moment he was on his knees before her, kissing her hands.

"Dearest, best girl!-truest, only friend! Diana, dearest, you must give me a title—an excuse: how otherwise could I? Say, dear,

you will be mine-my wife.'

The flush spread from Diana's cheeks over her brow; and there was an under-current of exultation in the tone with which she replied, "Yes, then, since you will;-but here comes mamma."

CHAPTER XIV.

MISS DOROTHY O'HEGARTY was sitting with Nellie one fine September afternoon in the drawing-room at Green Lanes. The French window, which led into the garden, was open; and the relics of an afternoon tea were scattered about. Miss O'Hegarty was comfortably disposed in an easy-chair, tatting. Nellie, seated on a low chair beside her, her chin resting in the palm of one hand, was gazing dreamily down the garden; where Dermot Blake and Dicky were smoking in the espalier walk. Between them and her lay the flower-garden, all ablaze with scarlet and yellow; standard roses, now bearing their second crop, climbing tea-roses and jessamine, in full blossom, scented the air deliciously; the bees were at work still in the beds of mignonette, and brown and scarlet butterflies flitted to and fro. The peach-apples, dead ripe, showed their scarlet and yellow

cheeks on the boughs; plums covered with purple down, and apricots, sweltered on the red-brick walls. Everything was ripe the flowers, for all their bloom, had the parched look that tells of coming decay; and every breath of air scattered rose-leaves and little jessamine stars on the turf.

Nellie was looking pale and languid; her lips trembled every now and again, and her eyebrows were drawn up fretfully. She sat quiet and silent, apparently listening to Dorothy's never-ending stream of talk; in reality her thoughts were far away.

"Two, six, pearl," began Dorothy,ticking off the number of stitches with a contented nod. Then, taking up evidently some previously discussed topic, "I do wonder how Diana can be such a fool!"

Up went Nellie's arms over her head, which she laid back on her joined hands; and an expression of impatience, that was almost pain, contracted her brow. Not a word did she

say.

"Idiot of a woman!

She has three thou

sand pounds. People call it five, and no doubt this Mr. Hogan thinks it is that; and it is that

he's after, of course-the fellow. I have no doubt Emily Bursford is glad of anybody for her. She has had her share of trouble with her family. The sons were dreadful-dreadful scamps; one of them married some creature, and is obliged to live out of society-in New Zealand somewhere. Oh no!" Miss Dorothy continued, with a shake of her head that nearly displaced her spectacles, "I don't think the young man is getting at all suck a catch as he imagines-at all. Then one died. People said he was the steady man of the family; but anyhow, he died." Dorothy said this in a dubious tone, as if the fact of dying was damaging per se, and must be held to b> incriminating, as no proof to the contrary hal been lodged. "Then there's Jervis to the good yet; and a torture he is, too."

Had Nellie been listening, she would have been surprised at this transition from the earlier views of the matter held by Dorothy. When the first news of Diana's engagement had reached the Fitzgerald Place coterie, surprise and indignation at the mésalliance had been the order of the day. But now the reaction-the inevitable reaction-had set in.

Diana was going about Dublin with all the airs and graces of a fiancée desirous to make the most of her position, and showing thereby that she considered herself in no way to be making a bad match. This glaring defiance of law and order was not to be put up with; so public opinion veered round to the gentleman's side. All the disadvantages of the Bursford family were held up in a strong light. Drelincourt's, Hutchinson's, and Jervis's misdeeds were raked up; Monsignor Bursford, the pervert; Diana's age: nothing was left undone; and for a week or two it might be thought that the only adequate expression of her friends' sentiments would be a roundrobin of condolence with O'Rooney Hogan, M.P.

"I wonder what her mother will do now? She 'll have to give up her house. I suppose they will be living in London. Diana need not imagine he 'll be taken up by people here. London will be the most convenient for him, and of course Diana will live there."

Nellie was biting her lips hard. Her elbows were taken down now, and her hands were clasped tight together in her lap.