ook at it?"

"Certainly, my dear, if you wish me to do so." And she took the
letter from her daughter's hand, and read it.

"Just what one would expect from him, my dear; eager, impetuous, and
thoughtless. One should not blame him much, for he does not mean to
do harm. But if he had any sense, he would know that he was taking
trouble for nothing."

"And what shall I do, mamma?"

"Well, I really think that I should answer him." It was delightful to
see the perfect confidence which the mother had in her daughter. "And
I think I should see him, if he will insist upon it. It is foolish in
him to persist in remembering two words which you spoke to him as a
child; but perhaps it will be well that you should tell him yourself
that you were a child when you spoke those two words."

And then Clara sent off the following reply, written under her
mother's dictation; though the countess strove very hard to convince
her daughter that she was wording it out of her own head:--

Lady Clara Desmond presents her compliments to Mr. Owen
Fitzgerald, and will see Mr. Owen Fitzgerald at Desmond
Court at two o'clock to-morrow, if Mr. Owen Fitzgerald
persists in demanding such an interview. Lady Clara
Desmond, however, wishes to express her opinion that it
would be better avoided.

Desmond Court,
Thursday evening.

The countess thought that this note was very cold and formal, and
would be altogether conclusive; but, nevertheless, at about eleven
o'clock that night there came another messenger from Hap House with
another letter, saying that Owen would be at Desmond Court at two
o'clock on the following day.

"He is very foolish; that is all I can say," said the countess.

All that night and all the next morning poor Clara was very wretched.
That she had been right to give up a suitor who lived such a life as
Owen Fitzgerald lived she could not doubt. But, nevertheless, was she
true in giving him up? Had she made any stipulation as to his life
when she accepted his love? If he called her false, as doubtless he
would call her, how would she defend herself? Had she any defence
to offer? It was not only that she had rejected him, a poor lover;
but she had accepted a rich lover! What could she say to him when he
upbraided her for such sordid conduct?

And then as to her whistling him down the wind. Did she wish to do
that? In what state did her heart stand towards him? Might it not
be that, let her be ever