er
missed an occasion of using, wounded the girl so deeply, that it was
only at the rarest intervals that she left her room--when she walked to
the post with a letter, when the luncheon or dinner bell rang. Why she
should be thus persecuted, Alice was unable to determine; and why her
family did not hail with delight this chance of getting rid of a plain
girl, whose prospects were limited, was difficult to say; nor could the
girl arrive at any notion of the pleasure or profit it might be to
anyone that she should waste her life amid chaperons and gossip, instead
of taking her part in the world's work. And yet this seemed to be her
mother's idea. She did not hesitate to threaten that she would neither
attend herself, nor allow Mr. Barton to attend the ceremony. Alice might
meet Dr. Reed at the corner of the road, and be married as best she
could. Alice appealed to her father against this decision, but she soon
had to renounce the hope of obtaining any definite answer. He had been
previously told that if he attempted any interference, his supply of
paints, brushes, canvases, and guitar-strings would be cut off, and, as
he was at present deeply engaged on a new picture of _Julius Caesar
overturning the Altars of the Druids_, he hesitated before the
alternatives offered to him. He spoke with much affection; he regretted
that Alice could not see her way to marrying somebody whom her mother
could approve! He explained the difficulties of his position, and the
necessity of his turning something out--seeing what he really could do
before the close of the year. Alice was disappointed, and bitterly, but
she bore her disappointment bravely, and she wrote to Dr. Reed, telling
him what had occurred, and proposing to meet him on a certain day at the
Parish Church, where Father Shannon would marry them; and, that if he
refused, they would proceed to Dublin, and be married at the Registry
Office. In a way Alice would have preferred this latter course, but her
good sense warned her against the uselessness of offering any too
violent opposition to the opinions of the world. And so it was arranged;
and sad, weary, and wretched, Alice lingered through the last few days
of the life that had always been to her one of humiliation, and which
now towards its close had quieted to one of intense pain.

The Brennans had promised to meet her in the chapel, and one day, as she
was sitting by her window, she saw May in all the glory of her copper
hair