love? If
I were you, I would do nothing rash. Why not give me a little time? In
truth, I hardly know my own mind about it two days together."

"Kate," said the young man, firmly, "I am courting you this two years.
If I wait two years more, it will be but to see the right man come and
carry you in a month; for so girls are won, when they are won at all.
Your sister that is married and dead, she held Josh Pitt in hand for
years; and what is the upshot? Why, he wears the willow for her to this
day; and her husband married again, before her grave was green. Nay, I
have done all an honest man can to woo you; so take me now, or let me
go."

At this, Kate began to waver secretly, and ask herself whether it would
not be better to yield, since he was so abominably resolute.

But the unlucky fellow did not leave well alone. He went on to say,--

"Once out of sight of this place, I may cure myself of my fancy. Here I
never could."

"Oh," said Catharine, directly, "if you are so bent on being cured, it
would not become me to say nay."

Griffith Gaunt bit his lip and hung his head, and made no reply.

The patience with which he received her hard speech was more apparent
than real; but it told. Catharine, receiving no fresh positive
provocation, relented again of her own accord, and, after a considerable
silence, whispered, softly,--

"Think how we should all miss you."

Here was an overture to reconciliation. But, unfortunately, it brought
out what had long been rankling in Griffith's mind, and was in fact the
real cause of the misunderstanding.

"Oh," said he, "those I care for will soon find another to take my
place! Soon? quotha. They have not waited till I was gone for that."

"Ah, indeed!" said Catharine, with some surprise; then, like the
quick-witted girl she was, "so this is what all the coil is about."

She then, with a charming smile, begged him to inform her who was his
destined successor in her esteem. Griffith colored purple at her cool
hypocrisy, (for such he considered it,) and replied, almost fiercely,--

"Who but that young black-a-vised George Neville, that you have been
coquetting with this month past,--and danced all night with him at Lady
Munster's ball, you did."

Catharine blushed, and said, deprecatingly,--

"_You_ were not there, Griffith, or to be sure I had not danced with
_him_."

"And he toasts you by name, wherever he goes."

"Can I help that? Wait till I toast him, before you make