"And what is to be said to him to-morrow? He looks so earnest, so--full of her. _What_ is to be said to him?" "So his uncle looked at her mother," says Miss Priscilla, with a terrible bitterness; "and what came of that? Is this young man to steal from us our best and dearest--as _he_ did? Be firm, Penelope. For her sake crush this attachment before the fickleness that is in his blood asserts itself to break her heart." "I fear it will be broken either way," says Miss Penelope, who has a secret hankering after all true lovers. "At least her self-respect will be spared, and for that she will thank us later on. She must give him up!" "Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, in a low tone, "supposing she _refuses_ to do it?" "When I have fully explained the matter to her, she will withdraw her refusal," says Miss Priscilla, very grandly, but her expression is not up to her tone in anyway. It is, indeed, depressed and uncertain. "He struck me as being a very attractive young man," ventures Miss Penelope absently. "Humph!" says Miss Priscilla. "And--but that would be impossible in one of his name--a very _lovable_ young man," says Miss Penelope, timidly. "Hah!" says Miss Priscilla: this ejaculation is not meant for surprise or acquiescence, but is merely a warlike snort. "And very loving, too," says Miss Penelope, dreamily. "I never saw such eyes in my life! and he never took them off her." "Penelope," says Miss Priscilla, with such a sudden and awful amount of vehemence as literally makes Miss Penelope jump, "I am ashamed of you. Whatever we--that is" (slightly confused) "_you_ may think about that young man, please keep it to yourself, and at least let me never hear you speak of a Desmond in admiring terms." So saying, she stalks from the rooms and drives down to the village to execute a commission that has been hanging over her for a fortnight, and which she chooses to-day to fulfil, if only to prove to the outer world that she is in no wise upset by the afternoon excitement. Yet in a very short time she returns from her drive, and with a countenance so disturbed that Miss Penelope's heart is filled with fresh dismay. "What is it?" she says, following Miss Priscilla into her own room. "You have heard something further; you have seen----" "Yes, I have seen _him_--young Desmond," says Miss Priscilla, with an air of much agitation. "It was just outside the village, on my way home; and he was carrying a little hurt child in his arms, and he was hushing it so tenderly; and--the little one was looking up in his face--and he kissed it--and----_Why_ isn't he a _bad_, _wicked_ young man?" cries Miss Priscilla, in a frenzy of despair, bursting into tears. CHAPTER XXIX. How Miss Priscilla is driven to enter Coole--How she there receives an important proposal, but with much fortitude declines it--And how The Desmond suffers more from a twinge of conscience than from a bullet.