d fell to thinking that nobody would
ever want to marry her. It was as if some instinct had told her, and she
could not drive the word 'celibacy' out of her ears. It seemed to her
that she was _fichue a jamais_, as that odious Lord Dungory would say.
She did not remember that she had ever been so unhappy before, and it
seemed to her that she would always be unhappy, _fichue a jamais_.

But to her surprise she awoke in a more cheerful mood, and when she came
down to breakfast Mr. Barton raised his head from the newspaper and
asked her if she had heard that Lord Rosshill had been fired at.

'Yes, father. Olive told me so overnight;' and the conversation turned
on her headache, and then on the state of Ireland.

Mrs. Barton asked if this last outrage would prove sufficient to force
the Government to pass a new Coercion Bill.

'I wish they would put me at the head of an army,' Mr. Barton said,
whose thoughts had gone back to his picture--_Julius Caesar overturning
the Altars of the Druids_.

'Papa would look fine leading the landlords against the tenants dressed
in Julius Caesar's big red cloak!' cried Mrs. Barton, turning back as
she glided out of the room, already deep in consideration of what Milord
would like to eat for luncheon and the gown she would wear that
afternoon. Mr. Barton threw the newspaper aside and returned to his
studio; and in the girls' room Olive and Barnes, the bland, soft smiling
maid, began their morning gossip. Whatever subject was started it
generally wound round to Captain Hibbert. Alice had wearied of his name,
but this morning she pricked up her ears. She was surprised to hear her
sister say she had forbidden him ever to visit the Lawlers. At that
moment the dull sound of distant firing broke the stillness of the snow.

'I took good care to make Captain Hibbert promise not to go to this
shooting-party the last time I saw him.'

'And what harm was there in his going to this shooting-party?' said
Alice.

'What harm? I suppose, miss, you have heard what kind of woman Mrs.
Lawler is? Ask Barnes,'

'You shouldn't talk in this way, Olive. We know well enough that Mrs.
Lawler was not a lady before she married; but nothing can be said
against her since.'

'Oh! can't there, indeed? You never heard the story about her and her
steward? Ask Barnes.'

'Oh! don't miss; you shouldn't really!' said the maid. 'What will Miss
Alice think?'

'Never mind what she thinks; you tell her about the stewa