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"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?"