'Then I'm to be the scapegoat?' she said, with a tinge of scorn. 'I'm to lick the whelp into shape--no matter if my heart is broken in the process. Thank you! A vow once sworn need never be repeated. Yet do not forget, aunt, if you please, that it is registered. He refuses to go into highborn society where noble ladies are, preferring play and duelling-clubs, and you dread his making a _mésalliance_, rather than which you would accept poor me as a _pis-aller_.' (Here the young lady made a curtsey.) 'Many thanks. Is this at all like the truth? Pardon my speaking plainly. It's best to be aboveboard. After this time we will, with your good leave, never return to the hateful subject. That I shall not be poor can surely claim no part in your calculations, for he is thirty times wealthier than I can ever be. Rich!' she repeated, with a harsh laugh. 'A rich Catholic will be a curiosity, _n'est ce pas?_ If this is at all your course of thought, why not prevent his going to the Little House? Speak to Mrs. Gillin as harshly as you began to speak to me to-day, and there will surely be an end of the matter. Or,' pursued the crafty maiden, remembering Tone's last epistle, 'brush Norah from his mind by change of scene. Why not remove for a few months to Ennishowen? It is long since you were there. Your presence would do much to keep disloyal tenants quiet in these disloyal times. Would not that be a capital example? The boys used to love Ennishowen. Shane will forget the objectionable Norah whilst pursuing the shy seal or shooting wild birds round Malin Head. Do you remember the delirious delight of him and Terence when they dragged their first seal into the boat under Glas-aitch-é Cliff, and how you told me not to be afraid of looking over the garden parapet into the green water dashing so far below? Ah, those were days!' the girl pursued, kindling. 'Our only care whether the fish would bite or the shot carry----' then she was stopped by a lump rising in her throat, stirred by the thought of how different those days were from these, when the thunderous cloud was drawing lower, lower--and she--a reserved young lady--was becoming alarmingly familiarised with secret despatches; a political phantasmagoria; a threatened collision between two classes, whose hate was bubbling over.