e spirit of his lady-love.

'That young buck's a man of consequence,' Toole rattled on; 'Miss does
not smile on everybody.'

'Ay, she looks as if butter would not melt in her mouth, but I warrant
cheese won't choke her,' Magnolia laughed out with angry eyes.

Magnolia's fat and highly painted parent--poor bragging, good-natured,
cunning, foolish Mrs. Macnamara, the widow--joined, with a venemous
wheeze in the laugh.

Those who suppose that all this rancour was produced by mere feminine
emulations and jealousy do these ladies of the ancient sept Macnamara
foul wrong. Mrs. Mack, on the contrary, had a fat and genial soul of her
own, and Magnolia was by no means a particularly ungenerous rival in the
lists of love. But Aunt Rebecca was hoitytoity upon the Macnamaras, whom
she would never consent to more than half-know, seeing them with
difficulty, often failing to see them altogether--though Magnolia's
stature and activity did not always render that easy. To-day, for
instance, when the firing was brisk, and some of the ladies uttered
pretty little timid squalls, Miss Magnolia not only stood fire like
brick, but with her own fair hands cracked off a firelock, and was more
complimented and applauded than all the marksmen beside, although she
shot most dangerously wide, and was much nearer hitting old Arthur Slowe
than that respectable gentleman, who waved his hat and smirked
gallantly, was at all aware. Aunt Rebecca, notwithstanding all this, and
although she looked straight at her from a distance of only ten steps,
yet she could not see that large and highly-coloured heroine; and
Magnolia was so incensed at her serene impertinence that when Gertrude
afterwards smiled and courtesied twice, she only held her head the
higher and flung a flashing defiance from her fine eyes right at that
unoffending virgin.

Everybody knew that Miss Rebecca Chattesworth ruled supreme at Belmont.
With a docile old general and a niece so young, she had less resistance
to encounter than, perhaps, her ardent soul would have relished.
Fortunately for the general it was only now and then that Aunt Becky
took a whim to command the Royal Irish Artillery. She had other hobbies
just as odd, though not quite so scandalous. It had struck her active
mind that such of the ancient women of Chapelizod as were destitute of
letters--mendicants and the like--should learn to read. Twice a week her
'old women's school,' under that energetic lady's presidency,