And the two old ladies set to work to a good dish of scandal. “Miss Wyndham’s an exceedingly fine girl,” said Captain Cokely to Mat Tierney, as they were playing a game of piquet in the little drawing-room. “Yes,” said Mat; “and she’s a hundred thousand exceedingly fine charms too, independently of her fine face.” “So I hear,” said Cokely; “but I only believe half of what I hear about those things.” “She has more than that; I know it.” “Has she though? Faith, do you know I think Kilcullen has a mind to keep it in the family. He’s very soft on her, and she’s just as sweet to him. I shouldn’t be surprised if he were to marry now, and turn steady.” “Not at all; there are two reasons against it. In the first place, he’s too much dipped for even Fanny’s fortune to be any good to him; and secondly, she’s engaged.” “What, to Ballindine?” said Cokely. “Exactly so,” said Mat. “Ah, my dear fellow, that’s all off long since. I heard Kilcullen say so myself. I’ll back Kilcullen to marry her against Ballindine for a hundred pounds.” “Done,” said Mat; and the bet was booked. The same evening, Tierney wrote to Dot Blake, and said in a postscript, “I know you care for Ballindine; so do I, but I don’t write to him. If he really wants to secure his turtle-dove, he should see that she doesn’t get bagged in his absence. Kilcullen is here, and I tell you he’s a keen sportsman. They say it’s quite up with him in London, and I should be sorry she were sacrificed: she seems a nice girl.” Lord Kilcullen had ample opportunities of forwarding his intimacy with Fanny, and he did not neglect them. To give him his due, he played his cards as well as his father could wish him. He first of all overcame the dislike with which she was prepared to regard him; he then interested her about himself; and, before he had been a week at Grey Abbey, she felt that she had a sort of cousinly affection for him. He got her to talk with a degree of interest about himself; and when he could do that, there was no wonder that Tierney should have fears for his friend’s interests. Not that there was any real occasion for them. Fanny Wyndham was not the girl to be talked out of, or into, a real passion, by anyone. “Now, tell me the truth, Fanny,” said Kilcullen, as they were sitting over the fire together in the library, one dark afternoon, before they went to dress for dinner; “hadn’t you been taught to look on me as a kind of ogre—a monster of iniquity, who spoke nothing but oaths, and did nothing but sin?” “Not exactly that: but I won’t say I thought you were exactly just what you ought to be.” “But didn’t you think I was exactly what I ought not to have been? Didn’t you imagine, now, that I habitually sat up all night, gambling, and drinking buckets of champagne and brandy-and-water? And that I lay in bed all day, devising iniquity in my dreams? Come now, tell the truth, and shame the devil; if I am the devil, I know people have made me out to be.”