lan deas cruidhte na Mbo."_'

'Very like hard swearing that,' said Walpole to Nina; but his simper and
his soft accent were only met by a cold blank look, as though she had not
understood his liberty in addressing her. Indeed, in her distant manner,
and even repelling coldness, there was what might have disconcerted
any composure less consummate than his own. It was, however, evidently
Walpole's aim to assume that she felt her relation towards him, and not
altogether without some cause; while she, on her part, desired to repel the
insinuation by a show of utter indifference. She would willingly, in this
contingency, have encouraged her cousin, Dick Kearney, and even led him on
to little displays of attention; but Dick held aloof, as though not knowing
the meaning of this favourable turn towards him. He would not be cheated by
coquetry. How many men are of this temper, and who never understand that it
is by surrendering ourselves to numberless little voluntary deceptions of
this sort, we arrive at intimacies the most real and most truthful.

She next tried Gorman, and here her success was complete. All those womanly
prettinesses, which are so many modes of displaying graceful attraction of
voice, look, gesture, or attitude, were especially dear to him. Not only
they gave beauty its chief charm, but they constituted a sort of game,
whose address was quickness of eye, readiness of perception, prompt reply,
and that refined tact that can follow out one thought in a conversation
just as you follow a melody through a mass of variations.

Perhaps the young soldier did not yield himself the less readily to these
captivations that Kate Kearney's manner towards him was studiously cold and
ceremonious.

'The other girl is more like the old friend,' muttered he, as he chatted on
with her about Rome, and Florence, and Venice, imperceptibly gliding into
the language which the names of places suggested.

'If any had told me that I ever could have talked thus freely and openly
with an Austrian soldier, I'd not have believed him,' said she at length,
'for all my sympathies in Italy were with the National party.'

[Illustration: He knelt down on one knee before her]

'But we were not the "Barbari" in your recollection, mademoiselle,' said
he. 'We were out of Italy before you could have any feeling for either
party.'

'The tradition of all your cruelties has survived you, and I am sure, if
you were wearing your white coat still, I'