MISS LAURY was sitting after breakfast in a small library. Her desk lay before her and two large ruled quartos filled with items and figures which she seemed to be comparing. Behind her chair stood a tall, well-made, soldierly young man with light hair. His dress was plain and gentlemanly; the epaulette, on one shoulder, alone indicated that he occupied an official capacity. He watched with a fixed look of attention the movements of the small finger which ascended in rapid calculation the long columns of accounts. It was strange to see the absorption of mind expressed in Miss Laury’s face, the gravity of her smooth white brow shaded with drooping curls, the scarcely perceptible and unsmiling movement of her lips, though those lips in their rosy sweetness seemed formed only for smiles. An hour or more lapsed in this employment, the room meantime continuing in profound silence broken only by an occasional observation addressed by Miss Laury to the gentleman behind her concerning the legitimacy of some item or the absence of some stray farthing wanted to complete the accuracy of the sum total. In this balancing of the books she displayed a most business-like sharpness and strictness. The slightest fault was detected and remarked on in few words, but with quick searching glance. However, the accountant had evidently been accustomed to her surveillance, for on the whole his books were a specimen of arithmetical correctness. ‘Very well,’ said Miss Laury, as she closed the volumes, ‘your accounts do you credit, Mr. O’Neill. You may tell His Grace that all is quite right. Your memoranda tally with my own exactly.’ Mr. O’Neill bowed. ‘Thank you, madam. This will bear me out against Lord Hartford. His lordship lectured me severely last time he came to inspect Fort Adrian.’ ‘What about?’ asked Miss Laury, turning aside her face to hide the deepening of colour which overspread it at the mention of Lord Hartford’s name. ‘I can hardly tell you, madam; but his lordship was in a savage temper. Nothing could please him. He found fault with everything and everybody. I thought he scarcely appeared himself, and that has been the opinion of many lately.’ Miss Laury gently shook her head. ‘You shall not say so, Ryan,’ she replied in a soft tone of reproof. ‘Lord Hartford has a great many things to think about, and he is naturally rather stern. You ought to bear with his tempers.’ ‘Necessity has no law, madam,’ replied O’Neill with a smile, ‘and I _must_ bear with them. But his lordship is not a popular man in the army. He orders the lash so unsparingly. We like the Earl of Arundel ten times better.’ ‘Ah,’ said Miss Laury, smiling, ‘you and I are Westerns, Mr. O’Neill: Irish,—and we favour our countrymen. But Hartford is a gallant commander. His men can always trust him. Do not let us be partial.’