edly with Mr. Potts, who is meandering in a depressed and
aimless fashion all over the house.

"You here, Plantagenet! Why, I thought you married to some fascinating
damsel in the Emerald Isle," she cannot help saying in a low voice,
giving him her hand. She is glad to see his ugly, good-humored, comical
face in the gloomy house, although it _is_ surmounted by his
offending hair.

"So I was,--very near it," replies he, modestly, in the same suppressed
whisper. "You never knew such a narrow escape as I had: they were
determined to marry me----"

"'They'! You terrify me. How many of them? I had no idea they were so
bad as that,--even in Ireland."

"Oh, I mean the girl and her father. It was as near a thing as
possible; in fact, it took me all I knew to get out of it."

"I'm not surprised at that," says Cecil, with a short but comprehensive
glance at her companion's cheerful but rather indistinct features.

"I don't exactly mean it was my personal appearance was the
attraction," he returns, feeling a strong inclination to explode with
laughter, as is his habit on all occasions, but quickly suppressing the
desire, as being wicked under the circumstances. The horror of death
has not yet vanished from among them. "It was my family they were
after,--birth, you know,--and that. Fact is, she wasn't up to the
mark,--wasn't good enough. Not but that she was a nice-looking girl,
and had a lovely brogue. She had money too--and she had a--father! Such
a father! I think I could have stood the brogue, but I could _not_
stand the father."

"But why? Was he a lunatic? Or perhaps a Home-ruler?"

"No,"--simply,--"he was a tailor. When first I met Miss O'Rourke she
told me her paternal relative had some appointment in the Castle. So he
had. In his youthful days he had been appointed tailor to his
Excellency. It wasn't a bad appointment, I dare say; but I confess I
didn't see it."

"It was a lucky escape. It would take a good deal of money to make me
forget the broadcloth. Are you coming down-stairs now? I dare say we
ought to be assembling."

"It is rather too early, I am afraid. I wish it was all done with, and
I a hundred miles away from the place. The whole affair has made me
downright melancholy. I hate funerals: they don't agree with me."

"Nor yet weddings, as it seems. Well, I shall be as glad as you to quit
Herst once we have installed Miss Amherst as its mistress."

"Why not Shadwell as its master?"

"If I were a h