“But, my dear friend--my worthy doctor--you know perfectly---” “I 'll know perfectly that you must go,--no help for it I have told Mr. Cashel that you 'd make fifty apologies--pretend age--Ill-health--want of habit, and so on; the valid reason being that you think his company a set of raffs, and--” “Oh, Tiernay, I beg you 'll not ascribe such sentiments to _me_.” “Well, I thought so myself, t' other day,--ay, half-an-hour ago; but there is a lady yonder, walking up and down the grass-plot, has made me change my mind. Come out and see her, man, and then say as many 'No's' as you please.” And, half-dragging, half-leading the old man out, Tiernay went on:-- “You 'll see, Mr. Cashel, how polite he 'll grow when he sees the bright eyes and the fair cheek. You 'll not hear of any more refusals then, I promise you.” Meanwhile, so far had Lady Kilgoff advanced in the favorable opinion of Miss Leicester that the young girl was already eager to accept the proffered invitation. Old Mr. Corrigan, however, could not be induced to leave his home, and so it was arranged that Lady Kilgoff should drive over on the following day to fetch her; with which understanding they parted, each looking forward with pleasure to their next meeting. CHAPTER V. LINTON'S MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE “Gone! and in secret, too!” Amid all the plans for pleasure which engaged the attention of the great house, two subjects now divided the interest between them. One was the expected arrival of the beautiful Miss Leicester,--“Mr. Cashel's babe in the wood,” as-Lady Janet called her,--the other, the reading of a little one-act piece which Mr. Linton had written for the company. Although both were, in their several ways, “events,” the degree of interest they excited was very disproportioned to their intrinsic consequence, and can only be explained by dwelling on the various intrigues and schemes by which that little world was agitated. Lady Janet, whose natural spitefulness was a most catholic feeling, began to fear that Lady Kilgoff had acquired such an influence over Cashel that she could mould him to any course she pleased,--even a marriage. She suspected, therefore, that this rustic beauty had been selected by her Ladyship as one very unlikely to compete with herself in Roland's regard, and that she was thus securing a lasting ascendancy over him. Mrs. Leicester White, who saw, or believed she saw, herself neglected by Roland, took an indignant view of the matter, and threw out dubious and shadowy suspicions about “who this young lady might be, who seemed so opportunely to have sprung up in the neighborhood,” and expressed, in confidence, her great surprise “how Lady Kilgoff could lend herself to such an arrangement.”