r before them, when she came here to
lay her eggs, like a cuckoo in another bird's nest--I wish they had
been addled, I do indeed--we may expect to have the whole place turned
topsy-turvy, I suppose. It is a pretty assortment, _faith_ (as Tanty
says herself); an old papist, and two young ones, fresh from a convent
school--and of these, one a hoyden, and the other lovesick! Faugh!
Sophia you will have to keep your eyes open when the old lady is gone.
I'll have no unseemly pranks in this house."

"Oh, Rupert," with a moan of maidenly horror, and conscious
incompetence.

"Stop that," cried the brother, with a contained intensity of
exasperation, at which the poor lady jumped and trembled as if she had
been struck. "All your whining won't improve matters. Now listen to
me," sitting down beside her, and speaking slowly and impressively,
"you are to make our relatives feel welcome, do you understand?
Everything is to be of the best. Get out the embroidered sheets, and
see that there are flowers in the rooms. Tell the cook to keep back
that haunch of venison, the girls won't like it, but the old lady
knows a good thing when she gets it--let there be lots of sweet things
for the young ones too. I shall be giving some silver out this
afternoon. I leave it to you to see that it is properly cleaned. What
are you mumbling about to yourself? Write it down if you can't
remember, and now go, go--I am busy."

PART II

"MURTHERING MOLL THE SECOND"

_Then did the blood awaken in the veins
Of the young maiden wandering in the fields._

LUTEPLAYER'S SONG.

CHAPTER X

THE THRESHOLD OF WOMANHOOD

Onward floweth the water, onward through meadows broad,
"How happy," the meadows say, "art thou to be rippling onward."
"And my heart is beating, beating beneath my girdle here;"
"O Heart," the girdle saith, "how happy art thou that thou beatest."

_Luteplayer's Song._

DUBLIN, _October 15th, 1814_.--This day do I, Molly de Savenaye, begin
my diary.

Madeleine writes to me from Bath that she has purchased a very fine
book, in which she intends to set forth each evening all that has
happened her since the morning; she advises me to do so too. She says
that since _real life_ has begun for us; life, of which every
succeeding day is not, as in the convent, the repetition of the
previous day, but brings some new discovery, pleasure, or pain, we
ought to write dow