"It isn't truth! – it isn't!" interrupts Monica, blushing furiously, and speaking with much indignation. "I don't believe a single word of it!"
"And with her heels – "
"Terence!"
"In mid-air. She was kicking them up and down with delight," says Terence, fairly bubbling over with joy at the recollection. "It was the most humiliating sight for a modest brother. I shall never forgive her for it. Besides, the strange young man was – "
"If you say another word," says Monica, white with wrath and tears in her eyes, "I shall never speak to you again, or help you out of any trouble."
This awful threat has the desired effect of reducing Mr. Beresford to subjection. He goes down before the foe, and truckles to her meanly.
"You needn't take it so much to heart," he says soothingly: "there wasn't much in it, after all; and your shoes are very pretty, and so are your feet."
The compliment works wonders; Monica quite brightens up again, but the two old ladies are hopelessly scandalized.
"I feel assured, Terence," says Miss Priscilla, with much dignity, "that under no circumstances could a niece of mine show too much of her – her – "
Here Miss Priscilla blushes, and breaks down.
"Legs?" suggests Terry, politely.
"But who was the strange young man?" asks Miss Penelope, curiously.
"Our friend of the hay-cart said his name was Desmond, and that he was nephew to the master of the house behind the big gates," returns Kit, fluently.
"Desmond!" says Miss Priscilla, greatly agitated. "Let me never hear you mention that name again! It has been our bane! Forget you have ever been so unfortunate as to encounter this young man; and if ill luck should ever drive him across your path again, remember you do not – you never can– know him."
"But I'm certain he will know Monica if he sees her again," says Kit. "He stared at her as if she had seven heads."
"No wonder, considering her equivocal position. And as to knowing Monica, I'm not certain of that, of course, but I'm utterly positive he could swear to her shoes in a crowd," says Terence, with unholy delight. "He was enchanted with them, and with the clocks on her stockings: I think he was taking the pattern of them."
"He was not," says Monica, almost weeping. "He couldn't see them. I was too high up."
"What will you bet he doesn't know the color of them?" asks her tormentor, with a fresh burst of appreciation of the undignified scene. "When I see him again I'll ask him."
"Terence," says Miss Priscilla, growing very pale, "you must never see him again, or, at all events, you must never speak to him. Understand, once for all, that intimacy between us and the inhabitants of Coole is impossible. This feud I hint at touches you even more closely than it touches us, but you cannot feel it more than we do, – perhaps not as much. The honor of our family has suffered at the hands of the Master of Coole. He is the enemy of our house!"
"Priscilla!" murmurs Miss Penelope, in a low and trembling tone.
"Do not try to check me, Penelope. I will speak," says Miss Priscilla, sternly. "This man, years ago, offered one near and dear to us an indignity not to be lightly borne. The world is wide," turning to the astonished children, "you can make friends where you choose; but I would have you recollect that never can a Beresford and a Desmond have aught in common."
"But what have the Desmonds done to us, Aunt Priscilla?" asks Monica, a good deal awed by the old lady's solemnity.
"Some other time you shall know all," says Miss Priscilla in the low tone one might adopt if speaking of the last appalling murder.
"Yes, some other time," echoes Miss Penelope, gently.
CHAPTER III
How Monica studies the landscape.
"Is it thrue, ma'am, what I hear, that ye'll be wantin' a maid for Miss Monica?" asks Mrs. Reilly, the cook at Moyne, dropping a respectful courtesy just inside the drawing-room door. "Ryan let dhrop a word to me about it, so I made so bould, ma'am, as to come upstairs an' tell ye I think I know a girl as will come in handy to ye."
"And who is she, Reilly?" asks Miss Priscilla anxiously.
"She's a very good girl, ma'am, an' smart, an' nate, an' I think ye'll like her," replies cook, who, like all Irish people, finds a difficulty in giving a direct answer to a direct question. Perhaps, too, there is a little wiliness in her determination not to name the new servant's parentage just at present.
"I daresay; I place great reliance upon your opinion, Reilly. But who is she? Does she come from the village, or from one of the farms? I should prefer the farms."
"She's as tidy as she can be," says Mrs. Reilly, amiably but still evasively, "an' a bit of a scholard into the bargain, an' a very civil tongue in her head. She's seventeen all out, ma'am, and never yet gave her mother a saucy word."
"That is as it should be," says Miss Priscilla, commendingly. "You feel a great interest in this girl, I can see. You know her well?"
"Yes, miss. She is me uncle's wife's sisther's child, an' as good a girl as ever stepped in shoe leather."
"She is then?" asks Miss Priscilla, faintly, puzzled by this startling relationship.
"She's that girl of the Cantys', ma'am, and as likely a colleen as ever ye met, though I say it as shouldn't, she being kin-like," says Mrs. Reilly, boldly, seeing her time is come.
"What! that pretty, blue-eyed child that called to see you yesterday? She is from the village, then?" with manifest distaste.
"An' what's the matther wid the village, ma'am?" By this time Mrs. Reilly has her arms akimbo, and has an evident thirst for knowledge full upon her.
"But I fear she is flighty and wild, and not at all domesticated in any way."
"An' who has the face to say that, ma'am? Give me the names of her dethractors," says Mrs. Reilly, in an awful tone, that seemed to demand the blood of the "dethractors."
"I feel sure, Reilly," says Miss Priscilla, slowly, "that you are not aware of the position your arms have taken. It is most unbecoming." Mrs. Reilly's arms dropped to her sides. "And as for this girl you speak of, I hear she is, as I say, very flighty."
"Don't believe a word of it, ma'am," says cook, with virtuous indignation. "Just because she holds up her head a bit, an' likes a ribbon or two, there's no holdin' the gossips down below," indicating the village by a backward jerk of her thumb. "She's as dacent a little sowl as you'd wish to see, an' has as nate a foot as there is in the county. The Cantys has all a character for purty feet."
"Pretty feet are all very well in their way," says Miss Priscilla, nodding her head. "But can she sew? and is she quiet and tractable, and – "
"Divil a thing she can't do, ma'am, axin' yer pardon," says Mrs. Reilly, rather losing herself in the excitement of the moment. "Just thry her, ma'am, an' if ye don't like her, an' if Miss Monica finds even one fault in her, just send her back to her mother. I can't say fairer nor that."
"No, indeed. Very well, Reilly, let her come up to me to-morrow; and see that her inside clothes are all right, and let her know she must never be out after dark."
"Yes, ma'am," says the triumphant Reilly, beating a hasty retreat.
Half an hour afterwards she encounters Monica upon the avenue.
"Why, where are you going, Mrs. Reilly?" asks Monica, seeing that cook is got up in all her war-paint, regardless of expense.
"To mass first, miss," says Mrs. Reilly.
"Where's that?" asks Monica, with foreign ignorance.
"Law! to the chapel, miss," says Reilly, with an amused smile.
"But