row, Dick tells me,'
said Kate, with the calm tone of one who would not permit herself to be
ruffled.

'Indeed! If your remark has any _apropos_ at all, it must mean that in
marrying such a man as he is, one might escape all the difficulties of
family coldness, and I protest, as I think of it, the matter has its
advantages.'

A faint smile was all Kate's answer.

'I cannot make you angry; I have done my best, and it has failed. I am
utterly discomfited, and I'll go to bed.'

'Good-night,' said Kate, as she held out her hand.

'I wonder is it nice to have this angelic temperament---to be always right
in one's judgments, and never carried away by passion? I half suspect
perfection does not mean perfect happiness.'

'You shall tell me when you are married,' said Kate, with a laugh; and Nina
darted a flashing glance towards her, and swept out of the room.

CHAPTER LXXVIII

A MISERABLE MORNING

It was not without considerable heart-sinking and misgiving that old
Kearney heard it was Miss Betty O'Shea's desire to have some conversation
with him after breakfast. He was, indeed, reassured, to a certain extent,
by his daughter telling him that the old lady was excessively weak, and
that her cough was almost incessant, and that she spoke with extreme
difficulty. All the comfort that these assurances gave him was dashed by a
settled conviction of Miss Betty's subtlety. 'She's like one of the wild
foxes they have in Crim Tartary; and when you think they are dead, they're
up and at you before you can look round.' He affirmed no more than the
truth when he said that 'he'd rather walk barefoot to Kilbeggan than go up
that stair to see her.'

There was a strange conflict in his mind all this time between these
ignoble fears and the efforts he was making to seem considerate and gentle
by Kate's assurance that a cruel word, or even a harsh tone, would be sure
to kill her. 'You'll have to be very careful, papa dearest,' she said. 'Her
nerves are completely shattered, and every respiration seems as if it would
be the last.'

Mistrust was, however, so strong in him, that he would have employed any
subterfuge to avoid the interview; but the Rev. Luke Delany, who had
arrived to give her 'the consolations,' as he briefly phrased it, insisted
on Kearney's attending to receive the old lady's forgiveness before she
died.

'Upon my conscience,' muttered Kearney, 'I was always under the belief it
was I was injured; but, as t