so foolish; I must speak to her about it. This must not occur
again. I think that if you were to tell her to come down here--'

'Oh no, mamma; Olive would know at once that I had been speaking about
her affairs; you must promise me to make only an indirect use of what I
have told you.'

'Of course--of course, my dear Alice; no one shall ever know what has
passed between us. You can depend upon me. I will not speak to Olive
till I get a favourable opportunity. And now I have to go and see after
the servants. Are you going upstairs?'

On Alice, tense with the importance of the explanation, this dismissal
fell not a little chillingly; but she was glad that she had been able to
induce her mother to consider the matter seriously.

A few minutes passed dreamily, almost unconsciously; Mrs. Barton threw
two sods of turf on the fire, and resumed her thinking. Her first
feeling of resentment against her eldest daughter had vanished; and she
now thought solely of the difficulty she was in, and how she could best
extricate herself from it. 'So Olive was foolish enough to allow Captain
Hibbert to kiss her in the conservatory!' Mrs. Barton murmured to
herself. The morality of the question interested her profoundly. She had
never allowed anyone to kiss her before she was married; and she was
full of pity and presentiment for the future of a young girl who could
thus compromise herself. But in Olive's love for Captain Hibbert Mrs.
Barton was concerned only so far as it affected the labour and time that
would have to be expended in persuading her to cease to care for him.
That this was the right thing to do Mrs. Barton did not for a moment
doubt. Her daughter was a beautiful girl, would probably be the belle of
the season; therefore to allow her, at nineteen, to marry a
thousand-a-year captain would be, Mrs. Barton thought, to prove herself
incapable, if not criminal, in the performance of the most important
duty of her life. Mrs. Barton trembled when she thought of the sending
of the letter: if the story were to get wind in Dublin, it might wreck
her hopes of the marquis. Therefore, to tell Barnes to leave the house
would be fatal. Things must be managed gently, very gently. Olive must
be talked to, how far her heart was engaged in the matter must be found
out, and she must be made to see the folly, the madness of risking her
chance of winning a coronet for the sake of a beggarly thousand-a-year
captain. And, good heavens! the chape