Rossmoyne. Duchess

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СКАЧАТЬ his glance, rises hurriedly from her seat, and going up to the girl, embraces her warmly.

      "Ah! my pretty Monica! my little saint!" she cries, in her sweet, gay voice, "what happy breeze has blown you hither?"

      "I am living here—at Moyne—with my aunts," in a happy, breathless way. "Some days ago they described you to me, and I knew it must be you. I was right. And to-day I have found you."

      "I'm always found out, as a rule," says Mrs. Bohun, with a light laugh. "That is my standing grievance. You know Hermia, don't you?" indicating the tall, cold-looking woman near her, who so far unbends as to take Monica's hand kindly and bestow upon her one of her handsome smiles. "She has come here to look after me and see that I don't get into a scrape or make myself unhappy."

      "Could you be unhappy?" says Rossmoyne, from behind her chair, in so disagreeable a tone that every one looks at him. "Decidedly," thinks Monica to herself, "he has either neuralgia or an execrable temper."

      "Miserably so," says the pretty widow, airily. "Though, after all," reflectively, "I believe I have even a greater talent for making others so. That, however, is my misfortune, not my fault. I was 'born so,' like that poor man with the twisted neck."

      "Well, this is not one of your miserably unhappy hours, at all events," says Hermia Herrick. "You have been in magnificent spirits ever since you came to Aghyohillbeg."

      "You've learned it?" says Olga, staring at her with pretended surprise. "The name, I mean. Well, you are clever. It takes most people four long weeks. Oh, yes, I am blissfully happy here. I ought to be. It would be the grossest ingratitude if I were otherwise, as all the men have been good enough to fall in love with me, and that, of course, is the principal thing."

      At this the young man at her feet smiles openly and presses his face unperceived against her gown; but Rossmoyne throws up his head and glances with a coldly displeased expression into the vague distance.

      "Have you been here long?" asks Monica, turning to her friend.

      "Very long," pettishly. Something—perhaps Rossmoyne—has annoyed the capricious beauty.

      "Only a fortnight," says Mrs. Herrick, briefly. "You must know that."

      "I don't judge time by days and weeks; it seems long," says Mrs. Bohun, "years—an eternity almost!"

      A sudden gloom appears to have fallen upon the group. Rossmoyne's dark face grows darker still; the smile fades from Ronayne's face, a shadow falls athwart his eyes.

      "I think I like the country," says Monica, suddenly. "It is so calm, so quiet, and there are moments when the very beauty of it brings tears to my eyes."

      "I love it too," says Ronayne, quickly, addressing her pointedly in a friendly tone, although no introduction has been gone through between them. "I wonder how any one who has once tasted the sweetness of it can ever again long for the heat and turmoil of the town."

      "Yes, for a time it is charming, all-sufficing," says Mrs. Bohun, "but for what a little time! Perhaps—I am not sure—but perhaps I should like to live for three months of every year in the country. After that, I know I should begin to pine again for the smoke and smuts of my town."

      "If you are already wearied, I wonder you stay here," says Lord Rossmoyne, sullenly.

      "And I wonder what has happened to-day to your usually so charming temper," returns she, laughingly uplifting her face to his, and letting her eyes rest on him with almost insolent inquiry.

      "Desmond says good temper is a mere matter of digestion," says some one at this moment. Monica starts more at the name mentioned than at the exceedingly worn-out words uttered. She glances at the speaker, and sees he is a very ugly young man, with a nice face, and a remarkably dismal expression. He is looking at Rossmoyne. "Sit down, dear boy," he says, sotto voce and very sadly. "There's too much of you; you should never stand. You appear to so much better advantage when doubled in two. It don't sound well, does it? but——"

      "But really, when you come to think of it," Mrs. Bohun is saying, feelingly, "there is very little in the country."

      "There is at least the fascinating tulip and lily," says the sad man who mentioned Desmond's name. "Don't put yourself beyond the pale of art by saying you had forgotten those æsthetic flowers—blossoms, I mean. Don't you yearn when you think of them? I do."

      "So glad you are awake at last, Owen!" says Mrs. Bohun.

      "That silly craze about tulips," says Mrs. Herrick, contemptuously, "I have always treated it with scorn. Why could not the art idiots have chosen some better flower for their lunatic ravings? What can any one see in a tulip?"

      "Sometimes earwigs," says the man called Owen.

      "Nonsense! I don't believe even earwigs would care for it. Foolish, gaudy thing, uplifting its lanky neck as though to outdo its fellows! There is really nothing in it."

      "Like the country," says Owen, meekly, "according to Mrs. Bohun."

      "And like Bella Fitzgerald," says that graceless person, with a little grimace.

      "My dear Olga," says Mrs. Herrick, glancing quickly to right and left. "Do you never think?"

      "As seldom as ever I can. But why be nervous, Hermia? If any one were to compare me with a tulip, I should die of—no, not chagrin—joy, I mean, of course. Monica, what are you saying to Owen?"

      "I don't think I know who Owen is," says Monica, with a glance at the gentleman in question, that is half shy, half friendly.

      "That argues yourself unknown," says Olga. "He is Master Owen Kelly, of Kelly's Grove, county Antrim, and the bright and shining light of the junior bar. They all swear by him in Dublin—all, that is except the judges, and they swear at him."

      Monica looks at Master Owen Kelly in a faintly puzzled fashion.

      "It is all quite true," says that young man, modestly, in a reassuring tone.

      "Now tell us what you were saying to each other," says Olga.

      "It was nothing," returns Monica. "We were only talking about this Egyptian war. But I don't really," nervously, "understand anything about it."

      "You needn't blush for your ignorance on that score," says Mr. Kelly. "You're in the general swim: nobody knows."

      "It is the most senseless proceeding altogether," says Hermia Herrick, in her decided way. "Gladstone's wars are toys. He has had three of them now, dear little fellow, to amuse himself with, and he ought to be proud of his victories."

      "According to Erasmus, war is the 'malady of princes,'" says Lord Rossmoyne, sententiously.

      "Rossmoyne isn't well," says Mr. Kelly, softly. "He is calling the wood-cutter a prince. It reminds one of Hans Andersen's fairy-tale: all hewers of wood and drawers of water were blood-royal then."

      "Yet Gladstone has intellect," says Mrs. Herrick, in oh, such a tone: would that the master of Hewarden could have heard her!

      "Some!" said Mr. Kelly. "He is indeed 'a thing apart.' I know nothing СКАЧАТЬ