" said she.

"Can you though, my gay young woman? You'll be over your ankles if
you do. That rain didn't come down yesterday for nothing."

Clara as she spoke had come up to the bank, and now looked wistfully
down at the stepping-stones. She had crossed them scores of times,
sometimes with her brother, and often by herself. Why was it that she
was so anxious to cross them now?

"It's no use your trying," said her brother, who was now half across,
and who spoke from the middle of the river. "Don't you let her, Owen.
She'll slip in, and then there will be no end of a row up at the
house."

"You had better come round by the bridge," said Fitzgerald. "It is
not only that the stones are nearly under water, but they are wet,
and you would slip."

So cautioned, Lady Clara allowed herself to be persuaded, and turned
upwards along the river by a little path that led to a foot bridge.
It was some quarter of a mile thither, and it would be the same
distance down the river again before she regained her brother.

"I needn't bring you with me, you know," she said to Fitzgerald. "You
can get over the stones easily, and I can go very well by myself."

But it was not probable that he would let her do so. "Why should I
not go with you?" he said. "When I get there I have nothing to do but
see him fish. Only if we were to leave him by himself he would not be
happy."

"Oh, Mr. Fitzgerald, how very kind you are to him! I do so often
think of it. How dull his holidays would be in this place if it were
not for you!"

"And what a godsend his holidays are to me!" said Owen. "When they
come round I can ride over here and see him, and you--and your
mother. Do you think that I am not dull also, living alone at Hap
House, and that this is not an infinite blessing to me?"

He had named them all--son, daughter, and mother; but there had been
a something in his voice, an almost inappreciable something in his
tone, which had seemed to mark to Clara's hearing that she herself
was not the least prized of the three attractions. She had felt this
rather than realized it, and the feeling was not unpleasant.

"I only know that you are very goodnatured," she continued, "and that
Patrick is very fond of you. Sometimes I think he almost takes you
for a brother." And then a sudden thought flashed across her mind,
and she said hardly a word more to him that evening.

This had been at the close of the summer holidays. After that he had
been once or