t to blame, and that it was only her love
for me and Theobald which made her so bitter.

Then her mood changed; and snatching up my hand with Richard Dawson's
ring on it she burst into a harsh laugh.

"What was over him at all," she said, "to give you the like o' that?
Didn't he know the green was unlucky? Sure, 'tis unlucky for him it'll
be, and you'll never marry him. My dream'll come true, and you'll be
saved in time, Miss Bawn. The ill luck is for him, not for you."

Indeed, I found it hard in those days to meet the eyes of the
neighbours, gentle and simple, who could not know why I had consented to
marry Richard Dawson. I felt that the county buzzed with it, castle and
cabin alike, and it made me shrink away from those who had always been
kind to me. I was ashamed to go down the village street, for I knew the
people would come to their doors and look after me, and say, "Isn't it a
wonder for Miss Bawn that she'd marry a Dawson? and the family always so
proud, too."

I noticed that none of the people who came to call were effusive in
their congratulations except Lady Ardaragh, and she congratulated me
with a high colour and an exaggeration of speech which did not ring
true.

The Misses Chenevix called one day, and, while Miss Henrietta sat
unhappily looking down at her lap, Miss Bride congratulated me in a
voice which had no congratulation in it.

"I wish you happiness, Bawn," she said. "Not that I ever think marriage
a subject for congratulation, but rather for condolence."

A somewhat dreary sense of the humour of the speech made me answer that
I thought I agreed with her, whereupon she snapped me up and said that,
to be sure, some people must be married, though she for her part thought
the world would get on very well without marriage; but then, of course,
she was old-fashioned.

"And if you had to marry, Bawn," she went on, "why didn't you wait for
your cousin? The county always expected you to marry your cousin; and,
if you must be married, Theobald would have suited you better than Mr.
Dawson. You're not the girl I thought you, Bawn."

I wondered what Theobald would think of me. I had left it to my
grandparents to explain to Theobald, and his letters to me had gone
unanswered now for three weeks or more.

But, after all, it was not Theobald who was my tribunal; it was not from
Theobald's judgment I shrank.

It was Anthony Cardew I feared most. When I endured the ignominy of
Richard Dawson's kisse