"'Love is a thing as any spirit free,'" quotes he, tenderly. "How shall one know when the god may come? It has nothing to do with time. I have seen you,--it little matters how often,--and now I love you. Dear heart, _try_ to love me." There is something in his manner both gentle and earnest. Impressed by it, she whispers softly,-- "I _will_ try." "And you will call me Brian?" "Oh, no!--no, indeed!--not yet," entreats she, stepping back from him as far as he will allow her. "Very well, not yet." "And you will go to the Barracks for this dance?" "I will do anything on earth you ask me. You know that too well, I fear, for my peace of mind." "And you won't be angry with me if I don't dance with you there?" "No. I promise that, too. Ah! here is Miss Kit coming,--and without the roses,--after all." It is true she has no roses; she has, indeed, forgotten she even pretended to want them, and has been happy while away with her song and her own thoughts. "I think, Monica, we ought, perhaps, to be thinking of coming home," she says, apologetically, yet with quite a motherly air. Has she not been mounting guard over and humoring these two giddy young people before her? "Yes, I think so too;" and the goodness of Kit, and something else, strike her. "If we are asked to this dance at Clonbree, and if we go, I should like Kit to go too," she says in a soft aside to Desmond, who says, "That is all right: I settled it with Cobbett yesterday," in the same tone; and then a little more energetically, as he sees the moments flying, he goes on, "Before you go, say one thing after me. It will be a small consolation until I see you again. Say, 'Brian, good-by.'" "Good-by, Brian," she whispers, shyly, and then she draws her hand out of his, and, turning to the studiously inattentive Kit, passes her arm through hers. "Good-by, Mr. Desmond! I trust we may soon meet again," says the younger Miss Beresford, with rather a grand air, smiling upon him patronizingly. "I hope so too," says Desmond, gravely, "and that next time you will graciously accord me a little more of your society." Quite pleased with this delicate protest against her lengthened absence, Kit bows politely, and she and Monica take their homeward way. Once Monica turns, to wave him a friendly adieu, and he can see again her soft, bare arms, her pretty baby-neck in her white dinner-gown, and her lovely, earnest eyes. Then she is gone, and her passing seems to him "like the ceasing of exquisite music," and nothing is left to him but the wailing of the rising night-wind, and the memory of a perfect girl-face that he knows will haunt him till he dies. CHAPTER IX. How Terry is put in the Dock--And how the two Misses Blake baffle expectation, and show themselves in their true colors.