ntly in their intimacy, and remarkable for
always speaking well of them, so that the world will certainly give it
against them. The gist of all this tiresome story is, that Kennyfeck
and the ladies would, if occasion served, pay off the old debt to me;
therefore, beware if you hear me canvassed in that quarter!" Linton,
like many other cunning people, very often lapsed into little
confessions of the tactics by which he played his game in the world,
and although Cashel was not by any means a dangerous confidant to such
disclosures, he now marked with feelings not all akin to satisfaction
this acknowledgment of his friend's skill.

"You 'd never have shown your face there again, I 'll wager a hundred!"
said Linton, reading in the black look of Roland's countenance an
expression he did not fancy.

"You are right. I should have deemed it unfair to impose on the young
lady a part so full of awkwardness as every meeting must necessitate."

"That comes of your innocence about women, my dear friend; they have
face for anything. It is not hypocrisy, it is not that they do not feel,
and feel deeply, but their sense of command, their instinct of what is
becoming, is a thousand times finer than ours; and I am certain
that when we take all manner of care to, what is called, spare their
feelings, we are in reality only sparing them a cherished opportunity of
exercising a control over those feelings which we foolishly suppose to
be as ungovernable as our own."

Either not agreeing with the sentiment, or unable to cope with its
subtlety, Cashel sat some time without speaking. From Olivia Kennyfeck
his thoughts reverted to one in every respect unlike her,--the daring,
impetuous Maritana.

He wondered within himself whether _her_ bold, impassioned nature
could be comprehended within Linton's category, and a secret sense of
rejoicing thrilled through him as he replied to himself in the negative.

"I 'd wager a trifle, Roland, from that easy smile you wear, that your
memory has called up one example, at least, unfavorable to my theory.
Eh! I have guessed aright Come then, out with it, man,--who is this
peerless paragon of pure ingenuous truth?--who is she whose nature is
the transparent crystal where fair thoughts are enshrined? No denizen
of our misty northland, I'll be sworn, but some fair Mexican, with as
little disguise as drapery. Confess, I say--there is a confession, I 'll
be sworn--and so make a clean breast of it."

It str