a child; a child without
a woman's thoughts, or any of a woman's charms. And then it was
so natural that Clara should like to dance with almost the only
gentleman who was not absolutely a stranger to her. Lady Desmond had
been actuated rather by a feeling that it would be well that Clara
should begin to know other persons.

By that feeling,--and perhaps unconsciously by another, that it would
be well that Owen Fitzgerald should be relieved from his attendance
on the child, and enabled to give it to the mother. Whether Lady
Desmond had at that time realized any ideas as to her own interest
in this young man, it was at any rate true that she loved to have
him near her. She had refused to dance a second time with Herbert
Fitzgerald; she had refused to stand up with any other person who had
asked her; but with Owen she would either have danced again, or have
kept him by her side, while she explained to him with flattering
frankness that she could not do so lest others should be offended.

And Owen was with her frequently through the evening. She was taken
to and from supper by Sir Thomas, but any other takings that were
incurred were done by him. He led her from one drawing-room to
another; he took her empty coffee-cup; he stood behind her chair,
and talked to her; and he brought her the scarf which she had left
elsewhere; and finally, he put a shawl round her neck while old Sir
Thomas was waiting to hand her to her carriage. Reader, good-natured,
middle-aged reader, remember that she was only thirty-eight, and that
hitherto she had known nothing of the delights of love. By the young,
any such hallucination on her part, at her years, will be regarded as
lunacy, or at least frenzy.

Owen Fitzgerald drove home from that ball in a state of mind that
was hardly satisfactory. In the first place, Miss Letty had made a
direct attack upon his morals, which he had not answered in the most
courteous manner.

"I have heard a great deal of your doings, Master Owen," she said to
him. "A fine house you're keeping."

"Why don't you come and join us, Aunt Letty?" he replied. "It would
be just the thing for you."

"God forbid!" said the old maid, turning up her eyes to heaven.

"Oh, you might do worse, you know. With us you'd only drink and
play cards, and perhaps hear a little strong language now and again.
But what's that to slander, and calumny, and bearing false witness
against one's neighbour?" and so saying he ended that int