f as a relative of Danny Mann's. She retired at once and Hardress and
Kyrle sat talking together of Anne Chute. The sight of his friend's
sufferings won Hardress's sympathies. He protested his disbelief in the
idea of another attachment, and recommended perseverance.

"Trust everything to me," he said. "For your sake I will take some pains
to become better known to this extraordinary girl, and you may depend on
it you shall not suffer in my good report."

When the household was asleep, Hardress went to his wife's room, and
found her troubled because of the strangeness of their circumstances.

"I was thinking," she said, "what a heart-break it would be to my father
if anyone put it into his head that the case was worse than it is. No
more would be wanting, but just a little word on a scrap of paper, to
let him know that he needn't be uneasy, and he'd know all in time."

The suggestion appeared to jar against the young husband's inclinations.
He replied that if she wished he would return with her to her home, and
declare the marriage.

"If you are determined on certainly destroying our happiness," he
continued, "your will shall be dearer to me than fortune or friends. If
you have a father to feel for you, you will not forget, my love, that I
have a mother whom I love as tenderly, and whose feelings deserve some
consideration."

He took her hand and pressed it in a soothing manner.

"Come, dry those sweet eyes, while I tell you shortly what my plans
shall be," he said.

"You have heard me speak of Danny Mann's sister, who lives on the side
of the Purple Mountain, in the Gap of Dunlough? I have had two neat
rooms fitted up for you in her cottage, and you can have books to read,
and a little garden to amuse you, and a Kerry pony to ride over the
mountains. In the meantimes I will steal a visit now and then to my
mother, who spends the autumn in the neighbourhood. I will gradually let
her into my secret, and obtain her forgiveness. I am certain she will
not withhold it. I shall then present you to her. She will commend your
modesty and gentleness; we will send for your father, and then where is
the tongue that shall venture to wag against the fame of Eily Cregan!"

The young man left her, a little chagrined at her apparent slowness in
appreciating his noble condescension. In his boyhood he had entertained
a passion for his cousin, Anne Chute; but after the long separation of
school and college, he had imagined that h