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Mrs. Geoffrey

by Duchess · English · Gutenberg #35384 · 690,503 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Mrs. Geoffrey

Author: Duchess


        
Release date: February 25, 2011 [eBook #35384]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35384

Credits: Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Mary Meehan and
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. GEOFFREY ***




Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Mary Meehan and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net









                            MRS. GEOFFREY.

                            BY THE DUCHESS,

AUTHOR OF "PHYLLIS," "MOLLY BAWN," "AIRY FAIRY LILIAN," ETC., ETC.


    CHICAGO AND NEW YORK:
    BELFORD, CLARKE & COMPANY,
    PUBLISHERS.




MRS. GEOFFREY




CHAPTER I.

HOW GEOFFREY DECLARES HIS INTENTION OF SPENDING THE AUTUMN IN IRELAND.


"I don't see why I shouldn't put in a month there very comfortably,"
says Geoffrey, indolently, pulling the ears of a pretty, saucy little
fat terrier that sits blinking at him, with brown eyes full of love, on
a chair close by. "And it will be something new to go to Ireland, at all
events. It is rather out of the running these times, so probably will
prove interesting; and at least there is a chance that one won't meet
every town acquaintance round every corner. That's the worry of going
abroad, and I'm heartily sick of the whole thing."

"You will get murdered," says his mother, quite as indolently, half
opening her eyes, which are gray as Geoffrey's own. "They always kill
people, with things they call pikes, or burn them out of house and home,
over there, without either rhyme or reason."

"They certainly must be a lively lot, if all one hears is true," says
Geoffrey, with a suppressed yawn.

"You are not really going there, Geoff?"

"Yes, really."

"To what part of Ireland?"

"Somewhere beyond Bantry; you have heard of Bantry Bay?"

"Oh, I dare say! I am not sure," says Lady Rodney, pettishly, who is
rather annoyed at the idea of his going to Ireland, having other plans
in view for him.

"Ever heard of Botany Bay?" asks he, idly; but, this question being
distinctly frivolous, she takes no notice of it. "Well, it's in
Ireland," he goes on, after a slight but dignified pause. "You have
heard of the Emerald Isle, I suppose? It's the country where they grow
potatoes, and say 'bedad'; and Bantry is somewhere south, I think. I'm
never very sure about anything: that's one of my charms."

"A very doubtful charm."

"The name of the place I mean to stay at--my own actual property--is
called Coolnagurtheen," goes on Geoffrey, heedless of her censure.

"Eh?" says Lady Rodney.

"Coolnagurtheen."

"I always said you were clever," says his mother, languidly; "now I
believe it. I don't think if I lived forever I should be able to
pronounce such a sad word as that. Do--do the natives speak like that?"

"I'll tell you when I come back," says Geoffrey,--"if I ever do."

"So stupid of your uncle to leave you a property in such a country!"
says Lady Rodney, discontentedly. "But very like him, certainly. He was
never happy unless he was buying land in some uninhabitable place. There
was that farm in Wallachia,--your cousin Jane nearly died of chagrin
when she found it was left to her, and the lawyers told her she should
take it, whether she liked it or not. Wallachia! I don't know where it
is, but I am sure it is close to the Bulgarian atrocities!"

"Our 'pretty Jane,' on occasions, can talk as much nonsense as--as any
woman I ever met," says Geoffrey,--the hesitation being full of filial
reverence; "and that may be called, I think, unqualified praise."

"Better give up the Irish plan, dear, and come with Nichols and me to
the Nugents. They are easy-going people, and will suit you."

"Free-and-easy-going would be a more appropriate term, from all I have
heard."

"The shooting there is capital," says his mother, turning a deaf ear to
his muttered interruption, "and I don't believe there is anything in
Ireland, not even birds."

"There are landlords, at least; and very excellent shooting they are, if
all accounts be true," says Geoffrey, with a grin,--"to say nothing of
the partridge and grouse. Besides, it will be an experience; and a man
should say 'how d'ye do?' to his tenants sometimes."

"If you are going to preach to me on that subject, of course I have
nothing more to say. But I wish you would come with me to the Nugents."

"My dear mother, there is hardly anything I wouldn't do for you; but the
Nugent scheme wouldn't suit at all. That girl of the Cheviots is sure to
be there,--you know how fond Bessie Nugent is of her?--and I know she is
bent on marrying me."

"Nonsense! Would you have me believe you are afraid of her?"

"I am afraid of her; I was never so afraid of any one before. I have
made it the business of my life to avoid her ever since last New Year's
Day, when some kind fellow told me it was leap-year. You know I never
yet said 'No' to any one, and I shouldn't dare begin by saying it to
Miss Cheviot. She has such a stony glare, and such a profusion of nose!"

"And a profusion of gold, too," says Lady Rodney, with a sigh.

"I hope she has, poor soul: she will want it," says Geoffrey, feelingly;
and then he falls to whistling the "Two Obadiahs" softly, yet with a
relish, beneath his breath.

"How long do you intend to banish yourself from civilized life?"

"A month, I dare say. Longer, if I like it; shorter, if I don't. By the
by, you told me the other day it was the dream of your life to see me in
Parliament, now that 'Old Dick' has decided on leading a sedentary
existence,--a very stupid decision on his part, by the way, so clever as
he is."

"He is not strong, you see: a little thing knocks him up, and he is too
impressionable for a public career. But you are different."

"You think I am not impressionable? Well, time will tell. I shouldn't
care about going into the House unless I went there primed and loaded
with a real live grievance, Now, why should I not adopt the Irish?
Consider the case as it stands: I go and see them; I come home, raving
about them and their wretched condition, their cruel landlords, their
noble endurance, magnificent physique, patient suffering, honest
revenge, and so forth. By Jove! I feel as if I could do it already,
even before I've seen them," says Mr. Rodney, with an irreverent laugh.

"Well don't go to Dublin, at all events," says her mother, plaintively.
"It's wretched form."

"Is it? I always heard it was rather a jolly sort of little place, once
you got into it--well."

"What a partisan you do make!" says Lady Rodney, with a faint laugh.
"Perhaps after all we should consider Ireland the end and aim of all
things. I dare say when you come back you will be more Irish than the
Irish."

"It is a good thing to be in earnest over every matter, however trivial.
As I am going to Ireland, you will advise me to study the people, would
you not?"

"By all means study them, if you are really bent on this tiresome
journey. It may do you good. You will at least be more ready to take my
advice another time."

"What a dismal view you take of my trip! Perhaps, in spite of your
forebodings, I shall enjoy myself down to the ground, and weep copiously
on leaving Irish soil."

"Perhaps. I hope you won't get into a mess there, and make me more
unhappy than I am. We are uncomfortable enough without that. You know
you are always doing something bizarre,--something rash and uncommon!"

"How nice!" says Geoffrey, with a careless smile. "Your 'faint praise'
fails 'to damn'! Why, one is nothing nowadays if not eccentric. Well,"
moving towards the door, with the fox-terrier at his heels, "I shall
start on Monday. That will get me down in time for the 12th. Shall I
send you up any birds?"

"Thanks, dear; you are always good," murmurs Lady Rodney, who has ever
an eye to the main chance.

"If there are any," says Geoffrey, with a twinkle in his eye.

"If there are any," repeats she, unmoved.




CHAPTER II.

HOW GEOFFREY GOES TO IRELAND AND WHAT HE SEES THERE.


It is early morn. "The first low breath of waking day stirs the wide
air." On bush and tree and opening flower the dew lies heavily, like
diamonds glistening in the light of the round sun. Thin clouds of pearly
haze float slowly o'er the sky to meet its rays; and

                  Envious streaks
    Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.

Geoffrey, with his gun upon his shoulder, trudges steadily onward
rejoicing in the freshness of the morning air.

To his right lies Bantry Bay, that now is spreading itself out in all
its glory to catch the delicate hues of the sky above. They rush to
greet it, and, sinking deep down into its watery embrace, lie there all
day rocked to and fro by the restless ocean.

From the hills the scent of the heather is wafted towards him, filling
him with a subtle keen sense of youth and gladness and the absolute joy
of living. His good dog is at his heels; a boy--procured from some
neighboring cabin, and warranted not to wear out, however long the
journey to be undertaken or how many miles to travel--carries his bag
beside him.

Game as yet is not exactly plentiful: neither yesterday nor the day
before could it be said that birds flock to his gun; there is, indeed, a
settled uncertainty as to whether one may or may not have a good day's
sport. And yet perhaps this very uncertainty gives an additional
excitement to the game.

Here and there a pack is discovered, so unexpectedly as to be doubly
welcome. And sometimes a friendly native will tell him of some quiet
corner where "his honor" will surely find some birds, "an be able in the
evenin' to show raison for his blazin'." It is a somewhat wild life, but
a pleasant one, and perhaps, on the whole, Mr. Rodney finds Ireland an
agreeable take-in, and the inhabitants of it by no means as eccentric or
as bloodthirsty as he has been led to believe. He has read innumerable
works on the Irish peasantry, calculated to raise laughter in the
breasts of those who claim the Emerald Isle as their own,--works written
by people who have never seen Ireland, or, having seen it, have thought
it a pity to destroy the glamour time has thrown over it, and so reduce
it to commonplaceness.

He is, for instance, surprised, and indeed somewhat relieved, when he
discovers that the drivers of the jaunting-cars that take him on his
shooting-expeditions are not all modern Joe Millers, and do not let off
witty remarks, like bombshells, every two minutes.

He is perhaps disappointed in that every Irish cloak does not conceal a
face beautiful as a houri's. And he learns by degrees that only one in
ten says "bedad," and that "och murther?" is an expression almost
extinct.

They appear a kindly, gentle, good-humored people,--easily led, no doubt
(which is their undoing), but generous to the heart's core; a people who
can speak English fluently (though with a rich brogue) and more
grammatically than the Sassenachs themselves (of their own class),
inasmuch as they respect their aspirates and never put an _h_ in or
leave one out in the wrong place.

The typical Irishman, in whom Lever delighted, with his knee-breeches
and long-tailed coat, his pig under one arm and his shillalah under the
other, is literally nowhere! The caubeen and the dhudheen which we are
always hearing about may indeed be seen, but they are very usual objects
in all lands, if one just alters the names, and scarcely create
astonishment in the eyes of the on-looker.

The dhudheen is an institution, no doubt, but the owner of it, as a
rule, is not to be found seated on a five-barred gate, with a shamrock
pinned in his hat and a straw in his mouth, singing "Rory O'More" or
"Paddy O'Rafferty," as the case may be. On the contrary, poor soul, he
is found by Geoffrey either digging up his potatoes or stocking his turf
for winter use.

Altogether, things are very disappointing; though perhaps there is
comfort in the thought that no one is waiting round a corner, or lying
_perdu_ in a ditch, ready to smash the first comer with a blackthorn
stick, or reduce him to submission with a pike, irrespective of cause or
reason.

Rodney, with the boy at his side, is covering ground in a state of
blissful uncertainty. He may be a mile from home, or ten miles, for all
he knows, and the boy seems none the wiser.

"Where are we now?" says Geoffrey, suddenly, stopping and facing "the
boy."

"I don't know, sir."

"But you said you knew the entire locality,--couldn't be puzzled within
a radius of thirty miles. How far are we from home?"

"I don't know, sir. I never was abroad before, an' I'm dead bate now,
an' the bag's like lead."

"You're a nice boy, you are!" says Mr. Rodney; "Here, give me the bag!
Perhaps you would like me to carry you too; but I shan't, so you needn't
ask me. Are you hungry?"

"No," says the boy valiantly; but he looks hungry, and Geoffrey's heart
smites him, the more in that he himself is starving likewise.

"Come a little farther," he says, gently, slinging the heavy bag across
his own shoulders. "There must be a farmhouse somewhere."

There is. In the distance, imbedded in trees, lies an extensive
farmstead, larger and more home-like than any he has yet seen.

"Now, then, cheer up, Paddy!" he says to the boy: "yonder lies an oasis
in our howling wilderness."

Whereat the boy smiles and grins consumedly, as though charmed with his
companion's metaphor, though in reality he understands it not at all.

As they draw still nearer, Geoffrey becomes aware that the farmyard
before him is rich with life. Cocks are crowing, geese are cackling, and
in the midst of all this life stands a girl with her back turned to the
weary travellers.

"Wait here," says Geoffrey to his squire, and, going forward, rests the
bag upon a low wall, and waits until the girl in question shall turn her
head. When she does move he is still silent, for, behold, _she_ has
turned _his_ head!

She is country bred, and clothed in country garments, yet her beauty is
too great to be deniable. She is not "divinely tall," but rather of
medium height, with an oval face, and eyes of "heaven's own blue." Their
color changes too, and deepens, and darkens, and grows black and purple,
as doth the dome above us. Her mouth is large, but gracious, and full of
laughter mixed with truth and firmness. There is no feature that can so
truly express character as the mouth. The eyes can shift and change, but
the mouth retains its expression always.

She is clad in a snowy gown of simple cotton, that sits loosely to her
lissom figure yet fails to disguise the beauty of it. A white kerchief
lies softly on her neck. She has pulled up her sleeves, so that her arms
are bare,--her round, soft, naked arms that in themselves are a perfect
picture. She is standing with her head well thrown back, and her
hands--full of corn--lifted high in the air, as she cries aloud, "Cooee!
Cooee!" in a clear musical voice.

Presently her cry is answered. A thick cloud of pigeons--brown and white
and bronze and gray--come wheeling into sight from behind the old house,
and tumble down upon her in a reckless fashion. They perch upon her
head, her shoulders, her white soft arms, even her hands, and one, more
adventurous than the rest, has even tried to find a slippery
resting-place upon her bosom.

"What greedy little things!" cries she aloud, with the merriest laugh in
the world. "Sure you can't eat more than enough, can you? an' do your
best! Oh, Brownie," reproachfully, "what a selfish bird you are!"

Here Geoffrey comes forward quietly, and lifts his hat to her with all
the air of a man who is doing homage to a princess. It has occurred to
him that perhaps this peerless being in the cotton gown will feel some
natural chagrin on being discovered by one of the other sex with her
sleeves tucked up. But in this instance his knowledge of human nature
receives a severe shock.

Far from being disconcerted, this farmyard goddess is not even ashamed
(as indeed how could she be?) of her naked arms, and, coming up to him,
rests them upon the upper rung of the entrance-gate and surveys him
calmly if kindly.

"What can I do for you?" she asks, gently.

"I think," says Geoffrey, slightly disconcerted by the sweet leisure of
her gaze, "I have lost my way. I have been walking since sunrise, and I
want you to tell me where I am."

"You are at Mangle Farm," returns she. Then, judging by the blank
expression on his face that her words bring him no comfort, she
continues with a smile, "That doesn't seem to help you much, does it?"

He returns her smile in full,--_very_ full. "I confess it doesn't help
me at all," he says. "Mangle Farm, I am sure, is the most attractive
spot on earth, but it tells me nothing about latitude or longitude. Give
me some further help."

"Then tell me where you come from, and perhaps I may be able." She
speaks softly, but quickly, as do all the Irish, and with a brogue
musical but unmistakable.

"I am staying at a shooting-lodge called Coolnagurtheen. Do you know
where that is."

"Oh, of course," returns she, with a sudden accession of animation. "I
have often seen it. That is where the young English gentleman is staying
for the shooting."

"Quite right. And I am the young English gentleman," says Geoffrey,
lifting his hat again by way of introduction.

"Indeed, are you?" asks she, raising her pretty brows. Then she smiles
involuntarily, and the pink flush in her rounded cheeks grows a shade
deeper. Yet she does not lower her eyes, or show the slightest touch of
confusion. "I might have guessed it," she says, after a minute's survey
of the tall gray-coated young man before her. "You are not a bit like
the others down here."

"Am I not?" says he, humbly, putting on his carefully crestfallen air
that has generally been found so highly successful. "Tell me my fault."

"I will--when I find it," returns she, with an irrepressible glance,
full of native but innocent coquetry, from her beautiful eyes.

At this moment one of the pigeons--a small, pretty thing,
bronze-tinged--flies to her, and, resting on her shoulder, makes a
tender cooing sound, and picks at her cheek reproachfully, as though
imploring more corn.

"Would you bite me?" murmurs she, fondly, as the bird flies off again
alarmed at the presence of the tall stranger, who already is busy
comparing most favorably the face of its mistress with the faces of all
the fashionable beauties London has been raving about for eighteen
months. "Every morning they torment me like this," she says, turning to
Geoffrey, with a little pleasant confidential nod.

"He looked as if he wanted to eat you; and I'm sure I don't wonder at
it," says Geoffrey, making the addition to his speech in a lower key.

"And have you walked from Coolnagurtheen this morning? Why, it is eight
miles from this," says she, taking no notice of his last speech. "You
could have had no breakfast!"

"Not yet; but I suppose there must be a village near here, and an inn,
and I want you to direct me how to get to it. I am giving you a great
deal of trouble," remorsefully, "but my boy knows nothing."

He points as he speaks to the ignorant Paddy, who is sitting on the
ground with his knees between his hands, crooning a melancholy ditty.

"The village is two miles farther on. I think you had better come in and
breakfast here. Uncle will be very glad to see you," she says,
hospitably. "And you must be tired."

He hesitates. He _is_ tired, and hungry too; there is no denying. Even
as he hesitates, a girl coming out to the door-step puts her hand over
her eyes, and shouts pleasantly from afar to her mistress,--

"Miss Mona, come in; the tay will be cold, an' the rashers all spoiled,
an' the masther's callin' for ye."

"Come, hurry," says Mona, turning to Geoffrey, with a light laugh that
seems to spring from her very heart. "Would you have the 'tay' get cold
while you are making up your mind? I at least must go."

She moves from him.

"Then thank you, and I shall go with you, if you will allow me," says
Geoffrey, hurriedly, as he sees her disappearing.

"Tell your boy to go to the kitchen," says Mona, thoughtfully, and,
Paddy being disposed of, she and Geoffrey go on to the house.

They walk up a little gravelled path, on either side of which trim beds
of flowers are cut, bordered with stiff box. All sorts of pretty,
sweetly-smelling old wild blossoms are blooming in them, as gayly as
though they have forgotten the fact that autumn is rejoicing in all its
matured beauty. Crimson and white and purple asters stand calmly gazing
towards the sky; here a flaming fuchsia droops its head, and there,
apart from all the rest, smiles an enchanting rose.

    "That like a virgin queen salutes the sun
    Dew-diadem'd."

Behind the house rises a thick wood,--a "solemn wood," such as Dickens
loved to write of, with its lights and shades and every-varying tints. A
gentle wind is rushing through it now; the faint murmur of some "hidden
brook," singing its "quiet tune," fall upon the ear; some happy birds
are warbling in the thickets. It is a day whose beauty may be felt.

"I have no card but my name is Geoffrey Rodney," says the young man,
turning to his companion.

"And mine is Mona Scully," returns she, with the smile that seems part
of her lips, and which already has engraven itself on Mr. Rodney's
heart. "Now, I suppose, we know each other."

They walk up two steps, and enter a small hall, and then he follows her
into a room opening off it, in which breakfast lies prepared.

It is in Geoffrey's eyes a very curious room, unlike anything he has
ever seen before; yet it possesses for him (perhaps for that very
reason) a certain charm. It is uncarpeted, but the boards are white as
snow, and on them lies a fine sprinkling of dry sand. In one of the
windows--whose panes are diamond-shaped--two geraniums are in full
flower; upon the deep seat belonging to the other lie some books and a
stocking half knitted.

An old man, rugged but kindly-featured, rises on his entrance, and gazes
at him expectantly. Mona, going up to him, rests her hand upon his arm,
and, indicating Geoffrey by a gesture, says, in a low tone,--

"He has lost his way. He is tired, and I have asked him to have some
breakfast. He is the English gentleman who is living at Coolnagurtheen."

"You're kindly welcome, sir," says the old man, bowing with the slow and
heavy movement that belongs to the aged. There is dignity and warmth,
however, in the salute, and Geoffrey accepts with pleasure the toil-worn
hand his host presents to him a moment later. The breakfast is good,
and, though composed of only country fare, is delicious to the young
man, who has been walking since dawn, and whose appetite just now would
have astonished those dwelling in crowded towns and living only on their
excitements.

The house, is home-like, sweet, and one which might perhaps day by day
grow dearer to the heart; and this girl, this pretty creature who every
now and then turns her eyes on Geoffrey, as though glad in a kindly
fashion to see him there, seems a necessary part of the whole,--her
gracious presence rendering it each moment sweeter and more desirable.
"My precept to all who build is," says Cicero, "that the owner should be
an ornament to the house, and not the house to the owner."

Mona pours out the tea--which is excellent--and puts in the cream--which
is a thing to dream of--with a liberal hand. She smiles at Geoffrey
across the sugar-bowl, and chatters to him over the big bowl of flowers
that lies in the centre of the table. Not a hothouse bouquet faultlessly
arranged, by any means, but a great, tender, happy, straggling bunch of
flowers that seem to have fallen into their places of their own accord,
regardless of coloring, and fill the room with their perfume.

His host going to the window when breakfast is at an end, Geoffrey
follows him; and both look out upon the little garden before them that
is so carefully and lovingly tended.

"It is all her doing," says the old man,--"Mona's, I mean. She loves
those flowers more than anything on earth, I think. Her mother was the
same; but she wasn't half the lass that Mona is. Never a mornin' in the
cowld winter but she goes out there to see if the frost hasn't killed
some of 'em the night before."

"There is hardly any taste so charming or so engrossing as that for
flowers," says Geoffrey, making this trite little speech, that sounds
like a copy-book, in his most engaging style. "My mother and cousin do a
great deal of that sort of thing when at home."

"Ay, it looks pretty and gives the child something to do." There is a
regretful ring in his tone that induces Geoffrey to ask the next
question.

"Does she--does Miss Scully find country life unsatisfying? Has she not
lived here always?"

"Law, no, sir," says the old man, with a loud and hearty laugh. "I think
if ye could see the counthry girls round here, an' compare 'em with my
Mona, you'd see that for yerself. She's as fine as the queen to them.
Her mother, you see, was the parson's daughter down here; tiptop she
was, and purty as a fairy, but mighty delicate; looked as if a march
wind would blow her into heaven. Dan--he was a brother of mine, an' a
solicitor in Dublin. You've been there, belike?"

"Yes; I stopped there for two or three days on my way down here.
Well--and--your brother?" He cannot to himself explain the interest he
feels in this story.

"Dan? He was a fine man, surely; six feet in his stockin', he was, an'
eyes like a woman's. He come down here an' met her, an' she married him.
Nothing would stop her, though the parson was fit to be tied about it.
An' of course he was no match for her,--father bein' only a bricklayer
when he began life,--but still I will say Dan was a fine man, an' one to
think about; an' no two ways in him, an' _that_ soft about the heart. He
worshipped the ground she walked on; an' four years after their marriage
she told me herself she never had an ache in her heart since she married
him. That was fine tellin', sir, wasn't it? Four years, mind ye. Why,
when Mary was alive (my wife, sir) we had a shindy twice a week, reg'lar
as clockwork. We wouldn't have known ourselves without it; but, however,
that's nayther here nor there," says Mr. Scully, pulling himself up
short. "An' I ask yer pardon, sir, for pushing private matters on ye
like this."

"But you have interested me," says Geoffrey, seating himself on the
broad sill of the window, as though preparing for a long dissertation on
matters still unknown. "Pray tell me how your brother and his lovely
wife--who evidently was as wise and true as she was lovely--got on."

Mr. Rodney's face being of that rare kind that is as tender as it is
manly, and by right of its beauty demands confidence, the old man (who
dearly loves his own voice) is encouraged to proceed.

"They didn't get on for long," he says, mournfully,--and what voice is
so full of melancholy as the Irish voice when it sinks into sadness?
"When the little one--Mona--was barely five years old, they went to
ground; Mount Jerome got them. Fever it was; and it carried 'em both off
just while ye'd have time to look round ye. Poor souls, they went to the
blessed land together. Perhaps the Holy Virgin knew they would have got
on badly without each other anywhere."

"And the child,--Miss Mona?" asks Geoffrey.

"She went to live in Anthrim with her mother's sister. Later she got to
Dublin, to her aunt there,--another of the parson's daughters,--who
married the Provost in Thrinity; a proud sort he was, an' awful tiresome
with his Greeks an' his Romans, an' not the height of yer thumb," says
Mr. Scully, with ineffable contempt. "I went to Dublin one day about
cattle, and called to see me niece; an' she took to me, bless her, an'
I brought her down with me for change of air, for her cheeks were whiter
than a fleece of wool, an' she has stayed ever since. Dear soul! I hope
she'll stay forever. She is welcome."

"She must be a great comfort to you," says Geoffrey from his heart.

"She is that. More than I can say. An' keeps things together, too. She
is clever like her father, an' he was on the fair way to make a fortune.
Ay, I always say it, law is the thing that pays in Ireland. A good sound
fight sets them up. But I'm keeping you, sir, and your gun is waitin'
for ye. If you haven't had enough of me company by this," with another
jolly laugh, "I'll take ye down to a field hard by, an' show ye where I
saw a fine young covey only yesternight."

"I--I should like to say good-by to Miss Mona, and thank her for all her
goodness to me, before going," says the young man, rising somewhat
slowly.

"Nay, you can say all that on your way back, an' get a half-shot into
the bargain," says old Scully, heartily. "You'll hardly beat the potheen
I can give ye." He winks knowingly, pats Rodney kindly on the shoulder,
and leads the way out of the house. Yet I think Geoffrey would willingly
have bartered potheen, partridge, and a good deal more, for just one
last glance at Mona's beautiful face before parting. Cheered, however,
by the prospect that he may see her before night falls, he follows the
farmer into the open air.




CHAPTER III.

HOW GEOFFREY'S HEART IS CLAIMED BY CUPID AS A TARGET, AND HOW MONA
STOOPS TO CONQUER.


It is ten days later. The air is growing brisker, the flowers bear no
new buds. More leaves are falling on the woodland paths, and the trees
are throwing out their last bright autumn tints of red and brown and
richest orange, that tell all too plainly of the death that lies before
them.

Great cascades of water are rushing from the high hills, tumbling,
hurrying, with their own melodious music, into the rocky basins that
kind nature has built to receive them. The soothing voices of the air
are growing louder, more full of strength; the branches of the elms bow
down before them; the gentle wind, "a sweet and passionate wooer,"
kisses the blushing leaf with perhaps a fiercer warmth than it did a
month agone.

It is in the spring--so we have been told--that "a young man's fancy
lightly turns to thoughts of love;" yet it is in the autumn that _our_
young man takes to this pleasing if somewhat unsatisfactory amusement.

Not that he himself is at all aware of the evil case into which he has
fallen. He feels not the arrow in his heart, or the tender bands that
slowly but surely are winding themselves around him,--steel bands,
decked out and hidden by perfumed flowers. As yet he feels no pang; and,
indeed, were any one to even hint at such a thing, he would have laughed
aloud at the idea of his being what is commonly termed "in love."

That he--who has known so many seasons, and passed through the practised
hands of some of the prettiest women this world can afford, heart-whole,
and without a scratch--should fall a victim to the innocent wiles of a
little merry Irish girl of no family whatever, seems too improbable even
of belief, however lovely beyond description this girl may be (and is),
with her wistful, laughing, mischievous Irish eyes, and her mobile lips,
and her disposition half angelic, half full of fire and natural
coquetry.

Beauty, according to Ovid, is "a favor bestowed by the gods;"
Theophrastus says it is "a silent cheat;" and Shakspeare tells us it

    "Is but a vain and doubtful good,
    A shining gloss that fadeth suddenly,
    A flower that dieth when first it 'gins to bud,
    A brittle glass that's broken presently,
    A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
    Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour."

Mere beauty of form and feature will fade indeed, but Mona's beauty lies
not altogether in nose or eyes or mouth, but rather in her soul, which
compels her face to express its lightest meaning. It is in her
expression, which varies with each passing thought, changing from "grave
to gay, from lively to severe," as the soul within speaks to it, that
her chief charm dwells. She is never quite the same for two minutes
running,--which is the surest safeguard against satiety. And as her soul
is pure and clean, and her face is truly the index to her mind, all it
betrays but endears her to and makes richer him who reads it.

    "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
    Her infinite variety."

Whenever these lines come to me I think of Mona.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is midday, and Geoffrey, gun in hand, is idly stalking through the
sloping wood that rises behind Mangle Farm. The shooting he has had
since his arrival in Ireland, though desultory,--perhaps because of
it,--has proved delightful in his sight. Here coveys come upon one
unawares, rising out of fields when least expected, and therefore when
discovered possess all the novelty of a gigantic surprise. Now and then
he receives kindly warning of birds seen "over night" in some particular
corner, and an offer to escort him to the scene of action without beat
of drum.

As for instance, in the morning his man assails him with the news that
Micky Brian or Dinny Collins (he has grown quite familiar with the
gentry around) "is without, an' would like to spake wid him." Need I
remark that he has widely hired his own particular attendant from among
the gay and festive youths of Bantry?

Whereupon he goes "without," which means to his own hall-door that
always stands wide open, and there acknowledges the presence of Mickey
or Dinny, as the case may be, with a gracious nod. Mickey instantly
removes his caubeen and tells "his honor" (regardless of the fact that
his honor can tell this for himself) that "it is a gran' fine day,"
which as a rule is the first thing an Irish person will always say on
greeting you, as though full of thankfulness to the powers above, in
that sweet weather has been given.

Then follows a long-winded speech on the part of Mickey about birds in
general and grouse in particular, finishing up with the announcement
that he can tell where the finest covey seen this season lies hidden.

"An' the biggest birds, an' as full o' corn as iver ye see, the rogues!"

At this his honor requests Mickey to step into the hall, and with his
own hands administers to him a glass of whiskey, which mightily pleases
the son of Erin, though he plainly feels it his duty to make a face at
it as he swallows it off neat. And then Geoffrey sallies forth and goes
for the promised covey, followed closely by the excited Mickey, and,
having made account of most of them, presses backsheesh into the hands
of his informant, and sends him home rejoicing.

For the most part these bonnie brown birds have found their way into
Miss Mona's pantry, and are eaten by that little gourmand with the rarer
pleasure that in her secret heart she knows that the giver of them is
not blind to the fact that her eyes are faultless and her nose pure
Greek.

Just at this moment he is coming down through brake and furze, past
tangling blackberry-bushes that are throwing out leaves of brilliant
crimson and softest yellow, and over rustling leaves, towards the farm
that holds his divinity.

Ill luck has attended his efforts to-day, or else his thoughts have been
wandering in the land where love holds sway, because he is empty-handed.
The bonnie brown bird has escaped him, and no gift is near to lay at
Mona's shrine.

As he reaches the broad stream that divides him from the land he would
reach, he pauses and tries to think of any decent excuse that may enable
him to walk with a bold front up to the cottage door. But no such excuse
presents itself. Memory proves false. It refuses to assist him. He is
almost in despair.

He tries to persuade himself that there is nothing strange or uncommon
in calling upon Wednesday to inquire with anxious solicitude about the
health of a young woman whom he had seen happy and robust on Tuesday.
But the trial is not successful, and he is almost on the point of
flinging up the argument and going home again, when his eye lights upon
a fern small but rare, and very beautiful, that growing on a high rock
far above him, overhangs the stream.

It is a fern for which Mona has long been wishing. Oh! happy thought!
She has expressed for it the keenest admiration. Oh! blissful
remembrance! She has not one like it in all her collection. Oh!
certainty full of rapture.

Now will he seize this blessed opportunity, and, laden with the spoils
of war, approach her dwelling (already she is "she"), and triumphantly,
albeit humbly, lay the fern at her feet, and so perchance gain the right
to bask for a few minutes in the sunshine of her presence.

No sooner thought than done! Laying his gun carefully upon the ground,
he looks around him to see by what means he shall gain possession of
this lucky fern which is growing, deeply rooted in its native soil, far
above him.

A branch of a tree overspreading the water catches his attention. It is
not strong, but it suggests itself as a means to the desired end. It is
indeed slim to a fault, and unsatisfactory to an alarming degree, but it
must do, and Geoffrey, swinging himself up to it, tries it first, and
then standing boldly upon it, leans over towards the spot where the fern
can be seen.

It is rather beyond his reach, but he is determined not to be outdone.
Of course by stepping into the water and climbing the slimy rock that
holds the desired treasure, it can be gained; but with a lazy desire to
keep his boots dry, he clings to his present position, regardless of the
fact that bruised flesh (if nothing worse) will probably be the result
of his daring.

He has stooped very much over indeed. His hand is on the fern; he has
safely carefully extracted it, roots and all (one would think I was
speaking of a tooth! but this is by the way), from its native home, when
cr-r-k goes something; the branch on which he rests betrays him, and
smashing hurls him head downwards into the swift but shallow stream
below.

A very charming vision clad in Oxford shirting, and with a great white
hat tied beneath her rounded chin with blue ribbons,--something in the
style of a Sir Joshua Reynolds,--emerges from among the low-lying firs
at this moment. Having watched the (seemingly) light catastrophe from
afar, and being apparently amused by it, she now gives way to
unmistakable mirth and laughs aloud. When Mona laughs, she does it with
all her heart, the correct method of suppressing all emotion, be it of
joy or sorrow,--regarding it as a recreation permitted only to the
vulgar,--being as yet unlearned by her. Therefore her expression of
merriment rings gayly and unchecked through the old wood.

But presently, seeing the author of her mirth does not rise from his
watery resting-place, her smile fades, a little frightened look creeps
into her eyes, and, hastening forward, she reaches the bank of the
stream and gazes into it. Rodney is lying face downwards in the water,
his head having come with some force against the sharp edge of a stone
against which it is now resting.

Mona turns deadly pale, and then instinctively loosening the strings of
her hat flings it from her. A touch of determination settles upon her
lips, so prone to laughter at other times. Sitting on the bank, she
draws off her shoes and stockings, and with the help of an alder that
droops to the river's brim lowers herself into the water.

The stream, though insignificant, is swift. Placing her strong young
arms, that are rounded and fair as those of any court dame, beneath
Rodney, she lifts him, and, by a supreme effort, and by right of her
fresh youth and perfect health, draws him herself to land.

In a minute or two the whole affair proves itself a very small thing
indeed, with little that can be termed tragical about it. Geoffrey comes
slowly back to life, and in the coming breathes her name. Once again he
is trying to reach the distant fern; once again it eludes his grasp. He
has it; no, he hasn't; yet, he has. Then at last he wakes to the fact
that he has indeed _got it_ in earnest, and that the blood is flowing
from a slight wound in the back of his head, which is being staunched by
tender fingers, and that he himself is lying in Mona's arms.

He sighs, and looks straight into the lovely frightened eyes bending
over him. Then the color comes with a sudden rush back into his cheeks
as he tells himself she will look upon him as nothing less than a "poor
creature" to lose consciousness and behave like a silly girl for so
slight a cause. And something else he feels. Above and beyond everything
is a sense of utter happiness, such as he has never known before, a
thrill of rapture that has in it something of peace, and that comes from
the touch of the little brown hand that rests so lightly on his head.

"Do not stir. Your head is badly cut, an' it bleeds still," says Mona,
with a shoulder. "I cannot stop it. Oh, what shall I do?"

"Who got me out of the water?" asks he, lazily, pretending (hypocrite
that he is) to be still overpowered with weakness. "And when did you
come?"

"Just now," returns she, with some hesitation, and a rich accession of
coloring, that renders her even prettier than she was a moment since.
Because

    "From every blush that kindles in her cheeks,
    Ten thousand little loves and graces spring."

Her confusion, however, and the fact that no one else is near, betrays
the secret she fain would hide.

"Was it you?" asks he, raising himself on his elbow to regard her
earnestly, though very loath to quit the spot where late he has been
tenant. "You? Oh, Mona!"

It is the first time he has ever called her by her Christian name
without a prefix. The tears rise to her eyes. Feeling herself
discovered, she makes her confession slowly, without looking at him, and
with an air of indifference so badly assumed as to kill the idea of her
ever attaining prominence upon the stage.

"Yes, it was I," she says. "And why shouldn't I? Is it to see you drown
I would? I--I didn't want you to find out; but"--quickly--"I would do
the same for _any one_ at _any_ time. You know that."

"I am sure you would," says Geoffrey, who has risen to his feet and has
taken her hand. "Nevertheless, though, as you say, I am but one in the
crowd,--and, of course, nothing to you,--I am very glad you did it for
me."

With a little touch of wilfulness, perhaps pride, she withdraws her
hand.

"I dare say," she says, carelessly, purposely mistaking his meaning: "it
must have been cold lying there."

"There are things that chill one more than water," returns he, slightly
offended by her tone.

"You are all wet. Do go home and change your clothes," says Mona, who is
still sitting on the grass with her gown spread carefully around her.
"Or perhaps"-reluctantly--"it will be better for you to go to the farm,
where Bridget will look after you."

"Thank you; so I shall, if you will come with me."

"Don't mind me," says Miss Scully, hastily. "I shall follow you by and
by."

"By and by will suit me down to the ground," declares he, easily. "The
day is fortunately warm: damp clothes are an advantage rather than
otherwise."

Silence. Mona taps the mound beside her with impatient fingers, her mind
being evidently great with thought.

"I really wish," she says, presently, "you would do what I say. Go to
the farm, and--stay there."

"Well, come with me, and I'll stay till you turn me out.'

"I can't," faintly.

"Why not?" in a surprised tone.

"Because--I prefer staying here."

"Oh! if you mean by that you want to get rid of me, you might have said
so long ago, without all this hinting," says Mr. Rodney, huffily,
preparing to beat an indignant retreat.

"I didn't mean that, and I never hint," exclaims Mona, angrily; "and if
you insist on the truth, if I must explain to you what I particularly
desire to keep secret, you----"

"You are hurt!" interrupts he, with passionate remorse. "I see it all
now. Stepping into that hateful stream to save me, you injured yourself
severely. You are in pain,--you suffer; whilst I----"

"I am in no pain," says Mona, crimson with shame and mortification. "You
mistake everything. I have not even a scratch on me; and--I have no
shoes or stockings on me either, if you must know all!"

She turns from him wrathfully; and Geoffrey, disgusted with himself,
steps back and makes no reply. With any other woman of his acquaintance
he might perhaps at this juncture have made a mild request that he might
be allowed to assist in the lacing or buttoning of her shoes; but with
this strange little Irish girl all is different. To make such a remark
would be, he feels, to offer her a deliberate insult.

"There, do go away!" says this woodland goddess. "I am sick of you and
your stupidity."

"I'm sure I don't wonder," says Geoffrey, very humbly. "I beg your
pardon a thousand times; and--good-by, Miss Mona."

She turns involuntarily, through the innate courtesy that belongs to her
race, to return his parting salutation, and, looking at him, sees a tiny
spot of blood trickling down his forehead from the wound received awhile
since.

On the instant all is forgotten,--chagrin, shame, shoes and stockings,
everything! Springing to her little naked feet, she goes to him, and,
raising her hand, presses her handkerchief against the ugly stain.

"It has broken out again!" she says, nervously. "I am sure--I am
certain--it is a worst wound than you imagine. Ah! do go home, and get
it dressed."

"But I shouldn't like any one to touch it except you," says Mr. Rodney,
truthfully. "Even now, as your fingers press it, I feel relief."

"Do you really?" asks Mona, earnestly.

"Honestly, I do."

"Then just turn your back for one moment," says Mona simply, "and when
my shoes and stockings are on I'll go home with you an' bathe it. Now,
don't turn round, for your life!"

"'Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?'" quotes Mr.
Rodney; and, Mona having got into her shoes, she tells him he is at
liberty to follow her across the rustic bridge lower down, that leads
from the wood into Mangle Farm.

"You have spoiled your gown on my account," says Geoffrey, surveying her
remorsefully; "and such a pretty gown, too. I don't think I ever saw you
looking sweeter than you look to-day. And now your dress is ruined, and
it is all my fault!"

"How dare you find a defect in my appearance?" says Mona, with her old
gay laugh. "You compel me to retaliate. Just look at yourself. Did you
ever see such a regular pickle as you are?"

In truth he is. So when he has acknowledged the melancholy fact, they
both laugh, with the happy enjoyment of youth, at their own
discomfiture, and go back to the cottage good friends once more.

On the middle of the rustic bridge before mentioned he stops her, to
say, unexpectedly,--

"Do you know by what name I shall always call you in my thoughts?"

To which she answers, "No. How should I? But tell me."

"'Bonnie Lesley:' the poet says of her what I think of you."

"And what do you think of me?" She has grown a little pale, but her eyes
have not left his.

    "To see her is to love her,
    And love but her forever;
    For nature made her what she is,
    And ne'er made sie anither,"

quotes Geoffrey, in a low tone, that has something in it almost
startling, so full is it of deep and earnest feeling.

Mona is the first to recover herself.

"That is a pretty verse," she says, quietly. "But I do not know the
poem. I should like to read it."

Her tone, gentle but dignified, steadies him.

"I have the book that contains it at Coolnagurtheen," he says, somewhat
subdued. "Shall I bring it to you?"

"Yes. You may bring it to me--to-morrow," returns she, with the
faintest hesitation, which but enhances the value of the permission,
whereon his heart once more knows hope and content.




CHAPTER IV.

HOW GEOFFREY AND MONA ENTER A CABIN AND SEE ONE OF THE RESULTS OF
PARNELL'S ELOQUENCE.


But when to-morrow comes it brings to him a very different Mona from the
one he saw yesterday. A pale girl, with great large sombrous eyes and
compressed lips, meets him, and places her hand in his without a word.

"What is it?" asks he, quick to notice any change in her.

"Oh! haven't you heard?" cries she. "Sure the country is ringing with
it. Don't you know that they tried to shoot Mr. Moore last night?"

Mr. Moore is her landlord, and the owner of the lovely wood behind
Mangle Farm where Geoffrey came to grief yesterday.

"Yes, of course; but I heard, too, how he escaped his would-be
assassin."

"He did, yes; but poor Tim Maloney, the driver of the car on which he
was, he was shot through the heart, instead of him! Oh, Mr. Rodney,"
cries the girl, passionate emotion both in her face and voice, "what can
be said of those men who come down to quiet places such as this was, to
inflame the minds of poor ignorant wretches, until they are driven to
bring down murder on their souls! It is cruel! It is unjust! And there
seems no help for us. But surely in the land where justice reigns
supreme, retribution will fall upon the right heads."

"I quite forgot about the driver," says Geoffrey, beneath his breath.
This remark is unfortunate. Mona turns upon him wrathfully.

"No doubt," she says scornfully. "The gentleman escaped, the man doesn't
count! Perhaps, indeed, he has fulfilled his mission now he has shed his
ignoble blood for his superior! Do you know it is partly such thoughts
as these that have driven our people to desperation! One law for the
poor, another for the rich! Friendship for the great, contempt for the
needy."

She pauses, catching her breath with a little sob.

"Who is uttering seditious language now?" asks he, reproachfully. "No,
you wrong me. I had, indeed, forgotten for the moment all about that
unfortunate driver. You must remember I am a stranger here. The peasants
are unknown to me. I cannot be expected to feel a keen interest in each
one individually. In fact, had Mr. Moore been killed instead of poor
Maloney, I shouldn't have felt it a bit the more, though he was the
master and the other the man. I can only suffer with those I know and
love."

The "poor Maloney" has done it. She forgives him; perhaps because--sweet
soul--harshness is always far from her.

"It is true," she says, sadly. "I spoke in haste because my heart is
sore for my country, and I fear for what we may yet live to see. But of
course I could not expect you to feel with me."

This cuts him to the heart.

"I do feel with you," he says, hastily. "Do not believe otherwise."
Then, as though impelled to it, he says in a low tone, though very
distinctly, "I would gladly make your griefs mine, if you would make my
joys yours."

This is a handsome offer, all things considered, but Mona turns a deaf
ear to it. She is standing on her door-step at this moment, and now
descends until she reaches the tiny gravelled path.

"Where are you going?" asks Rodney, afraid lest his last speech has
offended her. She has her hat on,--a big Gainsborough hat, round which
soft Indian muslin is clinging, and in which she looks nothing less than
adorable.

"To see poor Kitty Maloney, his widow. Last year she was my servant.
This year she married; and now--here is the end of everything--for her."

"May I go with you?" asks he, anxiously. "These are lawless times, and I
dare say Maloney's cabin will be full of roughs. You will feel happier
with some man beside you whom you can trust."

At the word "trust" she lifts her eyes and regards him somewhat
steadfastly. It is a short look, yet a very long one, and tells more
than she knows. Even while it lasts he swears to himself an oath that he
never to his life's end breaks.

"Come, then," she says, slowly, "if you will. Though I am not afraid.
Why should I be? Do you forget that I am one of themselves? My father
and I belong to the people."

She says this steadily, and very proudly, with her head held high, but
without looking at him; which permits Geoffrey to gaze at her
exhaustively. There is an unconscious meaning in her words, quite clear
to him. She is of "the people," he of a class that looks but coldly upon
hers. A mighty river, called Caste, rolls between them, dividing him
from her. But shall it? Some hazy thought like this floats through his
brain. They walk on silently, scarcely exchanging a syllable one with
the other, until they come within sight of a small thatched house built
at the side of the road. It has a manure-heap just in front of it, and a
filthy pool to its left, in which an ancient sow is wallowing, whilst
grunting harmoniously.

Two people, a man and a woman, are standing together some yards from the
cabin, whispering and gesticulating violently, as is "their nature to."

The man, seeing Mona, breaks from the woman, and comes up to her.

"Go back again, miss," he says, with much excitement. "They've brought
him home, an' he's bad to look at. I've seed him, an' it's given me a
turn I won't forget in a hurry. Go home, I tell ye. 'Tis a sight not fit
for the eyes of the likes of you."

"Is he there?" asks Mona, pointing with trembling fingers to the house.

"Ay, where else?" answers the woman, sullenly who has joined them. "They
brought him back to the home he will never rouse again with step or
voice. 'Tis cold he is, an' silent this day."

"Is--is he covered?" murmurs Mona, with difficulty, growing pale, and
shrinking backwards. Instinctively she lays her hand on Rodney's arm, as
though desirous of support. He, laying his own hand upon hers, holds it
in a warm and comforting clasp.

"He's covered, safe enough. They've throwed an ould sheet over
him,--over what remains of him this cruel day. Och, wirra-wirra!" cries
the woman, suddenly, throwing her hands high above her head, and giving
way to a peculiar long, low, moaning sound, so eerie, so full of wild
despair and grief past all consolation, as to make the blood in Rodney's
veins run cold.

"Go back the way ye came," says the man again, with growing excitement.
"This is no place for ye. There is ill luck in yonder house. His soul
won't rest in peace, sent out of him like that. If ye go in now, ye'll
be sorry for it. 'Tis a thing ye'll be thinkin' an' dhramin' of till
you'll be wishin' the life out of yer cursed body!"

A little foam has gathered round his lips, and his eyes are wild.
Geoffrey, by a slight movement, puts himself between Mona and this man,
who is evidently besides himself with some inward fear and horror.

"What are ye talkin' about? Get out, ye spalpeen," says the woman, with
an outward show of anger, but a warning frown meant for the man alone.
"Let her do as she likes. Is it spakin' of fear ye are to Dan Scully's
daughter?"

"Come home, Mona; be advised by me," says Geoffrey, gently, as the man
skulks away, walking in a shambling, uncertain fashion, and with a
curious trick of looking every now and then over his shoulder, as though
expecting to see an unwelcome follower.

"No, no; this is not a time to forsake one in trouble," says Mona,
faithfully, but with a long, shivering sigh. "I need see nothing, but I
_must_ speak to Kitty."

She walks deliberately forward and enters the cabin, Geoffrey closely
following her.

A strange scene presents itself to their expectant gaze. Before them is
a large room (if so it can be called), possessed of no flooring but the
bare brown earth that Mother Nature has supplied. To their right is a
huge fireplace, where, upon the hearthstone, turf lies burning dimly,
emitting the strong aromatic perfume that belongs to it. Near it
crouches an old woman with her blue-checked apron thrown above her head,
who rocks herself to and fro in silent grief, and with every long-drawn
breath--that seems to break from her breast like a stormy wave upon a
desert shore--brings her old withered palms together with a gesture
indicative of despair.

Opposite to her is a pig, sitting quite erect, and staring at her
blankly, without the slightest regard to etiquette or nice feeling. He
is plainly full of anxiety, yet without power to express it, except in
so far as his tail may aid him, which is limp and prostrate, its very
curl being a thing of the past. If any man has impugned the sagacity of
pigs, that man has erred!

In the background partly hidden by the gathering gloom, some fifteen
men, and one or two women, are all huddled together, whispering eagerly,
with their faces almost touching. The women, though in a great
minority, are plainly having the best of it.

But Mona's eyes see nothing but one object only.

On the right side of the fireplace, lying along the wall, is a rude
stretcher,--or what appears to be such,--on which, shrouded decently in
a white cloth, lies something that chills with mortal fear the heart, as
it reminds it of that to which we all some day must come. Beneath the
shroud the murdered man lies calmly sleeping, his face smitten into the
marble smile of death.

Quite near to the poor corpse, a woman sits, young, apparently, and with
a handsome figure, though now it is bent and bowed with grief. She is
dressed in the ordinary garb of the Irish peasant, with a short gown
well tucked up, naked feet, and the sleeves of her dress pushed upwards
until they almost reach the shoulder, showing the shapely arm and the
small hand that, as a rule, belong to the daughters of Erin and betray
the existence of the Spanish blood that in days gone by mingled with
theirs.

Her face is hidden; it is lying on her arms, and they are cast, in the
utter recklessness and abandonment of her grief, across the feet of him
who, only yesterday, had been her "man,"--her pride and her delight.

Just as Mona crosses the threshold, a man, stepping from among the group
that lies in shadow, approaching the stretcher, puts forth his hand, as
though he would lift the sheet and look upon what it so carefully
conceals. But the woman, springing like a tigress to her feet, turns
upon him, and waves him back with an imperious gesture.

"Lave him alone!" cries she; "take yer hands off him! He's dead, as ye
well know, the whole of ye. There's no more ye can do to him. Then lave
his poor body to the woman whose heart is broke for the want of him!"

The man draws back hurriedly, and the woman once more sinks back into
her forlorn position.

"Kitty, can I do anything for you?" asks Mona, in a gentle whisper,
bending over her and taking the hand that lies in her lap between both
her own, with a pressure full of gentle sympathy. "I know there is
nothing I can _say_ but can I _do_ nothing to comfort you?"

"Thank ye, miss. Ye mane it kindly, I know," says the woman, wearily.
"But the big world is too small to hold one dhrop of comfort for me.
He's dead, ye see!"

The inference is full of saddest meaning. Even Geoffrey feels the tears
rise unbidden to his eyes.

"Poor soul! poor soul!" says Mona, brokenly; then she drops her hand,
and the woman, turning again to the lifeless body, as though in the poor
cold clay lies her only solace, lets her head fall forward upon it.

Mona, turning, confronts the frightened group in the corner, both men
and women, with a face changed and aged by grief and indignation.

Her eyes have grown darker; her mouth is stern. To Rodney, who is
watching her anxiously, she seems positively transformed. What a
terrible power lies within her slight frame to feel both good and evil!
What sad days may rest in store for this girl, whose face can whiten at
a passing grievance, and whose hands can tremble at a woe in which only
a dependant is concerned! Both sorrow and joy must be to her as giants,
strong to raise or lower her to highest elevations or lowest depths.

"Oh, what a day is this!" cries she, with quivering lips. "See the ruin
you have brought upon this home, that only yestermorn was full of life
and gladness! Is this what has come of your Land League, and your Home
Rulers, and your riotous meetings? Where is the soul of this poor man,
who was hurried to his last account without his priest, and without a
prayer for pardon on his lips? And how shall the man who slew him dare
to think on his own soul?"

No one answers; the very moanings of the old crone in the chimney-corner
are hushed as the clear young voice rings through the house, and then
stops abruptly, as though its owner is overcome with emotion. The men
move back a little, and glance uneasily and with some fear at her from
under their brows.

"Oh, the shameful thought that all the world should be looking at us
with horror and disgust, as a people too foul for anything but
annihilation! And what is it you hope to gain by all this madness? Do
you believe peace, or a blessing from the holy heavens, could fall and
rest on a soil soaked in blood and red with crime? I tell you no; but
rather a curse will descend, and stay with you, that even Time itself
will be powerless to lift."

Again she pauses, and one of the men, shuffling his feet nervously, and
with his eyes bent upon the floor, says, in a husky tone,--

"Sure, now, you're too hard on us, Miss Mona. We're innocent of it. Our
hands are clean as yer own. We nivir laid eyes on him since yesterday
till this blessed minit. Ye should remember that, miss."

"I know what you would say; and yet I do denounce you all, both men and
boys,--yes, and the women too,--because, though your own actual hands
may be free of blood, yet knowing the vile assassin who did this deed,
there is not one of you but would extend to him the clasp of
good-fellowship and shield him to the last,--a man who, fearing to meet
another face to face, must needs lie in ambush for him behind a wall,
and shoot his victim without giving him one chance of escape! Mr. Moore
walks through his lands day by day, unprotected and without arms: why
did this man not meet him there, and fight him fairly, to the death, if,
indeed, he felt that for the good of his country he should die! No!
there was danger in that thought," says Mona, scornfully: "it is a safer
thing to crouch out of sight and murder at one's will."

"Then why does he prosecute the poor? We can't live; yet he won't lower
the rints," says a sullen voice from the background.

"He did lower them. He, too, must live; and, at all events, no
persecution can excuse murder," says Mona, undaunted. "And who was so
good to you as Mr. Moore last winter, when the famine raged round here?
Was not his house open to you all? Were not many of your children fed by
him? But that is all forgotten now; the words of a few incendiaries have
blotted out the remembrance of years of steady friendship. Gratitude
lies not with you. I, who am one of you, waste my time in speaking. For
a very little matter you would shoot me too, no doubt!"

This last remark, being in a degree ungenerous, causes a sensation. A
young man, stepping out from the confusion, says, very earnestly,--

"I don't think ye have any call to say that to us, Miss Mona. 'Tisn't
fair like, when ye know in yer own heart that we love the very sight of
ye, and the laste sound of yer voice!"

Mona, though still angered, is yet somewhat softened by this speech, as
might any woman. Her color fades again, and heavy tears, rising rapidly,
quench the fire that only a moment since made her large eyes dark and
passionate.

"Perhaps you do," she says, sadly. "And I, too,--you know how dear you
all are to me; and it is just that that makes my heart so sore. But it
is too late to warn. The time is past when words might have availed."

Turning sorrowfully away, she drops some silver into the poor widow's
lap; whereon Geoffrey, who has been standing close to her all the time,
covers it with two sovereigns.

"Send down to the Farm, and I will give you some brandy," says Mona to a
woman standing by, after a lengthened gaze at the prostrate form of
Kitty, who makes no sign of life. "She wants it." Laying her hand on
Kitty's shoulder, she shakes her gently. "Rouse yourself," she says,
kindly, yet with energy. "Try to think of something,--anything except
your cruel misfortune."

"I have only one thought," says the woman, sullenly, "I can't betther
it. An' that is, that it was a bitther day when first I saw the light."

Mona, not attempting to reason with her again, shakes her head
despondingly, and leaves the cabin with Geoffrey at her side.

For a little while they are silent. He is thinking of Mona; she is
wrapped in remembrance of all that has just passed. Presently, looking
at her, he discovers she is crying,--bitterly, though quietly. The
reaction has set in, and the tears are running quickly down her cheeks.

"Mona, it has all been too much for you," exclaims he, with deep
concern.

"Yes, yes; that poor, poor woman! I cannot get her face out of my head.
How forlorn! how hopeless! She has lost all she cared for; there is
nothing to fall back upon. She loved him; and to have him so cruelly
murdered for no crime, and to know that he will never again come in the
door, or sit by her hearth, or light his pipe by her fire,--oh, it is
horrible! It is enough to kill her!" says Mona, somewhat disconnectedly.

"Time will soften her grief," says Rodney, with an attempt at soothing.
"And she is young; she will marry again, and form new ties."

"Indeed she will not;" says Mona indignantly. "Irish peasants very
seldom do that. She will, I am sure, be faithful forever to the memory
of the man she loved."

"Is that the fashion here? If--if you loved a man, would you be faithful
to him forever?"

"But how could I help it?" says Mona, simply. "Oh, what a wretched state
this country is in! turmoil and strife from morning till night. And yet
to talk to those very people, to mix with them, they seem such
courteous, honest, lovable creatures!"

"I don't think the gentleman in the flannel jacket, who spoke about the
reduction of 'rints,' looked very lovable," says Mr. Rodney, without a
suspicion of a smile; "and--I suppose my sight is failing--but I confess
I didn't see much courtesy in his eye or his upper lip. I don't think I
ever saw so much upper lip before, and now that I have seen it I don't
admire it. I shouldn't single him out as a companion for a lonely road.
But no doubt I wrong him."

"Larry Doolin is not a very pleasant person, I acknowledge that," says
Mona, regretfully; "but he is only one among a number. And for the most
part, I maintain, they are both kind and civil. Do you know," with
energy, "after all I believe England is most to blame for all this evil
work? We are at heart loyal: you must agree with me in this, when you
remember how enthusiastically they received the queen when, years ago,
she condescended to pay us a flying visit, never to be repeated. And how
gladly we welcomed the Prince of Wales, and how the other day all
Ireland petted and made much of the Duke of Connaught! I was in Dublin
when he was there; and I know there was no feeling towards him but
loyalty and affection. I am sure," earnestly, "if you asked him he would
tell the same story."

"I'll ask him the very moment I see him," says Geoffrey, with
_empressement_. "Nothing shall prevent me. And I'll telegraph his answer
to you."

"We should be all good subjects enough, if things were on a friendlier
footing," says Mona, too absorbed in her own grievance to notice Mr.
Rodney's suppressed but evident enjoyment of her conversation. "But when
you despise us, you lead us to hate you."

"I never heard such awful language," says Rodney. "To tell me to my face
that you hate me. Oh, Miss Mona! How have I merited such a speech?"

"You know what I mean," says Mona, reproachfully. "You needn't pretend
you don't. And it is quite true that England does despise us."

"What a serious accusation! and one I think slightly unfounded. We don't
despise this beautiful island or its people. We even admit that you
possess a charm to which we can lay no claim. The wit, the verve, the
pure gayety that springs direct from the heart that belongs to you, we
lack. We are a terrible prosy, heavy lot capable of only one idea at a
time. How can you say we despise you?"

"Yes, you do," says Mona, with a little obstinate shake of her head.
"You call us dirty, for one thing."

"Well, but is that altogether a falsehood? Pigs and smoke and live fowls
and babies are, I am convinced, good things in their own way and when
well at a distance. But, under the roof with one and in an apartment a
few feet square, I don't think I seem to care about them, and I'm sure
they can't tend towards cleanliness."

"I admit all that. But how can they help it, when they have no money and
when there are always the dear children? I dare say we are dirty, but so
are other nations, and no one sneers at them as they sneer at us. Are we
dirtier than the canny Scots on whom your queen bestows so much of her
society? Tell me that!"

There is triumph in her eye, and a malicious sparkle, and just a touch
of rebellion.

"What a little patriot!" says Rodney, pretending fear and stepping back
from her. "Into what dangerous company have I fallen! And with what an
accent you say '_your_ queen'! Do you then repudiate her? Is she not
yours as well? Do you refuse to acknowledge her?"

"Why should I? She never comes near us, never takes the least notice of
us. She treats us as though we were a detested branch grafted on, and
causing more trouble than we are worth, yet she will not let us go."

"I don't wonder at that. If I were the queen I should not let you go
either. And so you throw her over? Unhappy queen! I do not envy her,
although she sits upon so great a throne. I would not be cast off by you
for the wealth of all the Indies."

"Oh, you are my friend," says Mona, sweetly. Then, returning to the
charge, "Perhaps after all it is not so much her fault as that of
others. Evil counsellors work mischief in all ages."

"'A Daniel come to judgment!' So sage a speech is wonderful from one so
young. In my opinion, you ought to go into Parliament yourself, and
advocate the great cause. Is it with the present government that you
find fault?

    "A government which, knowing not true wisdom,
    Is scorned abroad, and lives on tricks at home?"

says Mr. Rodney, airing his bit of Dryden with conscious pride, in that
it fits in so nicely. "At all events, you can't call it,

    'A council made of such as dare not speak,
    And could not if they durst,'

because your part of it takes care to make itself heard."

"How I wish it didn't!" says Mona, with a sigh.

The tears are still lingering on her lashes; her mouth is sad. Yet at
this instant, even as Geoffrey is gazing at her and wondering how he
shall help to dispel the cloud of sorrow that sits upon her brow, her
whole expression changes. A merry gleam comes into her wet eyes, her
lips widen and lose their lachrymose look, and then suddenly she throws
up her head and breaks into a gay little laugh.

"Did you see the pig," she says, "sitting up by the fireplace? All
through I couldn't take my eyes off him. He struck me as so comical.
There he sat blinking his small eyes and trying to look sympathetic. I
am convinced he knew all about it. I never saw so solemn a pig."

She laughs again with fresh delight at her own thought. That pig in the
cabin has come back to her, filling her with amusement. Geoffrey regards
her with puzzled eyes. What a strange temperament is this, where smiles
and tears can mingle!

"What a curious child you are!" he says, at length. "You are never the
same for two minutes together."

"Perhaps that is what makes me so nice," retorts Miss Mona, saucily, the
sense of fun still full upon her, making him a small grimace, and
bestowing upon him a bewitching glance from under her long dark lashes,
that lie like shadows on her cheeks.




CHAPTER V.

HOW MONA BETRAYS WHAT MAKES GEOFFREY JEALOUS, AND HOW AN APPOINTMENT IS
MADE THAT IS ALL MOON-SHINE.


"Yes, it certainly is a charm," says Geoffrey slowly "but it puzzles me.
I cannot be gay one moment and sad the next. Tell me how you manage it."

"I can't, because I don't know myself. It is my nature. However
depressed I may feel at one instant, the next a passing thought may
change my tears into a laugh. Perhaps that is why we are called fickle;
yet it has nothing to do with it: it is a mere peculiarity of
temperament, and a rather merciful gift, for which we should be
grateful, because, though we return again to our troubles, still the
moment or two of forgetfulness soothes us and nerves us for the
conflict. I speak, of course, of only minor sorrows; such a grief as
poor Kitty's admits of no alleviation. It will last for her lifetime."

"Will it?" says Geoffrey, oddly.

"Yes. One can understand that," replies she, gravely, not heeding the
closeness of his regard. "Many things affect me curiously," she goes on,
dreamily,--"sad pictures and poetry and the sound of sweet music."

"Do you sing?" asks he, through mere force of habit, as she pauses.

"Yes."

The answer is so downright, so unlike the usual "a little," or "oh,
nothing to signify," or "just when there is nobody else," and so on,
that Geoffrey is rather taken back.

"I am not a musician," she goes on, evenly, "but some people admire my
singing very much. In Dublin they liked to hear me, when I was with Aunt
Anastasia; and you know a Dublin audience is very critical."

"But you have no piano?"

"Yes I have: aunty gave me hers when I was leaving town. It was no use
to her and I loved it. I was at school in Portarlington for nearly three
years, and when I came back from it I didn't care for Anastasia's
friends, and found my only comfort in my music. I am telling you
everything am I not," with a wistful smile, "and perhaps I weary you?"

"Weary me! no, indeed. That is one of the very few unkind things you
have ever said to me. How could I weary of your voice? Go on; tell me
where you keep this magical piano."

"In my own room. You have not seen that yet. But it belongs to myself
alone, and I call it my den, because in it I keep everything that I hold
most precious. Some time I will show it to you."

"Show it to me to-day," says he, with interest.

"Very well, if you wish."

"And you will sing me something?"

"If you like. Are you fond of singing!"

"Very. But for myself I have no voice worth hearing. I sing, you know, a
little, which is my misfortune, not my fault; don't you think so?"

"Oh, no; because if you can sing at all--that is correctly, and without
false notes--you must feel music and love it."

"Well for my part I hate people who sing a little. I always wish it was
even less. I hold that they are a social nuisance, and ought to be put
down by law. My eldest brother Nick sings really very well,--a charming
tenor, you know, good enough to coax the birds off the bushes. He does
all that sort of _dilettante_ business,--paints, and reads tremendously
about things dead and gone, that can't possibly advantage anybody.
Understands old china as well as most people (which isn't saying much),
and I think--but as yet this statement is unsupported--I think he writes
poetry."

"Does he really?" asks Mona, with eyes wide open. "I am sure if I ever
meet your brother Nick I shall be dreadfully afraid of him."

"Don't betray me, at all events. He is a touchy sort of fellow, and
mightn't like to think I knew that about him. Jack, my second brother,
sings too. He is coming home from India directly, and is an awfully good
sort, though I think I should rather have old Nick after all."

"You have two brothers older than you?" asks Mona, meditatively.

"Yes; I am that most despicable of all things, a third son."

"I have heard of it. A third son would be poor, of course, and--and
worldly people would not think so much of him as of others. Is that so?"

She pauses. But for the absurdity of the thing, Mr. Rodney would swear
there is hope in her tone.

"Your description is graphic," he answers, lightly, "if faintly unkind;
but when is the truth civil? You are right. Younger sons, as a rule, are
not run after. Mammas do not hanker after them, or give them their
reserve smiles, or pull their skirts aside to make room for them upon
small ottomans."

"That betrays the meanness of the world," says Mona, slowly and with
indignation. "Has not Geoffrey just declared himself to be a younger
son?"

"Does it? I was bred in a different belief. In my world the mighty do no
wrong; and a third son is nowhere. He is shunted; handed on; if
possible, scotched. The sun is not made for _him_, or the first waltz,
or caviare, or the 'sweet shady side' of anything. In fact, he 'is the
man of no account' with a vengeance!"

"What a shame!" says Mona, angrily. Then she changes her note, and says,
with a soft, low, mocking laugh, "How I pity you!"

"Thanks. I shall try to believe you, though your mirth is somewhat out
of place, and has a tendency towards heartlessness." (He is laughing
too.) "Yet there have been instances," goes on Mr. Rodney, still
smiling, while watching her intently, "when maiden aunts have taken a
fancy to third sons, and have died leaving them lots of tin."

"Eh?" says Mona.

"Tin,--money," explains he.

"Oh, I dare say. Yes, sometimes: but--" she hesitates, and this time the
expression of her face cannot be misunderstood: dejection betrays itself
in every line--"but it is not so with you, is it? No aunt has left you
anything?"

"No,--no aunt," returns Rodney, speaking the solemn truth, yet conveying
a lie: "I have not been blessed with maiden aunts wallowing in coin."

"So I thought," exclaims Mona, with a cheerful nod, that under other
circumstances should be aggravating, so full of content it is. "At first
I fea--I thought you were rich, but afterwards I guessed it was your
brothers' ground you were shooting over. And Bridget told me, too. She
said you could not be well off, you had so many brothers. But I like you
all the better for that," says Mona, in a tone that actually savors of
protection, slipping her little brown hand through his arm in a kindly,
friendly, lovable fashion.

"Do you?" says Rodney. He is strangely moved; he speaks quietly, but his
heart is beating quickly, and Cupid's dart sinks deeper in its wound.

"Is your brother, Mr. Rodney, like you?" asks Mona presently.

He has never told her that his eldest brother is a baronet. Why he
hardly knows, yet now he does not contradict her when she alludes to him
as Mr. Rodney. Some inward feeling prevents him. Perhaps he understands
instinctively that such knowledge will but widen the breach that already
exists between him and the girl who now walks beside him with a happy
smile upon her flower-like face.

"No; he is not like me," he says, abruptly: "he is a much better fellow.
He is, besides, tall and rather lanky, with dark eyes and hair. He is
like my father, they tell me; I am like my mother."

At this Mona turns her gaze secretly upon him. She studies his hair, his
gray eyes, his irregular nose,--that ought to have known better,--and
his handsome mouth, so resolute, yet so tender, that his fair moustache
only half conceals. The world in general acknowledges Mr. Rodney to be a
well-looking young man of ordinary merits, but in Mona's eyes he is
something more than all this; and I believe the word "ordinary," as
applied to him, would sound offensive in her ears.

"I think I should like your mother," she says, naively and very sweetly,
lifting her eyes steadily to his. "She is handsome, of course; and is
she good as she is beautiful?"

Flattery goes a long way with most men, but in this instance the subtle
poison touches Mr. Rodney even more than it pleases him. He presses the
hand that rests upon his arm an eighth of an inch nearer to his heart
than it was before, if that be possible.

"My mother is a real good sort when you know her," he says, evasively;
"but she's rather rough on strangers. However, she is always all there,
you know, so far as manners go, and that."

Miss Mona looks puzzled.

"I don't think I understand you," she says, at length, gravely. "Where
would the rest of her be, if she wasn't all in the same place?"

She says this in such perfect good faith that Mr. Rodney roars with
laughter.

"Perhaps you may not know it," says he, "but you are simply perfection!"

"So Mr. Moore says," returns she, smiling.

Had she put out all her powers of invention with a view to routing him
with slaughter, she could not have been more successful than she is with
this small unpremeditated speech. Had a thunderbolt fallen at his feet,
he could not have betrayed more thorough and complete discomfiture.

He drops her arm, and looks as though he is prepared to drop her
acquaintance also, at a moment's notice.

"What has Mr. Moore to do with you?" he asks, haughtily. "Who is he,
that he should so speak to you?"

"He is our landlord," says Mona, calmly, but with uplifted brows,
stopping short in the middle of the road to regard him with
astonishment.

"And thinks you perfection?" in an impossible tone, losing both his head
and his temper completely. "He is rich, I suppose; why don't you marry
him?"

Mona turns pale.

"To ask the question is a rudeness," she says, steadily, though her
heart is cold and hurt. "Yet I will answer you. In our country, and in
our class," with an amount of inborn pride impossible to translate, "we
do not marry a man because he is 'rich,' or in other words, sell
ourselves for gold."

Having said this, she turns her back upon him contemptuously, and walks
towards her home.

He follows her, full of remorse and contrition. Her glance, even more
than her words, has covered him with shame, and cured him of his want of
generosity.

"Forgive me, Mona," he says, with deep entreaty. "I confess my fault.
How could I speak to you as I did! I implore your pardon. Great sinner
as I am, surely I shall not knock for forgiveness at your sweet heart in
vain!"

"Do not ever speak to me like that again," says Mona, turning upon him
eyes humid with disappointment, yet free from wrath of any kind. "As for
Mr. Moore," with a curl of her short upper lip that it does him good to
see, and a quick frown, "why, he is as old as the hills, and as fat as
Tichborne, and he hasn't got a single hair on his head!"

But that Mr. Rodney is still oppressed with the fear that he has
mortally offended her, he could have laughed out loud at this childish
speech; but anxiety helps him to restrain his mirth. Nevertheless he
feels an unholy joy as he thinks on Mr. Moore's bald pate, his "too, too
solid flesh," and his "many days."

"Yet he dares to admire you?" is what he does say, after a decided
pause.

"Sure they all admire me," says Miss Mona, with an exasperating smile,
meant to wither.

But Mr. Rodney is determined to "have it out with her," as he himself
would say, before consenting to fade away out of her sight.

"But he wants to marry you. I know he does. Tell me the truth about
that," he says, with flattering vehemence.

"Certainly I shall not. It would be very mean, and I wonder at you to
ask the question," says Mona, with a great show of virtuous indignation.
"Besides," mischievously, "if you know, there is no necessity to tell
you anything."

"Yet answer me," persists he, very earnestly.

"I can't," says Mona; "it would be very unfair; and besides,"
petulantly, "it is all too absurd. Why, if Mr. Moore were to ask me to
marry him ten thousand times again, I should never say anything but
'no.'"

Unconsciously she has betrayed herself. He hears the word "again" with a
strange sinking of the heart. Others, then, are desirous of claiming
this wild flower for their own.

"Oh, Mona, do you mean that?" he says. But Mona, who is very justly
incensed, declines to answer him with civility.

"I begin to think our English cousins are not famous for their
veracity," she says, with some scorn. "You seem to doubt every one's
word; or is it mine in particular? Yet I spoke the truth. I do not want
to marry any one."

Here she turns and looks him full in the face; and something--it may be
in the melancholy of his expression--so amuses her that (laughter being
as natural to her lips as perfume to a flower) she breaks into a sunny
smile, and holds out to him her hand in token of amity.

"How could you be so absurd about that old Moore?" she says, lightly.
"Why he has got nothing to recommend him except his money; and what
good," with a sigh, "does that do him, unless to get him murdered!"

"If he is as fat as you say, he will be a good mark for a bullet," says
Mr. Rodney, genially, almost--I am ashamed to say--hopefully. "I should
think they would easily pot him one of these dark night that are coming.
By this time I suppose he feels more like a grouse than a man,
eh?--'I'll die game' should be his motto."

"I wish you wouldn't talk like that," says Mona, with a shudder. "It
isn't at all nice of you; and especially when you know how miserable I
am about my poor country."

"It is a pity anything should be said against Ireland," says Rodney,
cleverly; "it is such a lovely little spot."

"Do you really like it?" asks she, plainly delighted.

"I should rather think so. Who wouldn't? I went to Glengariffe the other
day, and can hardly fancy anything more lovely than its pure waters, and
its purple hills that lie continued in the depths beneath."

"I have been there. And at Killarney, but only once, though we live so
near."

"That has nothing to do with it," says Rodney. "The easier one can get
to a place the more one puts off going. I knew a fellow once, and he
lived all his time in London, and I give you my word he had never seen
the Crystal Palace. With whom did you go to Killarney?"

"With Lady Mary. She was staying at the castle there; it was last year,
and she asked me to go with her. I was delighted. And it was so
pleasant, and everything so--so like heaven. The lakes are delicious, so
calm, so solitary, so full of thought. Lady Mary is old, but young in
manner, and has read and travelled so much, and she likes me," says
Mona, naively. "And I like her. Do you know her?"

"Lady Mary Crighton? Yes, I have met her. An old lady with corkscrew
ringlets, patches, and hoops? She is quite _grande dame_, and witty,
like all you Irish people."

"She is very seldom at home, but I think I like her better than any one
I ever met."

"Do you?" says Geoffrey, in a tone that means much.

"Yes,--better than all the women I ever met," corrects Mona, but without
placing the faintest emphasis upon the word "women," which omission
somehow possesses its charm in Rodney's eyes.

"Well, I shall go and judge of Killarney myself some day," he says,
idly.

"Oh, yes, you must indeed," says the little enthusiast, brightening.
"It is more than lovely. How I wish I could go with you!"

She looks at him as she says this, fearlessly, honestly, and without a
suspicion of coquetry.

"I wish you could!" says Geoffrey from his heart.

"Well, I can't, you know," with a sigh. "But no matter: you will enjoy
the scenery even more by yourself."

"I don't think I shall," says Geoffrey, in a low tone.

"Well, we have both seen the bay," says Mona, cheerfully,--"Bantry Bay I
mean: so we can talk about that. Yet indeed"--seriously--"you cannot be
said to have seen it properly, as it is only by moonlight its full
beauty can be appreciated. Then, with its light waves sparkling beneath
the gleam of the stars, and the moon throwing a path across it that
seems to go on and on, until it reaches heaven, it is more satisfying
than a happy dream. Do you see that hill up yonder?" pointing to an
elevation about a mile distant: "there I sometimes sit when the moon is
full, and watch the bay below. There is a lovely view from that spot."

"I wish I could see it!" says Geoffrey, longingly.

"Well so you can," returns she, kindly. "Any night when there is a good
moon come to me and I will go with you to Carrickdhuve--that is the name
of the hill--and show you the bay."

She looks at him quite calmly, as one might who sees nothing in the fact
of accompanying a young man to the top of a high mountain after
nightfall. And in truth she does see nothing in it. If he wishes to see
the bay she loves so well, of course he must see it; and who so
competent to point out to him all its beauties as herself?

"I wonder when the moon will be full," says Geoffrey, making this
ordinary remark in an everyday tone that does him credit, and speaks
well for his kindliness and delicacy of feeling, as well as for his
power of discerning character. He makes no well-turned speeches about
the bay being even more enchanting under such circumstances, or any
orthodox compliment that might have pleased a woman versed in the
world's ways.

"We must see," says Mona, thoughtfully.

They have reached the farm again by this time, and Geoffrey, taking up
the guns he had left behind the hall door,--or what old Scully is
pleased to call the front door in contradistinction to the back door,
through which he is in the habit of making his exits and
entrances,--holds out his hand to bid her good-by.

"Come in for a little while and rest yourself," says Mona, hospitably,
"while I get the brandy and send it up to poor Kitty."

It strikes Geoffrey as part of the innate sweetness and genuineness of
her disposition that, after all the many changes of thought that have
passed through her brain on their return journey, her first concern on
entering her own doors is for the poor unhappy creature in the cabin up
yonder.

"Don't be long," he says, impulsively, as she disappears down a passage.

"I won't, then. Sure you can live alone with yourself for one minute,"
returns she, in very fine Irish; and, with a parting smile, sweet as
nectar and far more dangerous, she goes.

When she is gone, Geoffrey walks impatiently up and down the small hall,
conflicting emotions robbing him of the serenity that usually attends
his footsteps. He is happy, yet full of a secret gnawing uneasiness that
weighs upon him daily, hourly. Near Mona--when in her presence--a
gladness that amounts almost to perfect happiness is his; apart from her
is unrest. Love, although he is but just awakening to the fact, has laid
his chubby hands upon him, and now holds him in thrall; so that no
longer for him is that most desirable thing content,--which means
indifference. Rather is he melancholy now and then, and inclined to look
on life apart from Mona as a doubtful good.

For what, after all, is love, but

            "A madness most discreet,
    A choking gall, and a preserving sweet?"

There are, too, dispassionate periods, when he questions the wisdom of
giving his heart to a girl lowly born as Mona undoubtedly is, at least
on her father's side. And, indeed, the little drop of blue blood
inherited from her mother is so faint in hue as to be scarcely
recognizable by those inclined to cavil.

And these he knows will be many: there would be first his mother, and
then Nick, with a silent tongue but brows uplifted, and after them
Violet, who in the home circle is regarded as Geoffrey's "affinerty,"
and who last year was asked to Rodney Towers for the express purpose
(though she knew it not) of laying siege to his heart and bestowing upon
him in return her hand and--fortune. To do Lady Rodney justice, she was
never blind to the fortune!

Yet Violet, with her pretty, slow, _trainante_ voice and perfect manner,
and small pale attractive face, and great eyes that seem too earnest for
the fragile body to which they belong, is as naught before Mona, whose
beauty is strong and undeniable, and whose charm lies as much in inward
grace as in outward loveliness.

Though uncertain that she regards him with any feeling stronger than
that of friendliness (because of the strange coldness that she at times
affects, dreading perhaps lest he shall see too quickly into her tender
heart), yet instinctively he knows that he is welcome in her sight, and
that "the day grows brighter for his coming." Still, at times this
strange coldness puzzles him, not understanding that

    "No lesse was she in secret heart affected,
    But that she masked it in modestie,
    For feare she should of lightnesse be detected."

For many days he had not known "that his heart was darkened with her
shadow." Only yesterday he might perhaps have denied his love for her,
so strange, so uncertain, so undreamt of, is the dawning of a first
great attachment. One looks upon the object that attracts, and finds the
deepest joy in looking, yet hardly realizes the great truth that she has
become part of one's being, not to be eradicated until death or change
come to the rescue.

Perhaps Longfellow has more cleverly--and certainly more tenderly--than
any other poet described the earlier approaches of the god of Love, when
he says,--

    "The first sound in the song of love
    Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound.
    Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings
    Of that mysterious instrument, the soul,
    And play the prelude of our fate."

For Geoffrey the prelude has been played, and now at last he knows it.
Up and down the little hall he paces, his hands behind his back, as his
wont when deep in day-dreams, and asks himself many a question hitherto
unthought of. Can he--shall he--go farther in this matter? Then this
thought presses to the front beyond all others:--"Does she--will
she--ever love me?"

"Now, hurry, Bridget," says Mona's low soft voice,--that "excellent
thing in woman." "Don't be any time. Just give that to Kitty, and say
one prayer, and be back in ten minutes."

"Law, Miss Mona, ye needn't tell me; sure I'm flyin' I'll be there an'
back before ye'll know I'm gone." This from the agile Biddy, as
(exhilarated with the knowledge that she is going to see a corpse) she
rushes up the road.

"Now come and see my own room," says Mona, going up to Rodney, and,
slipping her hand into his in a little trustful fashion that is one of
her many, loving ways, she leads him along the hall to a door opposite
the kitchen. This she opens, and with conscious pride draws him after
her across its threshold. So holding him, she might at this moment have
drawn him to the world's end,--wherever that may be!

It is a very curious little room they enter,--yet pretty, withal, and
suggestive of care and affection, and certainly not one to be laughed
at. Each object that meets the view seems replete with pleasurable
memory,--seems part of its gentle mistress. There are two windows,
small, and with diamond panes like the parlor, and in the far end is a
piano. There are books, and some ornaments, and a huge bowl of
sweetly-smelling flowers on the centre-table, and a bracket or two
against the walls. Some loose music is lying on a chair.

"Now I am here, you will sing me something," says Geoffrey, presently.

"I wonder what kind of songs you like best," says Mona, dreamily,
letting her fingers run noiselessly over the keys of the Collard. "If
you are like me, you like sad ones."

"Then I am like you?" returns he, quickly.

"Then I will sing you a song I was sent last week," says Mona, and
forthwith sings him "Years Ago," mournfully, pathetically, and with all
her soul, as it should be sung. Then she gives him "London Bridge," and
then "Rose-Marie," and then she takes her fingers from the piano and
looks at him with a fond hope that he will see fit to praise her work.

"You are an artiste," says Geoffrey, with a deep sigh when she has
finished. "Who taught you, child? But there is no use in such a
question. Nobody could teach it to you: you must feel it as you sing.
And yet you are scarcely to be envied. Your singing has betrayed to me
one thing: if ever you suffer any great trouble it will kill you."

"I am not going to suffer," says Mona, lightly. "Sorrow only falls on
every second generation; and you know poor mother was very unhappy at
one time: therefore I am free. You will call that superstition, but,"
with a grave shake of her head, "it is quite true."

"I hope it is," says Geoffrey; "though, taking your words for gospel, it
rather puts me out in the cold. My mother seems to have had rather a
good time all through, devoid of anything that might be termed trouble."

"But she lost her husband," says Mona, gently.

"Well, she did. I don't remember about that, you know. I was quite a
little chap, and hustled out of sight if I said 'boo.' But of course
she's got over all that, and is as jolly as a sand-boy now," says
Geoffrey, gayly. (If only Lady Rodney could have heard him comparing her
to a "sand-boy"!)

"Poor thing!" says Mona, sympathetically, which sympathy, by the by, is
utterly misplaced, as Lady Rodney thought her husband, if anything, an
old bore, and three months after his death confessed to herself that she
was very glad he was no more.

"Where do you get your music?" asks Geoffrey, idly, wondering how
"London Bridge" has found its way to this isolated spot, as he thinks of
the shops in the pretty village near, where Molloy and Adams, and their
attendant sprite called Weatherley, are unknown.

"The boys send it to me. Anything new that comes out, or anything they
think will suit my voice, they post to me at once."

"The boys!" repeats he, mystified.

"Yes, the students, I mean. When with aunty in Dublin I knew ever so
many of them, and they were very fond of me."

"I dare say," says Mr. Rodney, with rising ire.

"Jack Foster and Terry O'Brien write to me very often," goes on Mona,
unconsciously. "And indeed they all do occasionally, at Christmas, you
know, and Easter and Midsummer, just to ask me how I am, and to tell me
how they have got through their exams. But it is Jack and Terry, for the
most part, who send me the music."

"It is very kind of them, I'm sure," says Geoffrey, unreasonably
jealous, as, could he only have seen the said Terry's shock head of red
hair, his fears of rivalry would forever have been laid at rest. "But
they are favored friends. You can take presents from them, and yet the
other day when I asked you if you would like a little gold chain to hang
to your mother's watch, you answered me 'that you did not require it' in
such a tone as actually froze me and made me feel I had said something
unpardonably impertinent."

"Oh, no," says Mona, shocked at this interpretation of her manner. "I
did not mean all that; only I really did not require it; at
least"--truthfully--"not _much_. And, besides, a song is not like a gold
chain; and you are quite different from them; and besides,
again,"--growing slightly confused, yet with a last remnant of
courage,--"there is no reason why you should give me anything. Shall
I"--hurriedly--"sing something else for you?"

And then she sings again, some old-world song of love and chivalry that
awakes within one a quick longing for a worthier life. Her sweet voice
rings through the room, now glad with triumph, now sad with a "lovely
melancholy," as the words and music sway her. Her voice is clear and
pure and full of pathos! She seems to follow no rule; an "f" here or a
"p" there, on the page before her, she heeds not, but sings only as her
heart dictates.

When she has finished, Geoffrey says "thank you" in a low tone. He is
thinking of the last time when some one else sang to him, and of how
different the whole scene was from this. It was at the Towers, and the
hour with its dying daylight, rises before him. The subdued light of the
summer eve, the open window, the perfume of the drowsy flowers, the girl
at the piano with her small drooping head and her perfectly trained and
very pretty voice, the room, the soft silence, his mother leaning back
in her crimson velvet chair, beating time to the music with her long
jewelled, fingers,--all is remembered.

It was in the boudoir they were sitting, and Violet was dressed in some
soft gray dress that shone and turned into palest pearl as she moved. It
was his mother's boudoir, the room she most affects, with its crimson
and gray coloring and its artistic arrangements, that blend so
harmoniously, and are so tremendously becoming to the complexion when
the blinds are lowered. How pretty Mona would look in a gray and crimson
room? how----

"What are you thinking of?" asks Mona, softly, breaking in upon his
soliloquy.

"Of the last time I heard any one sing," returns he, slowly. "I was
comparing that singer very unfavorably with you. Your voice is so unlike
what one usually hears in drawing-rooms."

He means highest praise. She accepts his words as a kind rebuke.

"Is that a compliment?" she says, wistfully. "Is it well to be unlike
all the world? Yet what you say is true, no doubt. I suppose I am
different from--from all the other people you know."

This is half a question; and Geoffrey, answering it from his heart,
sinks even deeper into the mire.

"You are indeed," he says, in a tone so grateful that it ought to have
betrayed to her his meaning. But grief and disappointment have seized
upon her.

"Yes, of course," she says, dejectedly. A cloud seems to have fallen
upon her happy hour. "When did you hear that--that last singer?" she
asks, in a subdued voice.

"At home," returns he. He is gazing out of the window, with his hands
clasped behind his back, and does not pay so much attention to her words
as is his wont.

"Is your home very beautiful?" asks she, timidly, looking at him the
more earnestly in that he seems rapt in contemplation of the valley that
spreads itself before him.

"Yes, very beautiful," he answers, thinking of the stately oaks and aged
elms and branching beeches that go so far to make up the glory of the
ivied Towers.

"How paltry this country must appear in comparison with your own!" goes
on the girl, longing for a contradiction, and staring at her little
brown hands, the fingers of which are twining and intertwining nervously
with one another, "How glad you will be to get back to your own home!"

"Yes, very glad," returns he, hardly knowing what he says. He has gone
back again to his first thoughts,--his mother's boudoir, with its old
china, and its choice water-colors that line the walls, and its delicate
Italian statuettes. In his own home--which is situated about fourteen
miles from the Towers, and which is rather out of repair through years
of disuse--there are many rooms. He is busy now trying to remember them,
and to decide which of them would look best decked out in crimson and
gray, or blue and silver: he hardly knows which would suit her best.
Perhaps, after all----

"How strange it is!" says Mona's voice, that has now a faint shade of
sadness in it. "How people come and go in one's lives, like the waves of
the restless sea, now breaking at one's feet, now receding, now----"

"Only to return," interrupts he, quickly. "And--to break at your feet?
to break one's heart, do you mean? I do not like your simile."

"You jest," says Mona, full of calm reproach. "I mean how strangely
people fall into one's lives and then out again!" She hesitates. Perhaps
something in his face warns her, perhaps it is the weariness of her own
voice that frightens her, but at this moment her whole expression
changes, and a laugh, forced but apparently full of gayety, comes from
her lips. It is very well done indeed, yet to any one but a jealous
lover her eyes would betray her. The usual softness is gone from them,
and only a well-suppressed grief and a pride that cannot be suppressed
take its place.

"Why should they fall out again?" says Rodney, a little angrily, hearing
only her careless laugh, and--man-like--ignoring stupidly the pain in
her lovely eyes. "Unless people choose to forget."

"One may choose to forget, but one may not be able to accomplish it. To
forget or to remember is not in one's own power."

"That is what fickle people say. But what one feels one remembers."

"That is true, for a time, with some. _Forever_ with others."

"Are you one of the others?"

She makes him no answer.

"Are _you_?" she says, at length, after a long silence.

"I think so, Mona. There is one thing I shall never get."

"Many things, I dare say," she says, nervously, turning from him.

"Why do you speak of people dropping out of your life?"

"Because, of course, you will, you must. Your world is not mine."

"You could make it yours."

"I do not understand," she says, very proudly, throwing up her head with
a charming gesture. "And, talking of forgetfulness, do you know what
hour it is?"

"You evidently want to get rid of me," says Rodney, discouraged, taking
up his hat. He takes up her hand, too, and holds it warmly, and looks
long and earnestly into her face.

"By the by," he says, once more restored to something like hope, as he
notes her drooping lids and changing color and how she hides from his
searching gaze her dark, blue, Irish eyes, that, as somebody has so
cleverly expressed it, seem "rubbed into her head with a dirty finger,"
so marked lie the shadows beneath them, that enhance and heighten their
beauty,--"by the by, you told me you had a miniature of your mother in
your desk, and you promised to show it to me." He merely says this with
a view to gaining more time, and not from any overwhelming desire to see
the late Mrs. Scully.

"It is here," says Mona, rather pleased at his remembering this promise
of hers, and, going to a desk, proceeds to open a secret drawer, in
which lies the picture in question.

It is a very handsome picture, and Geoffrey duly admires it; then it is
returned to its place, and Mona, opening the drawer next to it, shows
him some exquisite ferns dried and gummed on paper.

"What a clever child you are!" says Geoffrey, with genuine admiration.
"And what is here?" laying his hand on the third drawer.

"Oh, do not open that--do not!" says Mona, hastily, in an agony of fear,
to judge by her eyes, laying a deterring hand upon his arm.

"And why not this or any other drawer?" says Rodney, growing pale. Again
jealousy, which is a demon, rises in his breast, and thrusts out all
gentler feelings. Her allusion to Mr. Moore, most innocently spoken,
and, later on, her reference to the students, have served to heighten
within him angry suspicion.

"Do not!" says Mona, again, as though fresh words are impossible to her,
drawing her breath quickly. Her evident agitation incenses him to the
last degree. Opening the drawer impulsively, he gazes at its contents.

Only a little withered bunch of heather, tied by a blade of grass!
Nothing more!

Rodney's heart throbs with passionate relief, yet shame covers him; for
he himself, one day, had given her that heather, tied, as he remembers,
with that selfsame grass; and she, poor child, had kept it ever since.
She had treasured it, and laid it aside, apart from all other objects,
among her most sacred possessions, as a thing beloved and full of tender
memories; and his had been the hand to ruthlessly lay bare this hidden
secret of her soul.

He is overcome with contrition, and would perhaps have said something
betraying his scorn of himself, but she prevents him.

"Yes," she says, with cheeks colored to a rich carmine, and flashing
eyes, and lips that quiver in spite of all her efforts at control, "that
is the bit of heather you gave me, and that is the grass that tied it. I
kept it because it reminded me of a day when I was happy. Now,"
bitterly, "I no longer care for it: for the future it can only bring
back to me an hour when I was grieved and wounded."

Taking up the hapless heather, she throws it on the ground, and, in a
fit of childish spleen, lays her foot upon it and tramples it out of all
recognition. Yet, even as she does so, the tears gather in her eyes,
and, resting there unshed, transfigure her into a lovely picture that
might well be termed "Beauty in Distress." For this faded flower she
grieves, as though it were, indeed, a living thing that she has lost.

"Go!" she says, in a choked voice, and with a little passionate sob,
pointing to the door. "You have done mischief enough." Her gesture is at
once imperious and dignified. Then in a softer voice, that tells of
sorrow, and with a deep sigh, "At least," she says, "I believed in your
honor!"

The reproach is terrible, and cuts him to the heart. He picks up the
poor little bruised flower, and holds it tenderly in his hand.

"How can I go," he says, without daring to look at her, "until, at
least, I _ask_ for forgiveness?" He feels more nervous, more crushed in
the presence of this little wounded Irish girl with her pride and her
grief, than he has ever felt in the presence of an offended fashionable
beauty full of airs and caprices. "Mona, love makes one cruel: I ask you
to remember that, because it is my only excuse," he says, warmly. "Don't
condemn me altogether; but forgive me once more."

"I am always forgiving you, it seems to me," says Mona, coldly, turning
from him with a frown. "And as for that heather," facing him again, with
eyes shamed but wrathful, "I just kept it because--because--oh, because
I didn't like to throw it away! That was all!"

Her meaning, in spite of her, is clear; but Geoffrey doesn't dare so
much as to think about it. Yet in his heart he knows that he is glad
because of her words.

"You mustn't think I supposed you kept it for any other purpose," he
says, quite solemnly, and in such a depressed tone that Mona almost
feels sorry for him.

He has so far recovered his courage that he has taken her hand, and is
now holding it in a close grasp; and Mona, though a little frown still
lingers on her low, broad forehead, lets her hand so lie without a
censure.

"Mona, _do_ be friends with me," he says at last, desperately, driven to
simplicity of language through his very misery. There is a humility in
this speech that pleases her.

"It is really hardly worth talking about," she says, grandly. "I was
foolish to lay so great a stress on such a trifling matter. It doesn't
signify, not in the least. But--but," the blood mounting to her brow,
"if ever you speak of it again,--if ever you even _mention_ the word
'heather,'--I shall _hate you_!"

"That word shall never pass my lips again in your company,--never, I
swear!" says he, "until you give me leave. My darling," in a low tone,
"if you could only know how vexed I am about the whole affair, and my
unpardonable conduct! Yet, Mona, I will not hide from you that this
little bit of senseless heather has made me happier than I have ever
been before."

Stooping, he presses his lips to her hand for the first time. The caress
is long and fervent.

"Say I am quite forgiven," he pleads, earnestly, his eyes on hers.

"Yes. I forgive you," she says, almost in a whisper, with a seriousness
that amounts to solemnity.

Still holding her hand, as though loath to quit it, he moves towards the
door; but before reaching it she slips away from him, and says "Good-by"
rather coldly.

"When am I to see you again?" says Rodney, anxiously.

"Oh not for ever so long," returns she, with much and heartless
unconcern. (His spirits sink to zero.) "Certainly not until Friday," she
goes on, carelessly. (As this is Wednesday, his spirits once more rise
into the seventh heaven.) "Or Saturday, or Sunday, or perhaps some day
next week," she says, unkindly.

"If on Friday night there is a good moon," says Rodney, boldly, "will
you take me, as you promised, to see the Bay?"

"Yes, if it is fine," says Mona, after a faint hesitation.

Then she accompanies him to the door, but gravely, and not with her
accustomed gayety. Standing on the door-step he looks at her, and, as
though impelled to ask the question because of her extreme stillness, he
says, "Of what are you thinking?"

"I am thinking that the man we saw before going into Kitty's cabin is
the murderer!" she says, with a strong shudder.

"I thought so all along," says Geoffrey, gravely.




CHAPTER VI.

HOW THE MYSTIC MOONBEAMS THROW THEIR RAYS ON MONA; AND HOW GEOFFREY,
JEALOUS OF THEIR ADMIRATION, DESIRES TO CLAIM HER AS HIS OWN.


Friday is fine, and towards nightfall grows still milder, until it seems
that even in the dawn of October a summer's night may be born.

The stars are coming out one by one,--slowly, tranquilly, as though
haste has got no part with them. The heavens are clothed in azure. A
single star, that sits apart from all the rest, is twinkling and
gleaming in its blue nest, now throwing out a pale emerald ray, now a
blood-red fire, and anon a touch of opal, faint and shadowy, yet more
lovely in its vagueness than all the rest, until verily it resembles "a
diamond in the sky."

Geoffrey coming to the farm somewhat early in the evening, Mona takes
him round to the yard, where two dogs, hitherto unseen by Geoffrey, lie
chained. They are two splendid bloodhounds, that, as she approaches,
rise to their feet, and, lifting their massive heads, throw out into the
night-air a deep hollow bay that bespeaks welcome.

"What lovely creatures!" says Geoffrey, who has a passion for animals:
they seem to acknowledge him as a friend. As Mona looses them from their
den, they go to him, and, sniffing round him, at last open their great
jaws into a satisfied yawn, and, raising themselves, rest their paws
upon his breast and rub their faces contentedly against his.

"Now you are their friend forever," says Mona, in a pleased tone. "Once
they do that, they mean to tell you they have adopted you. And they like
very few people: so it is a compliment."

"I feel it keenly," says Rodney, caressing the handsome creatures as
they crouch at his feet. "Where did you get them?"

"From Mr. Moore." A mischievous light comes into her face as she says
this, and she laughs aloud. "But, I assure you, not as a love-token. He
gave them to me when they were quite babies, and I reared them myself.
Are they not lovely? I call them? 'Spice' and 'Allspice,' because one
has a quicker temper than the other."

"The names are original, at all events," says Geoffrey,--"which is a
great charm. One gets so tired of 'Rags and Tatters,' 'Beer and
Skittles,' 'Cakes and Ale,' and so forth, where pairs are in question,
whether they be dogs or ponies."

"Shall we set out now?" says Mona; and she calls "Mickey, Mickey," at
the top of her strong young lungs.

The man who manages the farm generally--and is a plague and a blessing
at the same time to his master--appears round a corner, and declares,
respectfully, that he will be ready in a "jiffy" to accompany Miss Mona,
if she will just give him time to "clane himself up a bit."

And in truth the "claning" occupies a very short period,--or else Mona
and Geoffrey heed not the parting moments. For sometimes

    "Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing,
    Unsoiled and swift, and of a silken sound."

"I'm ready now, miss, if you are," says Mickey from the background, with
the utmost _bonhommie_, and in a tone that implies he is quite willing
not to be ready, if it so pleases her, for another five minutes or so,
or even, if necessary, to efface himself altogether. He is a stalwart
young Hibernian, with rough hair and an honest face, and gray eyes,
merry and cunning, and so many freckles that he looks like a turkey-egg.

"Oh, yes, I am quite ready," says Mona, starting somewhat guiltily. And
then they pass out through the big yard-gate, with the two dogs at their
heels, and their attendant squire, who brings up the rear with a soft
whistle that rings through the cool night-air and tells the listening
stars that the "girl he loves is his dear," and his "own, his artless
Nora Creana."

Geoffrey and Mona go up the road with the serenader behind them, and,
turning aside, she guiding, mount a stile, and, striking across a field,
make straight for the high hill that conceals the ocean from the farm.
Over many fields they travel, until at length they reach the mountain's
summit and gaze down upon the beauteous scene below.

The very air is still. There is no sound, no motion, save the coming and
going of their own breath as it rises quickly from their hearts, filled
full of passionate admiration for the loveliness before them.

From the high hill on which they stand, steep rocks descend until they
touch the water's edge, which lies sleeping beneath them, lulled into
slumber by the tranquil moon as she comes forth "from the slow opening
curtains of the clouds."

Far down below lies the bay, calm and placid. Not a ripple, not a sigh
comes to disturb its serenity or mar the perfect beauty of the silver
pathway thrown so lightly upon it by the queen of heaven. It falls there
so clear, so unbroken, that almost one might deem it possible to step
upon it, and so walk onwards to the sky that melts into it on the far
horizon.

The whole firmament is of a soft azure, flecked here and there with
snowy clouds tipped with palest gray. A little cloud--the tenderest veil
of mist--hangs between earth and sky.

    "The moon is up; it is the dawn of night;
    Stands by her side one bold, bright, steady star,
    Star of her heart.
    Mother of stars! the heavens look up to thee."

Mona is looking up to it now, with a rapt, pensive gaze, her great blue
eyes gleaming beneath its light. She is sitting upon the side of the
hill, with her hands clasped about her knees, a thoughtful expression on
her lovely face. At each side of her, sitting bolt upright on their huge
haunches, are the dogs, as though bent on guarding her against all
evil.

Geoffrey, although in reality deeply impressed by the grandeur of all
the surroundings, yet cannot keep his eyes from Mona's face, her pretty
attitude, her two mighty defenders. She reminds him in some wise of Una
and the lion, though the idea is rather far-fetched; and he hardly dares
speak to her, lest he shall break the spell that seems to lie upon her.

She herself destroys it presently.

"Do you like it?" she asks, gently, bringing her gaze back from the
glowing heavens, to the earth, which is even more beautiful.

"The praise I heard of it, though great, was too faint," he answers her,
with such extreme sincerity in his tone as touches and gladdens the
heart of the little patriot at his feet. She smiles contentedly, and
turns her eyes once more with lazy delight upon the sea, where each
little point and rock is warmed with heavenly light. She nods softly to
herself, but says nothing.

To her there is nothing strange or new, either in the hour or the place.
Often does she come here in the moonlight with her faithful attendant
and her two dogs, to sit and dream away a long sweet hour brimful of
purest joy, whilst drinking in the plaintive charm that Nature as a rule
flings over her choicest paintings.

To him, however, all is different; and the hour is fraught with a
tremulous joy, and with a vague sweet longing that means love as yet
untold.

"This spot always brings to my mind the thoughts of other people," says
Mona, softly. "I am very fond of poetry: are you?"

"Very," returns he, surprised. He has not thought of her as one versed
in lore of any kind. "What poets do you prefer?"

"I have read so few," she says, wistfully, and with hesitation. Then,
shyly, "I have so few to read. I have a Longfellow, and a Shakspeare,
and a Byron: that is all."

"Byron?"

"Yes. And after Shakspeare, I like him best, and then Longfellow. Why do
you speak in that tone? Don't you like him?"

"I think I like no poet half so well. You mistake me," replies he,
ashamed of his own surprise at her preference for his lordship beneath
the calm purity of her eyes. "But--only--it seemed to me Longfellow
would be more suited to you."

"Well, so I do love him. And just then it was of him I was thinking:
when I looked up to the sky his words came back to me. You remember what
he says about the moon rising 'over the pallid sea and the silvery mist
of the meadows,' and how,--

    'Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
    Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels,

That is so sweet, I think."

"I remember it; and I remember, too, who watched all that: do you?" he
asks, his eyes fixed upon hers.

"Yes; Gabriel--poor Gabriel and Evangeline," returns she, too wrapped up
in recollections of that sad and touching tale to take to heart his
meaning:--

    'Meanwhile, apart, in the twilight gloom of a window's embrasure
    Sat the lovers, and whispered together.'

That is the part you mean, is it not? I know all that poem very nearly
by heart."

He is a little disappointed by the calmness of her answer.

"Yes; it was of them I thought," he says, turning his head away,--"of
the--lovers. I wonder if _their_ evening was as lovely as _ours_?"

Mona makes no reply.

"Have you ever read Shelley?" asks he, presently, puzzled by the extreme
serenity of her manner.

She shakes her head.

"Some of his ideas are lovely. You would like his poetry, I think."

"What does he say about the moon?" asks Mona, still with her knees in
her embrace, and without lifting her eyes from the quiet waters down
below.

"About the moon? Oh, many things. I was not thinking of the moon," with
faint impatience; "yet, as you ask me, I can remember one thing he says
about it."

"Then tell it to me," says Mona.

So at her bidding he repeats the lines slowly, and in his best manner,
which is very good:--

    "The cold chaste moon, the queen of heaven's bright isles,
    Who makes all beautiful on which she smiles!
    That wandering shrine of soft yet icy flame,
    Which ever is transformed, yet still the same,
    And warms, but not illumines."

He finishes; but, to his amazement, and a good deal to his chagrin, on
looking at Mona he finds she is wreathed in smiles,--nay, is in fact
convulsed with silent laughter.

"What is amusing you?" asks he, a trifle stiffly.--To give way to
recitation, and then find your listener in agonies of suppressed mirth,
isn't exactly a situation one would hanker after.

"It was the last line," says Mona, in explanation, clearly ashamed of
herself, yet unable wholly to subdue her merriment. "It reminded me so
much of that speech about tea, that they always use at temperance
meetings; they call it the beverage 'that cheers but not inebriates.'
You said 'that warms but not illumines,' and it sounded exactly like it.
Don't you see!"

He doesn't see.

"You aren't angry, are you?" says Mona, now really contrite. "I couldn't
help it, and it _was_ like it, you know."

"Angry? no!" he says, recovering himself, as he notices the penitence on
the face upraised to his.

"And do say it is like it," says Mona, entreatingly.

"It is, the image of it," returns he, prepared to swear to anything she
may propose And then he laughs too, which pleases her, as it proves he
no longer bears in mind her evil deed; after which, feeling she still
owes him something, she suddenly intimates to him that he may sit down
on the grass close beside her. He seems to find no difficulty in swiftly
following up this hint, and is soon seated as near to her as
circumstances will allow.

But on this picture, the beauty of which is undeniable, Mickey (the
barbarian) looks with disfavor.

"If he's goin' to squat there for the night,--an' I see ivery prospect
of it," says Mickey to himself,--"what on airth's goin' to become of
me?"

Now, Mickey's idea of "raal grand" scenery is the kitchen fire. Bays and
rocks and moonlight, and such like comfortless stuff, would be
designated by him as "all my eye an' Betty Martin." He would consider
the bluest water that ever rolled a poor thing if compared to the water
that boiled in the big kettle, and sadly inferior to such cold water as
might contain a "dhrop of the crather." So no wonder he views with
dismay Mr. Rodney's evident intention of spending another half hour or
so on the top of Carrick dhuve.

Patience has its limits. Mickey's limit comes quickly When five more
minutes have passed, and the two in his charge still make no sign, he
coughs respectfully but very loudly behind his hand. He waits in anxious
hope for the result of this telling manoeuvre, but not the faintest
notice is taken of it. Both Mona and Geoffrey are deaf to the pathetic
appeal sent straight from his bronchial tubes.

Mickey, as he grows desperate, grows bolder. He rises to speech.

"Av ye plaze, miss, will ye soon be comin'?"

"Very soon, Mickey," says Mona, without turning her head. But, though
her words are satisfactory, her tone is not. There is a lazy ring in it
that speaks of anything but immediate action. Mickey disbelieves in it.

"I didn't make up the mare, miss, before comin' out wid ye," he says,
mildly, telling this lie without a blush.

"But it is early yet, Mickey, isn't it?" says Mona.

"Awfully early," puts in Geoffrey.

"It is, miss; I know it, sir; but if the old man comes out an' finds the
mare widout her bed, there'll be all the world to pay, an' he'll be
screechin' mad."

"He won't go into the stable to-night," says Mona, comfortably.

"He might, miss. It's the very time you'd wish him aisy in his mind that
he gets raal troublesome. An' I feel just as if he was in the stable
this blessid minit lookin' at the poor baste, an' swearin' he'll have
the life uv me."

"And I feel just as if he had gone quietly to bed," says

Mona, pleasantly, turning away.

But Mickey is not to be outdone. "An' there's the pigs, miss," he begins
again, presently.

"What's the matter with them?" says Mona, with some pardonable
impatience.

"I didn't give them their supper yet, miss; an' it's very bad for the
young ones to be left starvin'. It's on me mind, miss, so that I can't
even enjoy me pipe, and it's fresh baccy I have an' all, an' it might as
well be dust for what comfort I get from it. Them pigs is callin' for me
now like Christians: I can a'most hear them."

"I shouldn't think deafness is in your family," says Geoffrey, genially.

"No, sir; it isn't, sir. We're none of us hard of hearin' glory be
to----. Miss Mona," coaxingly, "sure, it's only a step to the house:
wouldn't Misther Rodney see ye home now, just for wanst?"

"Why, yes, of course he can," says Mona, without the smallest
hesitation. She says it quite naturally, and as though it was the most
usual thing in the world for a young man to see a young woman home,
through dewy fields and beneath "mellow moons," at half-past ten at
night. It is now fully nine, and she cannot yet bear to turn her back
upon the enchanting scene before her. Surely in another hour or so it
will be time enough to think of home and all other such prosaic facts.

"Thin I may go, miss?" says Mickey.

"Oh, yes, you may go," says Mona. Geoffrey says nothing. He is looking
at her with curiosity, in which deep love is mingled. She is so utterly
unlike all other women he has ever met, with their petty affectations
and mock modesties, their would-be hesitations and their final
yieldings. She has no idea she is doing anything that all the world of
women might not do, and can see no reason why she should distrust her
friend just because he is a man.

Even as Geoffrey is looking at her, full of tender thought, one of the
dogs, as though divining the fact that she is being left somewhat alone,
lays its big head upon her shoulder, and looks at her with large loving
eyes. Turning to him in response, she rubs her soft cheek slowly up and
down against his. Geoffrey with all his heart envies the dog. How she
seems to love it! how it seems to love her!

"Mickey, if you are going, I think you may as well take the dogs with
you," says Mona: "they, too, will want their suppers. Go, Spice, when I
desire you. Good-night, Allspice; dear darling,--see how he clings to
me."

Finally the dogs are called off, and reluctantly accompany the jubilant
Mickey down the hill.

"Perhaps you are tired of staying here," says Mona, with compunction,
turning to Geoffrey, "and would like to go home? I suppose every one
cannot love this spot as I do. Yes," rising, "I am selfish. Do come
home."

"Tired!" says Geoffrey, hastily. "No, indeed. What could tire of
anything so divine? If it is your wish, it is mine also, that we should
stay here for a little while longer." Then, struck by the intense relief
in her face, he goes on: "How you do enjoy the beauties of Nature! Do
you know I have been studying you since you came here, and I could see
how your whole soul was wrapped in the glory of the surrounding
prospect? You had no thoughts left for other objects,--not even one for
me. For the first time," softly, "I learned to be jealous of inanimate
things."

"Yet I was not so wholly engrossed as you imagine," she says, seriously.
"I thought of you many times. For one thing, I felt glad that you could
see this place with my eyes. But I have been silent, I know;
and--and----"

"How Rome and Spain would enchant you," he says watching her face
intently, "and Switzerland, with its lakes and mountains!"

"Yes. But I shall never see them."

"Why not? You will go there, perhaps when you are married."

"No," with a little flickering smile, that has pain and sorrow in it;
"for the simple reason that I shall never marry."

"But why?" persists he.

"Because"--the smile has died away now, and she is looking down upon
him, as he lies stretched at her feet in the uncertain moonlight, with
an expression sad but earnest,--"because, though I am only a farmer's
niece, I cannot bear farmers, and, of course, other people would not
care for me."

"That is absurd," says Rodney; "and your own words refute you. That man
called Moore cared for you, and very great impertinence it was on his
part."

"Why, you never even saw him," says Mona, opening her eyes.

"No; but I can fancy him, with his horrid bald head. Now, you know,"
holding up his hand to stop her as she is about to speak, "you know you
said he hadn't a hair left on it."

"Well, he was different," says Mona, giving in ignominiously. "I
couldn't care for him either; but what I said is true all the same.
Other people would not like me."

"Wouldn't they?" says Rodney, leaning on his elbow as the argument waxes
warmer; "then all I can say is, I never met any 'other people.'"

"You have met only them, I suppose, as you belong to them."

"Do you mean to tell me that _I_ don't care for you?" says Rodney,
quickly.

Mona evades a reply.

"How cold it is!" she says, rising, with a little shiver. "Let us go
home."

If she had been nurtured all her life in the fashionable world, she
could scarcely have made a more correct speech. Geoffrey is puzzled, nay
more, discomfited. Just in this wise would a woman in his own set answer
him, did she mean to repel his advances for the moment. He forgets that
no tinge of worldliness lurks in Mona's nature, and feels a certain
amount of chagrin that she should so reply to him.

"If you wish," he says, in a courteous tone, but one full of coldness;
and so they commence their homeward journey.

"I am glad you have been pleased to-night," says Mona, shyly, abashed by
his studied silence. "But," nervously, "Killarney is even more
beautiful. You must go there."

"Yes; I mean to,--before I return to England."

She starts perceptibly, which is balm to his heart.

"To England!" she repeats, with a most mournful attempt at unconcern,
"Will--will that be soon?"

"Not very soon. But some time, of course, I must go."

"I suppose so," she says, in a voice from which all joy has flown. "And
it is only natural; you will be happier there." She is looking straight
before her. There is no quiver in her tone; her lips do not tremble; yet
he can see how pale she has grown beneath the vivid moonlight.

"Is that what you think?" he says, earnestly. "Then for once you are
wrong. I have never been--I shall hardly be again--happier than I have
been in Ireland."

There is a pause. Mona says nothing, but taking out the flower that has
lain upon her bosom all night, pulls it to pieces petal by petal. And
this is unlike Mona, because flowers are dear to her as sunshine is to
them.

At this moment they come to a high bank, and Geoffrey, having helped
Mona to mount it, jumps down at the other side, and holds out his arms
to assist her to descend. As she reaches the ground, and while his arms
are still round her, she says, with a sudden effort, and without lifting
her eyes, "There is very good snipe-shooting here at Christmas."

The little pathetic insinuation is as perfect as it is touching.

"Is there? Then I shall certainly return for it," says Geoffrey, who is
too much of a gentleman to pretend to understand all her words seem to
imply. "It is really no journey from this to England."

"I should think it a long journey," says Mona, shaking her head.

"Oh, no, you won't," says Rodney, absently. In truth, his mind is
wandering to that last little speech of hers, and is trying to unravel
it.

Mona looks at him. How oddly he has expressed himself! "You won't," he
said, instead of "you wouldn't." Does he then deem it possible she will
ever be able to cross to that land that calls him son? She sighs, and,
looking down at her little lean sinewy hands, clasps and unclasps them
nervously.

"Why need you go until after Christmas?" she says, in a tone so low that
he can barely hear her.

"Mona! Do you want me to stay?" asks he, suddenly, taking her hands in
his. "Tell me the truth."

"I do," returns she, tremulously.

"But why?--why? Is it because you love me? Oh, Mona! If it is that! At
times I have thought so, and yet again I have feared you do not love me
as--as I love you."

"You love me?" repeats she, faintly.

"With all my heart," says Rodney, fervently. And, indeed, if this be so,
she may well count herself in luck, because it is a very good and true
heart of which he speaks.

"Don't say anything more," says the girl, almost passionately, drawing
back from him as though afraid of herself. "Do not. The more you say
now, the worse it will be for me by and by, when I have to think.
And--and--it is all quite impossible."

"But why, darling? Could you not be happy as my wife?"

"Your wife?" repeats she, in soft, lingering tones, and a little tender
seraphic smile creeps into her eyes and lies lightly on her lips. "But I
am not fit to be that, and----"

"Look here," says Geoffrey, with decision, "I will have no 'buts,' and I
prefer taking my answer from your eyes than from your lips. They are
kinder. You are going to marry me, you know, and that is all about it.
_I_ shall marry _you_, whether you like it or not, so you may as well
give in with a good grace. And I'll take you to see Rome and all the
places we have been talking about, and we shall have a real good old
time. Why don't you look up and speak to me, Mona?"

"Because I have nothing to say," murmurs the girl, in a frozen
tone,--"nothing." Then passionately, "I will not be selfish. I will not
do this thing."

"Do you mean you will not marry me?" asks he, letting her go, and moving
back a step or two, a frown upon his forehead. "I confess I do not
understand you."

"Try, _try_ to understand me," entreats she, desperately, following him
and laying her hand upon his arm. "It is only this. It would not make
you happy,--not _afterwards_, when you could see the difference between
me and the other women you have known. You are a gentleman; I am only a
farmer's niece." She says this bravely, though it is agony to her proud
nature to have to confess it.

"If that is all," says Geoffrey, with a light laugh, laying his hand
over the small brown one that still rests upon his arm, "I think it need
hardly separate us. You are, indeed, different from all the other women
I have met in my life,--which makes me sorry for all the other women.
You are dearer and sweeter in my eyes than any one I have ever known! Is
not this enough? Mona, are you sure no other reason prevents your
accepting me? Why do you hesitate?" He has grown a little pale in his
turn, and is regarding her with intense and jealous earnestness. Why
does she not answer him? Why does she keep her eyes--those honest
telltales--so obstinately fixed upon the ground? Why does she show no
smallest sign of yielding?

"Give me my answer," he says, sternly.

"I have given it," returns she, in a low tone,--so low that he has to
bend to hear it. "Do not be angry with me, do not--I----"

"'Who excuses himself, accuses himself,'" quotes Geoffrey. "I want no
reasons for your rejection. It is enough that I know you do not care for
me."

"Oh, no! it is not that! you must know it is not that," says Mona, in
deep grief. "It is that I _cannot_ marry you!"

"Will not, you mean!"

"Well, then, I _will_ not," returns she, with a last effort at
determination, and the most miserable face in the world.

"Oh, if you _will_ not," says Mr. Rodney, wrathfully.

"I--will--not," says Mona, brokenly.

"Then I don't believe you!" breaks out Geoffrey, angrily. "I am positive
you want to marry me; and just because of some wretched fad you have got
into your head you are determined to make us both wretched."

"I have nothing in my head," says Mona, tearfully.

"I don't think you can have much, certainly," says Mr. Rodney, with the
grossest rudeness, "when you can let a few ridiculous scruples interfere
with both our happiness." Then, resentfully, "Do you hate me?"

No answer.

"Say so, if you do: it will be honester. If you don't," threateningly,
"I shall of course think the contrary."

Still no answer.

She has turned away from him, grieved and frightened by his vehemence,
and, having plucked a leaf from the hedge near her, is trifling absently
with it as it lies upon her little trembling palm.

It is a drooping blackberry-leaf from a bush near where she is standing,
that has turned from green into a warm and vivid crimson. She examines
it minutely, as though lost in wonder at its excessive beauty, for
beautiful exceedingly it is, clothed in the rich cloak that Autumn's
generosity has flung upon it; yet I think, she for once is blind to its
charms.

"I think you had better come home," says Geoffrey, deeply angered with
her. "You must not stay here catching cold."

A little soft woollen shawl of plain white has slipped from her throat
and fallen to the ground, unheeded by her in her great distress. Lifting
it almost unwillingly, he comes close to her, and places it round her
once again. In so doing he discovers that tears are running down her
cheeks.

"Why, Mona, what is this?" exclaims he, his manner changing on the
instant from indignation and coldness to warmth and tenderness. "You are
crying? My darling girl! There, lay your head on my shoulder, and let us
forget we have ever quarrelled. It is our first dispute; let it be our
last. And, after all," comfortably, "it is much better to have our
quarrels before marriage than after."

This last insinuation, he flatters himself, is rather cleverly
introduced.

"Oh, if I could be quite, _quite_ sure you would never regret it!" says
Mona, wistfully.

"I shall never regret anything, as long as I have you!" says Rodney. "Be
assured of that."

"I am so glad you are poor," says Mona. "If you were rich or even well
off, I should never consent,--never!"

"No, of course not," says Mr. Rodney, unblushingly! "as a rule, girls
nowadays can't endure men with money."

This is "sarkassum;" but Mona comprehends it not.

Presently, seeing she is again smiling and looking inexpressibly happy,
for laughter comes readily to her lips, and tears, as a rule, make no
long stay with her,--ashamed, perhaps, to disfigure the fair "windows of
her soul," that are so "darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,"--"So you will
come to England with me, after all?" he says, quite gayly.

"I would go to the world's end with you," returns she, gently. "Ah! I
think you knew that all along."

"Well, I didn't," says Rodney. "There were moments, indeed, when I
believed in you; but five minutes ago, when you flung me over so
decidedly, and refused to have anything to do with me, I lost faith in
you, and began to think you a thorough-going coquette like all the rest.
How I wronged you, my _dear_ love! I should have known that under no
circumstances could you be untruthful."

At his words, a glad light springs to life within her wonderful eyes.
She is so pleased and proud that he should so speak of her.

"Do you know, Mona," says the young man, sorrowfully, "you are too good
for me,--a fellow who has gone racketing all over the world for years.
I'm not half worthy of you."

"Aren't you?" says Mona, in her tender fashion, that implies so kind a
doubt. Raising one hand (the other is imprisoned), she draws his face
down to her own. "I wouldn't have you altered in any way," she says;
"not in the smallest matter. As you are, you are so dear to me you could
not be dearer; and I love you now, and I shall always love you, with all
my heart and soul."

"My sweet angel!" says her lover, pressing her to his heart. And when he
says this he is not so far from the truth, for her tender simplicity and
perfect faith and trust bring her very near to heaven!




CHAPTER VII.

HOW GEOFFREY AND MONA FALL INTO STRANGE COMPANY AND HOW THEY PROFIT BY
IT; AND HOW MONA, OUTSTRIPPING WICKED VENGEANCE, SAVES A LIFE.


"Is it very late?" says Mona, awaking from her happy dreams with a
start.

"Not very," says Geoffrey. "It seems only just now that Mickey and the
dogs left us." Together they examine his watch, by the light of the
moon, and see that it is quite ten o'clock.

"Oh, it is dreadfully late!" says Mona, with much compunction. "Come,
let us hurry."

"Well, just one moment," says Geoffrey, detaining her, "let us finish
what we were saying. Would you rather go to the East or to Rome?"

"To Rome," says Mona. "But do you mean it? Can you afford it? Italy
seems so far away." Then, after a thoughtful silence, "Mr. Rodney----"

"Who on earth are you speaking to?" says Geoffrey.

"To you!" with surprise.

"I am not Mr. Rodney: Jack is that. Can't you call me anything else?"

"What else?" says Mona, shyly.

"Call me Geoffrey."

"I always think of you as Geoffrey," whispers she, with a swift, sweet,
upward glance; "but to say it is so different. Well," bravely, "I'll
try. Dear, dear, _dear_ Geoffrey, I want to tell you I would be as happy
with you in Wicklow as in Rome."

"I know that," says Geoffrey, "and the knowledge makes me more happy
than I can say. But to Rome you shall go, whatever it may cost. And then
we shall return to England to our own home. And then--little rebel that
you are--you must begin to look upon yourself as an English subject, and
accept the queen as your gracious sovereign."

"I need no queen when I have got a king," says the girl, with ready wit
and great tenderness.

Geoffrey raises her hand to his lips. "_Your_ king is also your slave,"
he says, with a fond smile.

Then they move on once more, and go down the road that leads towards the
farm.

Again she has grown silent, as though oppressed with thought; and he too
is mute, but all his mind is crowded with glad anticipations of what the
near future is to give him. He has no regrets, no fears. At length,
struck by her persistent taciturnity, he says, "What is it, Mona?"

"If ever you should be sorry afterwards," she says, miserably, still
tormenting herself with unseen evils,--"if ever I should see discontent
in your eyes, how would it be with me then?"

"Don't talk like a penny illustrated," says Mr. Rodney in a very
superior tone. "If ever you do see all you seem to anticipate, just tell
yourself I am a cur, and despise me accordingly. But I think you are
paying both yourself and me very bad compliments when you talk like
that. Do try to understand that you are very beautiful, and far superior
to the general run of women, and that I am only pretty well so far as
men go."

At this they both laugh heartily, and Mona returns no more to the
lachrymose mood that has possessed her for the last five minutes.

The moon has gone behind a cloud, the road is almost wrapped in complete
gloom, when a voice, coming from apparently nowhere, startles them, and
brings them back from visions of impossible bliss to the present very
possible world.

"Hist, Miss Mona! hist!" says this voice close at Mona's ear. She starts
violently.

"Oh! Paddy," she says, as a small figure, unkempt, and only half clad,
creeps through the hedge and stops short in her path.

"Don't go on, miss," says the boy, with much excitement. "Don't ye. I
see ye coming', an', no matter what they do to me, I says to myself,
I'll warn her surely. They're waitin' for the agint below, an' maybe
they might mistake ye for some one else in the dark, an' do ye some
harm."

"Who are they waiting for?" says Mona, anxiously.

"For the agint, miss. Oh, if ye tell on me now they'll kill me. Maxil,
ye know; me lord's agint."

"Waiting--for what? Is it to shoot him?" asks the girl, breathlessly.

"Yes, miss. Oh, Miss Mona, if ye bethray me now 'twill be all up wid me.
Fegs an' intirely, miss, they'll murdher me out uv hand."

"I won't betray you," she says. "You may trust me. Where are they
stationed?"

"Down below in the hollow, miss,--jist behind the hawthorn-bush. Go home
some other way, Miss Mona: they're bint on blood."

"And, if so, what are you doing here?" says Mona, reprovingly.

"On'y watchin', miss, to see what they'd do," confesses he, shifting
from one foot to the other, and growing palpably confused beneath her
searching gaze.

"Is it murder you want to see?" asks she slowly, in a horrified tone.
"Go home, Paddy. Go home to your mother." Then, changing her censuring
manner to one of entreaty, she says, softly, "Go, because I ask you."

"I'm off, miss," says the miscreant, and, true to his word, darts
through the hedge again like a shaft from a bow, and, scurrying through
the fields, is soon lost to sight.

"Come with me," says Mona to Rodney; and with an air of settled
determination, and a hard look on her usually mobile lips, she moves
deliberately towards the hawthorn-bush, that is about a quarter of a
mile distant.

"Mona," says Rodney, divining her intent, "stay you here while I go and
expostulate with these men. It is late, darling, and their blood is up,
and they may not listen to you. Let me speak to them."

"You do not understand them," returns she, sadly. "And I do. Besides,
they will not harm me. There is no fear of that. I am not at all afraid
of them. And--I _must_ speak to them."

He knows her sufficiently well to refrain from further expostulation,
and just accompanies her silently along the lonely road.

"It is I,--Mona Scully," she calls aloud, when she is within a hundred
yards of the hiding-place. "Tim Ryan, come here: I want you."

It is a mere guess on her part,--supported certainly by many tales she
has heard of this Ryan of late, but a guess nevertheless. It proves,
however, to be a correct one. A man, indistinct, but unmistakable, shows
himself on the top of the wall, and pulls his forelock through force of
habit.

"What are you doing here, Tim?" says Mona, bravely, calmly, "at this
hour, and with--yes, do not seek to hide it from me--a gun! And you too,
Carthy," peering into the darkness to where another man, less plucky
than Ryan lies concealed. "Ah! you may well wish to shade your face,
since it is evil you have in your heart this night."

"Do ye mane to inform on us?" says Ryan, slowly, who is "a man of a
villanous countenance," laying his hand impulsively upon his gun, and
glancing at her and Rodney alternately with murder in his eyes. It is a
critical moment. Rodney, putting out his hand, tries to draw her behind
him.

"No, I am not afraid," says the girl, resisting his effort to put
himself before her; and when he would have spoken she puts up her hands,
and warns him to keep silence.

"You should know better than to apply the word 'informer' to one of my
blood," she says, coldly, speaking to Ryan, without a tremor in her
voice.

"I know that," says the man, sullenly. "But what of him?" pointing to
Rodney, the ruffianly look still on his face. "The Englishman, I mane.
Is he sure? It's a life, for a life afther all, when everything is
towld."

He handles the gun again menacingly. Mona, though still apparently calm,
whitens perceptibly beneath the cold penetrating rays of the "pale-faced
moon" that up above in "heaven's ebon vault, studded with stars
unutterably bright," looks down upon her perhaps with love and pity.

"Tim," she says, "what have I ever done to you that you should seek to
make me unhappy?"

"I have nothing to do with you. Go your ways. It is with him I have to
settle," says the man, morosely.

"But _I_ have to do with him," says Mona, distinctly.

At this, in spite of everything, Rodney laughs lightly, and, taking her
hand in his, draws it through his arm. There is love and trust and great
content in his laugh.

"Eh!" says Ryan; while the other man whom she has called Carthy--and who
up to this has appeared desirous of concealing himself from view--now
presses forward and regards the two with lingering scrutiny.

"Why, what have you to do with her?" says Ryan, addressing Rodney, a
gleam of something that savors of amusement showing itself even in his
ill-favored face. For an Irishman, under all circumstances, dearly loves
"a courting, a _bon-mot_, and a broil."

"This much," says Rodney, laughing again: "I am going to marry her, with
her leave."

"If that be so, she'll make you keep from splittin' on us," says the
man. "So now go; we've work in hand to-night not fit for her eyes."

Mona shudders.

"Tim," she says, distractedly, "do not bring murder on your soul. Oh,
Tim, think it over while there is yet time. I have heard all about it;
and I would ask you to remember that it is not Mr. Maxwell's fault that
Peggy Madden was evicted, but the fault of his master. If any one must
be shot, it ought to be Lord Crighton" (as his lordship is at this
moment safe in Constantinople, she says this boldly), "and not his paid
servant."

"I dare say we'll get at the lord by an' by" says Ryan, untouched. "Go
yer ways, will ye? an' quick too. Maybe if ye thry me too far, ye'll
learn to rue this night."

Seeing further talk is useless, Mona slips her hand into Rodney's and
leads him down the road.

But when they have turned a corner and are quite out of sight and
hearing, Rodney stops short and says, hurriedly,--

"Mona, can you manage to get home by some short way by yourself? Because
I must return. I must stand by this man they are going to murder. I must
indeed, darling. Forgive me that I desert you here and at such an hour,
but I see you are safe in the country, and five minutes will take you to
the farm, and I cannot let his life be taken without striking a blow for
him."

"And did you think I was content to let him die" says Mona,
reproachfully. "No! There is a chance for him still, and I will explain
it to you. It is early yet. He seldom passes here before eleven, and it
is but a little after ten. I know the hour he usually returns, because
he always goes by our gate, and often I bid him good-night in the
summer-time. Come with me," excitedly. "I can lead you by a cross-path
to the Ballavacky road, by which he must come, and, if we overtake him
before he reaches that spot, we can save his life. Come; do not delay!"

She turns through a broken gap into a ploughed field, and breaks into a
quick run.

"If we hurry we must meet his car there, and can send him back into
Bantry, and so save him."

All this she breathes forth in disjointed sentences as she rushes, like
a light-footed deer, across the ploughed land into the wet grass
beyond.

Over one high bank, across a stile, through another broken gap, on to a
wall, straight and broad, up which Rodney pulls her, carefully taking
her down in his arms at the other side.

Still onward,--lightly, swiftly: now in sight of the boundless sea, now
diving down into the plain, without faintness or despondency, or any
other feeling but a passionate determination to save a man's life.

Rodney's breath is coming more quickly, and he is conscious of a desire
to stop and pull himself together--if only for a minute--before bracing
himself for a second effort. But to Mona, with her fresh and perfect
health, and lithe and lissom body, and all the rich young blood that
surges upward in her veins, excitement serves but to make her more
elastic; and with her mind strung to its highest pitch, and her hot
Irish blood aflame, she runs easily onward, until at length the road is
reached that is her goal.

Springing upon the bank that skirts the road on one side, she raises her
hands to her head, and listens with all her might for the sound of
wheels in the distance.

But all is still.

Oh, if they should be too late! If Maxwell has passed and gone down the
other road, and is perhaps now already "done to death" by the cruel
treacherous enemy that lieth in wait for him!

Her blood heated by her swift run grows cold again as this thought comes
to her,--forced to the front by the fact that "all the air a solemn
stillness holds," and that no sound makes itself heard save the faint
sighing of the night-wind in the woods up yonder, and the "lone and
melancholy voice" of the sea, a mile away, as it breaks upon the silent
shore.

These sounds, vague and harmonious as they are, yet full of mystery and
unexplained sadness, but serve to heighten the fear that chills her
heart.

Rodney, standing beside her, watches her anxiously. She throws up her
head, and pushes back her hair, and strains her eyes eagerly into the
darkness, that not all the moonbeams can make less than night.

Alas! alas! what foul deed may even now be doing while she stands here
powerless to avert it,--her efforts all in vain! How richly shines the
sweet heaven, studded with its stars! how cool, how fragrant, is the
breeze! How the tiny wavelets move and sparkle in the glorious bay
below. How fair a world it is to hold such depths of sin! Why should not
rain and storms and howling tempest mark a night so----

But hark! What is this that greets her ear? The ring of horse's feet
upon the quiet road!

The girl clasps her hands passionately, and turns her eyes on Rodney.

"Mona, it is--it must be!" says Geoffrey, taking her hand; and so they
both stand, almost breathless, on the high bank, listening intently.

Now they can hear the sound of wheels; and presently a light tax-cart
swings round the corner, drawn by a large, bony, bay mare, and in which
sits a heavy-looking, elderly man, in a light overcoat.

"Mr. Maxwell! Mr. Maxwell!" cries Mona, as he approaches them; and the
heavy man, drawing up, looks round at her with keen surprise, bending
his head a little forward, as though the better to pierce the gloom.

"Miss Scully, is it you?" he says, at length; "and here at this hour?"

"Go back to Bantry," says Mona, not heeding his evident surprise, "at
once,--_now_. Do not delay. There are those waiting for you on the
Tullymore road who will take your life. I have run all this way to warn
you. Oh, go back, while there is yet time!"

"Do you mean they want to shoot me?" says Maxwell, in a hurried tone.

"Yes; I know it! Oh, do not wait to ask questions, but go. Even now they
may have suspected my purpose, and may be coming here to prevent your
ever returning."

Each moment of delay only helps to increase her nervous excitement.

"But who are they? and where?" demands the agent, completely taken
aback.

"I can tell you no more; I will not; and you must never ask me. It is
enough that I speak the truth, and that I have been able to save your
life."

"How can I thank you?" says Maxwell, "for all----"

"Some other day you can do that. Now go," says Mona, imperiously, waving
her hand.

But Maxwell still lingers, looking first at her and then very intently
at her companion.

"It is late," he says. "You should be at home, child. Who am I, that
you should do me so great a service?" Then, turning quietly to Rodney,
"I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir," he says, gravely;
"but I entreat you to take Miss Scully safely back to the Farm without
delay."

"You may depend upon me," says Rodney, lifting his hat, and respecting
the elder man's care for the well-being of his beloved, even in the
midst of his own immediate danger. Then, in another moment, Maxwell has
turned his horse's head, and is soon out of sight.

The whole scene is at an end. A life has been saved. And they two, Mona
and Geoffrey, are once more alone beneath the "earnest stars."

"Take me down," says Mona, wearily, turning to her lover, as the last
faint ring of the horse's feet dies out on the breeze.

"You are tired," says he, tenderly.

"A little, now it is all over. Yet I must make great haste homeward.
Uncle Brian will be uneasy about me if he discovers my absence, though
he knew I was going to the Bay. Come, we must hurry."

So in silence, but hand in hand, they move back through the dewy meads,
meeting no one until they reach the little wooden gate that leads to her
home.

Here they behold the faithful Biddy, craning her long neck up and down
the road, and filled with wildest anxiety.

"Oh, may I niver agin see the light," cries this excitable damsel,
rushing out to Mona, "if I iver hoped to lay eyes on yer face again!
Where were ye at all, darlin'? An' I breakin' me heart wid fear for ye.
Did ye know Tim Ryan was out to-night? When I heerd tell of that from
that boy of the Cantys', I thought I'd have dhropped. 'Tis no good he's
up to. Come in, asthore: you must be near kilt with the cowld."

"No; I am quite warm," says Mona, in a low, sad tone.

"'Tis I've bin prayin' for ye," says Biddy, taking her mistress's hand
and kissing it fondly. "On me bended knees I was with the blessid beads
for the last two hours. An' shure I've had me reward, now I see ye safe
home agin. But indeed, Miss Mona, 'tis a sore time I've had uv it."

"And Uncle Brian?" asks Mona, fearfully.

"Oh, I got the ould man to bed hours ago; for I knew if he stayed up
that he'd get mortial wearin', an' be the death of us if he knew ye were
out so late. An' truth to say, Miss Mona," changing her tone from one of
extreme joy and thankfulness to another of the deepest censure, "'twas
the world an' all of bad behavior to be galavantin' out at this hour."

"The night was so lovely,--so mild," says Mona, faintly, concealment in
any form being new to her, and very foreign to her truthful nature; "and
I knew Mickey would tell you it was all right."

"An' what brought him home, the murdherin' scamp," says Miss Bridget,
with more vehemence than politeness, "instid of stayin' wid ye to see ye
came to no harm?"

"He had to see the mare made up, and the pigs fed," says Mona.

"Is that what he towld ye? Oh, the blaggard!" says Bridget. "An' nary
sign did he do since his return, but sit be the fire an' smoke his
dhudheen. Oh, be the powers of Moll Kelly, but I'll pay him out for his
lies? He's soakin' it now, anyhow, as I sint him up to the top of the
hill agin, to see what had become of ye."

"Bridget," says Mona, "will you go in and get me a cup of tea before I
go to bed? I am tired."

"I will, darlin', shurely," says Bridget, who adores the ground she
walks on; and then, turning, she leaves her. Mona lays her hand on
Geoffrey's arm.

"Promise me you will not go back to Coolnagurtheen to-night?" she says,
earnestly. "At the inn, down in the village, they will give you a bed."

"But, my dearest, why? There is not the slightest danger now, and my
horse is a good one, and I sha'n't be any time getting----"

"I won't hear of it!" says Mona, interrupting him vehemently. "You would
have to go up _that road_ again," with a strong shudder. "I shall not go
indoors until you give me your honor you will stay in the village
to-night."

Seeing the poor child's terrible fear and anxiety, and that she is
completely overwrought, he gives way, and lets her have the desired
promise.

"Now, that is good of you," she says, gratefully, and then, as he stoops
to kiss her, she throws her arms around his neck and bursts into tears.

"You are worn out, my love, my sweetheart," says Geoffrey, very
tenderly, speaking to her as though she is in years the child that, in
her soul, she truly is. "Come, Mona, you will not cry on this night of
all others that has made me yours and you mine! If this thought made you
as happy as it makes me, you _could_ not cry. Now lift your head, and
let me look at you. There! you have given yourself to me, darling, and
there is a good life, I trust, before us; so let us dwell on that, and
forget all minor evils. Together we can defy trouble!"

"Yes, that is a thought to dry all tears," she says, very sweetly,
checking her sobs and raising her face, on which is dawning an adorable
smile. Then, sighing heavily,--a sigh of utter exhaustion,--"You have
done me good," she says. "I shall sleep now; and you my dearest, will be
safe. Good-night until to-morrow!"

"How many hours there are in the night that we never count!" says
Geoffrey, impatiently. "Good-night, Mona! To-morrow's dawn I shall call
my dearest friend."




CHAPTER VIII.

HOW GEOFFREY AND MONA PLAN A TRANSFORMATION SCENE.


Time, with lovers, "flies with swallows' wings;" they neither feel nor
heed it as it passes, so all too full of haste the moments seem. They
are to them replete with love and happiness and sweet content. To-day is
an accomplished joy, and to-morrow will dawn for no other purpose but to
bring them together. So they think and so they believe.

Rodney has interviewed the old man, her uncle; has told him of his great
and lasting love for this pearl among women; has described in a very few
words, and without bombast, his admiration for Mona; and Brian Scully
(though with sufficient national pride to suppress all undue delight at
the young man's proposal) has given a hearty consent to their union, and
is in reality flattered and pleased beyond measure at this match for
"his girl." For, no matter how the Irish may rebel against landlordism
and aristocracy in general, deep down in their hearts lies rooted an
undying fealty to old blood.

To his mother, however, he has sent no word of Mona, knowing only too
well how the news of his approaching marriage with this "outer
barbarian" (as she will certainly deem his darling) will be received. It
is not cowardice that holds his pen, as, were all the world to kneel at
his feet and implore him or bribe him to renounce his love, all such
pleading and bribing would be in vain. It is that, knowing argument to
be useless, he puts off the evil hour that may bring pain to his mother
to the last moment.

When she knows Mona she will love her,--who could help it? so he argues;
and for this reason he keeps silence until such time as, his marriage
being a _fait accompli_, hopeless expostulation will be of no avail, and
will, therefore, be suppressed.

Meanwhile, the hours go by "laden with golden grain." Every day makes
Mona dearer and more dear, her sweet and guileless nature being one
calculated to create, with growing knowledge, an increasing admiration
and tenderness. Indeed, each happy afternoon spent with her serves but
to forge another link in the chain that binds him to her.

To-day is "so cool, so calm, so bright," that Geoffrey's heart grows
glad within him as he walks along the road that leads to the farm, his
gun upon his shoulder, his trusty dog at his heels.

All through the air the smell of heather, sweet and fragrant, reigns.
Far down, miles away, the waves rush inland, glinting and glistening in
the sunlight.

    "Blue roll the waters, blue the sky
    Spreads like an ocean hung on high."

The birds, as though once more led by the balmy mildness of the day into
the belief that summer has not yet forsaken them, are singing in the
topmost branches of the trees, from which, with every passing breeze,
the leaves fall lightly.

From the cabins pale wreaths of smoke rise slowly, scarce stirred by the
passing wind. Going by one of these small tenements, before which the
inevitable pig is wallowing in an unsavory pool, a voice comes to him,
fresh and joyous, and plainly full of pleasure, that thrills through his
whole being. It is to him what no other voice ever has been, or ever can
be again. It is Mona's voice!

Again she calls to him from within.

"Is it you?" she says. "Come in here, Geoffrey. I want you."

How sweet it is to be wanted by those we love! Geoffrey, lowering his
gun, stoops and enters the lowly cabin (which, to say the truth, is
rather uninviting than otherwise) with more alacrity than he would show
if asked to enter the queen's palace. Yet what is a palace but the
abode of a sovereign? and for the time being, at least, Rodney's
sovereign is in possession of this humble dwelling. So it becomes
sacred, and almost desirable, in his eyes.

She is sitting before a spinning-wheel, and is deftly drawing the wool
through her fingers; brown little fingers they are, but none the less
dear in his sight.

"I'm here," she cries, in the glad happy tones that have been ringing
their changes in his heart all day.

An old crone is sitting over a turf fire that glows and burns dimly in
its subdued fashion. Hanging over it is a three-legged pot, in which
boil the "praties" for the "boys'" dinners, who will be coming home
presently from their work.

"What luck to find you here," says Geoffrey, stooping over the
industrious spinner, and (after the slightest hesitation) kissing her
fondly in spite of the presence of the old woman, who is regarding them
with silent curiosity, largely mingled with admiration. The ancient dame
sees plainly nothing strange in this embrace of Geoffrey's but rather
something sweet and to be approved. She smiles amiably, and nods her old
head, and mumbles some quaint Irish phrase about love and courtship and
happy youth, as though the very sight of these handsome lovers fills her
withered breast with glad recollections of bygone days, when she, too,
had her "man" and her golden hopes. For deep down in the hearts of all
the sons and daughters of Ireland, whether they be young or old, is a
spice of romance living and inextinguishable.

Rising, the old dame takes a chair, dusts it, and presents it to the
stranger, with a courtesy and a wish that he will make himself welcome.
Then she goes back again to the chimney-corner, and taking up the
bellows, blows the fire beneath the potatoes, turning her back in this
manner upon the young people with a natural delicacy worthy of better
birth and better education.

Mona, who has blushed rosy red at his kiss, is now beaming on her lover,
and has drawn back her skirts to admit of his coming a little closer to
her. He is not slow to avail himself of this invitation, and is now
sitting with his arm thrown across the back of the wooden chair that
holds Mona, and with eyes full of heartfelt gladness fixed upon her.

"You look like Marguerite. A very lovely Marguerite," says Geoffrey,
idly, gazing at her rather dreamily.

"Except that my hair is rolled up, and is too dark, isn't it? I have
read about her, and I once saw a picture of Marguerite in the Gallery in
Dublin, and it was very beautiful. I remember it brought tears to my
eyes, and Aunt Anastasia said I was too fanciful to be happy. Her story
is a very sad one, isn't it?"

"Very. And you are not a bit like her, after all," says Geoffrey, with
sudden compunction, "because you are going to be as happy as the days
are long, if I can make you so."

"One must not hope for perfect happiness on this earth," says Mona,
gravely; "but at least I know," with a soft and trusting glance at him,
"I shall be happier than most people."

"What a darling you are!" says Rodney, in a low tone; and then something
else follows, that, had she seen it, would have caused the weatherbeaten
old person at the fire another thrill of tender recollection.

"What are you doing?" asks Geoffrey, presently, when they have returned
to everyday life.

"I am spinning flax for Betty, because she has rheumatism in her poor
shoulder, and can do nothing, and this much flax must be finished by a
certain time. I have nearly got through my portion now," says Mona; "and
then we can go home."

"When I bring you to my home," says Geoffrey, "I shall have you painted
just in that gown, and with a spinning-wheel before you; and it shall be
hung in the gallery among the other--very inferior--beauties."

"Where?" says Mona, looking up quickly.

"Oh! at home, you know," says Mr. Rodney, quickly, discovering his
mistake. For the moment he had forgotten his former declaration of
poverty, or, at least, his consenting silence, when she had asked him
about it.

"In the National Gallery, do you mean?" asks Mona, with a pretty,
puzzled frown on her brow. "Oh, no, Geoffrey; I shouldn't like that at
all. To be stared at by everybody,--it wouldn't be nice, would it?"

Rodney laughs, in an inward fashion, biting his lip and looking down.

"Very well; you sha'n't be put there," he says. "But nevertheless you
must be prepared for the fact that you will undoubtedly be stared at by
the common herd, whether you are in the National Gallery or out of it."

"But why?" says Mona, trying to read his face. "Am I so different from
other people?"

"Very different," says Rodney.

"That is what I am afraid of always," says Mona, a little wistfully.

"Don't be afraid. It is quite the correct thing to be eccentric
nowadays. One is nowhere if not bizarre," says Rodney, laughing; "so I
dare say you will find yourself the very height of fashion."

"Now I think you are making fun of me," says Mona, smiling sweetly; and,
lifting her hand, she pinches his ear lightly, and very softly, lest she
should hurt him.

Here the old woman at the fire, who has been getting up and down from
her three-legged stool during the past few minutes, and sniffing at the
pot in an anxious manner, gives way to a loud sigh of relief. Lifting
the pot from its crook, she lays it on the earthen floor.

Then she strains the water from it, and looks with admiration upon its
steaming contents. "The murphies" (as, I fear, she calls the potatoes)
are done to a turn.

"Maybe," says Betty Corcoran, turning in a genial fashion to Mona and
Geoffrey, "ye'd ate a pratie, would ye, now? They're raal nice an'
floury. Ye must be hungry, Miss Mona, afther all the work ye've gone
through; an' if you an' your gintleman would condescind to the like of
my dinner, 'tis ready for ye, an' welcome ye are to it. Do, now!"
heartily. "The praties is gran' this year,--praises be for all mercies.
Amen."

"They _do_ look nice," says Mona, "and I _am_ hungry. If we won't be a
great trouble to you, Betty," with graceful Hesitation, "I think we
should like some."

"Arrah! throuble is it?" says Betty, scornfully. "Tisn't throuble I'm
thinkin' of anyway, when you're by."

"Will you have something to eat Geoffrey?" says Mona.

"Thank you," says Geoffrey, "but----"

"Yes, do, alannah!" says the old lady, standing with one hand upon her
hips and the other holding tightly a prodigious "Champion." "'Twill set
ye up afther yer walk."

"Then, thank you, Mrs. Corcoran, I _will_ have a potato," says Rodney,
gratefully, honest hunger and the knowledge that it will please Mona to
be friendly with "her people," as she calls them, urging him on. "I'm as
hungry as I can be," he says.

"So ye are, bless ye both!" says old Betty, much delighted, and
forthwith, going to her dresser, takes down two plates, and two knives
and forks, of pattern unknown and of the purest pot-metal, after which
she once more returns to the revered potatoes.

Geoffrey, who would be at any moment as polite to a dairymaid as to a
duchess, follows her, and, much to her discomfort,--though she is too
civil to say so,--helps her to lay the table. He even insists on filling
a dish with the potatoes, and having severely burned his fingers, and
having nobly suppressed all appearance of pain,--beyond the dropping of
two or three of the esculent roots upon the ground,--brings them in
triumph to the spot where Mona is sitting.

"It might be that ye'd take a dhrop of new milk, too," says Betty, "on
hospitable thoughts intent," placing before her visitors a little jug of
milk she has all day been keeping apart, poor soul! for her own
delectation.

Not knowing this, Mona and Geoffrey (whose flask is empty) accept the
proffered milk, and make merry over their impromptu feast, while in the
background, the old woman smiles upon them and utters little kindly
sentences.

Ten minutes later, having bidden their hostess a hearty farewell, they
step out into the open air and walk towards the farm.

"You have never told me how many people are in your house?" says Mona,
presently. "Tell me now. I know about your mother, and," shyly, "about
Nicholas; but is there any one else?"

"Well, Jack is home by this time, I suppose,--that's my second brother;
at least he was expected yesterday; and Violet Mansergh is very often
there; and as a rule, you know, there is always somebody; and that's
all."

The description is graphic, certainly.

"Is--is Violet Mansergh a pretty girl?" asks Mona, grasping
instinctively at the fact that any one called Violet Mansergh may be a
possible rival.

"Pretty? No. But she dresses very swagger, and always looks nice, and
is generally correct all through," replies Mr. Rodney, easily.

"I know," says Mona, sadly.

"She's the girl my mother wanted me to marry, you know," goes on Rodney,
unobservant, as men always are, of the small signals of distress hung
out by his companion.

"Oh, indeed!" says Mona; and then, with downcast eyes, "but I _don't_
know, because you never told me before."

"I thought I did," says Geoffrey, waking slowly to a sense of the
situation.

"Well, you didn't," says Mona. "Are you engaged to her?"

"If I was, how could I ask you to marry me?" returns he, in a tone so
hurt that she grows abashed.

"I hope she isn't in love with you," she says, slowly.

"You may bet anything you like on that," says Geoffrey, cheerfully. "She
cares for me just about as much as I care for her,--which means exactly
nothing."

"I am very glad," says Mona, in a low tone.

"Why, Mona?"

"Because I could not bear to think any one was made unhappy by me. It
would seem as though some evil eye was resting on our love," says Mona,
raising her thoughtful, earnest eyes to his. "It must be a sad thing
when our happiness causes the misery of others."

"Yet even were it so you would love me, Mona?"

"I shall always love you," says the girl, with sweet seriousness,
"better than my life. But in that case I should always, too have a
regret."

"There is no need for regret, darling," says he. "I am heart-whole, and
I know no woman that loves me, or for whose affection I should ask,
except yourself."

"I am indeed dear to you, I think," says Mona, softly and thankfully,
growing a little pale through the intensity of her emotion.

"'Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee,'" replies he, quite as
softly.

Then she is pleased, and slips her hand into his, and goes along the
quiet road, beside him with a heart in which high jubilee holds sway.

"Now tell me something else," she says, after a little bit. "Do all the
women you know dress a great deal?"

"Some of them; not all. I know a considerable few who dress so little
that they might as well leave it alone."

"Eh?" says Mona, innocently, and stares at him with an expression so
full of bewilderment, being puzzled by his tone more than his words,
that presently Mr. Rodney becomes conscious of a feeling akin to shame.
Some remembrance of a line that speaks of "a soul as white as heaven"
comes to him, and he makes haste to hide the real meaning of his words.

"I mean, some of them dress uncommon badly," he says, with much
mendacity and more bad grammar.

"Now, do they?" says Mona. "I thought they always wore lovely clothes.
In books they always do; but I was too young when with Aunt Anastasia in
Dublin to go out. Somehow, what one imagines is sure to be wrong. I
remember," laughing, "when I firmly believed the queen never was seen
without her crown on her head."

"Well, it always _is_ on her head," says Mr. Rodney, at which ridiculous
joke they both laugh as gayly as though it were a _bon-mot_ of the first
water. That "life is thorny, and youth is vain" has not as yet occurred
to either of these two. Nay, more, were you even to name this thought to
them, they would rank it as flat blasphemy, and you a false
prophet--love and laughter being, up to this, the burden of their song.

Yet after a moment or two the smile fades from Mona's mobile lip that
ever looks as if, in the words of the old song, "some bee had stung it
newly," and a pensive expression takes its place.

"I think I'd like to see myself in a regular evening gown," she say,
wistfully.

"So should I," says Rodney, eagerly, but incorrectly; "at least, not
myself, but you,--in something handsome, you know, open at the neck, and
with your pretty arms bare, as they were the first day I saw you."

"How you remember that, now!" says Mona, with a heavenly smile, and a
faint pressure of the fingers that still rest in his. "Yes, I should
like to be sure before I marry you that--that--fashionable clothes would
become me. But of course," regretfully, "you will understand I haven't a
gown of that sort. I once sat in Lady Crighton's room while her maid
dressed her for dinner: so I know all about it."

She sighs, then looks at the sky, and--sighs again.

"And do you know," she says, with charming _naivete_, not looking at
him, but biting a blade of grass in a distractingly pretty and somewhat
pensive fashion, "do you know her neck and arms are not a patch on
mine?"

"You needn't tell me that. I'm positive they couldn't be named in the
same day," says Geoffrey, enthusiastically, who never in his life saw
Lady Crighton, or her neck or arms.

"No, they are not. Geoffrey, people look much better when they are
beautifully dressed, don't they?"

"Well, on the principle that fine feathers make fine birds, I suppose
they do," acknowledges Geoffrey, reluctantly.

At this she glances with scorn upon the quakerish and somewhat quaint
gray gown in which she is clothed, and in which she is looking far
sweeter than she knows, for in her face lie "love enshrined and sweet
attractive grace."

"Yet, in spite of all the fine feathers, no one ever crept into my heart
but my own Mona," says the young man, putting his hand beneath her chin,
which is soft and rounded as a baby's, and turning her face to his. He
hates to see the faint chagrin that lingers on it for a moment; for his
is one of those tender natures that cannot bear to see the thing it
loves endure the smallest torment.

"Some women in the great world overdo it," he goes on, "and choose
things and colors utterly unsuited to their style. They are slaves to
fashion. But

    "'_My_ love in her attire doth show her wit;
    It doth so well become her.'"

"Ah, how you flatter!" says Mona. Nevertheless, being a woman, and the
flattery being directed to herself, she takes it kindly.

"No, you must not think that. To wear anything that becomes you must be
the perfection of dressing. Why wear a Tam O'Shanter hat when one looks
hideous in it? And then too much study spoils effect: you know what
Herrick says:--

    "'A careless shoe-string in whose tie
    I see a wild civility,
    Does more bewitch me than when art
    Is too precise in every part.'"

"How pretty that is! Yet I should like you to see me, if only for once,
as you have seen others," says Mona.

"I should like it too. And it could be managed, couldn't it? I suppose I
could get you a dress."

He says this quickly, yet fearfully. If she should take his proposal
badly, what shall he do? He stares with flattering persistency upon a
distant donkey that adorns a neighboring field, and calmly awaits fate.
It is for once kind to him. Mona, it is quite evident, fails to see any
impropriety in his speech.

"Could you?" she says hopefully. "How?"

Mr. Rodney, basely forsaking the donkey, returns to his mutton. "There
must be a dressmaker in Dublin," he says, "and we could write to her.
Don't you know one?"

"_I_ don't, but I know Lady Mary and Miss Blake always get their things
from a woman called Manning."

"Then Manning it shall be," says Geoffrey, gayly. "I'll run up to
Dublin, and if you give me your measure I'll bring a gown back to you."

"Oh, no, don't," says Mona, earnestly. Then she stops short, and blushes
a faint sweet crimson.

"But why?" demands he, dense as men will be at times. Then, as she
refuses to enlighten his ignorance, slowly the truth dawns upon him.

"Do you mean that you would really miss me if I left you for only one
day?" he asks, delightedly. "Mona, tell me the truth."

"Well, then, sure you know I would," confesses she, shyly but honestly.
Whereupon rapture ensues that lasts for a full minute.

"Very well, then; I shan't leave you; but you shall have that dress all
the same," he says. "How shall we arrange about it?"

"I can give you the size of my waist and my shoulders, and my length,"
says Mona, thoughtfully, yet with a touch of inspiration.

"And what color becomes you? Blue? that would suit your eyes, and it was
blue you used to wear last month."

"Yes, blue looks very nice on me. Geoffrey, if Uncle Brian hears of
this, will he be angry?"

"We needn't risk it. And it is no harm, darling, because you will soon
be my wife, and then I shall give you everything. When the dress comes
I'll send it up to you by my man, and you must manage the rest."

"I'll see about it. And, oh, Geoffrey, I do hope you will like me in it,
and think me pretty," she says, anxiously, half fearful of this gown
that is meant to transform a "beggar maid" into a queen fit for "King
Cophetua." At least such is her reading of the part before her.

And so it is arranged. And that evening Geoffrey indites a letter to
Mrs. Manning, Grafton Street, Dublin, that brings a smile to the lips of
that cunning modiste.




CHAPTER IX.

HOW GEOFFREY AND MONA DILIGENTLY WORK UP THE TRANSFORMATION SCENE; AND
HOW SUCCESS CROWNS THEIR EFFORTS.


In due course the wonderful gown arrives, and is made welcome at the
farm, where Geoffrey too puts in an appearance about two hours later.

Mona is down at the gate waiting for him, evidently brimful of
information.

"Well have you got it?" asks he, in a whisper. Mystery seems to encircle
them and to make heavy the very air they breathe. In truth, I think it
is the veil of secrecy that envelops their small intrigue that makes it
so sweet to them. They might be children, so delighted are they with the
success of their scheme.

"Yes, I have got it," also in a subdued whisper. "And, oh, Geoffrey, it
is just too lovely! It's downright delicious; and satin, too! It
must"--reproachfully--"have cost a great deal, and after all you told me
about being _poor_! But," with a sudden change of tone, forgetting
reproach and extravagance and everything, "it is exactly the color I
love best, and what I have been dreaming of for years."

"Put it on you," says Geoffrey.

"What! _now?_" with some hesitation, yet plainly filled with an
overwhelming desire to show herself to him without loss of time in the
adorable gown. "If I should be seen! Well, never mind; I'll risk it. Go
down to the little green glade in the wood, and I'll be with you before
you can say Jack Robinson."

She disappears, and Geoffrey, obedient to orders, lounges off to the
green glade, that now no longer owns rich coloring, but is strewn with
leaves from the gaunt trees that stand in solemn order like grave
sentries round it.

He might have invoked Jack Robinson a score of times had he so wished,
he might even have gone for a very respectable walk, before his eyes are
again gladdened by a sight of Mona. Minutes had given place to minutes
many times, when, at length, a figure wrapped in a long cloak and with a
light woollen shawl covering her head comes quickly towards him across
the rustic bridge, and under the leafless trees to where he is standing.

Glancing round fearfully for a moment, as though desirous of making sure
that no strange eyes are watching her movements, she lets the loose
cloak fall to the ground, and, taking with careful haste the covering
from her head, slips like Cinderella from her ordinary garments into all
the glories of a _fete_ gown. She steps a little to one side, and,
throwing up her head with a faint touch of coquetry that sits very
sweetly on her, glances triumphantly at Geoffrey, as though fully
conscious that she is looking exquisite as a dream.

The dress is composed of satin of that peculiarly pale blue that in some
side-lights appears as white. It is opened at the throat, and has no
sleeves to speak of. As though some kindly fairy had indeed been at her
beck and call, and had watched with careful eyes the cutting of the
robe, it fits to a charm. Upon her head a little mob-cap, a very marvel
of blue satin and old lace, rests lovingly, making still softer the soft
tender face beneath it.

There is a sparkle in Mona's eyes, a slight severing of her lips, that
bespeak satisfaction and betray her full of very innocent appreciation
of her own beauty. She stands well back, with her head held proudly up,
and with her hands lightly clasped before her. Her attitude is full of
unstudied grace.

Her eyes, as I tell you, are shining like twin stars. Her whole soul is
possessed of this hope, that he for whom almost she lives must think her
good to look at. And good indeed she is, and very perfect; for in her
earnest face lies such inward godliness and sweet trust as make one feel
the better for only a bare glance at her.

Geoffrey is quite dumb, and stands gazing at her surprised at the
amazing change a stuff, a color, can make in so short a time. Beautiful
she always is in his sight, but he wonders that until now it never
occurred to him what a sensation she is likely to create in the London
world. When at last he does give way to speech, driven to break his
curious silence by something in her face, he says nothing of the gown,
but only this.

"Oh, Mona, will you always love me as you do now?"

His tone is full of sadness and longing, and something akin to fear. He
has been much in the world, and has seen many of its evil ways, and this
is the result of his knowledge. As he gazes on and wonders at her
marvellous beauty, for an instant (a most unworthy instant) he distrusts
her. Yet surely never was more groundless doubt sustained, as one might
know to look upon her eyes and mouth, for in the one lies honest love,
and in the other firmness.

Her face changes. He has made no mention of the treasured gown, has said
no little word of praise.

"I have disappointed you," she says, tremulously, tears rising quickly.
"I am a failure! I am not like the others."

"You are the most beautiful woman I ever saw in all my life," returns
Rodney, with some passion.

"Then you are really pleased? I am just what you want me to be? Oh! how
you frightened me!" says the girl, laying her hand upon her heart with a
pretty gesture of relief.

"Don't ask me to flatter you. You will get plenty to do that by and by,"
says Geoffrey, rather jealously, rather bitterly.

"'By and by' I shall be your wife," says Mona, archly, "and then my days
for receiving flattery will be at an end. Sure you needn't grudge me a
few pretty words now."

What a world is to be opened up to her! How severe the test to which she
will be exposed! Does she really think the whole earth is peopled with
beings pure and perfect as herself?

"Yes, that is true," he says, in a curious tone, in answer to her words,
his eyes fixed moodily upon the ground. Then suddenly he lifts his head,
and as his gaze meets hers some of the truth and sweetness that belong
to her springs from her to him and restores him once again to his proper
self.

He smiles, and, turning, kneels before her in mock humility that savors
of very real homage. Taking her hand, he presses it to his lips.

"Will your majesty deign to confer some slight sign of favor upon a
very devoted servant?"

His looks betray his wish. And Mona, stooping, very willingly bestows
upon him one of the sweetest little kisses imaginable.

"I doubt your queen lacks dignity," she says, with a quick blush, when
she has achieved her tender crime.

"My queen lacks nothing," says Geoffrey. Then, as he feels the rising
wind that is soughing through the barren trees, he says, hurriedly, "My
darling, you will catch cold. Put on your wraps again."

"Just in one moment," says the wilful beauty. "But I must first look at
myself altogether. I have only seen myself in little bits up to this, my
glass is so small."

Running over to the river that flows swiftly but serenely a few yards
from her, she leans over the bank and gazes down lingeringly and with
love into the dark depths beneath that cast up to her her own fair
image.

The place she has chosen as her mirror is a still pool fringed with
drooping grasses and trailing ferns that make yet more dark the sanded
floor of the stream.

"Yes, I _am_ pretty," she says, after a minute's pause, with a
long-drawn sigh of deepest satisfaction. Then she glances at Geoffrey.
"And for your sake I am glad of it Now, come here and stand beside me,"
she goes on, presently, holding out her hand backwards as though loath
to lose sight of her own reflection. "Let me see how _you_ look in the
water."

So he takes her hand, and together they lean over the brink and survey
themselves in Nature's glass. Lightly their faces sway to and fro as the
running water rushes across the pool,--sway, but do not part; they are
always together, as though in anticipation of that happy time when their
lives shall be one. It seems like a good omen; and Mona, in whose breast
rests a little of the superstition that lies innate in every Irish
heart, turns to her lover and looks at him.

He, too, looks at her. The same thought fills them both. As they are
together there in the water, so (pray they) "may we be together in
life." This hope is sweet almost to solemnity.

The short daylight fades; the wind grows higher; the whole scene is
curious, and very nearly fantastical. The pretty girl in her clinging
satin gown, and her gleaming neck and arms, bare and soft and white, and
the tiny lace-fringed cap that crowns her fairness. The gaunt trees
branching overhead that are showering down upon her all their fading
wealth of orange and crimson and russet-colored leaves, that serve to
throw out the glories of her dress. The brown-green sward is beneath
her, the river runs with noiseless mirth beside her, rushing with faint
music over sand and pebble to the ocean far below. Standing before her
is her lover, gazing at her with adoring eyes.

Yet all things in this passing world know an end. In one short moment
the perfect picture is spoiled. A huge black dog, bursting through the
underwood, flings himself lovingly upon Mona, threatening every moment
to destroy her toilet.

"It is Mr. Moore's retriever!" cries Mona, hurriedly, in a startled
tone. "I must run. Down, Fan! down! Oh, if he catches me here, in this
dress, what will he think? Quick, Geoffrey, give me my shawl!"

She tucks up her dignified train in a most undignified haste, while
Geoffrey covers up all the finery with the crimson shawl. The white
cloud is once more thrown over the dainty cap; all the pretty coloring
vanishes out of sight; and Mona, after one last lingering glance at
Geoffrey, follows its example. She, too, flies across the rural bridge
into the covert of her own small domain.

It is over; the curtain is down; the charming transformation-scene has
reached its end, and the fairy-queen doffing her radiant robes, descends
once more to the level of a paltry mortal.




CHAPTER X.

HOW MONA, GROWING INQUISITIVE, ASKS QUESTIONS; AND HOW GEOFFREY, BEING
BROUGHT TO BAY, MAKES CONFESSIONS THAT BODE BUT EVIL TO HIS FUTURE
PEACE, AND BREED IMMEDIATE WAR.


"Oh! catch him! _do_ catch him!" cries Mona, "Look, there he is again!
Don't you see?" with growing excitement. "Over there, under that bush.
Why on earth can't you see him? Ha! there he is again! Little wretch!
Turn him back, Geoffrey; it is our last chance."

She has crossed the rustic bridge that leads into the Moore plantations,
in hot pursuit of a young turkey that is evidently filled with a base
determination to spend his Sunday out.

Geoffrey is rushing hither and thither, without his hat, and without his
temper, in a vain endeavor to secure the rebel and reduce him to order.
He is growing warm, and his breath is coming more quickly than is
exactly desirable; but, being possessed with the desire to conquer or
die, he still holds on. He races madly over the ground, crying "Shoo!"
every now and then (whatever that may mean) in a desperate tone, as
though impressed with the belief that this simple and apparently
harmless expletive must cow the foe.

"Look at him, under that fern there!" exclaims Mona, in her clear
treble, that has always something sweet and plaintive in it. "On your
right--no! _not_ on your left. Sure you know your right, don't you?"
with a full, but unconscious, touch of scorn. "Hurry! hurry! or he will
be gone again. Was there ever such a hateful bird! With his good food in
the yard, and his warm house, and his mother crying for him! Ah! there
you have him! No!--yes! no! He is gone again!"

"He isn't!" says Geoffrey, panting "I have him at last!" Whereupon he
emerges from a wilderness of ferns, drawing after him and holding up
triumphantly to the light the wandering bird, that looks more dead than
alive, with all its feathers drooping, and its breath coming in angry
cries.

"Oh, you have him!" says Mona, with a beaming smile, that is not
reciprocated by the captured turkey. "Hold him tight: you have no idea
how artful he is. Sure I knew you'd get him, if any one could!"

There is admiration blended with relief in her tone, and Geoffrey begins
to feel like a hero of Waterloo.

"Now carry him over the bridge and put him down there, and he must go
home, whether he likes it or not," goes on Mona to her warrior,
whereupon that renowned person, armed with the shrieking turkey, crosses
the bridge. Having gained the other side, he places the angry bird on
its mother earth, and with a final and almost tender "Shoo!" sends him
scuttling along to the farmyard in the distance, where, no doubt, he is
received either with open arms and kisses, or with a sounding "spank,"
as our American cousins would say, by his terrified mamma.

He finds Mona on his return sitting on a bank, laughing and trying to
recover her breath.

"I hardly think this is Sunday work," she says, lightly; "but the poor
little thing would have died if left out all night. Wasn't it well you
saw him?"

"Most fortunate," says Rodney, with deep gravity. "I consider I have
been the means of preventing a public calamity. Why, that bird might
have haunted us later on."

"Fancy a turkey ghost," says Mona. "How ugly it would be. It would have
all its feathers off, of course."

"Certainly not," says Geoffrey: "I blush for you. I never yet heard of a
ghost that was not strictly decent. It would have had a winding sheet,
of course. Come, let us go for a walk."

"To the old fort?" asks Mona, starting to her feet.

"Anywhere you like. I'm sure we deserve some compensation for the awful
sermon that curate gave us this morning."

So they start, in a lazy, happy-go-lucky fashion, for their walk,
conversing as they go, of themselves principally as all true lovers
will.

But the fort, on this evening at least, is never reached Mona, coming to
a stile, seats himself comfortably on the top of it, and looks with mild
content around.

"Are you going no farther?" asks Rodney, hoping sincerely she will say
"No." She does say it.

"It is so nice here," she says, with a soft sigh, and a dreamy smile,
whereupon he too climbs and seats himself beside her. As they are now
situated, there is about half a yard between them of passable wall
crowned with green sods, across which they can hold sweet converse with
the utmost affability. The evening is fine; the heavens promise to be
fair; the earth beneath is calm and full of silence as becomes a Sabbath
eve; yet, alas! Mona strikes a chord that presently flings harmony to
the winds.

"Tell me about your mother," she says, folding her hands easily in her
lap. "I mean,--what is she like? Is she cold, or proud, or stand-off?"
There is keen anxiety in her tone.

"Eh?" says Geoffrey, rather taken back. "Cold" and "proud" he cannot
deny, even to himself, are words that suit his mother rather more than
otherwise.

"I mean," says Mona, flushing a vivid scarlet, "is she stern?"

"Oh, no," says Geoffrey, hastily, recovering himself just in time;
"she's all right, you know, my mother; and you'll like her awfully
when--when you know her, and when--when she knows you."

"Will that take her long?" asks Mona, somewhat wistfully, feeling,
without understanding, some want in his voice.

"I don't see how it could take any one long," says Rodney.

"Ah! that is because you are a man, and because you love me," says this
astute reader of humanity. "But women are so different. Suppose--suppose
she _never_ gets to like me?"

"Well, even that awful misfortune might be survived. We can live in our
own home 'at ease,' as the old song says, until she comes to her senses.
By and by, do you know you have never asked me about your future
home,--my own place, Leighton Hall? and yet it is rather well worth
asking about, because, though small, it is one of the oldest and
prettiest places in the county."

"Leighton Hall," repeats she, slowly, fixing upon him her dark eyes that
are always so full of truth and honesty. "But you told me you were poor.
That a third son----"

"Wasn't much!" interrupts Geoffrey, with an attempt at carelessness that
rather falls through beneath the gaze of those searching eyes. "Well, no
more he is, you know, as a rule, unless some kind relative comes to his
assistance."

"But you told me no maiden aunt had ever come to your assistance," goes
on Mona, remorselessly.

"In that I spoke the truth," says Mr. Rodney, with a shameless laugh,
"because it was an uncle who left me some money."

"You have not been quite true with me," says Mona, in a curious way,
never removing her gaze and never returning his smile. "Are you rich,
then, if you are not poor?"

"I'm a long way off being rich," says the young man, who is palpably
amused, in spite of a valiant effort to suppress all outward signs of
enjoyment. "I'm awfully poor when compared with some fellows. I dare say
I must come in for something when my other uncle dies, but at present I
have only fifteen hundred pounds a year."

"_Only!_" says Mona. "Do you know, Mr. Moore has no more than that, and
we think him very rich indeed! No, you have not been open with me: you
should have told me. I haven't ever thought of you to myself as being a
rich man. Now I shall have to begin and think of you a lover again in
quite another light." She is evidently deeply aggrieved.

"But, my darling child, I can't help the fact that George Rodney left me
the Hall," says Geoffrey, deprecatingly, reducing the space between them
to a mere nothing, and slipping his arm round her waist. "And if I was a
beggar on the face of the earth, I could not love you more than I do,
nor could you, I _hope_"--reproachfully--"love me better either."

The reproachful ring in his voice does its intended work. The soft heart
throws out resentment, and once more gives shelter to gentle thoughts
alone. She even consents to Rodney's laying his cheek against hers, and
faintly returns the pressure of his hand.

"Yet I think you should have told me," she whispers, as a last fading
censure. "Do you know you have made me very unhappy?"

"Oh, no, I haven't, now," says Rodney, reassuringly "You don't look a
bit unhappy; you only look as sweet as an angel."

"You never saw an angel, so you can't say," says Mona, still sadly
severe. "And I _am_ unhappy. How will your mother, Mrs. Rodney, like
your marrying me, when you might marry so many other people,--that Miss
Mansergh, for instance?"

"Oh, nonsense!" says Rodney, who is in high good humor and can see no
rocks ahead. "When my mother sees you she will fall in love with you on
the sp

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