o'clock, and hopelessly wet. The soft rain patters on the
leaves outside, the grass and all the gardens are drowned in Nature's
tears. There can be no lounging on sunny terraces, no delicious dreaming
under shady beech-trees, this lost afternoon.

Giving in to the inevitable with a cheerful resignation worthy of
record, they have all congregated in the grand old hall, one of the
chief glories of Aghyohillbeg.

Through a vague but mistaken notion that it will add to their comfort
and make them cosier and more forgetful of--or at least more indifferent
to--the sunshine of yesterday, they have had an enormous fire of pine
logs kindled upon the hearth. When too late, they discover it to be a
discomfort; but, with a stoicism worthy a better cause, they decline to
acknowledge their error, and stand in groups round the aggressive logs,
pretending to enjoy them, but in reality dying of heat.

Meanwhile, the fragrant pieces of pine roar and crackle merrily,
throwing shadows up the huge chimney, and casting bright gleams of light
upon the exquisite oaken carving of the ancient chimney-piece that
reaches almost to the lofty ceiling and is now blackened by age and
beautiful beyond description.

Olga, in a sage-green gown, is lying back listlessly in a deep
arm-chair; she has placed an elbow on either arm of it, and has brought
her fingers so far towards each other that their tips touch. Hermia
Herrick, in a gown of copper-red, is knitting languidly a little silk
sock for the child nestling silently at her knee.

Monica, in plain white India muslin, is doing nothing, unless smiling
now and then at Brian Desmond be anything, who is lying on a bear-skin
rug, looking supremely happy and full of life and spirits. He has come
over from Coole very early, being generously urged so to do by Madam
O'Connor when parting with him last night. Ryde is not on the field, so
the day is his own.

Miss Fitzgerald is looking rather handsome, in a dress of the very
tiniest check, that is meant for a small woman only, or a child, and so
makes her appear several sizes larger than she really is. Ulic Ronayne,
standing leaning against the chimney-piece as close to Olga as
circumstances will permit, is silent to a fault; and, indeed, every one
but Mr. Kelly has succumbed to the damp depression of the air.

They have had only one distraction all day,--the arrival of another
guest, a distant cousin of their hostess, who has been lauding her for a
week