'd been
danger, it would have been settled the night before he went away. I
kissed him that night as he was sleeping out there under the trees."

Mrs. Tynan sat down weakly and fanned herself with her apron. "Oh, oh,
oh, dear Lord!" she said. "I'm not afraid to tell you anything I ever
did, mother," declared Kitty firmly; "though I'm not prepared to tell
you everything I've felt. I kissed him as he slept. He didn't wake, he
just lay there sleeping--sleeping." A strange, distant, dreaming look
came into her eyes. She smiled like one who saw a happy vision, and an
eerie expression stole into her face. "I didn't want him to wake," she
continued. "I asked God not to let him wake. If he'd waked--oh, I'd
have been ashamed enough till the day I died in one way! Still he'd have
understood, and he'd have thought no harm. But it wouldn't have been
fair to him--and there's his wife in there," she added, breaking off
into a different tone. "They're a long way above us--up among the peaks,
and we're at the foot of the foothills, mother; but he never made us
feel that, did he? The difference between him and most of the men I've
ever seen! The difference!"

"There's the Young Doctor," said her mother reproachfully.

"He-him! He's by himself, with something of every sort in him from the
top to the bottom. There's been a ditcher in his family, and there may
have been a duke. But Shiel Crozier--Shiel"--she flushed as she said
the name like that, but a little touch of defiance came into her face
too--"he is all of one kind. He's not a blend. And he's married to her
in there!"

"You needn't speak in that tone about her. She's as fine as can be."

"She's as fine as a bee," retorted Kitty. Again she laughed that almost
mirthless laugh for which her mother had called her to account a moment
before. "You asked me a while ago what I was laughing at, mother," she
continued. "Why, can't you guess? Mr. Crozier talked of her always as
though she was--well, like the pictures you've seen of Britannia, all
swelling and spreading, with her hand on a shield and her face saying,
'Look at me and be good,' and her eyes saying, 'Son of man, get upon
thy knees!' Why, I expected to see a sort of great--goodness--gracious
goddess, that kept him frightened to death of her. Bless you, he never
opened her letter, he was so afraid of her; and he used to breathe once
or twice hard--like that, when he mentioned her!" She breathed in such
mock awe that her mothe