ck to the donor. Mrs. O'Hara was by no
means that most prudent mamma, and made, not only the seal-skin, but the
donor also welcome. Must it not be that by some chance advent such as
this that the change must be effected in her girl's life, should any
change ever be made? And her girl was good. Why should she fear for her?
The man had been brought there by her only friend, the priest, and why
should she fear him? And yet she did fear; and though her face was
never clouded when her girl spoke of the new comer, though she always
mentioned Captain Neville's name as though she herself liked the man,
though she even was gracious to him when he shewed himself near the
cottage,--still there was a deep dread upon her when her eyes rested
upon him, when her thoughts flew to him. Men are wolves to women, and
utterly merciless when feeding high their lust. 'Twas thus her own
thoughts shaped themselves, though she never uttered a syllable to her
daughter in disparagement of the man. This was the girl's chance. Was
she to rob her of it? And yet, of all her duties, was not the duty of
protecting her girl the highest and the dearest that she owned? If the
man meant well by her girl, she would wash his feet with her hair, kiss
the hem of his garments, and love the spot on which she had first seen
him stand like a young sea-god. But if evil,--if he meant evil to her
girl, if he should do evil to her Kate,--then she knew that there was
so much of the tiger within her bosom as would serve to rend him limb
from limb. With such thoughts as these she had hardly ever left them
together. Nor had such leaving together seemed to be desired by them.
As for Kate she certainly would have shunned it. She thought of Fred
Neville during all her waking moments, and dreamed of him at night. His
coming had certainly been to her as the coming of a god. Though he did
not appear on the cliffs above once or twice a week, and had done so but
for a few weeks, his presence had altered the whole tenour of her life.
She never asked her mother now whether it was to be always like this.
There was a freshness about her life which her mother understood at
once. She was full of play, reading less than was her wont, but still
with no sense of tedium. Of the man in his absence she spoke but seldom,
and when his name was on her lips she would jest with it,--as though the
coming of a young embryo lord to shoot gulls on their coast was quite a
joke. The seal-skin which he had