as for _her_,--to fling away such a love as that----"
Here he pauses, and looks dreamily at the silver tankard before him.

This last speech rather annoys Brian; to gloat over the remembrance of a
love that had been callously cast aside to suit the exigences of the
moment, seems to the younger man a caddish sort of thing not to be
endured.

("Though what the mischief any pretty girl of nineteen could have seen
in _him_," he muses, gazing with ill-concealed amazement at his uncle's
ugly countenance, "is more than I can fathom.")

"Perhaps it wasn't so deep a love as _you_ imagine," he cannot refrain
from saying _a propos_ to his uncle's last remark, with a view to taking
him down a peg.

"It was, sir," says the Squire, sternly. "It was the love of a lifetime.
People may doubt as they will, but I know _no_ love has superseded it."

"Oh, he is in his dotage!" thinks Brian, disgustedly; and, rising from
the table, he makes a few more trivial remarks, and then walks from the
dining-room on to the balcony and so to the garden beneath.

Finding his friend Kelly in an ivied bower, lost in a cigar, and
possibly, though improbably, in improving meditation, he is careful not
to disturb him, but, making a successful detour, escapes his notice, and
turns his face towards that part of Coole that is connected with Moyne
by means of the river.

* * * * *

At Moyne, too, dinner has come to an end, and, tempted by the beauty of
the quiet evening, the two old ladies and the children have strolled
into the twilit garden.

There is a strange and sweet hush in the air--a stillness full of
life--but slumberous life. The music of streams can be heard, and a
distant murmur from the ocean; but the birds have got their heads
beneath their wings, and the rising night-wind wooes them all in vain.

Shadows numberless are lying in misty corners; the daylight lingers yet,
as though loath to quit us and sink into eternal night. It is an eve of
"holiest mood," full of tranquillity and absolute calm.

"It is that hour of quiet ecstasy,
When every rustling wind that passes by
The sleeping leaf makes busiest minstrelsy."

"You are silent, Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, glancing at her.

"I am thinking. Such an eve as this always recalls Katherine; and
yesterday _that meeting_,--all has helped to bring the past most vividly
before me."

"Ah, dear, yes," says Miss Penelope, regarding her with