hunts down that wretched young
Ronayne," says Mrs. Fitzgerald, "is dreadful! You can't defend that,
Gertrude. I quite pity the poor lad,--drawn thus, _against his will_,
into the toils of an enchantress." Mrs. Fitzgerald pauses after this
ornate and strictly original speech, as if overcome by her own
eloquence. "I think he should be warned," she goes on presently. "A
woman like that should not be permitted to entrap a mere boy into a
marriage he will regret all his life afterwards, by means of abominable
coquetries and painted cheeks and eyes. It is horrible!"

"I never thought you were such a fool, Edith," says Madam O'Connor, with
the greatest sweetness.

"You may think as you will, Gertrude," responds Mrs. Fitzgerald, with
her faded air of juvenility sadly lost in her agitation, and shaking her
head nervously, as though afflicted with a sudden touch of palsy that
accords dismally with her youthful attire. "But I shall cling to my own
opinions. And I utterly disapprove of Mrs. Bohun."

"For me," says Bella, vindictively, "I believe her capable of
_anything_. I can't bear those women who laugh at nothing, and powder
themselves every half-hour."

"You shouldn't throw stones, Bella," says honest Madam O'Connor, now
nearly at the end of her patience. "Your glass house will be shivered if
you do. Before I took to censuring other people I'd look in a mirror, if
I were you."

"I don't understand you," says Miss Fitzgerald, turning rather pale.

"That's because you won't look in a mirror. Why, there's enough powder
on your right ear to whiten a Moor!"

"I never----" begins Bella, in a stricken tone; but Madam O'Connor stops
her.

"Nonsense! sure I'm looking at it," she says.

This hanging evidence is not to be confuted. For a moment the fair Bella
feels crushed; then she rallies nobly, and, after withering her
terrified mother with a glance, sweeps from the room, followed at a
respectful distance by Mrs. Fitzgerald, and quite closely by Madam, who
declines to see she has given offence in any way.

As they go, Mrs. Fitzgerald keeps up a gentle twitter, in the hope of
propitiating the wrathful goddess on before.

"Yes, yes, I still think young Ronayne should be warned; she is very
designing, very, and he is very soft-hearted." She had believed in young
Ronayne at one time, and had brought herself to look upon him as a
possible son-in-law, until this terrible Mrs. Bohun had cast a glamour
over him. "Yes, yes, one