id the countess. She hardly knew how to
bear herself, or how to interfere so as to assist her own object; or
how not to interfere, lest she should mar it.

"Yes, mamma. Patrick saw him the other day, and I think it is better
that I should see him also."

"Very well, my dear. But you must be aware, Clara, that you have been
so very--I don't wish to say headstrong exactly--so very _entetee_
about your own affairs, that I hardly know how to speak of them. If
your brother is in your confidence I shall be satisfied."

"He is in my confidence; and so may you be also, mamma, if you
please."

But the countess thought it better not to have any conversation
forced upon her at that moment; and so she asked her daughter for no
further show of confidence then. It would probably be as well that
Owen should come and plead his own cause.

And Owen did come. All that night and on the next morning the poor
girl remained alone in a state of terrible doubt. She had sent for
her old lover, thinking at the moment that no one could explain to
him in language so clear as her own what was her fixed resolve. And
she had too been so moved by the splendour of his offer, that she
longed to tell him what she thought of it. The grandeur of that offer
was enhanced tenfold in her mind by the fact that it had been so
framed as to include her in this comparative poverty with which Owen
himself was prepared to rest contented. He had known that she was not
to be bought by wealth, and had given her credit for a nobility that
was akin to his own.

But yet, now that the moment was coming, how was she to talk to him?
How was she to speak the words which would rob him of his hope, and
tell him that he did not, could not, never could possess that one
treasure which he desired more than houses and lands, or station and
rank? Alas, alas! If it could have been otherwise! If it could have
been otherwise! She also was in love with poverty;--but at any rate,
no one could accuse her now of sacrificing a poor lover for a rich
one. Herbert Fitzgerald would be poor enough.

And then he came. They had hitherto met but once since that
afternoon, now so long ago--that afternoon to which she looked back
as to another former world--and that meeting had been in the very
room in which she was now prepared to receive him. But her feelings
towards him had been very different then. Then he had almost forced
himself upon her, and for months previously she had heard nothing