enraged against an ancient corporation, which, having something mediæval in its constitution, like so many other corporations, has been led in the latest centuries to make common cause with other mediæval institutions which were endangered by the modern spirit. This corporation happens to be the depositary of a theology partly supernaturalistic, but we can see plainly that had it been the depositary of modern science itself it would have excited just the same animosity, nay, probably very much more, for in fact its creed in some aspects is in most remarkable agreement with the revolutionary creed itself.

The result, then, is this-of atheism, that demoralising palsy of human nature, which consists in the inability to discern in the Universe any law by which human life may be guided, there is in the present age less danger than ever, and it is daily made more and more

impossible by science itself: of revolt against the Christian law of Fraternity, there is also less than ever in this age, and that redemption of the poor and that pacification of nations which Christianity first suggested are more prominent than ever among the aspirations of mankind. On the other hand, the organisation of the Church seems ill-adapted to the age, and seems to expose it to the greatest danger; and, what is far more serious, the old elevating communion with God, which Christianity introduced, seems threatened by the new scientific theology, which while presenting to us deeper views than ever of His infinite and awful greatness, and more fascinating views than ever of His eternal beauty and glory, denies for the present to Him that human tenderness, justice and benevolence which Christ taught us to see in Him.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE first loud knock at the street-door coming at the end of Lesbia's speech saved John from the embarrassment of a reply, and sent Lesbia fluttering up to the mirror at the far end of the room, to shake out her crushed flounces before it, and satisfy herself by a furtive glance into its depths that the colour had come back into her cheeks, and that none of the elaborate plaits and bows, and jewel sprays on her little head, had been disarranged during her moment or two of self-forgetfulness. John watched her during these proceedings, and again once or twice in the course of the evening, with some wonder. Could it be the same girl, whose wistful glance had a few minutes ago seemed to give him a glimpse into a heart full of tender feeling and humble unexacting love? Which was the real Lesbia-the loyalhearted maiden he had newly discovered, or the bright, mischievous-eyed coquette, whose vivacity and caprices kept the attention of a dozen admirers happily on the alert? In order to fulfil his promise to Bride, John gave a greater amount of attention to the passing events of the evening than was his wont. saw Marmaduke Pelham enter the room with the bored, injured expression on his face that the prospect of spending three or four hours in company indoors usually brought there, and he observed how these looks of constraint and annoyance were mitigated and then vanished altogether under the influence of the five, ten minutes, quarter-of-anhour's chat which Lesbia, in interludes of livelier flirtations with more eager admirers, contrived to bestow upon him. This was carrying coquetry too far,

He

foolish face softening and brightening till it actually glowed with pleasure, while the treacherous, glib talk went on. Lesbia ought to know when feelings were too real to be played with, and should be able to respect them. Once, when the pair had disappeared from the ballroom fully twenty minutes, John took it upon himself to make a tour of the ante-rooms and staircase, taking in his wake a spectacled young savant, a special pet of his, with a view of presenting him to Lesbia as a suitable partner for the next quadrille, and so breaking up the dangerous tête-à-tête. Marmaduke Pelham's towering head and broad shoulders were soon discerned behind a stand of plants that half filled a window-recess on the upper landing; but there was a press of people ascending and descending the staircase, and John and his friend were swayed backwards and forwards by the crowd, sometimes approaching so near the recess that they could not avoid hearing scraps of the conversation of its occupants, and sometimes obliged to move aside to let others pass. The two voices were eager and confidential, though by no means low, and the sentences that reached John's ears were hardly such as he expected to hear. "Oh, yes," in Lesbia's voice, "I remember there was a white thorn near the gate; but no one ever told us it had been planted by Mr. Daly when Ellen was born. We moved it and put an arbutus there instead. I see you know the garden as well, if not better, than I do." "My cousin Ellen was always describing it to me that time when they spent a whole summer at Pelham Court, just after I left college." "That must have been quite a year and a half

in the crowd carried John further off, and when he was again within earshot, but pinned against the wall by a barricade of ladies' skirts, a fresh subject had been started. Captain Pelham had actually taken a fold of Lesbia's dress between his fingers.

"Yes," he was saying, "I know the look of this sort of stuff very well. My cousin Ellen wore a dress of it one St. Patrick's day, when they were with us; there's nothing prettier in the world, only she had real shamrock to loop up the gathers, or whatever you call them, and I got it for her. By Jove, how well I remember it! She made me go out half a dozen times before she would allow that I had gathered the right things."

"I remember Ellen Daly's Limericklace dress, too. She wore it the very first evening I ever spent with them at Whitecliffe, at a little party given for Mr. Pelham Daly's coming of age. I had never been to a dance before in my life, and how I did enjoy it! I made up my mind then that if I ever had a house of my own, and gave a ball in it, I would wear a dress exactly like Ellen Daly's."

"But, somehow, It's a first-rate dress, this of yours, and looks splendiferous indeed—yet I don't know that it is altogether equal to that one I remember. It does not fall exactly in the same way, or look so floating, like a cloud, or wings, or-I don't know what a kind of effect that one can't get out of one's head again when one has once seen it."

"Lesbia!" cried John, struggling to the front at last, "I have been hunting you for ten minutes; several people are inquiring after you, and I have brought Professor Fletcher, who wishes to be introduced to you for the next quadrille." The two behind the flowerscreen started apart as if a bomb had fallen between them. Captain Pelham sprang upright, colouring furiously, and stood twisting his gloves into a tight rope, as if he were required instantly to wring a supply of water for

herself in an instant, and sailing from the shelter of the flower-stand, executed a stately little curtsey to Professor Fletcher, followed by an elaborate consultation of her tablets, during which she contrived to intimate her surprise at John's ignorance in supposing that her hand for a dance could be obtained at the expense of so very little forethought. "The next quadrille-the next four or five dances were, she was sorry to say, out of the question; but she should be most happy to see what she could do— perhaps No. 19—it would be after supper; but

"At least come back into the ballroom," cried John, impatient.

Lesbia condescended to follow him, but paused on the threshold of the crowded room. "The music was beginning, and there was no use," she said, "in going in till her partner turned up, he would most likely come to look for her, and if not, she was sure Professor Fletcher would prefer waiting in the cool ante-room, and John might go and tell Bride where she was if he liked."

John retired, convinced; of his incapacity to deal with ballroom tactics, and Lesbia stood fanning herself in the doorway, and occasionally throwing disjointed sentences over her shoulder at the discomfited Professor, who began to wish heartily that he had not said anything to his friend about wishing to dance. This disdainful jewelled little lady was a more formidable partner than he had anticipated. One or two gentlemen came up to invite Miss Maynard to dance; and Lesbia again consulted her tablets. The name was rubbed out, but she was quite sure she was waiting for somebody-and if he did not appear soon, her brother had brought her a partner

"Who won't be wanted; for the right one you're waiting for, without knowing it, is here at your elbow and dying with impatience, while you talk of waiting."

There was again a crowd in the doorway coming out of the ballroom, and some one leaned forward, between two ladies, and whispered these words into

able to suppress a cry of astonishment, and met Connor Daly's laughing eyes fixed admiringly on her. The next moment he was by her side, shaking hands eagerly, and drawing her fingers under his arm to lead her off. "Come this way back into the ballroom; we'll get a seat behind the dancers, where we'll be as quiet as if we were on the top of the hill behind Castle Daly, and have our talk out. I've been here an hour watching for an opportunity to speak to you. You loveliest darling of the world, I do believe you have been waiting for me. You have, indeed, 'put the green above the red' triumphantly for me to-night."

"Connor, how dare you!" cried Lesbia, trying to withdraw her hand from his arm, "how dare you speak so to me?"

"I'll beg your pardon on my bended knees, if you like; but it's the green and white that's too much for me altogether. To see you 'wearing the green' to-day! What can I do, but go mad with joy and triumph!"

"But I hope you won't. I want to hear about them all at home. I want you to let me stay and talk."

"Let you, you preciousest jewel of the world that ever wore Old Ireland's colours. Let you?"

"But, I can't stay with you, if you talk nonsense. I shall be obliged to go to Bride and tell her you are here; and there are so many questions I long to ask."

"Sit down just here, then, behind this fat old lady's back, and begin. Lac-y-Core itself would hardly be better shelter for us; and I vow there sha'n't come a sound from my lips to vex you, if I have to bite out my tongue to keep the loving words back. You can't hinder my eyes from seeing, thank the powers."

"You're not changed, Connor," said Lesbia, after looking at him for a minute, with a sort of soft inquiry in her eyes, quite emptied for that minute of their coquettishness. "You're just the same dear absurd boy you used to be at Whitecliffe, for all that has happened

"That is all you know about it, Miss Maynard. I the same as I was at Whitecliffe a hundred years ago! I indifferent to all that is happening in Ireland! If you really knew how it is with me you would not grudge me the spurt of high spirits that nothing on earth but the sight of you looking kindly at me, and wearing the colours that show where your heart is, could have given me. I'll make up for it fast enough when the evening's over. Don't grudge my being happy this one night."

"Indeed I don't, I only want to know how you come to be here. They are some of them ill at home, are not they?"

"My mother has been ill, and Pelham; but they are recovering. I have not been home very lately. Ellen said I should only be another anxiety; and you know I am supposed to be studying in Dublin for the Irish bar."

"Then why are you here in London?" "You ask me that?"

"Why should not I ask you ?"

"You did not send for me, your own most generous, kindest-hearted, beautiful self."

"I send for you, Connor-what can you mean?"

"There, sit down again-don't burn me altogether to cinders with your angry looks-and I'll tell you what happened, and you shall say whether I was so very far wrong in supposing your kind hand was in it, knowing as I do that you are with us in your heart. You must have heard that there has been a talk of sending delegates from our party to Paris, to congratulate the Provisional Government on the success of the Revolution in France. Smith O'Brien was to be the chief, but several names of younger men were mentioned as likely to be chosen as his colleagues, and one of the newspapers named me. I'm not thought such an absurd boy among the boys at Conciliation Hall, I can tell you."

"You are all absurd boys together there, John would say."

"I don't suppose I should have been

have been held to-day, and has been postponed; but two days ago, the day after my name had been printed in the Nation as a possible delegate, I had a letter, inclosing a ten-pound note, and purporting to be from a friend who wished to save the Association the expense of my journey to Paris, and requesting in return that I would come up to London the day before the meeting, and await my associates there. I took the letter to D'Arcy O'Donnell told him

"That you thought it came from me."

"Don't be angry; he is the closest friend I have in the world, and could not be that without having heard of you. Besides, he stayed in Connemara for six weeks, between the Hollow and Eagle's Edge, and got to care for us all like a brother, or better, and has had your name brought up to him oftener than you may suppose. He advised me to obey you, feeling sure that you had a good reason for the command you sent, and that, Englishwoman as you are, you are true to the cause in your heart. Besides, he was quite sure I should lose nothing by coming, for there would be no fighting to-day; so I came,—and now I'm here, you won't tell me you did not send for me? The letter had a London postmark, and the handwriting was like yours, a little disguised."

"Then it was John who wrote it. He reads all the Irish newspapers, and he was very anxious, I know, about the expected disturbances to-day. He wanted to lure you out of the way of getting yourself into a scrape. Not for your own sake, no, nor for mine-of that I can assure you-but to shield your people at home from additional troubles on your account; he thinks they have enough already."

A cloud of disappointment and vexation passed over Connor's face, and then, recovering himself, he burst out laughing. "Well, I've been duped; but, after all, the best of the bargain remains with me. I've lost none of the fun in

go to Paris with the delegates, and see what successful Revolutionists look like; and if after that, and the sight I'm having to-night, I let myself, through any one's stratagem, be kept out of the thick of the real fighting when it comes, you may say what you like of me, for I shall deserve it."

Connor, you really must believe that I did not know of your coming, and do not wear this dress to encourage you in the schemes that John says are mad and wicked."

"What do you wear it for, then?" "One can love Ireland, as Ellen and Mrs. O'Flaherty do, without wanting people to fight."

"I don't call it loving a country to see her trampled upon and not want to fight. You don't sympathise with us then, after all?"

"It was only your own imagination that ever made you think I did. You wrote verses about my sympathising with you, and I only read them."

"It's very hard on a fellow to be lifted up to the height of hope, and then thrown down again. Babette, a minute ago, I thought you loved me."

"Hush, the music has ceased, and the old lady has turned her head round to listen to what we are saying. Let me take you to Bride."

"No, no, I will have it out with you now we have begun. I must know the truth, and besides I would not have your brother see me here for worlds; he shall never know I was taken in so easily. Does not that large window at the end of the room open on to a balcony? Let us go there while the crowd pass on to supper." The balcony proved to be empty when they gained it. Connor leaned against one of the iron pillars, and Lesbia stood and looked up at him quite unembarrassed, not even troubling herself to pull to pieces the leaves of the creepers near her.

"Babette," he began, "I did think you loved me. Ever since those old Whitecliffe days I have thought so. I don't mean that I'm a fit match for you -of course I know I'm not-but I'm