CHAPTER XXVI.

Sick art thou

a divided will,

Still harping on the fear of ill,

The fear of men, a coward still.

TENNYSON.

PEOPLE who are in the habit of making sarcastic remarks must occasionally strike home, and so it was in this instance. A morning visit to the vicarage had been enough to convince Kathleen that Mrs. O'Donnell was not worthy of her cousin Johnny, but she kept her misgivings to herself, so that the truth was forced upon Lord De Cressy's notice with the shock of a very disagreeable surprise, when she entered the room with her husband, on Thursday evening. He had only seen her in the morning, and had scarcely ever exchanged words with her, and she had appeared to him, though underbred, an unassuming little person; but he could no longer accord her this merit, when he saw her in an evening dress of gay colours, ill-assorted in themselves, and peculiarly unsuitable to her faded complexion and ordinary features. He could, however, have forgiven her appearance if she had been content with her position as the vicar's sister, but she lost no time in bringing forward her connexion with Lady De Cressy, and before dinner, the remarkable and delightful coincidence of Captain O'Donnell's meeting with his cousin, after

so many years' separation, had circulated round the

room.

Kathleen, engaged with some of the other guests, heard little of what passed, but she saw by the compression of Lord De Cressy's lips that he was not pleased, and she could guess that his displeasure was owing to the remarks addressed to him by Mrs. O'Donnell. She was also aware that Lord De Cressy, even when talking himself, contrived to hear all that was passing between her and Mrs. Wilbraham and Sir Harry Whitmore, and this consciousness made her the more shy, timid, and constrained, in proportion to his anxiety that she should be lively and at ease.

The dinner party was rather stiff and silent, as dinner parties in the country are apt to be. Mr. De Cressy, an indefatigable talker in his own set, would not waste his sharp sayings on those who were unlikely to appreciate them, and he leaned back in his chair, dangling his eyeglass, and catching up Mrs. O'Donnell's remarks from the other side of the table, instead of making himself agreeable to his next neighbour. Lord De Cressy was nearly equally silent, dividing such attention as he could spare from his duties as host between Mrs. O'Donnell and Kathleen. And Kathleen was nervous and ill at ease: she felt guilty of every pause in the conversation, and wondered from the time that dessert was put upon the table how soon she might make the move to the drawing-room. She fancied that Lord De Cressy's glances warned her that it was time to depart, and yet she could not catch Mrs. Wilbraham's eye, who went on eating preserved fruits with provoking deliberation.

Lord De Cressy's anxiety lest Kathleen should make an unfavourable impression was very superfluous. A young bride is seldom hardly judged, and Kathleen's grace and beauty, her refinement beyond the possibility of imputation, were generally admitted, although the very correct and well-bred Mrs. Wilbraham remarked that it was a great disadvantage to have such vulgar relations. For Captain O'Donnell was included in the censure on account of his happy obtuseness to his wife's delinquencies: she might say what she pleased without bringing a shade on his complacent countenance, while he himself talked and laughed, and did his utmost to redeem the dinner from dulness.

In his review of the guests after their departure, Mr. De Cressy was candid enough to recognise his merits, though perhaps only for the sake of pointing the censure. "Well, the Captain is rather a pleasant fellow, but the Captain's wife is, as I foretold, altogether intolerable."

"Intolerable!" repeated Lord De Cressy, emphatically; "you must allow, Kathleen, that she is inadmissible into society."

"I suppose so into the good and exclusive society we are to affect," Kathleen answered, with something of scorn on lip and eye. For her cousin Johnny's sake she thought that the censure might have been spared, or softened.

"It is well that we are in a free country," remarked Mr. De Cressy. "I should have thought, Lady De Cressy, that your long residence abroad would have taught you greater caution in uttering revolutionary sentiments, opposed alike to old institutions and conventional usages."

"I was not aware that I had said anything so dangerous," said Kathleen. "Nor do I deny Mrs. O'Donnell's vulgarity but we need not pride ourselves on exclusiveness, which is, after all, only matter for humiliation."

"I bar any argument in the abstract," said Lord De Cressy, as he observed that his uncle was bristling up his feathers to reply. "How did you get on after dinner, Kathleen? Mrs. Wilbraham and her daughter cannot have been congenial spirits with the regimental lady."

"She was painfully regimental at one period," said Kathleen, as she recalled a detailed account of the feud between the Major's wife and the Colonel's sister; "but then we diverged to the children, the measles and whooping-cough, and Newcastle doctors, which were safe subjects. However, I am glad that we do not give a dinner party every day of the week, are not you, Lionel?"

"Certainly: if every party is to include a Mrs. O'Donnell," said Lord De Cressy, drily.

"That is not fair, Lionel," rejoined the young wife, with rising colour; "if you dislike abstract arguments, at least you ought to spare me these personal applications so let us talk of something else. I have such a nice frank letter from Janet Irvine to show you, with a characteristic postscript from Peter couth, like himself."

worthy and un

"Your former pupils, I think," said Mr. De Cressy; "I should like to see the correspondence amazingly. And my nephew looks quite capable of curbing his impatience."

"I shall not show the letter to you," replied Kathleen, steadily, "because you only wish to turn it into ridicule."

"And you think that Lionel will take up the matter more seriously? Certainly, those knitted brows look capable of earnest reflection. So I will leave you to read the effusion together, in consideration of my early start to-morrow, and that I have been struggling with a paroxysm of sleep ever since Sir Harry inflicted on me an account of all the turnips produced in Northumberland since the beginning of the century. Good night to you both."

"It really does appear, Kathleen," said Lord De Cressy, as soon as his uncle had left the room, "that you take a wilful satisfaction in shocking my uncle's prejudices."

Kathleen was conscious that she had been partly actuated by the spirit of defiance in introducing the subject of her life at Ardcrae, and so she replied in a defensive tone: "I, too, Lionel, have one or two prejudices, which no one thinks it worth while to respect. I am so sick and weary of all these censorious remarks, which warp your views from their just bias. My only comfort is, that he is going away to-morrow."

"And then you think that you will have it all your own way," said Lord De Cressy, smiling at her vehemence; "but wait and see which is the strongest."

He spoke lightly, for he piqued himself on his independence and decision of character. Yet Kathleen would have felt that she was justified in her opinion of Mr. De Cressy's influence, if she had been present at the discussion which took place between the uncle and De Cressy.

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