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"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."