see my boy. He has just passed out of Sandhurst."

"A soldier? How strange that I should have had to ask! I left your
letters unanswered, but I always read them. That was how I knew that
you had called your boy after my son."

"Yes, Terence has chosen to be a soldier, for some years, at least.
There is not very much doing now. After a few years his father thinks
he might take to politics."

"I want to see him. And I want you to see my girl."

She glanced towards the door as though she expected it to open.

"Eileen Creagh is with us. You remember her father, Anthony Creagh.
He came here once or twice in old days. She has lived with us for a
long time. Terry was always at school. It would have been lonely for
me without Eileen."

"Yes, I remember I did not like Anthony Creagh because I thought he
came for your sake. He married a fair girl, very unlike you. I've
forgotten her name."

"Eileen is very pretty, like her mother. Beautiful soft silver-gold
hair and greyish blue eyes: she is very gentle."

"Characterless?"

Lady O'Gara smiled ever so slightly. "Oh, she has character, I think."

"No one will look at her when Stella is by. You will see. She has no
animation; I know her kind. By the way, you have Patsy Kenny still
with you? You told me about Patsy in the letters I did not answer."

"Still with us. He is an institution--like the Shots. I have a Shot
still--the great-grandson of old Shot. I don't know what we should do
without Patsy. He has such a wonderful way with the horses,--with all
animals, indeed."

"He'll adore Stella. She's so fearless with animals. Many a fright
she gave me when she was a child. But the animals, even when they were
savage with others, never hurt her. There was an awful day when we
found her with the boarhound puppies at Prince Valetti's Villa in her
arms, and the mother looking on well-pleased. She was a savage brute
to other people. The Prince was ready to shoot her if she had turned
nasty with Stella: but there was no occasion. Stella scrambled through
the barrier when we called her name."

"Is she like a French girl?"

"No: why should she be?"

"I suppose I was wrong. I thought she was the child of Gaston de St.
Maur, who used to visit us here."

"Her mother was Irish," Mrs. Comerford said.

"And she is like her mother?"

Before Mrs. Comerford could answer there came a knocking as of knuckles
on the door.

"Come in, my darling," Mrs.