, and, to the strains of
'God Save the Queen,' performed many other insignificant public
functions, from which, as often as not, their guest, Lady Bridget,
basely cried off.

On one such occasion, Joan, arrayed in her best, had patriotically gone
forth on a steaming March day to support their Excellencies, fondly
expecting that, as arranged, Lady Bridget and Colin would meet her. But
Lady Tallant, looking distinctly cross, accompanied the Governor alone.
Bridget, it appeared, had come down, just as the carriage drove up, in
her morning frock and garden hat, saying that she had a bad headache
and meant to spend the afternoon in a hammock by the river bank. As for
Colin, there was no sign of him.

But when Mrs Gildea got home very tired, and hot she was made extremely
angry by hearing the voices of Lady Bridget and McKeith in the veranda
where they were drinking tea and, it seemed, holding a confidential
conversation. Mrs Gildea's gorge rose higher. She had to stop a minute
to try and recover her temper. Here was Biddy disburdening herself to
Colin of her family troubles and short-comings, showing herself and
them in the worst light, singing small to a man with whom it was highly
desirable she should maintain her dignity. Instead of that, she was
deliberately pulling down the barrier of rank and social position which
should exist between Lady Bridget O'Hara and the Factor's son, the
Out-Back squatter--Colin McKeith.

Biddy was saying: 'Oh, but you're as bad as that sort of person who
can't be made to realise that the oldest peerage in Ireland counts for
nothing in comparison with an oil-king's millions and being able to
entertain the right set.... And besides, really Mr McKeith, there's no
difference at all between us. You talk such a lot about YOUR
grandfather having been a Scotch peasant. Why! MY mother's father was
an Italian beggar--Ugh! haven't you seen them with their crutches and
things on the steps of the churches?--And my mother sang in the streets
of Naples until a kind musician heard her and had her trained to be a
opera singer.'

'Your mother?'

'My mother! That's where my CARMEN comes from--only that my voice, I'm
told, isn't to be compared with what hers was.... But that's not the
worst about my mother. Not that I blame her. I think that a woman has a
perfect right to leave her husband if she has ceased to care for him,
and that it's far more moral to live with a man you love and can't
marry, than wit