paid, these dreams assumed more real and brilliant hues. Woe, woe, be to the hand that would dispel them, and condemn her to damp dreary Noone, and the society of the Finnys, and Malones, for life--a life that to Belle, with her intense vitality, and quenchless craving for excitement, would be simply a living death! George Holroyd was really quite amazed to find what rapid strides he had made in intimacy with the Redmonds. We know how easily the great leviathan may be led, when once a hook is in his nose! and how simple it is for any idle young man to become entangled in the web of a pretty and experienced flirt. He began to feel almost apologetic and uncomfortable, when his mother regularly enquired at dinner “where he had been?” And he replied as punctually: “Over to Noone,” or, “I just looked in at Noone,” “I had tea at Noone.” Cuckoo’s ill-bred titter, and Denis’s wink, were not lost upon him, much less the Major’s ponderous chaff, and constant regret that “he was not a young man, for Belle Redmond’s sake.” Belle was a pleasant companion for an hour or so, but George was not thinking of her as a companion for life. He had discovered that she was a young lady that one came to the end of very soon. She was smart, sparkling and pretty; her animated gestures, and the playful little stamp of her foot, were all very taking in their way; but she was shallow, restless, and spiteful, and had a singularly foolish laugh. True that to him she was undeniably sweet--sweet as Turkish delight--but then, with most people, a little of that cloying dainty goes a long way. In his guilty heart, this miserable young man knew that he was daily expected to tea at Noone; that he already had his own particular chair, and tea cup, and that he had given Belle a quantity of new songs, a belt of his regimental colours, and his photograph in two positions; but surely, he would argue with himself, she was a sensible girl, and too well accustomed to society and the ways of the world, to suppose that these were more than the most ordinary attentions, and, then, Mrs. Redmond had been very civil to _him_, and given him “carte blanche” to come and shoot rabbits whenever he pleased. Crafty old person! She sold the rabbits in the town for sevenpence apiece, or hung them in the larder, and saved her butcher’s bill. To tell the truth, she and Mrs. Maccabe, the butcher’s relict and successor in the business, were not on very friendly terms. If the Malones’ bills were alarmingly long, Mrs. Redmond’s were pitifully small. “A pound and a half of neck chops, is it, ma’am?” Mrs. Maccabe would scream. “No, ma’am, _not_ to-day; you’ve had chops for the last three months. I suppose ye think the shape is made of chops, but let me inform you, ma’am, that you are under a mistake. Shape has legs and loins, and fore-quarters; you can take one of them, or go without.”