"Oh, I see! The socialists!" says Mr. Dysart. "Yes; a troublesome pack!

But still, to call them wild beasts----"

"They _are_ wild beasts," says Tommy, prepared to defend his position to the last. "They've got _manes_, and _horns_, and _tails_!"

"He's romancing," says Mr. Dysart looking at Joyce.

"He's not," says she demurely. "He is only trying to describe to you the Zoological Gardens. His father gives him a graphic description of them every evening, and--the result you see."

Here both she and he, after a glance at each other, burst out laughing.

"No wonder you were amused," says he, "but you might have given me a hint. You were unkind to me--as usual."

"Now that you have been to London," says she, a little hurriedly, as if to cover his last words and pretend she hasn't heard them, "you will find our poor Ireland duller than ever. At Christmas it is not so bad, but just _now_, and in the height of your season, too,----"

"Do you call this place dull?" interrupts he. "Then let me tell you you misjudge your native land; this little bit of it, at all events. I think it not only the loveliest, but the liveliest place on earth."

"You are easily pleased," says she, with a rather embarra.s.sed smile.

"He isn't!" says Tommy, breaking into the conversation with great aplomb. He has been holding on vigorously to Mr. Dysart's right hand for the last five minutes, after a brief but brilliant skirmish with Mabel as to the possession of it--a skirmish brought to a bloodless conclusion by the surrender, on Mr. Dysart's part, of his left hand to the weaker belligerent. "He hates Miss Maliphant, nurse says, though Lady Baltimore wants him to marry her, and she's a fine girl, nurse says, an' raal smart, and with the gift o' the gab, an' lots o' tin----"

"_Tommy!_" says his aunt frantically. It is indeed plain to everybody that Tommy is now quoting nurse, _au naturel_, and that he is betraying confidences in a perfectly reckless manner.

"Don't stop him," says Mr. Dysart, glancing at Joyce's crimson cheeks with something of disfavor. "'What's Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba?' I _defy_ you," a little stormily, "to think I care a farthing for Miss Maliphant or for any other woman on earth--_save one_!"

"Oh, you mustn't press your confidences on me," says she, smiling and dissembling rather finely; "I know nothing. I accuse you of nothing.

Only, Tommy, you were a little rude, weren't you?"

"I wasn't," says Tommy, promptly, in whom the inborn instinct of self-defence has been largely developed. "It's true. Nurse says she has a voice like a cow. Is _that_ true?" turning, unabashed to Dysart.

"She's expected at the Castle, next week. You shall come up and judge for yourself," says he, laughing. "And," turning to Joyce, "you will come, too, I hope."

"It is manners to wait to be asked," returns she, smiling.

"Oh, as for that," says he, "Lady Baltimore crossed last night with me and her husband. And here is a letter for you." He pulls a note of the c.o.c.ked hat order out of one of his pockets.

CHAPTER IV.

"Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head?

How begot, how nourished?

Reply, reply."

"An invitation from Lady Baltimore," says Joyce, looking at the big red crest, and coloring slightly.

"Yes."

"How do you know?" asks she, rather suspiciously.

The young man raises his hands and eyes.

"I _swear_ I had nothing to do with it," says he, "I didn't so much as hint at it. Lady Baltimore spent her time crossing the Channel in declaring to all who were well enough to hear her, that she lived only in the expectation of soon seeing you again."

"Nonsense!" scornfully; "it is only a month ago since I was staying there, just before they went to London. By the bye, what brings them home now? In the very beginning of their season?"

"_I_ don't know. And it is as well not to inquire perhaps. Baltimore and my cousin, as all the world knows, have not hit it off together. Yet when Isabel married him, we all thought it was quite an ideal marriage, they were so much in love with each other."

"Hot love soon cools," says Miss Kavanagh in a general sort of way.

"I don't believe it," st.u.r.dily, "if it's the right sort of love.

However, to go back to your letter--which you haven't even deigned to open--you _will_ accept the invitation, won't you?"

"I don't know," hesitating.

"Oh! I say, _do_ come! It is only for a week, and even if it does bore you, still, as a Christian, you ought to consider how much, even in that short time, you will be able to add to the happiness of your fellow creatures."

"Flattery means insincerity," says she, tilting her chin, "keep all that sort of thing for your Miss Maliphant; it is thrown away upon me."

"_My_ Miss Maliphant! Really I must protest against your accrediting me with such a possession. But look here, _don't_ disappoint us all; and you won't be dull either, there are lots of people coming. d.i.c.ky Brown, for one."

"Oh! will he be there?" brightening visibly.

"Yes," rather gloomily, and perhaps a little sorry that he has said anything about Mr. Browne's possible arrival--though to feel jealousy about that social b.u.t.terfly is indeed to sound the depths of folly; "you like him?"

"I _love_ him," says Miss Kavanagh promptly and with sufficient enthusiasm to restore hope in the bosom of any man except a lover.

"He is blessed indeed," says he stiffly. "Beyond his deserts I can't help thinking. I really think he is the biggest fool I ever met."

"Oh! not the biggest, surely," says she, so saucily, and with such a reprehensible tendency towards laughter, that he gives way and laughs too, though unwillingly.

"True. I'm a bigger," says he, "but as that is _your_ fault, you should be the last to taunt me with it."

"Foolish people always talk folly," says she with an a.s.sumption of indifference that does not hide her red cheeks. "Well, go on, who is to be at the Court besides d.i.c.ky?"

"Lady Swansdown."

"I like her too."

"But not so well as you like d.i.c.ky, _you_ love him according to your own statement."

"Don't be matter-of-fact!" says Miss Kavanagh, giving him a well-deserved snub. "Do you always say exactly what you mean?"

"Always--to _you_."

"I daresay you would be more interesting if you didn't," says she, with a little, lovely smile, that quite spoils the harshness of her words. Of her few faults, perhaps the greatest is, that she seldom knows her own mind, where her lovers are concerned, and will blow hot and cold, and merry and sad, and cheerful, and petulant all in one breath as it were.

Poor lovers! they have a hard time of it with her as a rule. But youth is often so, and the cold, still years, as they creep on us, with dull common sense and deadly reason in their train, cure us all too soon of our pretty idle follies.