s to say in
reply.

At this simple question Kate showed considerable alarm. "Gracious
heavens!" she cried, "you must not stop talking to him; he will turn you
inside out, and I shall be undone. Nay, you must gabble these words out,
and then run away as hard as you can gallop."

"But is it true?" asked Griffith. "Is he so much my friend?"

"Hum!" said Kate, "it is quite true, and he is not at all your friend.
There, don't you puzzle yourself, and pester me; but do as you are bid,
or we are both undone."

Quelled by a menace so mysterious, Griffith promised blind obedience;
and Kate thanked him, and bade him good night, and ordered him
peremptorily to bed.

He went.

She beckoned him back.

He came.

She leaned out, and inquired, in a soft, delicious whisper, as follows:
"Are you happy, dearest?"

"Ay, Kate, the happiest of the happy."

"Then so am I," she murmured.

And now she slowly closed the window, and gradually retired from the
eyes of her enraptured lover.

CHAPTER XII.

But while Griffith was thus sweetly employed, his neglected guests were
dispersing, not without satirical comments on their truant host. Two or
three, however, remained, and slept in the house, upon special
invitation. And that invitation came from Squire Peyton. He chose to
conclude that Griffith, disappointed by the will, had vacated the
premises in disgust, and left him in charge of them; accordingly he
assumed the master with alacrity, and ordered beds for Neville, and
Father Francis, and Major Rickards, and another. The weather was
inclement, and the roads heavy; so the gentlemen thus distinguished
accepted Mr. Peyton's offer cordially.

There were a great many things sung and said at the festive board in the
course of the evening, but very few of them would amuse or interest the
reader as they did the hearers. One thing, however, must not be passed
by, as it had its consequences. Major Rickards drank bumpers apiece to
the King, the Prince, Church and State, the Army, the Navy, and Kate
Peyton. By the time he got to her, two thirds of his discretion had
oozed away in loyalty, _esprit du corps_, and port wine; so he sang the
young lady's praises in vinous terms, and of course immortalized the
very exploit she most desired to consign to oblivion: _Arma viraginemque
canebat_. He sang the duel, and in a style which I could not,
consistently with the interests of literature, reproduce on a large
scale. Hasten we to the concl