"I never fathomed it. 'The atrocious crime of being a young man,' principally, I think. Once, I certainly locked him up in his own wine-cellar, and left him there for six hours, under the pretence that I believed him to be a burglar, but nothing more. He quite disliked being locked in the cellar, I think. It was very dark, I must admit. But I'm not afraid of the dark." "That's a good thing," says Madam O'Connor, entering, "because it will soon envelop you. Did any one ever see so dark an evening for the time of year? Well, I do think that fire looks cheerful, though it _is_ warm. Has Mary Browne come down yet?" "No. Come here, Madam; here's a cosey seat I have been keeping sacred for you for the past hour. Why have you denied us the light of your countenance all this weary time?" "Get out with you now, and your fine compliments to an old woman!" says Madam, laughing. "If I were _your_ sweetheart, Owen, I'd never believe a word out of your lips." Mrs. Herrick, laying down her knitting, raises her head, and looks full into Kelly's eyes. As she does so, a smile, lovely as it is unexpected, warms all her statuesque face into perfect beauty. "And this to me!" says Kelly, addressing his hostess, and pretending to be blind to Mrs. Herrick's glance. "All the afternoon I have been treated by your sex with the most consummate cruelty. With their tongues they have been stabbing me as with so many knives. But yours is the unkindest cut of all. It is, in fact, the--er--carving-knife!" "Oh! here's the tea," says Olga, in a pleased tone. "Madam, _please_ let me pour it out to-night?" "Of course, my love, and thank you too." "And may I to-morrow evening?" asks Monica, with childish eagerness and a quick warm blush. "You may, indeed, my pretty one; and I hope it won't be long before you pour me out my tea in your own house." Monica laughs, and kisses her, and Desmond, who is standing near them, stoops over Madam O'Connor and tells her he would like to kiss her too,--first, for her own sake, and secondly, for that sweet hope of hers just uttered. "Not a bit of it," says she, in return, in a tone as sprightly as it was twenty years ago, though too low for Monica to hear. "Your first and second reasons are all humbug. Say at once you want to kiss me because you think this child's caress still lingers on my lips. Ah ha!--you see I know more than you think, my lad. And hark you, Brian, come here till I whisper a word in your ear; I'm your friend, boy, in the matter, and I wish you luck, though Priscilla Blake kill me for it; that's what I want to say." "I couldn't desire a better friend," says Brian gratefully. "And where on earth _is_ Mary Browne?" says Madam O'Connor. "She is such a nice girl, though hardly a Venus. Owen, my dear, I want you to take her down to dinner, and to make yourself charming to her." "I shall be only too pleased," says Mr. Kelly, faintly; and then he sinks back in his chair and covers his face with his hands.