'My Lord Clare is partial to me, and tells me many things,' apologised the giant, with a twinkle in his eye. 'Maybe I'm not so stupid as I look, and can unravel a fact from a careless hint. As for Sirr, I don't care two pins for him; yet who knows how useful he may prove to us? He has apartments in the Castle--is hand and glove with Secretary Cooke; through him we may be able to tamper with the soldiery, turning the arms of Government against itself, for the town-major is no man of straw.' But Tone shook his head. 'It is ill dealing with traitors' weapons,' he retorted. 'In a passage of wits, you will certainly be worsted, for you are too open, too blundering.' Cassidy looked demurely at the rest, with his whimsical half-smile, as though to ask whether this verdict on his character were a compliment or not; and handsome Doreen smiled back on him in her grave way as she handed the flask and cup to Tone, and twined her arm round Sara Curran's waist. A pretty picture were these two girls--who loitered a little amongst the darkling flowers, while Tone was speaking his farewell. Doreen had fulfilled the promise of her childhood, and was now a statuesque woman of two-and-twenty, with rich warm blood mantling under an olive skin--soft eyes of the brown colour of a mountain stream, shaded by long silken lashes--and an aquiline nose whose nostrils were as finely cut and sensitive as were her aunt's. People wondered where she got her scornful look, for Mr. Arthur Wolfe (attorney-general now) was the most peaceable and quiet of men, while all the world knew that her retiring mother had faded from excess of meekness. Her aunt, Lady Glandore, had watched her growth approvingly, for the tall supple form was what her own had been--as was the swan-like neck and head-toss. She approved and seemed quite to like her niece till she remembered that she was a Papist and a blot on the escutcheon; then she despised her, yet never dared to touch forbidden ground save in a covert way; for Doreen had a temper, when roused, as self-asserting as her own, and her aunt was grown old before her time; too old to rise without an effort at the sound of the war-trumpet. Doreen was dutiful to her aunt in most things; but on the subject of her oppressed religion was a very tigress. If Lady Glandore permitted herself too broad a sally, those eyes with the strongly-marked black pupils would shoot forth a cairngorm flame--that mass of dark brown hair which hung in natural curls after the Irish fashion down her back, would shake like a lion's crest, and my lady would retire from the field discomfited. Yet this occurred but seldom, and folks could only guess how the Penal Code burned into her flesh by a certain unnatural quietude and an artificial repose of manner beyond her years.