ind hers, so as
not to scrutinize her looks too closely, and stolen your hand gently
forward, as if to touch the embroidery she was at work on, and then, at
last, her hand, letting your voice grow lower and softer at each word,
till the syllables would seem to drop, distilled from your heart--"

"The devil a bit of that I could do at all," cried he, impatiently. "If
I can't make the game off the balls," said he, taking a metaphor from
his billiard experiences, "I 'm good for nothing. But will she come
round? Do you think she'll change?"

"No; I 'm afraid not," said she, shaking her head. "Faix! she might do
worse," said he, resolutely. "Do you know that she might do worse? If
the mortgages was off, O'Shea-Ville is seventeen hundred a year; and,
for family, we beat the county."

"I 've no doubt of it," replied she, calmly. "There was ancestors of
mine hanged by Henry the Second, and one was strangled in prison two
reigns before," said he, proudly. "The O'Sheas was shedding their blood
for Ireland eight centuries ago! Did you ever hear of Mortagh Dhub
O'Shea?"

"Never!" said she, mournfully.

"There it is," sighed he, drearily; "mushrooms is bigger, nowadays,
than oak-trees." And with this dreary reflection he arose and took his
hat.

"Won't you dine here? I'm sure they expect you to stop for dinner," said
she; but whether a certain devilry in her laughing eye made the speech
seem insincere, or that his own distrust prompted it, he said,--

"No, I 'll not stop; I could n't eat a bit if I did."

"Come, come, you mustn't take it to heart in this way," said she,
coaxingly.

"Do you think you could do anything for me?" said he, taking her hand
in his; "for, to tell truth, it's my pride is hurt. As we say in the
House of Commons, now that my name is on the Bill, I 'd like to carry it
through. You understand that feeling?"

"Perhaps I do," said she, doubtfully, while, throwing herself into
a chair, she leaned back, so as to display a little more than was
absolutely and indispensably necessary of a beautifully rounded ankle
and instep. Mr. O'Shea saw it, and marked it. There was no denying she
was pretty,--pretty, too, in those feminine and delicate graces which
have special attractions for men somewhat hackneyed in life, and a
"little shoulder-sore with the collar" of the world. As the Member
gazed at the silky curls of her rich auburn hair, the long fringes
that shadowed her fair cheeks, and the graceful lines of