nonsense from
+our sub-inspector about the would-be assassin we have caught, and his
+fellows; and, besides all this, I thought of _you_ every moment since
+last I saw you."
+
+"_Every_ moment. Not _one_ neglected?" asks she, smiling.
+
+"I'll swear to that too, if you like. I'm in good practice now."
+
+"No, no," hastily. "I can believe you without that."
+
+"Did you hear about your Ryde?" asks Desmond, suddenly.
+
+"I disclaim the possession," says Monica. "But what of him?"
+
+"He has been ordered, with his regiment, to Egypt, to fight Arabi, where
+I hope he will be shot. And the 36th are coming in his place."
+
+"How can you say such shocking things?"
+
+"Is it shocking to say the 36th are coming to Clonbree?"
+
+"No, but what you said about Mr. Ryde."
+
+"Oh, that! Well, I hope, then, if they don't knock the life they will
+knock the conceit and the superfluous _flesh_ out of him: will that do?"
+
+"Very badly. He was a horrid man in many ways, but he did _you_ no
+harm."
+
+"He dared to look at you."
+
+"The cat may look at the king."
+
+"But the cat may not look at my queen. So now, madam, what have you to
+say?"
+
+"Well, never mind, then: tell me about Hermia. So Mr. Kelly is engaged
+to her?"
+
+"Yes. He has just discovered her to be the most superior as well as the
+loveliest woman upon earth. He told me so. I ventured mildly, but
+firmly, to differ with him and enter a protest on your behalf, but he
+wouldn't hear of it. In his opinion you are nowhere beside the majestic
+Hermia."
+
+"I know that. He is right," says Monica, meekly. But there is a
+reproachful question in her eyes, as she says it, that contradicts the
+meekness.
+
+"He is _not_," says Desmond, with loving indignation, pressing her dear
+little head so close against his heart that she can hear it throbbing
+bravely and can find joy in the thought that each separate throb is all
+her own. "The man who thinks so must be insane. A fig for Hermia! Where
+would she be if placed beside _you_, my 'Helen fair beyond compare'?"
+
+"You are prejudiced; you tell too flattering a tale," says Monica, with
+soft disparagement; but the fond, foolish, lover-like words are very
+dear and sweet to her, all the same.
+
+He has his arms round her; in her tender childish fashion she has laid
+her cheek against his; and now, with a slow movement, she turns her head
+until her lips reach his.
+
+"I love you," she whispers.
+
+Almost in a sigh the words are breathed, and a sense of rapture--of
+completion--renders the young man for the instant mute. Yet in her soul
+so well she knows of his content that she cares little for any answer
+save that which his fond eyes give.
+
+A breath from the sleeping world of flowers below comes up to the
+balcony and bathes the lovers in its sweets. The "wandering moon" looks
+down upon them, and lights up the dark windows behind them, till they
+looked like burnished silver. A deadly silence lies on grass and bough;
+it seems to them as though, of all the eager world, they two only are
+awake, and alone!
+
+"Do I count with you, then, as more than all?" he says, at length; "than
+Terence or than Kit?"
+
+"You know it," she says, earnestly.
+
+Suddenly he loosens his arms from round her, and, pushing her slender,
+white-robed figure gently backwards, gazes searchingly into her calm but
+wondering face.
+
+"Tell me," he says,--some mad, inward craving driving him to ask the
+needless question--"how would it have been with you if I had been killed
+yesterday? Would you _in time_ have loved again?"
+
+I am not sure, but I think he would have recalled the words when it is
+too late. A quiver runs through the girl's frame; a great wave of
+emotion sweeping over her face transfigures it, changing its calm to
+quick and living grief. The moonbeams, catching her, fold her in floods
+of palest glory, until he who watches her with remorseful eyes can only
+liken her to a fragile saint, as she stands there in her white, clinging
+draperies.
+
+"You are cruel," she says, at last, with a low, gasping cry.
+
+He falls at her feet.
+
+"Forgive me, my love, my darling!" he entreats, "I should never have
+said that, and yet I am glad I did. To feel, to _know_ you are
+altogether mine----"
+
+"You had a doubt?" she says; and then two large tears rise slowly, until
+her beautiful eyes look passionate reproach at him through a heavy mist.
+Then the mist clears, and two shining drops, quitting their sweet home,
+fall upon the back of the small hand she has placed nervously against
+her throat.
+
+"A last one, and it is gone _forever_." He rises to his feet. "Place
+your arms round my neck again," he says, with anxious entreaty, "and let
+me feel myself forgiven."
+
+A smile, as coy as it is tender, curves her dainty lips, as she lifts to
+his two, soft, dewy eyes, in which the light of a first love has at last
+been fully kindled. She comes a step nearer to him, still smiling,--a
+lovely thing round which the moonbeams riot as though in ecstasy over
+her perfect fairness,--and then in another instant they are both in
+heaven, "in paradise in one another's arms!"
+
+"You are happy?" questions he, after a long pause, into which no man may
+look.
+
+"I am with _you_," returns she, softly.
+
+"How sweet a meaning lies within your words!"
+
+"A true meaning. But see, how late it grows! For a few hours we must
+part. Until to-morrow--good-night!"
+
+"Good-night, my life! my sweet, _sweet_ heart!" says Desmond.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rossmoyne, by Unknown
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROSSMOYNE ***
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