hat,' whispered he, as she passed him
to take Kate's arm and walk away.

'You don't mean to have a thick neighbourhood about you,' said Walpole.
'Have you any people living near?'

'Yes, we have a dear old friend--a Miss O'Shea, a maiden lady, who lives a
few miles off. By the way, there's something to show you--an old maid who
hunts her own harriers.'

'What! are you in earnest?'

'On my word, it is true! Nina can't endure her; but Nina doesn't care for
hare-hunting, and, I'm afraid to say, never saw a badger drawn in her
life.'

'And have you?' asked he, almost with horror in his tone.

'I'll show you three regular little turnspit dogs to-morrow that will
answer that question.'

'How I wish Lockwood had come out here with me,' said Walpole, almost
uttering a thought.

'That is, you wish he had seen a bit of barbarous Ireland he'd scarcely
credit from mere description. But perhaps I'd have been better behaved
before him. I'm treating you with all the freedom of an old friend of my
cousin's.'

Nina had meanwhile opened the piano, and was letting her hands stray over
the instrument in occasional chords; and then in a low voice, that barely
blended its tones with the accompaniment, she sang one of those little
popular songs of Italy, called 'Stornelli'---wild, fanciful melodies, with
that blended gaiety and sadness which the songs of a people are so often
marked by.

'That is a very old favourite of mine,' said Walpole, approaching the piano
as noiselessly as though he feared to disturb the singer; and now he stole
into a chair at her side. 'How that song makes me wish we were back again,
where I heard it first,' whispered he gently.

'I forget where that was,' said she carelessly.

'No, Nina, you do not,' said he eagerly; 'it was at Albano, the day we all
went to Pallavicini's villa.'

'And I sang a little French song, "_Si vous n'avez rien a me dire_," which
you were vain enough to imagine was a question addressed to yourself; and
you made me a sort of declaration; do you remember all that?'

'Every word of it.'

'Why don't you go and speak to my cousin; she has opened the window and
gone out upon the terrace, and I trust you understand that she expects you
to follow her.' There was a studied calm in the way she spoke that showed
she was exerting considerable self-control.

'No, no, Nina, it is with you I desire to speak; to see you that I have
come here.'

'And so you do remember that you made me