"I hate to give a faded gift," says she, looking at the rose she holds with apparent disfavor. "Then I shall take it," returns he, with decision. He opens her pretty pink palm, releases the dying rosebud from it and places it triumphantly in his coat. "You haven't got any manners," says she, but she laughs again as she says it. "Except bad ones you should add." "Yes, I forgot that. A point lost. Good-bye now, good-bye indeed." She waves her hand lightly to him and calling to the children runs towards the house. It seems as if she has carried all the beauty and brightness and sweetness of the day with her. As Dysart turns back again, the afternoon appears grey and gloomy. CHAPTER V. "Look ere thou leap, see ere thou go." "Well, Barbara, can I go?" "I don't know"--doubtfully. There is a cloud on Mrs. Monkton's brow, she is staring out of the window instead of into her sister's face, and she is evidently a little distressed or uncertain. "You have been there so lately, and----" "You want to say something," says the younger sister, seating herself on the sofa, and drawing Mrs. Monkton down beside her. "Why don't you do it?" "You can't want to go so very much, can you now?" asks the latter, anxiously, almost entreatingly. "It is I who don't know this time!" says Joyce, with a smile. "And yet----" "It seems only like yesterday that you came back after spending a month there." "A yesterday that dates from six weeks ago," a little reproachfully. "I know. You like being there. It is a very amusing house to be at. I don't blame you in any way. Lord and Lady Baltimore are both charming in their ways, and very kind, and yet----" "There, don't stop; you are coming to it now, the very heart of the meaning. Go on," authoritatively, and seizing her sister in her arms, "or I'll _shake_ it out of you." "It is this then," says Mrs. Monkton slowly. "I don't think it is a _wise_ thing for you to go there so often." "Oh Barbara! Owl of Wisdom as thou art, why not?" The girl is laughing, yet a deep flush of color has crept into each cheek. "Never mind the why not. Perhaps it is unwise to go _anywhere_ too often; and you must acknowledge that you spent almost the entire spring there." "Well, I hinted all that to Mr. Dysart." "Was he here?" "Yes. He came down from the Court with the note." "And--who else is to be there?" "Oh! the Clontarfs, and Dicky Browne, and Lady Swansdown and a great many others." "Mr. Beauclerk?" she does not look at Joyce as she asks this question. "Yes." A little silence follows, broken at last by Joyce. "_May_ I go?" "Do you think it is the best thing for you to do?" says Mrs. Monkton, flushing delicately. "_Think_, darling! You know--you _must_ know, because you have it always before you," flushing even deeper, "that to marry into a family where you are not welcomed with open heart is to know much private discomfiture."