What does a real gentleman care for our little quarrels and the visiting list at the Deanery? ‘When ye see me aunt,’ says he, ‘Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, ye’ll tell her----’ Sure he took it for certain that me Lady Caroline was a good neighbour, and would step in of an afternoon for her bit of talk and her cup o’ tea. ‘You’ll tell her,’ says he, ‘that I hadn’t time to go and see her.’ And, please God, I will do it when I’ve got the chance. If her ladyship forgets her manners, it shall ne’er be said that O’Shaughnessy’s wife was wanting in good breeding to a family the Major had such close connections with.” “But do you really know--Mr. Ridsdale’s family?” said Lottie, after one of these brilliant addresses, somewhat bewildered by her recollection of what had passed. “And, sure, didn’t you hear me say so? Is it doubting me word you are?” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, with a twinkle in her eye. Lottie was bewildered--but it did not matter much. At this moment nothing seemed to matter very much. She had been dull, and she had been troubled by many things before the wonderful moment in which she had discovered Rollo close to her in the Abbey--much troubled, foreseeing with dismay the closing in around her of a network of new associations in which there could be nothing but pain and shame, and dull with a heavy depression of dulness which no ray of light in the present, no expectation in the future, seemed to brighten. Purcell’s hand held out to her, tenderly, yet half in pity, had been the only personal encouragement she had; and that had humbled her to the dust, even though she struggled with herself to do him justice. Her heart had been as heavy as lead. There had seemed to her nothing that was hopeful, nothing that was happy before her. Now all the heaviness had flown away. Why? Why, for no reason at all, because this young man, whom she supposed (without any warrant for the foolish idea) to love her, had come back for an hour or two; because he was coming back on a visit. The visit was not to her, nor had she probable share in the enjoyments to be provided for Lady Caroline’s nephew; and Lottie did not love him to make his very presence a delight to her. She did not love him--yet. This was the unexpressed feeling in her mind; but when a girl has got so far as this it may be supposed that the visit of the lover whom she does not love--yet, must fill her with a thousand delightful tremors. How could she doubt his sentiments? What was it that brought him back and back again to St. Michael’s? And to be led along that flowery way to the bower of bliss at the end of it, to be persuaded into love by all the flatteries and worship of a lover so delicately impassioned--could a girl’s imagination conceive anything more exquisite?--No, she was not in love--yet---- But there was no reason why she should not be, except the soft maidenly reluctance, the shy retreat before one who kept advancing, the instinct of coy resistance to an inevitable delight.