"Of course you can follow your own wishes, dearest, and I shall neither gain nor lose; but it does seem a pity, when you might be a countess and have the world at your feet. I know few so altogether fitted to fill the position, and still you reject it. You are pretty, clever, charming,--everything of the most desirable." "Am I?" She steps into the drawing-room, and brings herself by a swift step or two opposite a huge mirror let into one of the walls. Standing before it, she surveys herself leisurely from head to foot, and then she smiles. "I don't know about the 'clever,'" she says; "but I am _sure_ I am pretty. In town last season--do you remember?--my hair created quite a furore, it is so peculiarly light. Ever so many people wanted to paint me. Yes, it was all very pleasant." "Do you think it will be as pleasant to live _here_ all your days, and find no higher ambition than the hope that your ponies may be prettier than Mrs. So-and-so's?" "Do you remember that fancy ball, and how the prince asked who I was, and all the rest of it? He said one or two very pretty things to me. He, like you, said I was charming. Do you know," naively, "I have never got over the feeling of being _obliged_ to any one who pays me a compliment? I am obliged to _you_ now." "And to the prince _then_. But you won't see many princes if you stay in Ireland, I fancy: they don't hanker after the soil." "Poor Ireland!" says Mrs. Bohun. "And compliments, I should say, will be almost as scarce." "Ah! now, _there_ you are wrong: _they_ fly beneath these murky skies. We absolutely revel in them. What true Irishman but has one ripping freely from his mouth on the very smallest chance? And then, my dear Hermia, consider, are we not the proud possessors of the blarney-stone?" "I wish, dearest, you would bring yourself to think seriously of Rossmoyne." "I do think seriously of him. It would be impossible to think of him in any other way, he is so dull and pompous." "He would make an excellent husband!" "I have had enough of husbands. They are very unsatisfactory people. And besides----" "Well?" "Rossmoyne has a temper." "And forty thousand a year." "Not good enough." "If you are waiting for an angel, you will wait forever. All men are----" "Oh, Hermia! really, I _can't_ listen to such naughty words, you know. I really wonder at you!" "I wasn't going to say anything of the kind," says Hermia, with great haste, not seeing the laughter lurking in Olga's dark eyes. "I merely meant that----" "Don't explain!--_don't!_" says Olga; "I couldn't endure any more of it." And she laughs aloud. "Rossmoyne is very devoted to you. Is there anything against him, except his temper?" "Yes, his beard. _Nothing_ would induce me to marry a man with hair all over his face. It isn't _clean_." "Give him five minutes and a razor, and he might do away with it."