"Be virtuous and you'll be happy, but you won't have a good time,"

quotes Violet; "you should take to heart that latest of copy-book texts."

"Oh, fancy receiving the Boers whenever they call!" says Doatie, faintly, with a deep sigh that is almost a groan.

"I sha'n't mind it very much," says Mona, earnestly. "It will be after all, only one half hour out of my whole day."

"You don't know what you are talking about," says Doatie, vehemently.

"Every one of those interminable half-hours will be a year off your life. Mr. Boer is obnoxious, but Florence is simply insupportable. Wait till she begins about the choir, and those hateful school-children, and the parish subsidies; then you perhaps will learn wisdom, and grow headaches if you have them not. Violet, what is it Jack calls Mr. Boer?"

"Better not remember it," says Violet, but she smiles as she calls to mind Jack's apt quotation.

"Why not? it just suits him: 'A little, round, fat, oily man of----'"

"Hush, Dorothy! It was very wrong of Jack," interrupts Violet. But Mona laughs for the first time for many hours--which delights Doatie.

"You and I appreciate Jack, if she doesn't, don't we, Mona?" she says, with pretty malice, echoing Mona's merriment. After which the would-be lecture comes to an end, and the three girls, clothing themselves in furs, go for a short walk before the day quite closes in.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

HOW THE TOWERS WAKES INTO LIFE--AND HOW MONA SHOWS THE LIBRARY TO PAUL RODNEY.

Lights are blazing, fiddles are sounding; all the world is abroad to-night. Even still, though the ball at the Towers has been opened long since by Mona and the Duke of Lauderdale, the flickering light of carriage-lamps is making the roads bright, by casting tiny rays upon the frosted ground.

The fourth dance has come to an end; cards are full; every one is settling down to work in earnest; already the first touch of satisfaction or of carefully-suppressed disappointment is making itself felt.

Mona, who has again been dancing with the duke, stopping near where the d.u.c.h.ess is sitting, the latter beckons her to her side by a slight wave of her fan. To the d.u.c.h.ess "a thing of beauty is a joy forever," and to gaze on Mona's lovely face and admire her tranquil but brilliant smile gives her a strange pleasure.

"Come and sit by me. You can spare me a few minutes," she says, drawing her ample skirts to one side. Mona, taking her hand from Lauderdale's arm, drops into the proffered seat beside his mother, much to that young man's chagrin, who, having inherited the material hankering after that "delightful prejudice," as Theocritus terms beauty, is decidedly _epris_ with Mrs. Geoffrey, and takes it badly being done out of his _tete-a-tete_ with her.

"Mrs. Rodney would perhaps prefer to dance, mother," he says, with some irritation.

"Mrs. Rodney will not mind wasting a quarter of an hour on an old woman," says the d.u.c.h.ess, equably.

"I am not so sure of that," says Mona, with admirable tact and an exquisite smile, "but I shouldn't mind spending an _hour_ with you."

Lauderdale makes a little face, and tells himself secretly "all women are liars," but the d.u.c.h.ess is very pleased, and bends her friendliest glance upon the pretty creature at her side, who possesses that greatest of all charms, inability to notice the ravages of time.

Perhaps another reason for Mona's having found such favor in the eyes of "the biggest woman in our shire, sir," lies in the fact that she is in many ways so totally unlike all the other young women with whom the d.u.c.h.ess is in the habit of a.s.sociating. She is _naive_ to an extraordinary degree, and says and does things that might appear _outre_ in others, but are so much a part of Mona that it neither startles nor offends one when she gives way to them.

Just now, for example, a pause occurring in the conversation, Mona, fastening her eyes upon her Grace's neck, says, with genuine admiration,--

"What a lovely necklace you are wearing!"

To make personal remarks, we all know, is essentially vulgar, is indeed a breach of the commonest show of good breeding; yet somehow Mrs.

Geoffrey's tone does not touch on vulgarity, does not even belong to the outermost skirts of ill-breeding. She has an inborn gentleness of her own, that carries her safely over all social difficulties.

The d.u.c.h.ess is amused.

"It is pretty, I think," she says. "The duke," with a grave look, "gave it to me just two years after my son was born."

"Did he?" says Mona. "Geoffrey gave me these pearls," pointing to a pretty string round her own white neck, "a month after we were married.

It seems quite a long time ago now," with a sigh and a little smile.

"But your opals are perfect. Just like the moonlight. By the by," as if it has suddenly occurred to her, "did you ever see the lake by moonlight? I mean from the mullioned window in the north gallery?"

"The lake here? No," says the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Haven't you?" in surprise. "Why it is the most enchanting thing in the world. Oh, you must see it: you will be delighted with it. Come with me, and I will show it to you," says Mona, eagerly, rising from her seat in her impulsive fashion.

She is plainly very much in earnest, and has fixed her large expressive eyes--lovely as loving--with calm expectancy upon the d.u.c.h.ess. She has altogether forgotten that she is a d.u.c.h.ess (perhaps, indeed, has never quite grasped the fact), and that she is an imposing and portly person not accustomed to exercise of any description.

For a moment her Grace hesitates, then is lost. It is to her a new sensation to be taken about by a young woman to see things. Up to this, it has been she who has taken the young women about to see things. But Mona is so openly and genuinely anxious to bestow a favor upon her to do her, in fact, a good turn, that she is subdued, sweetened, nay, almost flattered, by this artless desire to please her for "love's sake" alone.

She too rises, lays her hand on Mona's arm, and walks through the long room, and past the county generally, to "see the lake by moonlight." Yet it is not for the sake of gazing upon almost unrivalled scenery she goes, but to please this Irish girl, whom so very few can resist.

"Where has Mona taken the d.u.c.h.ess?" asks Lady Rodney of Sir Nicholas half an hour later.

"She took her to see the lake. Mona, you know, raves about it, when the moon lights it up.

"She is very absurd, and more troublesome and unpleasant than anybody I ever had in my house. Of course the d.u.c.h.ess did not want to see the water. She was talking to old Lord Dering about the drainage question, and seemed quite happy, when that girl interfered. Common courtesy compelled her, I suppose, to say yes to--Mona's--proposition."

"I hardly think the d.u.c.h.ess is the sort of woman to say yes when she meant no," says Nicholas, with a half smile. "She went because it so pleased her, and for no other reason. I begin to think, indeed, that Lilian Chetwoode is rather out of it, and that Mona is the first favorite at present. She has evidently taken the d.u.c.h.ess by storm."

"Why not say the duke too?" says his mother, with a cold glance, to whom praise of Mona is anything but "cakes and ale." "Her flirtation with him is very apparent. It is disgraceful. Every one is noticing and talking about it. Geoffrey alone seems determined to see nothing! Like all under-bred people, she cannot know satisfaction unless perched upon the topmost rung of the ladder."

"You are slightly nonsensical when on the subject of Mona," says Sir Nicholas, with a shrug. "Intrigue and she could not exist in the same atmosphere. She is to Lauderdale what she is to everyone else,--gay, bright, and utterly wanting in self-conceit. I cannot understand how it is that you alone refuse to acknowledge her charms. To me she is like a little soft sunbeam floating here and there and falling into the hearts of those around her, carrying light, and joy, and laughter, and merry music with her as she goes."

"You speak like a lover," says Lady Rodney, with an artificial laugh.

"Do you repeat all this to Dorothy? She must find it very interesting."

"Dorothy and I are quite agreed about Mona," replies he, calmly. "She likes her as much as I do. As to what you say about her encouraging Lauderdale's attentions, it is absurd. No such evil thought could enter her head."

At this instant a soft ringing laugh, that once heard is not easily forgotten, comes from an inner room, that is carefully curtained and delicately lighted, and smites upon their ears.

It is Mona's laugh. Raising their eyes, both mother and son turn their heads hastily (and quite involuntarily) and gaze upon the scene beyond.

They are so situated that they can see into the curtained chamber and mark the picture it contains. The duke is bending over Mona in a manner that might perhaps be termed by an outsider slightly _empresse_, and Mona is looking up at him, and both are laughing gayly,--Mona with all the freshness of unchecked youth, the duke with such a thorough and wholesome sense of enjoyment as he has not known for years.

Then Mona rises, and they both come to the entrance of the small room, and stand where Lady Rodney can overhear what they are saying.

"Oh! so you can ride, then," says Lauderdale, alluding probably to the cause of his late merriment.

"Sure of course," says Mona. "Why, I used to ride the colts barebacked at home."

Lady Rodney shudders.

"Sometimes I long again for a mad, wild gallop straight across country, where n.o.body can see me,--such as I used to have," goes on Mona, half regretfully.