"Owen will be over here to-day," said he. "We are going to have a schooling match down on the Callows." Now in Ireland a schooling match means the amusement of teaching your horses to jump. "Will he?" said Lady Desmond, looking up from her book for a moment. "Mind you bring him in to lunch; I want to speak to him." "He doesn't care much about lunch, I fancy," said he; "and, maybe, we shall be half way to Millstreet by that time." "Never mind, but do as I tell you. You expect everybody to be as wild and wayward as yourself." And the countess smiled on her son in a manner which showed that she was proud even of his wildness and his waywardness. Clara had felt that she blushed when she heard that Mr. Fitzgerald was to be there that morning. She felt that her own manner became constrained, and was afraid that her mother should look at her. Owen had said nothing to her about love; and she, child as she was, had thought nothing about love. But she was conscious of something, she knew not what. He had touched her hand during those dances as it had never been touched before; he had looked into her eyes, and her eyes had fallen before his glance; he had pressed her waist, and she had felt that there was tenderness in the pressure. So she blushed, and almost trembled, when she heard that he was coming, and was glad in her heart when she found that there was neither anger nor sunshine in her mother's face. Not long after breakfast, the earl went out on his horse, and met Owen at some gate or back entrance. In his opinion the old house was stupid, and the women in it were stupid companions in the morning. His heart for the moment was engaged on the thought of making his animal take the most impracticable leaps which he could find, and it did not occur to him at first to give his mother's message to his companion. As for lunch, they would get a biscuit and glass of cherry-brandy at Wat M'Carthy's, of Drumban; and as for his mother having anything to say, that of course went for nothing. Owen would have been glad to have gone up to the house, but in that he was frustrated by the earl's sharpness in catching him. His next hope was to get through the promised lesson in horse-leaping as quickly as possible, so that he might return to Desmond Court, and take his chance of meeting Clara. But in this he found the earl very difficult to manage. "Oh, Owen, we won't go there," he said, when Fitzgerald proposed a canter through some meadows down by the river-side. "There are only a few gripes"--Irish for small ditches--"and I have ridden Fireball over them a score of times. I want you to come away towards Drumban." "Drumban! why Drumban's seven miles from here." "What matter? Besides, it's not six the way I'll take you. I want to see Wat M'Carthy especially. He has a litter of puppies there, out of that black bitch of his, and I mean to make him give me one of them."