‘Next week,’ repeats he jerkily. It is disagreeable to him to think that it is through his fault that the nervous anxiety has crept into her eyes. ‘And—er—good-bye.’ He certainly had not meant to do it, but he now holds out his hand to her, and with a little swift, eager movement she comes to him and slips her own into it. A slim little hand, and beautifully shaped, but brown, and looking a little as though it had done some hard work in its time, yet the grace with which she gives it to him is exquisite. * * * * * Just at the gate he meets Mrs. Denis again. ‘This young lady,’ says he abruptly, ‘seems to have set her heart upon living here. It is extremely unpleasant for me, but she appears to have no other place to go to. She will therefore become my tenant. She will, you understand, take the Cottage from me.’ ‘Bless us an’ save us!’ says Mrs. Denis. ‘An’ yer honour—what will you do?’ ‘Keep out of it,’ says Wyndham coldly. ‘I suppose she will arrange to keep you on. She——What’s her name?’—sharply. ‘I don’t know, sir; she don’t seem to like to spake about it. Miss Ella I calls her.’ ‘Ella? Did you say her Christian name was Ella?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Ah!’—thoughtfully. ‘Well, good-bye.’ ‘But, sir, you’ll be coming again?’ ‘Yes, next week, to arrange about the rent; not after that.’ He strides through the gate and up the road. ‘Faix, and I’m thinkin’ ye will,’ says Mrs. Denis, watching him with her arms akimbo till he disappears round the corner. ‘’Tis mighty purty eyes she’s got in that mighty purty head of hers. An’ so he’s not goin’ to turn her out, after all! Didn’t I tell you, Bridget Moriarty,’ rubbing her chin, on which a very handsome beard is growing, ‘that he’d soften whin he put his glance upon her?’ CHAPTER XII. ‘Jest and youthful jollity, Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles. ‘Where’s our beloved auntie?’ asks Mr. Fitzgerald, looking generally round him from his seat on the tail of Betty’s gown. It is the evening of the same day, and still divinely warm. Not yet has night made its first approach, and from bush to bush the birds are calling, as if in haste to get as much merriment out of the departing day as time will give them. From here—in the bushes round the tennis-ground, the one solitary court that Carew Barry and his cousin, Dom Fitzgerald, have made with their own hands, after a hard tussle with the Rector for the bit of ground, that seemed to him quite a big slice off his glebe—to the big syringa-tree beyond, the sweet, glad music of the birds swells and grows, filling the evening air with delicate throbbings. Ever the little creatures seem to call one to another; passionately sometimes, as if bursting their little throats in their wild joy, and anon softly, pleadingly, but always calling, calling, calling.