thunderdrops upon a window-pane; and he could tell that she was dreaming of her people. Then his heart yearned towards Doreen. He longed to seize her in his lusty arms, crying: 'My beloved! I am poor, and you are rich' (for Mr. Wolfe had put by a cosy nest-egg). 'Our tastes are simple. I will try to live upon love and my allowance. You shall keep all your fortune to yourself--only be mine, my very own!' But somehow he never said the words, for something told him that she would only smile, and on second thoughts he was glad he had not spoken. It would have been wrong in her to scoff, for the proposal would have been as unusual as disinterested; but girls will laugh at improper moments. Miss Wolfe was an heiress as times went, and likely to be richer; impecunious squires and squireens were legion; and the abduction clubs not yet quite stamped out. This, indeed, was one reason why she spent most of her time at Strogue instead of with her father in Dublin; for he, easygoing in most things, was painfully alive to the possibility of finding his daughter stolen one day when he was in court, to be bucketed about the country without a change of linen till his reluctant consent was wrung to a match with some ne'er-do-well. At Strogue such a thing could hardly happen, for the prestige of the Glandores was hedged about with terror, and every ne'er-do-well knew that to play Paris to the Helen of the fair Doreen--to carry her off from the sanctuary of Strogue Abbey--would be to call down dolorous reprisals from her two stalwart cousins. So, having her constantly before his vision, Terence adored the damsel wildly by fits and starts, hating her when she snubbed him, taking a loyal interest, for her sake, in the Penal Code and the United Irishmen; and was not aware that he stood on the verge of the political maelstrom, in whoso eddies so many good Irishmen had come to drowning.