was not intended for him, it was wrong to
allow her to continue her flirtation. But for the moment the
consideration of her own misfortunes absorbed her. Was there nothing in
life for a girl but marriage, and was marriage no more than a sensual
gratification; did a man seek nothing but a beautiful body that he could
kiss and enjoy? Did a man's desires never turn to mating with one who
could sympathize with his hopes, comfort him in his fears, and united by
that most profound and penetrating of all unions--that of the soul--be
collaborator in life's work? 'Could no man love as she did?' She was
ready to allow that marriage owned a material as well as a spiritual
aspect, and that neither could be overlooked. Some, therefore, though
their souls were as beautiful as the day, were, from purely physical
causes, incapacitated from entering into the marriage state. Cecilia was
such a one.

'Now what are you thinking about, Alice?'

'I do not know, nothing in particular; one doesn't know always of what
one is thinking! Tell me what they are saying downstairs.'

'But I have told you; that Captain Hibbert preferred my hair like this,
and I asked you if you thought he was right, but you hardly looked.'

'Yes, I did, Olive; I think the fashion suits you.'

'You won't tell anybody that I told you he kissed me? Oh, I had
forgotten about Lord Rosshill; he has been fired at. Lord Dungory
returned from Dublin, and he brought the evening paper with him. It is
full of bad news.'

'What news?' Alice asked, with a view to escaping from wearying
questions; and Olive told her a bailiff's house had been broken into by
an armed gang. 'They dragged him out of his bed and shot him in the legs
before his own door. And an attempt has been made to blow up a
landlord's house with dynamite. And in Queen's County shots have been
fired through a dining-room window--now, what else? I am telling you a
lot; I don't often remember what is in the paper. No end of hayricks
were burnt last week, and some cattle have had their tails cut off, and
a great many people have been beaten. Lord Dungory says he doesn't know
how it will all end unless the Government bring in a Coercion Act. What
do you think, Alice?'

Alice dropped some formal remarks, and Olive hoped that the state of the
country would not affect the Castle's season. She didn't know which of
the St. Leonard girls would be married first. She asked Alice to guess.
Alice said she couldn't guess, an