“Weariness,” echoed she again. She glanced up at the black-faced clock with the white figures on the church tower across the way. The sea was on the other side of them; the foam-capped waves tossing and furling and pursuing each other in playful frolic like myriads of lambs on a deep blue field. There was a gay sky to match, and a gay wind, full of an intoxicating tang, and it blew Mistress Lafone’s shot green taffety into balloons, and silvery liquifactions, and fluttered her light curls, and set the long amber streamers of her rustic hat flying like pennons. She glanced back from the clock to my Lord’s face, and her eyes danced and flickered as if the sea were in them, and suddenly filled with huge tears. “’Tis not the weariness, I mind,” she exclaimed with a sob. “’Tis the cruelty!” “Why, you poor little bird,” quoth he, tenderly compassionate. “Could anyone be cruel to you?” “Oh, indeed, they are, my Lord, and I can’t think how I have offended them! Oh, the slights, the unkindnesses! And my Lady Kilcroney, your own dear lovely lady, my Lord, what hath she against me.... Oh, I do assure you,” cried Mrs. Lafone, raising her voice piteously, as the measured trot of royal horses beat upon her ear. “I’ve cried myself to sleep, night after night. And when I saw your face, ‘here’s one,’ I said to myself, ‘who will be a little kind to me!’” The wind--it certainly was a naughty wind, as if it, too, were a rebel against the decorum imposed by the presence of Royalty--came rushing up from the wide ocean and caught Mistress Lafone in a positive whirl, seizing her with a great beat of invisible pennons as if about to fly away with her. “Oh! oh!” she cried. Her light figure swayed and seemed to lift. She flung out her arms. What could my Lord do but catch her? And holding her, what could he do, but kiss her? For there were tears on her delicate face which melted him, and sparkles behind them which dared him; and what’s a kiss when all is said and done? The Royal carriage wheeled by them, and Kitty, sitting bolt upright opposite the Queen, had a good view of her erring spouse and his infamous companion for the whole length of the parade. It can scarcely be credited: the culprits, as they gazed back at her, were laughing. The matrimonial course of the Kilcroneys had been fond, but as anyone who knew my Lady might guess, it had been variegated. She had a quick temper, an impatient spirit, and a detestation of monotony; withal the soundest heart in the world. So that never did couple so often fall out, or so fervently make it up, as they. My Lord, who was of an easy-going temperament, who loved and admired his Kitty in all her moods, rather enjoyed these connubial storms. “Begad,” he would say, “there never was anything to equal a dash of red pepper for making a man enjoy the taste of the wine afterwards.”