now that you have heard from me. Young men are so very particular
about things, and I don't know what he might say of me if he knew
that I had written home to you about his private affairs. All the
same if I can be of any service to you, pray let me know. Excuse
haste. And believe me to be,

Yours most sincerely,

MARY QUIN.

A Roman Catholic;--one whom no one knew but the priest;--a girl who
perhaps never had a father! All this was terrible to Lady Scroope. Roman
Catholics,--and especially Irish Roman Catholics,--were people whom,
as she thought, every one should fear in this world, and for whom
everything was to be feared in the next. How would it be with the Earl
if this heir also were to tell him some day that he was married? Would
not his grey hairs be brought to the grave with a double load of sorrow?
However, for the present she thought it better to say not a word to the
Earl.

CHAPTER III.

SOPHIE MELLERBY.

Lady Scroope thought a great deal about her friend's communication, but
at last made up her mind that she could do nothing till Fred should have
returned. Indeed she hardly knew what she could do when he did come
back. The more she considered it the greater seemed to her to be the
difficulty of doing anything. How is a woman, how is even a mother, to
caution a young man against the danger of becoming acquainted with a
pretty girl? She could not mention Miss O'Hara's name without mentioning
that of Lady Mary Quin in connexion with it. And when asked, as of
course she would be asked, as to her own information, what could she
say? She had been told that he had made himself acquainted with a widow
lady who had a pretty daughter, and that was all! When young men will
run into such difficulties, it is, alas, so very difficult to interfere
with them!

And yet the matter was of such importance as to justify almost any
interference. A Roman Catholic Irish girl of whom nothing was known but
that her mother was said to be a widow, was, in Lady Scroope's eyes, as
formidable a danger as could come in the way of her husband's heir. Fred
Neville was, she thought, with all his good qualities, exactly the man
to fall in love with a wild Irish girl. If Fred were to write home some
day and say that he was about to marry such a bride,--or, worse again,
that he had married her, the tidings would nearly kill the Earl. After
all that had been endured, such a termination to the hopes of the fami