e now for the future, the crathur! Oh, wirra! wirra!" says
Timothy, sympathetically, as he shambles towards the door.

When he is gone, Miss Priscilla turns upon Terence and Kit.

"I must say, I think your mirth at such a time most unseemly," she says.
"I am glad Monica takes no part in it. Terence, did you go up to the
widow Driscoll with my message this morning?"

"Yes, aunt."

She had evidently expected him to say "no," because her tone is
considerably mollified when she speaks again.

"Was she pleased, do you think?"

"Yes, aunt."

"She said so, perhaps?"

"No, aunt."

"Then what _did_ she say? I wish, my dear boy, you would try to be a
little less reticent."

"She said, 'Her duty to you, aunt, and her very coarse veins were worse
than ever.'"

"Varicose, Terence--varicose!"

"She said very coarse, aunt, and I suppose she knows more about them
than any one else."

He has a very sweet face, and it is more than usually so as he says all
this.

"And her son, how is he, poor soul?" asks Miss Penelope, as Miss
Priscilla withdraws, beaten, into the background.

"His duty to you, too, and 'he is better, but has been much afflicted
with the egg-cups for the last two days.'"

"_The what!_" says Miss Penelope, shifting her _pinceneze_ uneasily, and
looking perplexed in the extreme.

"Oh, Terry! how can you be so silly?" says Kit, with another merry
laugh.

"How am I silly?" with an impassible countenance. "Young Driscoll is
silly, of course, and evidently looks upon part of the breakfast-ware as
enemies of some sort. But that is not _my_ fault."

"Hiccoughs he must have meant, my dear," says Miss Priscilla, hastily.
"Dear--dear--dear! what a terrible shock he--they--must have got last
night at Coole!"

* * * * *

When day is deepening into eventide, Monica, finding Kit alone, kneels
down beside her, and lays her cheek to hers.

All day long she has been brooding miserably over her lover's danger,
and dwelling with foolish persistency upon future dangers born of her
terrified imagination.

She had been down to their trysting-place at the river, hardly hoping to
find him there, yet had been terribly disappointed when she had _not_
found him, Brian at that very moment being busy with police and
magistrates and law generally.

"What is it, ducky?" says Kit, very tenderly, laying down her book and
pressing her pretty sister close to her.

"Kit," says Monica, with t