covert way. "I should have
been cut to the heart if your father's son had refused or misunderstood
me. But these younger people are full of their chaff; you'll understand
each other in a day or so."

"I understand him perfectly as it is," Honor says to herself, as she
walks out for the room, very erect and stately, and altogether on her
dignity; "and I don't like him a bit. Power was wrong there--we shall
never get on together."

As she is crossing the hall she sees that the front door stands open.
She turns a little out of her way to close it, and as she does so she
sees the shadows of two figures sharply outlined on the smooth gravel.

One man is bare-headed--he has just stepped out the house
evidently--the other wears a low hat pulled down over his brows.

It is nothing out of the common for a servant to step out of the house
to speak to a friend--domestic rule is not very strict at
Donaghmore--yet a strange fear assails Honor. The window by the side of
the door is open, and by standing close to it she can hear every word
they say; but their words are meaningless--they are talking Irish.

Suddenly one of the men--it is their new groom, whom Launce hired at
Boyne--says distinctly in English:

"He's no more from the Castle than you are. How soft ye are, to be
sure! He's the masther's nephew from London. And sure, if the worst
comes to the worst, he'd not count at all, at all; he's little better
than a fine young woman in breeches. Faix, and I'd take half a dozen of
his make as my own share of a good night's work; but be aisy--he'll be
gone before even ye need raise a finger!"

While their hands are meeting and they are bending toward each other as
if for a parting whisper, the girl flies swiftly up-stairs and into her
own room.

Her heart is beating painfully, her cheeks are pale with fear and
anger, and yet she cannot help laughing aloud as the man's words come
back to her--"He's little better than a fine young woman in breeches!"

"Could anything be funnier or truer?" she says to herself with
malicious satisfaction. "Oh, how I wish he could have heard them! It
would take a bit of his starch out, I fancy, and teach him how little
mashers are thought of at Donaghmore."

CHAPTER II.

"I cannot see what fault you can find in him, Honor."

"Sure if he's faultless, isn't that fault enough, my dear?"

"But you are almost rude to him," Belle Delorme says plaintively; "and
I'm sure I can't see why, for he