“I may write word, then, that within a week you will be ready,” said Dunn, rising. “You will find in that pocket-book enough for any immediate outlay,--nay, Miss Kellett, it is your own,--I repeat it, all your own. I am your guardian, and no more.” And with a stiffness of manner that almost repelled gratitude, he took his leave and withdrew. As he gained the door, however, he stopped, and after a moment came back into the room. “I should like to see you again before you leave; there are topics I would like to speak with you on. May I come in a day or two?” “Whenever and as often as you please.” Dunn took her hand and pressed it tenderly. A deep crimson overspread her face as she said “Good-bye!” and the carriage had rolled away ere she knew that he was gone. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE HERMITAGE AT GLENGARIFF. Beside a little arm of the sea, and surrounded by lofty mountains, stood the cottage of Lord Glengariff. It was originally built as a mere fishing-lodge, a resting-place in the bathing-season, or a spot to visit when it was the pleasure of its owners to affect retirement and seclusion. Then would the Earl and his Countess and the Ladies Julia and Jemima come down to the Hermitage with a sort of self-approving humility that seemed to say, “Even _we_ know how to chastise pride, and vanity, and the sinful lusts of the flesh.” Whether it was that these seasons of mortification became more frequent, or that they required more space, we cannot say; but, in course of time, the hermitage extended its limbs, first in one direction, and then in another, till at length it grew to be a very commodious house, with ample rooms and every imaginable comfort, Owing to the character of the architecture, too, it gained in picturesque effect by these successive additions; and in its jutting projections, its deep-shadowed courts, and its irregular line of roof, it presented a very pleasing specimen of that half-Elizabethan cottage so rarely hit upon in any regular plan. As the fortunes of the noble house declined,--the Earl's ancestors had been amongst the most extravagant of Irish gentry,--the ancient castle of Holt-Glengariff, where they had long resided, was sold, and the family settled down to live at the Hermitage. At first the change was supposed to be merely temporary,--“they were going to live in London or in Brighton; they were about to establish themselves in Paris; her Ladyship was ordered to Italy,”--a variety of rumors, in fact, were afloat to explain that the sunshine of their presence in that lonely glen would be but brief and short-lived. All the alterations that might be made in the cottage or its grounds, all the facilities of approach by land and water, all the beneficial changes in the village itself, were alluded to as projects for the day when they would come back there; for my Lord said he “really liked the place,”--a species of avowal that was accepted by the neighborhood as the proudest encomium man could pronounce upon their