It makes Monica laugh, however who, sitting in her own room, is gazing with dreamy delight at the pretty gown Miss Priscilla has ordered from Mrs. Sim's for her all the way from Dublin, and which has been spread upon her bed by Olga's maid, Mrs. Bohun having insisted on sharing that delightful young person with her ever since her first night at Aghyohillbeg. Yet Aunt Priscilla will not be here to-night to see her favorite niece dressed in her charming present. At the last moment, not two hours agone, had come a letter from Moyne to Madame O'Connor telling how Miss Penelope had been seized by a bad neuralgic headache and was in such pain that Miss Priscilla could not find it in her heart to leave her. Kit, escorted by Terence, would arrive, however, in time for the opening act; and it would be impossible to say how disappointed the two old ladies were (which indeed was the strict truth), and they hoped all would be successful, etc., etc. With a remorseful pang, Monica acknowledges to herself now that she had felt a secret gladness when first the news had been retailed to her by Madame O'Connor. A sense of being under an obligation to that dire neuralgic headache, is oppressing her. It is wicked of her, and most cruel, but the secret exultation cannot be denied. And see how the case stands. Poor Aunt Penelope in vile suffering, Aunt Priscilla enduring bitter disappointment,--for she had, as Monica well knew, set her heart on witnessing these theatricals,--and Monica herself actually glad and light at heart _because_ of the misfortunes that have befallen them. Alas! how fiendish it all sounds! And again, to add to the iniquity of it, for how slight a cause has she welcomed the discomfiture of her best friends! For a few dances with their enemy, a freedom for happy smiles and unrestrained glances,--_all_ to be made over to the enemy. For how, with Miss Priscilla's reproachful angry eyes upon her, could she have waltzed or smiled or talked with a Desmond? And what is to be the end of it all? A vague feeling of terror compasses her round about as she dwells on her forbidden lover. Will she have to give him up at the last?--it must be either him or Aunt Priscilla; and she owes so much to Aunt Priscilla; while to him--oh, no! she owes him nothing; of course he is only--only--and yet---- A bell sounds in the distance; she starts and glances at the tiny clock upon her chimney-piece. Yes, it is almost six, and dinner will be ready in ten minutes. And afterwards comes "The School for Scandal," and after that the tableaux, and after that again dancing,--delights threefold for happy eighteen. Her spirits rise; her fears fall; self-contempt, remorse, regret, all sink into insignificance, and with a beating heart she coils afresh her tinted hair, and twines some foreign beads about her slender throat to make herself a shade more lovable in the eyes of the man she must not encourage, and whose very existence she has been forbidden to acknowledge.