But surely your lover's arms cannot be counted a prison, my life!"

"Yes, if they held me when I wanted to get away."

"But," reproachfully, "would you want to get away?"

She hesitates, and, lifting one arm, runs her fingers coaxingly through
the hair fashion has left him.

"I don't want to go away now, at all events," she temporizes sweetly.
Then, a moment later, "But I _must_, nevertheless. Come," nervously, "we
have been here a long time, and Madam O'Connor will be angry with me;
and besides," pityingly, "you have all that long drive home still before
you."

"I forgot all about the time," says Desmond, truthfully. "You are right:
we must go in. Good-night again, my own."

Without waiting for permission this time, he stoops and presses his lips
to hers. An instant later he knows with a thrill of rapture that his
kiss has been returned.

CHAPTER XXIII.

How Mary Browne makes confession, though not by creed a Romanist;
and how those who receive it are far removed from being holy
fathers!--Moreover, I would have you see there is more acting off
the stage than on it.

Monica's week at Aghyohillbeg is drawing to a close. The day has dawned
that is to usher in at even the famous representation of "The School for
Scandal," as given by Miss Fitzgerald, Captain Cobbett, etc.

The whole house is topsy-turvy, no room being sacred from the actors and
actresses (save the mark!), and all the servants are at their wit's end.
There have been men down from the Gayety Theatre, Dublin, who have seen
about the stage, and there have been other men from the village of
Rossmoyne to help in the decoration of the ballroom, and between these
two different sets of men an incessant war has been raging for many
days.

Now at last the house is comparatively quiet, and, as four o'clock
strikes, Madam O'Connor finds herself in her own special den (the only
spot that has not been disturbed), with a tea-equipage before her, and
all her ladies-in-waiting round her.

These ladies, for the most part, are looking full of suppressed
excitement, and are in excellent spirits and irreproachable tea-gowns.
Mary Browne, who has developed into a general favorite, is making some
laughing remark about Lord Rossmoyne, who, with all the other men, is
absent.

"D'ye know what it is, Mary?" says Madam O'Connor, in her unchecked
brogue; "you might do something else with Rossmoyne besides making game
of him."

"What?" says Mary Browne