f note to this big young man, who is staring at her in a more
earnest manner than is strictly within the rules of etiquette. Somehow,
too, she presently discovers she has fallen into line with her new
friend, and is moving towards the lawn again with Aunt Priscilla
following in her train with _Mr. Desmond_.

Quaking inwardly, Monica at first cannot take her mind off the twain
behind her, and all the consequences that must ensue if Miss Priscilla
once discovers a Desmond is being addressed by her with common civility.

She is, therefore, but poor company for the tall marine, who seems,
however, quite satisfied with the portion allotted him and maunders on
inanely about the surroundings generally. When the weather and the
landscape have been exhausted, it must be confessed, however, that he
comes to a standstill.

Miss Priscilla, pleased with her day and the satisfactory knowledge that
every one has been raving about Monica, is making herself specially
agreeable to her companion, who, nothing loath, draws her out and grows
almost sycophantic in his attentions. She becomes genial with him, not
knowing who he is, while he becomes even more than genial with her,
knowing right well who she is. Indeed, so merrily does he make the time
fly that Miss Priscilla is fain to confess to herself that seldom has
she passed so pleasant a five minutes.

In the meantime, Monica, strolling on in front with Mr. Ryde, is feeling
both nervous and depressed. This chance meeting between her aunt and Mr.
Desmond, and the memory of all the strange exciting things the latter
has said to her, renders her mute and unequal to conversation, and her
present companion is not one likely to enchain her attention by any
brilliant flashes of intellect.

He is, in truth, a very ordinary young man, of the heavy, stupid type
too often met with to require either introduction or description. He had
arrived in Queenstown about a fortnight before, with nothing much to
guide his conduct in a strange country beyond the belief that Hibernia,
as he elects to call it, is like Africa, a "land benighted," fit only to
furnish food for jests. He has a fatal idea that he himself can supply
these jests at times, and that, in fact, there are moments when he can
be irresistibly funny over the Paddies: like many others devoid of
brain, and without the power to create wholesome converse, he mistakes
impertinence for wit, and of late has become rude at the expense of
Ireland