roken
off. Poor little Belle goes about like a ghost; her miserable eyes,
which go so far to contradict the smile on her lips, fairly haunt Honor.

"If Launce ever loved her he could not bear to see her looking like
that!" the girl says, in her angry surprise that he, her favorite
brother, should prove so cruel. But Launce just now has eyes for no one
but Kate Dundas.

The widow is more fascinating than ever. Two gentlemen are staying on a
visit with her, one from London and one--who is eyed with suspicious
disfavor by her poorer neighbors--from Dublin Castle itself.

There are dinners or card-parties almost every night, and, to use a
vulgar expression, Launce Blake is never off the doorstep.

People are beginning to say that he will marry her and snap his fingers
at the old squire, who, for some reason best known to himself, is no
admirer of the brilliant widow.

"It's the greatest pity in the world that you couldn't keep your
temper!" Honor says reproachfully to her friend, when she comes to tell
her that the engagement is at an end. "I always told you Launce would
not stand being found fault with; sure a child could lead him."

"Yes," Belle answers bitterly, "such a child as Kate Dundas! I knew
from the first how it would end, dear. The woman means to marry him,
and she will do it."

Honor sighs. It is dreadful to think of handsome Launce, with his
brilliant prospects, being sacrificed to this woman, ten years older
than he is, and the widow of a very "shady" major of dragoons.

"It is not as if he loved her!" says Belle, almost with a sob. "He does
not love her. It's all a 'bewitchment,' as old Aileen would say; and,
when she has got him, he'll be miserable."

"But we mustn't let her get him, dear; we must stop it, you and I."

"Then I'm sure I don't see how we are to manage it," Belle sighs.

Neither does Honor, but she is not going to admit that.

Twilight is setting in when Belle gets up to go home.

"Oh, dear, why have I stayed so long?" she says, with a little nervous
sigh. "It will be almost dark before I get out on the road."

"And what about me here alone all the day--and I shall be alone for
hours yet! The _pater_ has gone down to the Low Acres, and the boys are
shooting Colonel Frenche's covers. They can't be home till dark."

"I don't know how you live, and that's the truth, Honor. We often say
so at home. I should go mad, I know I should."

"Oh, I don't feel like that in the least; but