ll starve myself to death first. I
will marry my six feet four or no other man in Christendom."

"Clementina!" cried her mother, deprecatingly.

"But at this moment," continued Wogan, "there very properly appears the
fairy godmother in the person of a romantical maiden aunt."

"Oh!" said Clementina, "I have a romantical maiden aunt."

"Yes," said Wogan, and turning with a bow to the Princess-mother; "your
Highness."

"I?" she exclaimed, starting up in her chair.

"Your Highness has written an encouraging letter to Captain O'Toole,"
resumed Wogan. The Princess-mother gasped, "A letter to Captain
O'Toole," and she flung up her hands and fell back in her chair.

"On the receipt of the letter Captain O'Toole gathers his friends,
borrows a horse here, a carriage there, and a hundred guineas from
Heaven knows whom, comes to the rescue like a knight-errant, and retells
the old story of how love laughs at locksmiths."

As Wogan ended, the mother rose from her chair. It may have been that
she revolted at the part she was to play; it may have been because a
fiercer gust shook the curtain and bellied it inwards. At all events she
flung the curtain aside; the snow drifted through the open window onto
the floor; outside the open window it was falling like a cascade, and
the air was icy.

"Mr. Wogan," she said, stubbornly working herself into a heat to make
more sure of her resolution, "my daughter cannot go to-night. To-morrow,
if the sky clears, yes, but to-night, no. You do not know, sir, being a
man. But my daughter has fasted through this Lent, and that leaves a
woman weak. I do forbid her going, as her father would. The very dogs
running the streets for food keep kennel on such a night. She must not
go."

Wogan did not give way, though he felt a qualm of despair, knowing all
the stubbornness of which the weak are capable, knowing how impervious
to facts or arguments.

"Your Highness," he said quickly, "we are not birds of passage to rule
our flight by seasons. We must take the moment when it comes, and it
comes now. To-night your daughter can escape; for here's a night made
for an escape."

"And for my part," cried Clementina, "I would the snow fell faster." She
crossed to the open window and held out her hands to catch the flakes.
"Would they did not melt! I believe Heaven sends the snow to shelter me.
It's the white canopy spread above my head, that I may go in state to
meet my King." She stood eager and exulta