f that by and by."

One by one they all dwindle away at the word of command, Olga, true to
her word, making such a clatter as she passes Miss Fitzgerald's door as
might readily be classed with those noises popularly supposed to be able
to wake the silent dead. Whether it wakes Miss Fitzgerald is unknown to
all save her mother and her maid.

It makes Monica laugh, however who, sitting in her own room, is gazing
with dreamy delight at the pretty gown Miss Priscilla has ordered from
Mrs. Sim's for her all the way from Dublin, and which has been spread
upon her bed by Olga's maid, Mrs. Bohun having insisted on sharing that
delightful young person with her ever since her first night at
Aghyohillbeg.

Yet Aunt Priscilla will not be here to-night to see her favorite niece
dressed in her charming present.

At the last moment, not two hours agone, had come a letter from Moyne to
Madame O'Connor telling how Miss Penelope had been seized by a bad
neuralgic headache and was in such pain that Miss Priscilla could not
find it in her heart to leave her. Kit, escorted by Terence, would
arrive, however, in time for the opening act; and it would be impossible
to say how disappointed the two old ladies were (which indeed was the
strict truth), and they hoped all would be successful, etc., etc.

With a remorseful pang, Monica acknowledges to herself now that she had
felt a secret gladness when first the news had been retailed to her by
Madame O'Connor. A sense of being under an obligation to that dire
neuralgic headache, is oppressing her. It is wicked of her, and most
cruel, but the secret exultation cannot be denied.

And see how the case stands. Poor Aunt Penelope in vile suffering, Aunt
Priscilla enduring bitter disappointment,--for she had, as Monica well
knew, set her heart on witnessing these theatricals,--and Monica herself
actually glad and light at heart _because_ of the misfortunes that have
befallen them. Alas! how fiendish it all sounds!

And again, to add to the iniquity of it, for how slight a cause has she
welcomed the discomfiture of her best friends! For a few dances with
their enemy, a freedom for happy smiles and unrestrained glances,--_all_
to be made over to the enemy. For how, with Miss Priscilla's reproachful
angry eyes upon her, could she have waltzed or smiled or talked with a
Desmond?

And what is to be the end of it all? A vague feeling of terror compasses
her round about as she dwells on her forbidden