and all the rest of it? He said one or two very pretty things to me. He,
like you, said I was charming. Do you know," naively, "I have never got
over the feeling of being _obliged_ to any one who pays me a compliment?
I am obliged to _you_ now."

"And to the prince _then_. But you won't see many princes if you stay in
Ireland, I fancy: they don't hanker after the soil."

"Poor Ireland!" says Mrs. Bohun.

"And compliments, I should say, will be almost as scarce."

"Ah! now, _there_ you are wrong: _they_ fly beneath these murky skies.
We absolutely revel in them. What true Irishman but has one ripping
freely from his mouth on the very smallest chance? And then, my dear
Hermia, consider, are we not the proud possessors of the
blarney-stone?"

"I wish, dearest, you would bring yourself to think seriously of
Rossmoyne."

"I do think seriously of him. It would be impossible to think of him in
any other way, he is so dull and pompous."

"He would make an excellent husband!"

"I have had enough of husbands. They are very unsatisfactory people. And
besides----"

"Well?"

"Rossmoyne has a temper."

"And forty thousand a year."

"Not good enough."

"If you are waiting for an angel, you will wait forever. All men
are----"

"Oh, Hermia! really, I _can't_ listen to such naughty words, you know. I
really wonder at you!"

"I wasn't going to say anything of the kind," says Hermia, with great
haste, not seeing the laughter lurking in Olga's dark eyes. "I merely
meant that----"

"Don't explain!--_don't!_" says Olga; "I couldn't endure any more of
it." And she laughs aloud.

"Rossmoyne is very devoted to you. Is there anything against him, except
his temper?"

"Yes, his beard. _Nothing_ would induce me to marry a man with hair all
over his face. It isn't _clean_."

"Give him five minutes and a razor, and he might do away with it."

"Give him five minutes and a razor, and he might do away with himself
too," says Olga, provokingly. "Really. I think one thing would please me
just as much as the other."

"Oh, then, you are bent on refusing him?" says Hermia, calmly. With very
few people does she ever lose her temper; with Olga--never.

"I am not so sure of that, at all," says Olga, airily. "It is quite
within the possibilities that I may marry him some time or
other,--sooner or later. There is a delightful vagueness about those two
dates that gives me the warmest encouragement."

"It is a pity you cannot be se