d
her own thoughts.

"I think, Monica, we ought, perhaps, to be thinking of coming home," she
says, apologetically, yet with quite a motherly air. Has she not been
mounting guard over and humoring these two giddy young people before
her?

"Yes, I think so too;" and the goodness of Kit, and something else,
strike her.

"If we are asked to this dance at Clonbree, and if we go, I should like
Kit to go too," she says in a soft aside to Desmond, who says, "That is
all right: I settled it with Cobbett yesterday," in the same tone; and
then a little more energetically, as he sees the moments flying, he goes
on, "Before you go, say one thing after me. It will be a small
consolation until I see you again. Say, 'Brian, good-by.'"

"Good-by, Brian," she whispers, shyly, and then she draws her hand out
of his, and, turning to the studiously inattentive Kit, passes her arm
through hers.

"Good-by, Mr. Desmond! I trust we may soon meet again," says the
younger Miss Beresford, with rather a grand air, smiling upon him
patronizingly.

"I hope so too," says Desmond, gravely, "and that next time you will
graciously accord me a little more of your society."

Quite pleased with this delicate protest against her lengthened absence,
Kit bows politely, and she and Monica take their homeward way.

Once Monica turns, to wave him a friendly adieu, and he can see again
her soft, bare arms, her pretty baby-neck in her white dinner-gown, and
her lovely, earnest eyes. Then she is gone, and her passing seems to him
"like the ceasing of exquisite music," and nothing is left to him but
the wailing of the rising night-wind, and the memory of a perfect
girl-face that he knows will haunt him till he dies.

CHAPTER IX.

How Terry is put in the Dock--And how the two Misses Blake baffle
expectation, and show themselves in their true colors.

Monica and Kit reach the house in breathless haste. It is far later than
they imagined when lingering in happy dalliance in the flower-crowned
field below, and yet not really late for a sultry summer evening. But
the Misses Blake are fearful of colds, and expect all the household to
be in at stated hours; and the Misses Beresford are fearful of
scoldings, carrying, as they do, guilty hearts within their bosoms.

"Conscience makes cowards of us all;" and the late secret interview with
Brian Desmond has lowered the tone of their courage to such an extent
that they scarcely dare to breathe as the