rcupine. You'd be at my feet,
Mathew Kearney--ay, at my feet.'

'So I would, Miss Betty,' chimed he in, with a malicious grin, 'if I was
only sure you'd be as cruel as the last time I knelt there. Oh dear! oh
dear! and to think that I once wanted to marry that woman!'

'That you did! You'd have put your hand in the fire to win her.'

'By my conscience, I'd have put myself altogether there, if I had won her.'

'You understand now, sir,' said she haughtily, 'that there's no more
between us.'

'Thank God for the same!' ejaculated he fervently.

'And that no nephew of mine comes courting a daughter of yours?'

'For his own sake, he'd better not.'

'It's for his own sake I intend it, Mathew Kearney. It's of himself I'm
thinking. And now, thanking you for the pleasant evening I've passed, and
your charming society, I'll take my leave.'

'I hope you'll not rob us of your company till you take a dish of tea,'
said he, with well-feigned politeness.

'It's hard to tear one's self away, Mr. Kearney; but it's late already.'

'Couldn't we induce you to stop the night, Miss Betty?' asked he, in a tone
of insinuation. 'Well, at least you'll let me ring to order your horse?'

'You may do that if it amuses you, Mathew Kearney; but, meanwhile, I'll
just do what I've always done in the same place--I'll just go look for my
own beast and see her saddled myself; and as Peter Gill is leaving you
to-morrow, I'll take him back with me to-night.'

'Is he going to you?' cried he passionately.

'He's going to _me_, Mr. Kearney, with your leave, or without it, I don't
know which I like best.' And with this she swept out of the room, while
Kearney closed his eyes and lay back in his chair, stunned and almost
stupefied.

CHAPTER XXII

A CONFIDENTIAL TALK

Dick Kearney walked the bog from early morning till dark without firing a
shot. The snipe rose almost at his feet, and wheeling in circles through
the air, dipped again into some dark crevice of the waste, unnoticed by
him! One thought only possessed, and never left him, as he went. He had
overheard Nina's words to his sister, as he made his escape over the fence,
and learned how she promised to 'spare him'; and that if not worried about
him, or asked to pledge herself, she should be 'merciful,' and not entangle
the boy in a hopeless passion.

He would have liked to have scoffed at the insolence of this speech, and
treated it as a trait of overweening vanity; he would ha