"Oh," said Catharine, directly, "if you are so bent on being cured, it would not become me to say nay." Griffith Gaunt bit his lip and hung his head, and made no reply. The patience with which he received her hard speech was more apparent than real; but it told. Catharine, receiving no fresh positive provocation, relented again of her own accord, and, after a considerable silence, whispered, softly,-- "Think how we should all miss you." Here was an overture to reconciliation. But, unfortunately, it brought out what had long been rankling in Griffith's mind, and was in fact the real cause of the misunderstanding. "Oh," said he, "those I care for will soon find another to take my place! Soon? quotha. They have not waited till I was gone for that." "Ah, indeed!" said Catharine, with some surprise; then, like the quick-witted girl she was, "so this is what all the coil is about." She then, with a charming smile, begged him to inform her who was his destined successor in her esteem. Griffith colored purple at her cool hypocrisy, (for such he considered it,) and replied, almost fiercely,-- "Who but that young black-a-vised George Neville, that you have been coquetting with this month past,--and danced all night with him at Lady Munster's ball, you did." Catharine blushed, and said, deprecatingly,-- "_You_ were not there, Griffith, or to be sure I had not danced with _him_." "And he toasts you by name, wherever he goes." "Can I help that? Wait till I toast him, before you make yourself ridiculous, and me very angry--about nothing." Griffith, sticking to his one idea, replied, doggedly,-- "Mistress Alice Peyton shilly-shallied with her true lover for years, till Richard Hilton came, that was not fit to tie his shoes; and then"---- Catharine cut him short,-- "Affront me, if nothing less will serve; but spare my sister in her grave." She began the sentence angrily, but concluded it in a broken voice. Griffith was half disarmed; but only half. He answered, sullenly,-- "She did not die till she had jilted an honest gentleman and broken his heart, and married a sot, to her cost. And you are of her breed, when all is done; and now that young coxcomb has come, like Dick Hilton, between you and me." "But I do not encourage him." "You do not _dis_courage him," retorted Griffith, "or he would not be so hot after you. Were you ever the woman to say, 'I have a servant already that loves me dear'? That one frank word had sent him packing." Miss Peyton colored, and the water came into her eyes. "I may have been imprudent," she murmured. "The young gentleman made me smile with his extravagance. I never thought to be misunderstood by him, far less by you." Then, suddenly, as bold as brass,--"It's all your fault; if he had the power to make you uneasy, why did you not check me before?"