“And you promise me not to mind that foolish boy? For, after all, you know, it was mere flirtation,--if even that.” “I’ll never think of him again,” said I, while my brain was burning to make out her meaning. “But, dearest, there goes the trumpet-call--” “And, as for Pedro Mascarenhas, I never liked him.” “Are you quite sure, Inez?” “I swear it!--so no more of him. Gonzales Cordenza--I’ve broke with him long since. So that you see, dearest Frederic--” “Frederic!” said I, starting almost to my feet with, amazement, while she continued:-- “I’m your own,--all your own!” “Oh, the coquette, the heartless jilt!” groaned I, half-aloud. “And O’Malley, Inez, poor Charley!--what of him?” “Poor thing! I can’t help him. But he’s such a puppy, the lesson may do him good.” “But perhaps he loved you, Inez?” “To be sure he did; I wished him to do so,--I can’t bear not to be loved. But, Frederic, tell me, may I trust you,--will you keep faithful to me?” “Sweetest Inez! by this last kiss I swear that such as I kneel before you now, you’ll ever find me.” A foot upon the gravel-walk without now called me to my feet; I sprang towards the door, and before Inez had lifted her head from the sofa, I had reached the garden. A figure muffled in a cavalry cloak passed near me, but without noticing me, and the next moment I had cleared the paling, and was hurrying towards the stable, where I had ordered Mike to be in waiting. The faint streak of dull pink which announces the coming day stretched beneath the dark clouds of the night, and the chill air of the morning was already stirring in the leaves. As I passed along by a low beech hedge which skirted the avenue, I was struck by the sound of voices near me. I stopped to listen, and soon detected in one of the speakers my friend Mickey Free; of the other I was not long in ignorance. “Love you, is it, bathershin? It’s worship you, adore you, my darling,--that’s the word! There, acushla, don’t cry; dry your eyes--Oh, murther, it’s a cruel thing to tear one’s self away from the best of living, with the run of the house in drink and kissing! Bad luck to it for campaigning, any way, I never liked it!” Catrina’s reply,--for it was she,--I could not gather; but Mike resumed:-- “Ay, just so, sore bones and wet grass, _accadenté_, and half-rations. Oh, that I ever saw the day when I took to it! Listen to me now, honey; here it is, on my knees I am before you, and throth it’s not more nor three, may be four, young women I’d say the like to; bad scran to me if I wouldn’t marry you out of a face this blessed morning just as soon as I’d look at ye. Arrah, there now, don’t be screeching and bawling; what’ll the neighbors think of us, and my own heart’s destroyed with grief entirely.”