“Why,” cried Dicky, “that was just what he was trying to ask her to do! Patsy told me he began by asking her to send me off at once, as I was conducting myself in an ungentlemanly manner, and ruining your prospects of marriage——” “We had two enemies to our happiness,” said Violet, “Patsy has made one confound the other. What did she say to all that?” “She said, ‘Speak louder,’” replied Mr Fanshawe with a grim chuckle. “I can’t help thinking that there is a Providence at work,” said Miss Lestrange devoutly—“this happening and Mr Boxall getting influenza. She was putting him into my pocket at every opportunity. She had made up a party for to-day in a closed carriage, to go to Tullagh. She, and I, and He, and Lady Molyneux—ugh!—but now this blessed influenza.” “Don’t!” said Dicky, suddenly catching hold of a tree and doubling himself up in convulsions of merriment. “This is too much—it’s not influenza.” “What is it, Dicky?” “I can’t tell—see here, Violet——It’s a sneaky thing to say things about another man—I _must_ tell, though. Boxall isn’t in bed because of the influenza.” “What, then?” “Patsy collared his eye.” “His _what_?” “His artificial one. It popped out of his head when that sweep chap hit him. Patsy saw it on the road, and put it in his pocket.” “Oh!” said Miss Lestrange. “He’s sent a telegram for another one,” went on Mr Fanshawe; “Cupid’s messenger, you know—ha! ha! ha!” Miss Lestrange did not go into the same convulsions of merriment. To a girl every man who presents himself in the guise of a suitor, whether he is acceptable or wildly impossible, is a sort of trinket, a personal possession—at the lowest, a scalp. A woman, whatever she may pretend, feels a kindly interest at heart for _any_ man who admires and loses his heart to her. Had Mr Mahony, soot bags and all, fallen honestly and wildly in love with Miss Lestrange, Miss Lestrange, while scouting and loathing and closing the doors against her dusky suitor, would still have felt for him an interest; and, had he broken his leg, the news would have been of more moment to her than the news of a similar accident befalling Mr Mullins or Billy the Buck, or any other male biped of the same species. “Patsy,” said Miss Lestrange, “seems to have had a lot to do with our affairs; is it Fate or just—Patsy?” “It’s accident,” replied Dicky, whom a grave thought had suddenly sobered. “Ireland is an accident factory; these things could never happen in England. An Irishman creates an accident and then somehow makes events from it. Patsy doesn’t do things of a set purpose, but he takes hold of opportunity, and he can make more of an accident than most people. But the thing that is bothering me is this. Though Patsy, by means of an eau de Cologne cork, has stopped me from being summarily expelled, all the Patsys and all the eau de Cologne corks in the world won’t stop uncle from leaving and taking you away with him. He’s going to-morrow by the 8.15 from Tullagh station.”