This awful threat has the desired effect of reducing Mr. Beresford to subjection. He goes down before the foe, and truckles to her meanly. "You needn't take it so much to heart," he says soothingly: "there wasn't much in it, after all; and your shoes are very pretty, and so are your feet." The compliment works wonders; Monica quite brightens up again, but the two old ladies are hopelessly scandalized. "I feel assured, Terence," says Miss Priscilla, with much dignity, "that under _no_ circumstances could a niece of mine show too much of her----her----" Here Miss Priscilla blushes, and breaks down. "Legs?" suggests Terry, politely. "But who was the strange young man?" asks Miss Penelope, curiously. "Our friend of the hay-cart said his name was Desmond, and that he was nephew to the master of the house behind the big gates," returns Kit, fluently. "Desmond!" says Miss Priscilla, greatly agitated. "Let me never hear you mention that name again! It has been our bane! Forget you have ever been so unfortunate as to encounter this young man; and if ill luck should ever drive him across your path again, remember you do not--you never _can_--know him." "But I'm certain he will know Monica if he sees her again," says Kit. "He stared at her as if she had seven heads." "No wonder, considering her equivocal position. And as to knowing Monica, I'm not certain of that, of course, but I'm utterly positive he could swear to her _shoes_ in a crowd," says Terence, with unholy delight. "He was enchanted with them, and with the clocks on her stockings: I think he was taking the pattern of them." "He was _not_," says Monica, almost weeping. "He couldn't see them. I was too high up." "What will you bet he doesn't know the color of them?" asks her tormentor, with a fresh burst of appreciation of the undignified scene. "When I see him again I'll ask him." "Terence," says Miss Priscilla, growing very pale, "you must never see him again, or, at all events, you must never speak to him. Understand, once for all, that intimacy between us and the inhabitants of Coole is impossible. This feud I hint at touches you even more closely than it touches us, but you cannot feel it more than we do,--perhaps not as much. The honor of our family has suffered at the hands of the Master of Coole. He is the enemy of our house!" "Priscilla!" murmurs Miss Penelope, in a low and trembling tone. "Do not try to check me, Penelope. I _will_ speak," says Miss Priscilla, sternly. "This man, years ago, offered one near and dear to us an indignity not to be lightly borne. The world is wide," turning to the astonished children, "you can make friends where you choose; but I would have you recollect that _never_ can a Beresford and a Desmond have aught in common." "But what have the Desmonds done to us, Aunt Priscilla?" asks Monica, a good deal awed by the old lady's solemnity.