Miss Penelope, timidly.

"Hah!" says Miss Priscilla: this ejaculation is not meant for surprise
or acquiescence, but is merely a warlike snort.

"And very loving, too," says Miss Penelope, dreamily. "I never saw such
eyes in my life! and he never took them off her."

"Penelope," says Miss Priscilla, with such a sudden and awful amount of
vehemence as literally makes Miss Penelope jump, "I am ashamed of you.
Whatever we--that is" (slightly confused) "_you_ may think about that
young man, please keep it to yourself, and at least let me never hear
you speak of a Desmond in admiring terms."

So saying, she stalks from the rooms and drives down to the village to
execute a commission that has been hanging over her for a fortnight, and
which she chooses to-day to fulfil, if only to prove to the outer world
that she is in no wise upset by the afternoon excitement.

Yet in a very short time she returns from her drive, and with a
countenance so disturbed that Miss Penelope's heart is filled with fresh
dismay.

"What is it?" she says, following Miss Priscilla into her own room. "You
have heard something further; you have seen----"

"Yes, I have seen _him_--young Desmond," says Miss Priscilla, with an
air of much agitation. "It was just outside the village, on my way home;
and he was carrying a little hurt child in his arms, and he was hushing
it so tenderly; and--the little one was looking up in his face--and he
kissed it--and----_Why_ isn't he a _bad_, _wicked_ young man?" cries
Miss Priscilla, in a frenzy of despair, bursting into tears.

CHAPTER XXIX.

How Miss Priscilla is driven to enter Coole--How she there receives
an important proposal, but with much fortitude declines it--And how
The Desmond suffers more from a twinge of conscience than from a
bullet.

In the morning, a certain amount of constraint prevails with every one.
Kit is, of course, aware of all that has happened, and of the day's
expected visitor for Monica, who has refused to come down to breakfast,
and who is as unsettled and miserable as she well can be. Kit has
espoused her cause _con amore_, and is (I need hardly say) ready for
open war at a moment's notice. She has indeed arranged a plan of action
that will bring her on the battle-field at a critical moment to deliver
a speech culled from some old novels in her room and meant to reduce
both her aunts to annihilation.

When breakfast is over she disappears to study her part afr