roubling her for weeks past, ever since her brother Launce got into a
dispute with some farmers at Boyne Fair, and was threatened by them.
"It's enough to make the old abbot walk again," she added, half
smiling, half scornfully, "to hear you talk of danger threatening
Donaghmore! Didn't he frighten the rebels away in '98, so that ours was
the only safe house, lonely as it is?"

"The rebels of to-day are not to be so easily frightened or kept at
bay," he answers meaningly. "Good-night, my darling, and remember my
words!"

"Good-night," she says softly; and presently the great doors close
behind her, and he is alone.

"Come in here, my girl, and give an account of yourself," her father's
voice calls to her, as she is slipping past the open dining-room door.
"Launce here thought we had lost you, but I knew there was no such
luck."

The next moment she is standing in the brilliantly-lighted room, before
the little knot of gentlemen--her father, her brothers, and their
guest--gathered about one end of the long table.

"This is my little girl, Beresford; and, if she had been a boy, Heaven
bless her, your uncle would have adopted her, and left her all the
money he had hoarded! But it wasn't to be, I suppose."

The man he calls Beresford smiles slightly at this speech, and Honor
sees the smile and resents it. Her gray eyes darken, her face turns
suddenly pale and cold as she moves slowly forward to her father's side.

"By Jove, what a grand air!" Brian Beresford says to himself, eyeing
her critically. "Where on earth did she learn to carry herself in that
fashion?'

"You did not expect to find your cousin safe at home before you, Honor?"

"Yes, papa; I met Power, and he told me. He was saying too"--with a
faint smile at Launce--"that he was afraid Mr. Beresford would find
Donaghmore dull. He thought he would have felt more at home at Aunt
Julia's."

The new-comer does not in the least understand the point of this
speech, but he is perfectly conscious that there is a cut in it
somewhere; and this consciousness is not lessened by the way it is
received. Her father turns red in the face and says, "Tut tut! How
absurd!" Horace smiles, and Launce breaks into open laughter.

"I am sorry if I am intruding," Mr. Beresford says stiffly. "I accepted
your father's invitation as frankly as it was offered; but----"

"There, my boy, not another word," his host interrupts him, still red
in the face, still frowning at Honor in a