n noble: I feel that petty arts
are not the way to win you, and I scorn them. Sweet Mistress Kate, I
adore you! You are the best and noblest, as well as the loveliest of
women!"

"Oh, hush, Mr. Neville! I am a creature of clay,--and you are
another,--and both of us coming home from a funeral. Do think of
_that_."

Here they were interrupted by Mr. Peyton asking Kate to lend him a
shilling for the groom. Kate replied aloud that she had left her purse
at home, then whispered in his ear that she had not a shilling in the
world: and this was strictly true; for her little all was Tom
Leicester's now. With this they reached the Hall, and the coy Kate gave
both Neville and Gaunt the slip, and got amongst her mates. There her
tongue went as fast as her neighbors', though she had just come back
from a funeral.

But soon the ladies and gentlemen were all invited to the reading of the
will.

And now chance, which had hitherto befriended Neville by throwing him
into one carriage with Kate, gave Gaunt a turn. He found her a moment
alone and near the embrasure of a window. He seized the opportunity, and
asked her, might he say a word in her ear?

"What a question!" said she, gayly; and the next moment they had the
embrasure to themselves.

"Kate," said he, hurriedly, "in a few minutes, I suppose, I shall be
master of this place. Now you told me once you would rather be an abbess
or a nun than marry me."

"Did I?" said Kate. "What a sensible speech! But the worst of it is, I'm
never in the same mind long."

"Well," replied Griffith, "I think of all that falls from your lips, and
your will is mine; only for pity's sake do not wed any man but me. You
have known me so long; why, you know the worst of me by this time; and
you have only seen the outside of _him_."

"Detraction! is that what you wanted to say to me?" asked Kate, freezing
suddenly.

"Nay, nay; it was about the abbey. I find you can be an abbess without
going and shutting yourself up and breaking one's heart. The way is, you
build a convent in Ireland, and endow it; and then you send a nun over
to govern it under you. Bless your heart, you can do anything with
money; and I shall have money enough before the day is over. To be sure,
I _did_ intend to build a kennel and keep harriers, and you know that
costs a good penny: but we couldn't manage a kennel and an abbey too; so
now down goes the English kennel, and up goes the Irish abbey."

"But you are a Protestan