their belles, and not without reason. There was
Miss Gertrude Chattesworth, for instance, with more than fourteen
thousand pounds to her fortune, and Lilias Walsingham, who would inherit
her mother's money, and the good rector's estate of twelve hundred a
year beside, and both with good blood in their veins, and beautiful
princesses too. However, in those days there was more parental despotism
than now. The old people kept their worldly wisdom to themselves, and
did not take the young into a scheming partnership; and youth and
beauty, I think, were more romantic, and a great deal less venal.

Such being the old countess's programme--a plan, according to her
lights, grand and generous, she might have dawdled over it, for a good
while, for she did not love trouble. It was not new; the airy castle had
been some years built, and now, in an unwonted hurry, she wished to
introduce the tenant to the well-aired edifice, and put him in actual
possession. For a queer little attack in her head, which she called a
fainting fit, and to which nobody dared afterwards to make allusion, and
which she had bullied herself and everybody about her into forgetting,
had, nevertheless, frightened her confoundedly. And when her helpless
panic and hysterics were over, she silently resolved, if the thing were
done, then 'twere well 'twere done quickly.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

IN WHICH LILIAS HEARS A STAVE OF AN OLD SONG AND THERE IS A LEAVE-TAKING
BESIDE THE RIVER.

Devereux's move was very sudden, and the news did not reach the Elms
till his groom had gone on to Island-bridge with the horses, and he
himself, booted and spurred, knocked at the door. The doctor was not at
home; he had ridden into Dublin. Of course it was chiefly to see him he
had gone there.

'And Miss Walsingham?'

She was also out; no, not in the garden. John thought maybe at old Miss
Chattesworth's school; or, Sally said, maybe at Belmont; they did not
know.

Devereux looked into the large room at the right hand of the hall, with
the fair sad portrait of Lilias's young mother smiling, from the wall.
Like _her_, too--and the tall glasses of flowers--and the harpsichord
open, with the music she would play, just as usual, that evening, he
supposed; and he stood at the door, looking round the room, booted and
spurred, as I have said, with his cocked hat held to his breast, in a
reverie. It was not easy for old Sally to guess what was passing in his
mind, for whenever he w