turned upon her daughter, grasped her by her two
shoulders and shook her as a terrier shakes a rat. At this Lady Mary
began to weep, and indeed she had good cause to do so.

"Hold, madam," shouted I, springing toward her. "Leave the girl alone.
I agree with his lordship, no woman shall be coerced on account of
me."

My intervention turned the Countess from her victim upon me.

"You agree with his lordship, you Irish baboon? Don't think she'll
marry you because of any liking for you, you chattering ape, who
resemble a monkey in a show with those trappings upon you. She'll
marry you because I say she'll marry you, and you'll give up those
papers to me, who have sense enough to take care of them. If I have a
doddering husband, who at the same time lost his breeches and his
papers, I shall make amends for his folly."

"Madam," said I, "you shall have the papers; and as for the breeches,
by the terror you spread around you, I learn they are already in your
possession."

I thought she would have torn my eyes out, but I stepped back and
saved myself.

"To your room, you huzzy," she cried to her daughter, and Mary fled
toward the door. I leaped forward and opened it for her. She paused on
the threshold, pretending again to cry, but instead whispered:

"My mother is the danger. Leave things alone," she said quickly. "We
can easily get poor father's consent."

With that she was gone. I closed the door and returned to the centre
of the room.

"Madam," said I, "I will not have your daughter browbeaten. It is
quite evident she refuses to marry me."

"Hold your tongue, and keep to your word, you idiot," she rejoined,
hitting me a bewildering slap on the side of the face, after which
she flounced out by the way her daughter had departed.

The old Earl said nothing, but gazed gloomily into space from out the
depths of his chair. Father Donovan seemed inexpressibly shocked, but
my Lord Strepp, accustomed to his mother's tantrums, laughed outright
as soon as the door was closed. All through he had not been in the
least deceived by his sister's pretended reluctance, and recognized
that the only way to get the mother's consent was through opposition.
He sprang up and grasped me by the hand and said:

"Well, O'Ruddy, I think your troubles are at an end, or," he cried,
laughing again, "just beginning, but you'll be able to say more on
that subject this time next year. Never mind my mother; Mary is, and
always will be, the be