murderous ruts, the broad acres of irredeemable bog, the long rank grass waving on the roofs of tumbledown stone cabins, the gaunt pigs and gaunter peasantry; and a feeling that was not altogether ignoble kindled a sudden flush upon her handsome face. What could not be done for Castle Desmond and those ill-used peasantry by a chieftainess who should have thirty thousand a year at her command! She fancied herself a kind of fairy queen, beneath whose wand pleasant homesteads might arise on those desolate hills, and yellow cornfields spread a golden mantle over the valleys now so bare and empty. Miss Desmond’s lot in life was altogether exceptional, and the sentimental dreams which come to some young women had no lodgment in her brain. She looked her fate straight in the face, and was eager to make the best of any opportunity that might fall in her way. For the present she was very well off where she was; though the worship of the golden calf, as represented by Maude Hillary, was a perpetual abomination to her. But she was tolerably resigned to her present position at the Cedars. It was only in the future that her life looked dark and threatening. She must marry before Miss Hillary,--that was essential,--or else she must resign herself to the miserable position of a companion on sufferance, necessary to Maude, perhaps, but very disagreeable to Maude’s husband. Under these circumstances, a chance visitor at the Cedars with thirty thousand a year for his fortune was not a person to be disdainfully entreated even by the daughter of all the Desmonds: so Julia was very kind to Francis Tredethlyn during that brief homeward drive, asked him all manner of questions respecting his sentiments upon things in general and the charity _fête_ in particular, and flashed her handsome eyes and white teeth upon him until he was almost dazzled by their brightness. Miss Desmond had very dark eyes--eyes that seemed of a greenish hazel when you saw them in repose, but which looked almost black when they sparkled athwart a fringe of dusky lashes. She had dark eyes and very white teeth; and the distinguishing characteristic of her face was the contrast between the darkness of one and the white glitter of the other. Mr. Tredethlyn knew that the young lady was very handsome, and that there was some condescension involved in her friendly notice of him; but his eyes wandered away to Maude’s fair face and earnest blue eyes, and there was a suspicion of irrelevance in some of his replies to Miss Desmond’s animated questions. If he had been less absent-minded, he might have seen that young lady’s white teeth close vengefully upon her lower lip as she turned from him after one of those doubtful answers.