s are few and far between, and indecent scandal unknown,
the smallest trifles are seized upon with avidity and manufactured into
mountains. "A good appearance," Miss Penelope was taught at school, "is
the first step in life," and here have these children been making
_their_ appearance for the first time in a common hay-cart.

What will Madam O'Connor say? Madam O'Connor's father having always laid
claim to being a direct descendant of one of the old kings of Munster,
Madam's veins of course are filled with blood royal, and as such are to
be held in reverence. What _won't_ this terrible old woman say, when she
hears of the Beresfords' escapade?

The Misses Blake sit shivering, blinking their eyelids, and afraid to
say anything.

"We got on splendidly," Terence is saying, "and might indeed have
finished our journey respectably, but for Monica. _She_ laid our
reputation in the dust."

Monica turns upon him an appealing glance from her large soft eyes that
would have melted any heart but that of a brother's.

"Aunt Priscilla," says the adamantine youth, "what is the name of the
house with a big gate, about a half a mile from this?"

"Coole Castle," replies she, stiffly, the very fact of having to mention
the residence of the detested Desmond making her heart beat violently.
But Terry is a person blind to speaking glances and deaf to worded
hints. In effect, Terry and tact are two; so he goes on, unheeding his
aunt's evident disrelish for the subject,--

"Well, just as we got to Coole, I saw a fellow standing inside the
entrance-gate, smoking a cigar. I fancied he looked amused, but would
have thought nothing of that, only I heard him laugh aloud, and saw he
was staring over my head--I was driving--to where Monica and Kit were,
on the top of the hay. It occurred to me then to see what the girls were
doing, so I stood up on the shaft, and looked, and----"

Here he pauses, as though slightly overcome.

"What, my dear?" asks Miss Priscilla, anxiously.

"There was Monica lying in an aesthetic attitude,--_very_ aesthetic,--with
her chin in her hands, and her eyes on the horse's ears, and her
thoughts I presume in heaven, or wherever young ladies keep them, and
with her heels----"

"It isn't _truth_!--it _isn't_!" interrupts Monica, blushing furiously,
and speaking with much indignation. "I don't believe a single word of
it!"

"And with her heels----"

"_Terence!_"

"In mid-air. She was kicking them up and down w