Kitabı oku: «Rossmoyne», sayfa 2

"So up we got," says Kit, gayly, "and away we went in the nice sweet hay, jog trot, jog trot, and so comfortable."

The Misses Blake by this time are filled with dismay. In Rossmoyne, where families are few and far between, and indecent scandal unknown, the smallest trifles are seized upon with avidity and manufactured into mountains. "A good appearance," Miss Penelope was taught at school, "is the first step in life," and here have these children been making their appearance for the first time in a common hay-cart.

What will Madam O'Connor say? Madam O'Connor's father having always laid claim to being a direct descendant of one of the old kings of Munster, Madam's veins of course are filled with blood royal, and as such are to be held in reverence. What won't this terrible old woman say, when she hears of the Beresfords' escapade?

The Misses Blake sit shivering, blinking their eyelids, and afraid to say anything.

"We got on splendidly," Terence is saying, "and might indeed have finished our journey respectably, but for Monica. She laid our reputation in the dust."

Monica turns upon him an appealing glance from her large soft eyes that would have melted any heart but that of a brother's.

"Aunt Priscilla," says the adamantine youth, "what is the name of the house with a big gate, about a half a mile from this?"

"Coole Castle," replies she, stiffly, the very fact of having to mention the residence of the detested Desmond making her heart beat violently. But Terry is a person blind to speaking glances and deaf to worded hints. In effect, Terry and tact are two; so he goes on, unheeding his aunt's evident disrelish for the subject, —

"Well, just as we got to Coole, I saw a fellow standing inside the entrance-gate, smoking a cigar. I fancied he looked amused, but would have thought nothing of that, only I heard him laugh aloud, and saw he was staring over my head – I was driving – to where Monica and Kit were, on the top of the hay. It occurred to me then to see what the girls were doing, so I stood up on the shaft, and looked, and – "

Here he pauses, as though slightly overcome.

"What, my dear?" asks Miss Priscilla, anxiously.

"There was Monica lying in an æsthetic attitude, —very æsthetic, – with her chin in her hands, and her eyes on the horse's ears, and her thoughts I presume in heaven, or wherever young ladies keep them, and with her heels – "

"It isn't truth! – it isn't!" interrupts Monica, blushing furiously, and speaking with much indignation. "I don't believe a single word of it!"

"And with her heels – "

"Terence!"

"In mid-air. She was kicking them up and down with delight," says Terence, fairly bubbling over with joy at the recollection. "It was the most humiliating sight for a modest brother. I shall never forgive her for it. Besides, the strange young man was – "

"If you say another word," says Monica, white with wrath and tears in her eyes, "I shall never speak to you again, or help you out of any trouble."

This awful threat has the desired effect of reducing Mr. Beresford to subjection. He goes down before the foe, and truckles to her meanly.

"You needn't take it so much to heart," he says soothingly: "there wasn't much in it, after all; and your shoes are very pretty, and so are your feet."

The compliment works wonders; Monica quite brightens up again, but the two old ladies are hopelessly scandalized.

"I feel assured, Terence," says Miss Priscilla, with much dignity, "that under no circumstances could a niece of mine show too much of her – her – "

Here Miss Priscilla blushes, and breaks down.

"Legs?" suggests Terry, politely.

"But who was the strange young man?" asks Miss Penelope, curiously.

"Our friend of the hay-cart said his name was Desmond, and that he was nephew to the master of the house behind the big gates," returns Kit, fluently.

"Desmond!" says Miss Priscilla, greatly agitated. "Let me never hear you mention that name again! It has been our bane! Forget you have ever been so unfortunate as to encounter this young man; and if ill luck should ever drive him across your path again, remember you do not – you never can– know him."

"But I'm certain he will know Monica if he sees her again," says Kit. "He stared at her as if she had seven heads."

"No wonder, considering her equivocal position. And as to knowing Monica, I'm not certain of that, of course, but I'm utterly positive he could swear to her shoes in a crowd," says Terence, with unholy delight. "He was enchanted with them, and with the clocks on her stockings: I think he was taking the pattern of them."

"He was not," says Monica, almost weeping. "He couldn't see them. I was too high up."

"What will you bet he doesn't know the color of them?" asks her tormentor, with a fresh burst of appreciation of the undignified scene. "When I see him again I'll ask him."

"Terence," says Miss Priscilla, growing very pale, "you must never see him again, or, at all events, you must never speak to him. Understand, once for all, that intimacy between us and the inhabitants of Coole is impossible. This feud I hint at touches you even more closely than it touches us, but you cannot feel it more than we do, – perhaps not as much. The honor of our family has suffered at the hands of the Master of Coole. He is the enemy of our house!"

"Priscilla!" murmurs Miss Penelope, in a low and trembling tone.

"Do not try to check me, Penelope. I will speak," says Miss Priscilla, sternly. "This man, years ago, offered one near and dear to us an indignity not to be lightly borne. The world is wide," turning to the astonished children, "you can make friends where you choose; but I would have you recollect that never can a Beresford and a Desmond have aught in common."

"But what have the Desmonds done to us, Aunt Priscilla?" asks Monica, a good deal awed by the old lady's solemnity.

"Some other time you shall know all," says Miss Priscilla in the low tone one might adopt if speaking of the last appalling murder.

"Yes, some other time," echoes Miss Penelope, gently.

CHAPTER III

How Monica studies the landscape.

"Is it thrue, ma'am, what I hear, that ye'll be wantin' a maid for Miss Monica?" asks Mrs. Reilly, the cook at Moyne, dropping a respectful courtesy just inside the drawing-room door. "Ryan let dhrop a word to me about it, so I made so bould, ma'am, as to come upstairs an' tell ye I think I know a girl as will come in handy to ye."

"And who is she, Reilly?" asks Miss Priscilla anxiously.

"She's a very good girl, ma'am, an' smart, an' nate, an' I think ye'll like her," replies cook, who, like all Irish people, finds a difficulty in giving a direct answer to a direct question. Perhaps, too, there is a little wiliness in her determination not to name the new servant's parentage just at present.

"I daresay; I place great reliance upon your opinion, Reilly. But who is she? Does she come from the village, or from one of the farms? I should prefer the farms."

"She's as tidy as she can be," says Mrs. Reilly, amiably but still evasively, "an' a bit of a scholard into the bargain, an' a very civil tongue in her head. She's seventeen all out, ma'am, and never yet gave her mother a saucy word."

"That is as it should be," says Miss Priscilla, commendingly. "You feel a great interest in this girl, I can see. You know her well?"

"Yes, miss. She is me uncle's wife's sisther's child, an' as good a girl as ever stepped in shoe leather."

"She is then?" asks Miss Priscilla, faintly, puzzled by this startling relationship.

"She's that girl of the Cantys', ma'am, and as likely a colleen as ever ye met, though I say it as shouldn't, she being kin-like," says Mrs. Reilly, boldly, seeing her time is come.

"What! that pretty, blue-eyed child that called to see you yesterday? She is from the village, then?" with manifest distaste.

"An' what's the matther wid the village, ma'am?" By this time Mrs. Reilly has her arms akimbo, and has an evident thirst for knowledge full upon her.

"But I fear she is flighty and wild, and not at all domesticated in any way."

"An' who has the face to say that, ma'am? Give me the names of her dethractors," says Mrs. Reilly, in an awful tone, that seemed to demand the blood of the "dethractors."

"I feel sure, Reilly," says Miss Priscilla, slowly, "that you are not aware of the position your arms have taken. It is most unbecoming." Mrs. Reilly's arms dropped to her sides. "And as for this girl you speak of, I hear she is, as I say, very flighty."

"Don't believe a word of it, ma'am," says cook, with virtuous indignation. "Just because she holds up her head a bit, an' likes a ribbon or two, there's no holdin' the gossips down below," indicating the village by a backward jerk of her thumb. "She's as dacent a little sowl as you'd wish to see, an' has as nate a foot as there is in the county. The Cantys has all a character for purty feet."

"Pretty feet are all very well in their way," says Miss Priscilla, nodding her head. "But can she sew? and is she quiet and tractable, and – "

"Divil a thing she can't do, ma'am, axin' yer pardon," says Mrs. Reilly, rather losing herself in the excitement of the moment. "Just thry her, ma'am, an' if ye don't like her, an' if Miss Monica finds even one fault in her, just send her back to her mother. I can't say fairer nor that."

"No, indeed. Very well, Reilly, let her come up to me to-morrow; and see that her inside clothes are all right, and let her know she must never be out after dark."

"Yes, ma'am," says the triumphant Reilly, beating a hasty retreat.

Half an hour afterwards she encounters Monica upon the avenue.

"Why, where are you going, Mrs. Reilly?" asks Monica, seeing that cook is got up in all her war-paint, regardless of expense.

"To mass first, miss," says Mrs. Reilly.

"Where's that?" asks Monica, with foreign ignorance.

"Law! to the chapel, miss," says Reilly, with an amused smile.

"But it isn't Sunday?"

"No, miss. It's a saint's day – may they be good to us!" crossing herself. "It's different with you, miss, you see; but we poor folks, we must say our prayers when we can, or the Virgin will dhrop us out of her mind."

"Is your chapel pretty?" asks Monica, who has now been a week in the country, and through very weariness feels a mad desire to talk to somebody or anybody.

"Faix, it's lovely, miss, since Father Jerry took it in hand! There's the finest pictures ye ever saw on the walls, an' an altar it 'ud do ye good to look at."

"Would it? Then I'll go some day to see it," says Monica, smiling, not knowing that her aunts would as soon let her enter a pandemonium as a Roman Catholic chapel.

Dear old ladies! frightened by shadows, they have been bred in the belief that the Evil One dwells beneath the shade of the Romish Church, and will therefore surely die in it.

"Do, then, agra!" said Mrs. Reilly, who has, of course, like all the other servants, gone down before Monica: "it's proud we'd be to see ye there."

There is no thought of conversion in the woman's mind, you must remember, – merely a hospitable desire to let her know she will be welcome anywhere.

"By the same token, Miss Monica," says she, "there's something I was near forgettin' to tell ye."

"Yes!" says Monica.

"Ye're goin' to have me uncle's wife's niece for yer own maid, miss."

"Am I? I'm glad of that," says Monica, with a native courtesy. "Is she" – with some hesitation and a faint blush – "is she pretty, Reilly?"

"She's the purtiest girl ye ever set eyes on," says Mrs. Reilly, with enthusiasm.

"I'm glad of that; I can't bear ugly people," says Monica.

"Faix, then, there's a bad time before ye wid the ould ladies," mutters Mrs. Reilly, sotto voce, gathering up her cloak and stepping onwards. She is a remarkably handsome woman herself, and so may safely deplore the want of beauty in her betters.

Monica, turning aside, steps on a high bank and looks down towards the village. Through the trees she can see the spire of the old cathedral rising heavenwards. Though Rossmoyne is but a village, it still can boast its cathedral, an ancient edifice, uncouth and unlovely, but yet one of the oldest places of worship in Ireland.

Most of my readers would no doubt laugh it to scorn, but we who belong to it reverence it, and point out with pride to passers by the few quaint marks and tokens that link it to a bygone age.

There is a nave, broad and deep, comprising more than a third of the whole building, with its old broken stone pavement, and high up, carven upon one of its walls the head of St. Faughnan, its patron saint, – a hideous saint, indeed, if he resembled that ancient carving. How often have I gazed upon his unlovely visage, and wondered in my childish fashion why the grace that comes from so divine an origin had not the power to render his servant's face more beautiful!

In these later years they have improved (?) and modernized the old structure. A stone pulpit, huge and clumsy, erected by subscription to the memory of some elderly inhabitant, stands like a misshapen blot before the altar rails; a window, too broad for its length, and generally out of proportion, throws too much light upon the dinginess within; the general character of the ugly old place has lost something, but assuredly gained nothing, by these innovations. It is hard to put "a piece of new cloth on an old garment" successfully.

The village itself stands upon a high hill; the ocean lies at its feet. From Moyne House one can see the shimmer of the great Atlantic as it dances beneath the sunbeams or lashes itself into furious foam under the touch of the north wind. The coastguard station, too, stands out, brilliant in its whitewash, a gleaming spot upon the landscape.

To the left of the station lies Ounahincha, – a long, deep line of sea-beach that would make its fortune as a bathing place under happier auspices and in some more appreciated clime.

Monica, looking down from her height, takes in all the beauties of the landscape that surround her, and lets the music of the melancholy ocean sink into her very soul.

Then she lets her eyes wander to the right, and rest with pardonable curiosity upon Coole Castle, where dwells the ogre of her house. Above Coole, and about two miles farther on, lies Aghyohillbeg, the residence of Madam O'Connor, that terrible descendant of one of Ireland's kings; whilst below, nestling among its firs and beeches, is Kilmore, where the Halfords – a merry tangle of boys and girls – may be seen at all hours.

Then there is the vicarage, where the rector lives with his family, which is large; and nearer to the village, the house that holds the curate and his family, which, of course, is larger. Besides which, Monica can just see from her vantage-ground the wooded slopes of Durrusbeg that have lately called young Ronayne master, – a distant cousin having died most unexpectedly and left him all his property.

Six months ago, Ulic Ronayne was spoken of by anxious matrons as a wild lad, with nothing to recommend him save his handsome face and some naughty stories attached to his name. Now he is pronounced charming, and the naughty stories, which indeed never had any foundation, are discovered to have been disgraceful fabrications. Marriageable daughters are kinder to him than words can say, and are allowed by the most cautious mothers to dance with him as often as they choose, and even to sit unlimited hours with him in secluded corners of conservatories unrebuked.

Truly, O Plutus! thou art a god indeed. Thou hast outlived thy greater brethren. Thy shrine is honored as of old!

After a last lingering glance at the distant ocean and the swelling woods that now in Merry June are making their grandest show, Monica jumps down from her bank again and goes slowly – singing as she goes – towards the river that runs at the end of Moyne.

Down by its banks Moyne actually touches the hated lands of Cooles, a slight boundary fence being all that divides one place from the other. The river rushes eagerly past both, on its way to the sea, murmuring merrily on its happy voyage, as though mocking at human weals and woes and petty quarrels.

Through the waving meadows, over the little brook, past the stile, Monica makes her way, plucking here and there the scarlet poppies, and the blue cornflowers and daisies, "those pearled Arcturi of the earth, the constellated flower that never sets."

The sun is tinting all things with its yellow haze, and is burning to brightest gold the reddish tinge in the girl's hair as she moves with dallying steps through the green fields. She is dressed in a white gown, decked with ribbons of sombre tint, and wears upon her head a huge poky bonnet, from which her face peeps out, half earnest, half coquettish, wholly pure.

Her hands are bare and shapely, but a little brown; some old-fashioned rings glisten on them. She has the tail of her gown thrown negligently over her arm, and with her happy lips parted in song, and her eyes serene as early dawn, she looks like that fair thing of Chaucer's, whose

 
"Berthe was of the womb of morning dew,
And her conception of the joyous prime."
 

And now the sparkling river comes in sight. Near its brink an old boat-house may be seen fast crumbling to decay; and on the river itself lies, swaying to and fro, a small punt in the very last stages of decline. It is a very terrible little boat, quite at death's door, and might have had those lines of Dante's painted upon it without libel:

 
"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."
 

But Monica, in happy ignorance of rotting timbers, thinks only of the joy she felt last evening when the discovery of this demoralized treasure was made. In the mouldering boat-house she had found it, and so had claimed it for her own.

She had told no one of her secret, not even Kit, who is, as a rule, her prime minister, her confidante, and her shadow. She has, indeed, had great difficulty in escaping from "her shadow" just now, but after much diplomatic toil had managed it. To find herself upon the calm and gentle river, to dream there her own sweet thoughts beneath the kindly shade of the pollard willows, to glide with the stream and bask in the sunlight all alone, has been her desire since yester-eve.

To-morrow, if to-day proves successful and her rowing does not fail her, of which she has had some practice during the last two years of her life, she will tell Kit and Terry all about it, and let them share her pleasure. But to-day is her own.

The boat is connected with the shore by a rope tied round the stump of a tree by most unskilful hands. Flinging her flowers into the punt, she strives diligently to undo the knot that she herself had made the night before, but strives in vain. The hard rope wounds her tender hands and vexes her gentle soul.

She is still struggling with it, and already a little pained frown has made a wrinkle on her smooth brow, when another boat shoots from under the willows and gains the little landing-place, with its pebbly beach, that belongs equally to Coole Castle and to Moyne.

This new boat is a tremendous improvement on our heroine's. It is the smartest little affair possible, and as safe as a church, – safer, indeed, as times go now. Not that there is anything very elaborate about it, but it is freshly painted, and there are cushions in it, and all over it a suppressed air of luxury.

Besides the cushions, there is something else in it, too, – a young man of about six and twenty, who steps lightly on to the bank, though it is a miracle he doesn't lose his footing and come ignominiously to the ground, so bent is his gaze on the gracious little figure at the other side of the boundary-fence struggling with the refractory rope.

It doesn't take any time to cross the boundary.

"Will you allow me to do that for you?" says the strange young man, raising his hat politely, and taking the rope out of Monica's hand without waiting for permission.

CHAPTER IV

How Monica makes a most important discovery and, changing suddenly from "lively to severe," is reprehensibly cruel to a most unoffending young man.

"You are very kind," says Monica slowly, feeling not so much embarrassment as surprise at this sudden advent.

Then the young man looses the rope, and, having done so, casts a cursory glance at the boat to which it is attached. As he does so, he lifts his brows.

"Surely you are not dreaming of going on the river in that!" he says, indicating the wretched punt by a contemptuous wave of his hand.

"Yes. Why not?" returns she.

"There isn't a sound bit of timber in her. What can your people be thinking of, to let you trust yourself in such a miserable affair?"

"My people have nothing to do with it," says Monica, somewhat grandly. "I am my own mistress."

She has picked up her flowers again out of the despised punt, and now stands before him with her hands filled with the June blossoms, blue, and white, and red. They show bravely against the pallor of her gown, and seem, indeed, to harmonize altogether with her excessive fairness, for her lips are as red as her poppies, and her cornflowers as blue as her eyes, and her skin puts her drooping daisies all to shame.

"As you are your own mistress," says the young man, with a suspicion of a smile, as he takes in the baby sweetness of her mouth, and each detail of her slight girlish figure, that bespeaks the child rather than the woman, "I entreat you to have mercy upon yourself."

"But what is the matter with it?" asks Monica, peering into the boat. "It looks all right; I can't see a hole in it."

"It's nothing but holes, in my opinion," says the strange young man, peering in his turn. "It's a regular coffin. You will be committing nothing less than suicide if you put your foot in it."

"Dear me," says Monica, blankly, feeling impressed in spite of herself, "I do think I am the most unfortunate person alive. Do you know," lifting her eyes to his, "I didn't sleep a wink last night, thinking of this row on the river to-day, and now it comes to nothing! That is just like my luck always. I was so bent on it; I wanted to get round that corner over there," pointing to it, "to see what was at the other side, and now I can't do it." It seems to the young man looking at her, as though her glance is reproachful, and as if she connects him, innocent as he is, with her disappointment.

"There is no reason why you shouldn't," he is beginning, anxiously, when she contradicts him.

"After all," she says, doubtfully, bending over to look into the clear bed of the river, "I don't believe, if things came to the worst, and I did get swamped, I should be drowned."

"Certainly not, if you could swim, or if there was any one watching over your welfare from the banks that could."

"Well, I can't," confesses Monica, with a sigh; "and unless you," with an irrepressible laugh that shows all her white and even teeth, "will promise to run along the banks of the river all the afternoon to watch over me, I don't think there is much chance of my escaping death."

"I shouldn't mind in the least being on guard in such a cause," says the stranger, politely, with the same carefully suppressed smile upon his lips (which are very handsome) as had moved them a while ago. "Command me if you will; but I would have you remember that, even though I should come to the rescue, it would not save you an unpleasant ducking, and – and your pretty gown," with a glance that is almost affectionate at the white Indian cotton, "would be completely ruined."

"Even that dire idea doesn't daunt me," says Monica, gayly: "you forgot that the more limp I am the more æsthetic I shall look. Well," with a sudden relapse into melancholy, "I suppose I must give it up, and not go round the corner to-day."

"But why not?" exclaims he, eagerly. "My boat is at your service. Do take it. I have quite done with it, I have indeed, and it is lighter than it looks."

"Too heavy for me, I am afraid," says Monica with a sigh.

"Is it? Then," with desperate boldness, "let me row you."

"Oh, no!" returns she, blushing warmly. "You forget," with a swift glance at him, "you are quite a stranger to me."

Yet he is not quite such a stranger as she thinks. She is not such a stranger to him at least, because her face, seen for a minute about a week a go, has haunted him persistently ever since.

"As we live in the same neighborhood, we cannot long continue strangers," he says, gently; "and, in the mean time, why lose this lovely afternoon, and that corner you were speaking of? The view of the sea, when you get round it, is really worth seeing."

"Yes, yes, I daresay," reluctantly turning to leave him. "I shall see it some day."

"Look here," says the young man, very earnestly, following her as she moves. "If you will come with me you will see it now. I will only be your oarsman; I won't say a word to you unless you wish it; I won't even look at you. Think of me as a common boatman you have hired by the hour; or, better still, don't think of me at all. With a little care you might bring yourself to imagine I wasn't there."

"But if we met any one?" says Miss Beresford, visibly relenting.

"Impossible! There is never a soul on this stream save myself. I have been here now every day for ten days, and never yet came upon even the ghost of anything human."

"Very well," says Monica, though still with palpable hesitation. "Now, remember, you have pledged yourself not to speak to me, or to look at me." At this he fixes on her so prolonged a gaze that one may readily understand he means it to be a last one for some time.

Then he turns aside, and, having brought his boat to her side of the fence, holds out to her his hand. As he does this he keeps his eyes bent upon the ground, as though determined to let her know his penance has already begun.

"I am not in the boat yet," says Monica, with a quaint little smile, laying her palm on his. Whereupon he looks at her again; and then, as their eyes meet, they both laugh joyously, as youth will when it meets youth.

Lightly she steps into his boat, and slowly, lazily, he rows her down the little river, – flower-clad on either bank, – letting the boat drift almost at its own sweet will.

The willows, drooping towards the water's edge, woo them as they pass; the foolish weeds would hold them in embrace; the broad flag-flowers would fain entwine them. But they, though loving them, go by them, thinking their own thoughts, and wondering vaguely at the beauty of the

 
"Starry river-buds among the sedge,
And floating water-lilies broad and bright,*****
And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothes the dazzled eye with sober sheen."
 

So far silence has been scrupulously kept. Not a word has been spoken since they left the bank, not a look exchanged. Monica is letting her little slender fingers trail through the water and the flat leaves of the lilies. He, with his coat off, is pretending to row, but in reality is letting his body grow subservient to his mind. He has even adhered honorably to his promise not to look at her, and is still mentally ambitious about being true to his word in this respect, when an exclamation from her puts an end to all things.

"Oh! look at that lily!" she says, excitedly. "Was there ever such a beauty? If you will row a little more to the right, I am sure I shall be able to get it."

"Don't stir. I'll get it," returns he, grateful to the lily for this break in their programme; and presently the floating prize is secured, and he lays it, wet and dripping, in her outstretched hands.

"After all, you see, you broke your promise," she says, a moment later, most ungratefully, glancing up at him coquettishly from under her long lashes.

"But who made me do it?" asks he, reproachfully, whereupon she laughs and reddens.

"I never confess," she says, shaking her pretty head; "and after all – do you know? – I am rather glad you spoke to me, because, though I like being quite by myself at times, still I hate silence when any one is with me."

"So do I," says her companion, with the utmost cheerfulness.

"I think," leaning towards him with a friendly smile, "I cannot do better than begin our acquaintance by telling you my name. It is Monica Beresford."

"Monica," lingering over it lovingly; "a beautiful name, I think. I think, too, it suits you. Mine is not to be compared to yours; but, such as it is, I give it you!"

He throws a card into her lap.

"I hope it isn't John Smith," says Monica, smiling and picking up the card. But, as she reads what is printed thereon, the smile fades, and an expression of utter dismay overspreads her face.

"'Desmond' – Oh! not Desmond!" she says, imploringly, her lips growing quite pale.

"Yes, it is Desmond," says the young man, half amused, half puzzled. "You really think it ugly, then! Do you know I rather fancy my surname, although my Chris – "

"You are not – you cannot be the Desmond," interrupts she, hastily.

"No; that's my uncle," says the young man, innocently.

"Oh! then you acknowledge the crime?" in deep distress.

"I didn't know that an old Irish title must necessarily be connected with guilt," says her companion, fairly puzzled.

"Eh?" says Monica, puzzled in her turn. "I don't understand you: I only want to know if you are one of the particular Desmonds?"

"I suppose not," he replies, now openly amused, "because I regret to say we have never yet done anything worthy of note, or likely to distinguish us from all the other Desmonds, whose name is legion."

"If you are going to tell me you live at Coole," says Miss Beresford, in a tone that is almost tragic, "I warn you it will be the last straw, and that I shan't be able to bear it."

"I am not going to tell you anything," protests he.

"But you must," declares she, illogically. "I may as well hear the worst at once. Go on," heroically; "tell me the truth. Do you live there?"

"I'm awfully afraid I do," says Mr. Desmond, feeling somehow, without knowing why, distinctly ashamed of his name and residence.

"I knew it! I felt it!" says Monica, with the calmness of despair. "Take me back to the bank at once, – this very instant, please. Oh, what a row I should get into if they only knew!"