started Lord
Constantine on his hobby, and said Arthur was a Fenian, bent on
destroying the hobby forever. In the discussion the Countess appealed to
Anne.

"We are a fighting race," said she, with admirable caution picking her
steps through a long paragraph. "There's--there are times when no one
can hold us. This is such a time. A few months back the Fenian trouble
could have been settled in one week. Now it will take a year."

"But how?" said Vandervelt. "If you had the making of the scheme, I'm
sure it would be a success."

"In this way," she answered, bowing and smiling to his sincere
compliment, "by making all the Irish Fenians, that is, those in Ireland,
policemen."

The gentlemen laughed with one accord.

"Mr. Sullivan manages his troublesome people that way," she observed
triumphantly.

"You are a student of the leader," said Vandervelt.

"Everybody should study him, if they want to win," said Anne.

"And that's wisdom," cried Lord Constantine.

The conversation turned on opera, and the hostess wondered why Honora
did not study for the operatic stage. Then they all urged her to think
of the scheme.

"I hope," said Anne gently, "that she will never try to spoil her voice
with opera. The great singers give me the chills, and the creeps, and
the shivers, the most terrible feeling, which I never had since the day
Monsignor preached his first sermon, and broke down."

"Oh, you dear creature," cried the Countess, "what a long memory you
have."

Monsignor had to explain his first sermon. So it went on throughout the
dinner. The haze of perfect happiness gathered about Anne, and her
speech became inspired. A crown of glory descended upon her head when
the Dowager, hearing of her summer visit to Ireland with Mona and Louis
in her care, exacted a solemn promise from her that the party should
spend one month with her at Castle Moyna, her dower home.

"That lovely boy and girl," said the Countess, "will find the place
pleasant, and will make it pleasant for me; where usually I can induce
not even my son's children to come, they find it so dull."

It did not matter much to Anne what happened thereafter. The farewells,
the compliments, the joy of walking down to the coach on the arm of
Vandervelt, were as dust to this invitation of the Dowager Countess of
Skibbereen. The glory of the dinner faded away. She looked down on the
Vandervelts from the heights of Castle Moyna. She lost all at once her
fear of her