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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31492-8.txt b/31492-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..35c4f92 --- /dev/null +++ b/31492-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15714 @@ +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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROSSMOYNE *** + +***** This file should be named 31492-8.txt or 31492-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/4/9/31492/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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?—<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."—<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—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.—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—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—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—How Mr. Kelly +improves the shining hours—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—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—How Terence is again +arraigned, and brought before the Court on a charge of duplicity—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—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—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—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—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—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—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—How Mr. Kelly conjures up a ghost—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!—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—How Monica +at all hazards proclaims her truth—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—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.</p></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX.</a> +<p>How Madam O'Connor gives her opinion on certain subjects—How Fay +electrifies an entire audience—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——</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—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—and a great deal +of moral courage to assert one's self when a man has behaved +abominably to one,—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—if my mother +was not hers, and if I was many years her senior—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,—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,—</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,—a desire to show George Desmond +how lightly she treated his desertion of her. And James +was a handsome young fellow, whereas George was——"</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—h'm—yes, this +very—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,—in a few hours. Now, what is to be done about +the beds?"</p> + +<p>"But surely they are aired?"</p> + +<p>"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——"</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,—</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——"</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,—but I know it was in '64 that——"</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—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—I +mean Mrs. Beresford's—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——"</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,—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——"</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,—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."</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,—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,—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,—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.</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,—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—a <i>very</i> 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——" +<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,—brown little hands, but beautifully shaped. Indeed, +all her skin owes more of its coloring to Phœbus 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,—</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,—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>——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—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?"</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.—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,—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,—<span class="s_corr" title=""">"</span>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.</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=""">"</span>You know Moyne—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=","—">—" </span>with a little fond pat on Monica's +hand, <span class="s_corr" title=""">"</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,—</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—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——"</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 æsthetic attitude,—<i>very</i> +æsthetic,—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——"</p> + +<p>"It isn't <i>truth</i>!<span class="s_corr" title="""></span>—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——"</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——"</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——her——"</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—you never <i>can</i>—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,—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——"</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—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,—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"—with some hesitation and a faint blush—"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,—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,—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—a merry tangle of boys and girls—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,—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—singing as she goes—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,—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,—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—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 æsthetic +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,—flower-clad on either bank,—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—do you know?—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'—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——"</p> + +<p>"You are not—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,—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>—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——"</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——But that will be +impossible!"—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,—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—in spite of you—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—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,—"the entire country. +Madam<span class="s_corr" title=","></span> 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 <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—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—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——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,—you needn't look at +me like that,—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—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—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——"</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—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."</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—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>"—as if +this is an age replete with wisdom—"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——"</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——"</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,—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—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.</p> + +<p>"Canty," she says, as the "uncle's wife's sister's child" +enters, "I am dressed now; and——"</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!—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,—</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.—"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—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,—</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.—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 retroussé. 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,—</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——" 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,—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."</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—perhaps Rossmoyne—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,—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,—I am not sure,—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——"</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 +æsthetic flowers,—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—no, +not chagrin—<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,—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—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—except Monica—his hand +closes upon hers.</p> + +<p>"Do not go with him," he says, with deep entreaty.</p> + +<p>"I must—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—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,—</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,—</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,—isn't it?—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.—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—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,—</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——" 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—</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—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 <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—that is—I mean—I——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>—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."</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,"—earnestly,—"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=""">'</span> ought to be devoutly grateful to her. Why, talking +of noses, you should just see his: it's—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"—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."</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—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 +<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—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—but—<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—I—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,—</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—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—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—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,—</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—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?—in writing, do you mean?" asks he, puzzled.</p> + +<p>"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."</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?—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."</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?—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"—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?"</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—</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="""></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—and <i>soon</i>—be +sure."</p> + +<p>"But——"</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—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,—"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,—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—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.</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,—</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—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—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,—</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,—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!—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!—<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,—</p> + +<p>"You didn't show much wisdom, I daresay."</p> + +<p>"No, none; and as for <i>her</i>,—to fling away such a love as +that——" 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—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.</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>,—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="""></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,—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,—</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—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,—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,—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—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——</p> + +<p>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?</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—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!—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"—fearfully—"<i>loaded</i>? +Oh! don't!—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,"—with all a brother's perspicacity,—"the +fellow who saw us on the hay-cart,"—Monica +writhes inwardly,—"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—whoever +she may be—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——"</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——"</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—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—well—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,—'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,—now,—<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—but—"</p> + +<p>"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 <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,—</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—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—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,—<span class="s_corr" title=""">'</span>that life is but a flower:<span class="s_corr" title=""">'</span> is +it wise, then, to set your heart upon——"</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——" 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="""></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,—a little, half-starved looking +man, with a skin the color of his hair, and both gray?"</p> + +<p>"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."</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——"</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,—</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"—even the poor assumption is now +gone—"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—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,"—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 <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,—it little matters +how often,—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,—</p> + +<p>"I <i>will</i> try."</p> + +<p>"And you will call me Brian?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!—no, indeed!—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,—and +without the roses,—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—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—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.</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,—</p> + +<p>"<i>What</i> 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.</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,—</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—" says Terence, to gain time, and because speech of +some kind at this moment is absolutely necessary—"I didn't +think——"</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—nay, +I hope I am <i>not</i> to understand—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—that awful chapter +about Ananias and Sapphira—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—um—um—four +to seven—um—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—Oh! <i>so</i> +slowly! thinks Monica—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—er—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—doesn't it?—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—can +you not, Priscilla?—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——" 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,—<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—How Mr. Kelly +improves the shining hours—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,—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——"</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,—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—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.</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,—</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,—</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—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."</p> + +<p>She has thrown up her head, and is looking full of spirit, +when young Ronayne, approaching her, says, smiling,—</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!—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,—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?—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,—<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—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."</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,—</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"—touching them<span class="s_corr" title="''"></span>—"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—nay, far less<span class="s_corr" title=", ">—</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!—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=""">'</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——"</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—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 +<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,—</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,—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——"</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,—</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——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="""></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,—</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,—a rare thing,—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,—"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,—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—er—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—the waiting, I mean—then. +Though still, with my mind full of you, I was——"</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——" 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,—that—that—'<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>"—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—<i>whispering!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Of you. You believe me? Monica, look at me. Do you +know I really think that——"</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>,"—a +guilty conscience making a coward of her,—"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,—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,—<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,—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——"</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—interrupted a while +ago—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—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.</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,—</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—er—<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="""></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,—a promise +of better things to come,—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,—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,—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,—I, too, have a fancy, you see,—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,—"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,—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—</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,—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,—"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,—</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—<i>here, now</i>—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,—</p> + +<p>"Kit, answer me truthfully—you have sworn to be my +friend: tell me, then, which do <i>you</i> count the better man,—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—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"—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,—"<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,—one of those lilies over there in that +dark corner. Do you see them,—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—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."</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—as she hopes—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——"</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,—I +do, indeed,—and I shouldn't wonder a bit if in the morning +we heard——"</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—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—if I loved him +enough to marry him—<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—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—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—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."</p> + +<p>"What would you have me do, then?" asks Monica, desperately.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing," says Kit, airily,—"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>—</p> + +<p>"Are you speaking of—of Mr. Desmond?" asks Monica, +in a trembling voice.</p> + +<p>"Yes. He is standing there now, and has been, for—oh, +for hours,—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—go to him! +There!"</p> + +<p>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?</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——"</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—<i>at last</i>—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—that "white wonder"—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——"</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,—<i>me</i>, of all the world?" +says Monica, tremulously: "it is wide, there are others—and——"</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——"</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,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"><span class="s_corr" title=""">'</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=""">'</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?—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—<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—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>—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,—</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—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,—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—<i>you</i>—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——"</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—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—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,—</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,—<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—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.</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—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,—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,—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. +<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:—</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Little Kit</span>,—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:—</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,—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,—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<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,—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,—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!—my <i>dear</i> Kit!—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——"</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,—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,—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,—</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——That is quite another thing altogether. I +mean——I——it seems to me——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,—publicly, to his great delight.</p> + +<p>"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."</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—so—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,—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—but where they cannot see because of the prodigality +of moss and alder and bracken—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,—a—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—even the <i>nicest</i>—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,—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?—<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——"</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,—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',—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>,—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——" 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,—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.</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—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!—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——"</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—I mean <i>mine</i>—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,—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." +<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—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,—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——"</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—<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—<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—although the dawn is near—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,—except on +such rare occasions as the present when the Fates are kind,—you +cannot at least see <i>any one else</i>,—often, that is."</p> + +<p>"Meaning?——"</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,—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—How Terence is again +arraigned, and brought before the Court on a charge of duplicity—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—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——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"Now, Priscilla, is that just? I think—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,—</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!—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"—viciously—"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—and +they were disappointed—and——"</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"—with +dignified contempt—"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>—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—</p> + +<p>"<i>Monday, July 5.</i>—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>—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,—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 <i>seeming</i> to do so. And there +he is,"—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="""></span>See, here +he comes! Now be firm,—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—that is—I——"</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——"</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,—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——"</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 Cæsar's wife, above +suspicion, the Misses Blake are pulled up pretty short,—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—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,—</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,—<i>the</i> 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.</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,—</p> + +<p>"That young man Desmond,—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—say what you like, +my dear Priscilla—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——"</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,—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?"</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,—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—wasn't +there, now, Hermia?—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,—he is younger than I am, for +one thing,—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—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.</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——"</p> + +<p>"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,' <i>shortly</i>. Now begin your story again, and +tell it nicely."</p> + +<p>Terence begins again,—<i>very</i> good humoredly, thinks +Olga,—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,—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—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."</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,—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—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?—<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—<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,—</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—whatever it is—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—what you <i>see</i> in +Ryde. He is tall, certainly, but he is fat and effeminate, with +<span class="s_corr" title=""">'</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=""">'</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=""">'</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=""">'</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,—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——"</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—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 <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,—</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—for Ryde?"</p> + +<p>"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 <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——"</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—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,—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?—your aunts—" eagerly, "have relented—they——"</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!—there!"</p> + +<p>"And me too?"</p> + +<p>"N—o. Aunt Priscilla made it a condition with regard to +my going that you shouldn't be there."</p> + +<p>"The——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?—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,—</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,—a +Bluebeard in petticoats; but——"</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,—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,—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—er—cheese——"</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—I mean a pig—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—he got—what +on earth did the little plain gold pig—I mean, ring—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=""">'</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,—still smiling, +however,—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——"</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?—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—the lovers' friend—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—es."</p> + +<p>"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."</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—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—<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,—</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—</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,"—<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—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——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!"—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,—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.</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—begin——"</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,—poor but proud—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—I think so," says Monica, who plainly doesn't, being +much confused.</p> + +<p>"'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 <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,—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."</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,—he is lying prostrate on the +grass,—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?—'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,—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—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—and——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——You, Hermia, would you not undertake +it? You know, last season, they said you were——"</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,—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,—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,—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—es. We—er—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—" with a little laugh—"<i>hiss</i> 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."</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——" 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>——" 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,—her heart having +kept at a standstill whilst her body grew old,—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,—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—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—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,—"or that Dolly Varden affair."</p> + +<p>"Well, that last might do,—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,—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—acting—er—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!—not a word of truth about their +ready wit," says Mr. Ryde to himself at this juncture.)</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I certainly have never acted in my life," begins Monica; +"but——<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,—<i>rococo</i>"—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."</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,—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 <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,—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,—"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"—begins the Englishman, doggedly—"I hear——"</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,—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,—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——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—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—because, too——"</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——"</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"—all women, even +the best are cruel—"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,—how long +ago it seems now——"</p> + +<p>"Very long. Only a few weeks in reality, but it seems to +myself that I have known and—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,—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.</p> + +<p>"So wearisome a time, my own?" asks he, reproachfully.</p> + +<p>"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?"</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—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,—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,"—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?"</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,—yes, <i>certainly</i>." And then, with a <i>naivete</i> indescribable, +and with the utmost composure, she says,—</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—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——"</p> + +<p>"My angel, what a question!"</p> + +<p>"Yet perhaps you think——Don't kiss me just to oblige +me, you know. I don't care so much about it as all <i>that</i>, +but——"</p> + +<p>She finds it impossible to finish the sentence, because——</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—" 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—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—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—<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—especially as——" 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—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?"</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—more suited to you, perhaps, and——"</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—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 <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,—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—How Hermia parries the question, +and how Olga proves unkind.</p></div> + + +<p>"She's <i>disgracefully</i> 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."</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—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.</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,—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."</p> + +<p>A tall girl oppressed by freckles and with hair of a deep—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,—"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——"</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,—"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—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—er—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?—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,—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—I met—<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—er—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,—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!—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,—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."</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,—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?"</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. Crœsus, 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 +Crœsus 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 Crœsus. 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,—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—and—what +a <i>pity</i> it is that Rossmoyne is not Ulic!——</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!—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,—</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—unkind as you are—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,—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,—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,—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>—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.</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—if you ask her +prettily—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—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—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.</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,'—worldly wisdom,—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—arising, as it were, from the desire to hide one +emotion by the betrayal of another—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—the gayest of all mortals—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?"—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,—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—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."</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——"</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——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"Don't explain!—<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—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,—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,—"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>—whoever he is—<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—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,—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,—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?</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,—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,—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——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,—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——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 <i>and</i> its—contents! +The <i><a class="corr" name="TC_68" id="TC_68" title="denoument">denouement</a></i> 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."</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—indeed, I may +safely say I <i>know</i>—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,"—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——"</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—<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—How Mr. Kelly conjures up a ghost—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——<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——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—something <i>special</i>—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,—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,—Ulic,—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,—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——' +that was what he said, wasn't it?—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,—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.—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,—her +little burst of passion, the thought that led to it,—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,—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,—"at +least not the thing itself (I can replace that), but——"</p> + +<p>"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."</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,—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. +<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:—</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——"</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="""></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——" 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, æsthetic?" 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,—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—<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,—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,—"so unpleasant, +indeed, that I think I should like to go for a little walk +somewhere,—<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—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—oh, +blessed thought!—<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,—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.</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,—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,—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,—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."</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—<i>never</i>. You believe me?"</p> + +<p>"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.</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,'—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,—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!—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——there +is something else that you might do for <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>Miss Beresford draws herself a little—<i>a very</i> 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.</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,—<i>delicious</i> +laughter!—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—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?"</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—will——<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—surely the softest in this wide glad world—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!—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,—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—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,—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."</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,—</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>,—<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,—for +she had, as Monica well knew, set her heart on witnessing +these theatricals,—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,—<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?—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——</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,—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—is it rapture or relief?—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>—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,"—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,—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,—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.</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,—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,—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.</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—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,—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,—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——" 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——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——"</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,—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<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—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.</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—I mean, sentimental—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,—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—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.</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="""></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—but—<i>how</i> 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 <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,—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,——" +<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—in an <i>airy</i> 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 <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—just a very little—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,—<i>yours</i>, +as it will be soon, I hope."</p> + +<p>"And where is—<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!—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—of—of—" something in his +throat masters him here,—"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—or rather discussion—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—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,—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,—</p> + +<p>"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 <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'——"</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,—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,—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——"</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,—"I know you have +humored them considerably,—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="""></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——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,—but——"</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—that is, <i>we</i>—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——"</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—as I am—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="""></span></p> + +<p>"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.</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=""'">'"</span></p> + +<p>"Varicose, Terence—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—dear—dear! what a terrible shock +he—they—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—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!—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,"—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—and—I—it—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——"</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,—though sadly wanting where soups +are concerned,—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—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>—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?—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——" 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——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,—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 <i>every one</i>—" with a recklessness that sits very funnily upon +her—"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"—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.</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——"</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—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—Monica—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,—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—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,—"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—no, that sounds like tautology—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.—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,—<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,—dear, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> +clinging arms—and had broken into bitter weeping. +And—</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—</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—How Monica +at all hazards proclaims her truth—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—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,—<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,—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.</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,—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—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.</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—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.</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,—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—"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,—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.</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—to—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—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.</p> + +<p>"Do not say a word to me!" she cries, feverishly; "I could +not bear it—<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,—nothing; and——"</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—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—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—but that would be impossible in one of his name—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—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——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have seen <i>him</i>—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——<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—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.</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—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—er—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,—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,—"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——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.—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,—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—that she—and James <a class="corr" name="TC_99" id="TC_99" title="Berestord">Beresford</a>—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,—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—"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——"</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—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——"</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——"</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—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—How Fay +electrifies an entire audience—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,—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,—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 <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,—</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,—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."</p> + +<p>They all laugh at this, but presently Olga, holding up her +finger, says, seriously,—</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,—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,—</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—<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——"</p> + +<p>"I will not listen. 'Stony limits cannot hold love out:' +why, therefore, try to discourage me?"</p> + +<p>"But you should think——<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—'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—"because——"</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—I +feared——"</p> + +<p>"Never mind all that. I know—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—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.</p> + +<p>"What? Explain, Olga," says her lover, in a fresh agony.</p> + +<p>"As that I——<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,—your heart,—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=""">'</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——Oh, +no! it can't be true! and yet——I verily believe you +have——<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!—</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——" +<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,——</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,—why, he couldn't make a tender speech to +save his life as it should be made; whilst Ulic—<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——</p> + +<p>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,<span class="s_corr" title="">"</span>—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,—woman-like,—fears for his safety, forgotten +before, arise in all their horror. "They may have followed +you; they may——"</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——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?—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—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——"</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——"</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—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 +<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—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.</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,—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 <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——"</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,—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!"</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—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]—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—</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,"—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,—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,—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>,—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]—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,—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——" 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—that she—and James Beresford[Berestord]—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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROSSMOYNE *** + +***** This file should be named 31492-h.htm or 31492-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/4/9/31492/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 *** + +***** This file should be named 31492.txt or 31492.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/4/9/31492/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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