-one an English Viscount, the other a Comte de St Marsante; and
proudest of all of his own handsome figure and his local dignities. But
he was frankly ashamed to own himself father of his second daughter,
Marguerite, the "ugly duckling" of a good-looking family, and with no
gifts or promise to qualify her plainness.

But the squireen was probably too full of his own self-importance to
waste much thought or regret on an insignificant, unattractive girl,
though she was his own child. He loved to strut about among his humble
neighbours in all the unprovincial glory of ruffles and lace, buck-skins
and top-boots, and snowy, wide-spreading cravat. He was the king of
Tipperary dandies, known far beyond his own county as "Buck Power" and
"Shiver-the-Frills"; and what pleased his vanity still more, he was a
Justice of the Peace, with authority to scour the country at the head of
a company of dragoons, tracking down rebels and spreading terror
wherever he went. That he was laughed at for his coxcombry and hated for
his petty tyranny only seemed to add to the zest of his enjoyment of
life; and he saw, at least, a knighthood as the prospective recognition
of his importance, and his services to the King and the peace.

Such was the father and such the home of Marguerite Power, who was one
day to dazzle the world as the "most gorgeous Lady Blessington."

As with many another "ugly ducking" Marguerite Power's beauty was only
dormant in these days of childhood; and before she had graduated into
long frocks, the bud was opening which was to grow to so beautiful a
flower. If her father was blind to the change, it was patent enough to
other eyes; and she had scarcely passed her fourteenth birthday when she
had at least two lovers eager to pay homage to her girlish
charm--Captains Murray and Farmer, brother-officers of a regiment
stationed at Clonmel. To the wooing of Captain Murray, young, handsome,
and desperately in earnest, she lent a willing ear; but when thus
encouraged, he asked her to be his wife, she blushingly declined the
offer, on the ground that she was yet much too young to think of a
wedding-ring. To the rival Captain, old enough to be her father, a man,
moreover, whose evil living and Satanic temper were notorious, she
showed the utmost aversion. "I hate him," she protested in tears to her
father, who supported his suit; "and I would rather die a hundred times
than marry him."

But "Beau Power" was the last man to be mov