g amusement, and did
not always refrain from applause.

Could all this, could the change in her spring from the recovery of the
mare, of which she said scarce a word? Colonel John could hardly
believe it; and, indeed, if such were the case, she was ungrateful.
For, for the recoverer of her favourite she had no words, and scarce a
look. Rather, it seemed to him that there must be two Flavias: the one
shy, modest, and, where her country was not assailed, of a reserve
beyond reproach; the other Flavia, a shoot of the old tree, a hoyden, a
castback to Sir Michael's wild youth and the gay days of the
Restoration Court.

He listened to her drollery, her ringing laugh, her arch sayings with
some blame, but more admiration. After all, what had he a right to
expect in this remote corner of the land, cut off by twenty leagues of
bog and mountain from modern refinement, culture, thought, in this old
tribal house, the last refuge of a proscribed faith and a hated race?
Surely, no more than he found--nay, not a tithe of that he found. For,
listening with a kindlier heart--even he, hurt by her neglect, had
judged her for a while too harshly--he discerned that at her wildest
and loudest, in the act of bandying cryptic jests with the buckeens,
and uttering much that was thoughtless--Flavia did not suffer one light
or unmaidenly word to pass her lips.

He gave her credit for that; and in the act he learned, with a
reflection on his stupidity, that there was method in her madness; ay,
and meaning--but he had not hitherto held the key to it--in her jests.
On a sudden--he saw now that this was the climax to which she had been
leading up--she sprang to her feet, carried away by her excitement.
Erect, defiant--nay, triumphant--she flung her handkerchief into the
middle of the table, strewn as it was with a medley of glasses and
flasks and disordered dishes.

"Who loves me, follows me!" she cried, a queer exultation in her
tone--"across the water!"

They pounced on the kerchief, like dogs let loose from the leash--every
man but the astonished Colonel. For an instant the place was a
pandemonium, a Babel. In a twinkling the kerchief was torn, amid cries
of the wildest enthusiasm, into as many fragments as there were men
round the table.

"All!--all!" she cried, still standing erect, and hounding them on with
the magic of her voice, while her beautiful face blazed with
excitement. "All--but you?"--with which, for the briefest space, she