hall, and was sorry for her.

Indeed, I wanted new friends, for the old were angry with me or held
aloof from me.

When my engagement was announced my godmother had come in hot haste from
her cousin's dying bed, which now she hardly left, to remonstrate with
my grandfather and grandmother. She had urged and pleaded with them, had
done all she could, seeing that she was, as she said to me, desperately
sorry for them, and had finally left them in a coldness.

"You poor child!" she said to me when I met her in the avenue, she
driving her fast mare in the smart dog-cart which was her favourite
equipage, I on foot. She jumped down and held the reins over her arm
while she talked. "What a face for a bride! Why, Bawn, you are older by
ten years than the child I used to know. They are mad, mad, poor dear
souls, to let Garret Dawson frighten them; and I am helpless, because
they will tell me nothing. Couldn't you stand out, Bawn?"

I shook my head.

"If only Theobald were here!" she said, in a helpless passion. "If only
Theobald were here! To think that they should rob him of his sweetheart
because they are caught in Dawson's spider's web. Their own grandchild!
It seems unnatural. And you two lovers from your cradles!"

I don't know what impelled me to tell her the truth, but the words came
to my lips and I spoke them.

"I never loved Theobald and he never loved me," I said. "They have not
that at their doors. I should not have married Theobald."

"Why, God bless me, child!" she said, staring at me. "You will be
telling me next that you are in love with Richard Dawson. But I shall
not believe it, not with that face."

She went away with a look of hopeless bewilderment.

I fared less well with Maureen, who was bitterly angry with me and said
things to me that I could not have borne if she had been always
responsible for what she said.

"A fine husband you'll be getting, Miss Bawn," she said. "There's no
accounting for ladies' tastes, and by all accounts there are a good many
ladies who are fond of Master Richard. Ask Lady Ardaragh. There isn't
much she wouldn't give him, they say. If half the stories are true,
there are many that have a better right to him than you, Miss Bawn. And
to think you've thrown over my darling boy for Garret Dawson's son!"

I must have looked frightened, for she became suddenly contrite, and,
throwing her arms about me, rated herself for the things she had said,
saying that she knew I wasn'