course, is larger. Besides which, Monica can just see from her vantage-ground the wooded slopes of Durrusbeg that have lately called young Ronayne master—a distant cousin having died most unexpectedly and left him all his property.
Six months ago, Ulic Ronayne was spoken of by anxious matrons as a wild lad, with nothing to recommend him save his handsome face and some naughty stories attached to his name. Now he is pronounced charming, and the naughty stories, which indeed never had any foundation, are discovered to have been disgraceful fabrications. Marriageable daughters are kinder to him than words can say, and are allowed by the most cautious mothers to dance with him as often as they choose, and even to sit unlimited hours with him in secluded corners of conservatories unrebuked.
Truly, O Plutus! thou art a god indeed. Thou hast outlived thy greater brethren. Thy shrine is honored as of old!
After a last lingering glance at the distant ocean and the swelling woods that now in Merry June are making their grandest show, Monica jumps down from her bank again and goes slowly—singing as she goes—towards the river that runs at the end of Moyne.
Down by its banks Moyne actually touches the hated lands of Cooles, a slight boundary fence being all that divides one place from the other. The river rushes eagerly past both, on its way to the sea, murmuring merrily on its happy voyage, as though mocking at human weals and woes and petty quarrels.
Through the waving meadows, over the little brook, past the stile, Monica makes her way, plucking here and there the scarlet poppies, and the blue cornflowers and daisies, "those pearled Arcturi of the earth, the constellated flower that never sets."
The sun is tinting all things with its yellow haze, and is burning to brightest gold the reddish tinge in the girl's hair as she moves with dallying steps through the green fields. She is dressed in a white gown, decked with ribbons of sombre tint, and wears upon her head a huge poky bonnet, from which her face peeps out, half earnest, half coquettish, wholly pure.
Her hands are bare and shapely, but a little brown; some old-fashioned rings glisten on them. She has the tail of her gown thrown negligently over her arm, and with her happy lips parted in song, and her eyes serene as early dawn, she looks like that fair thing of Chaucer's, whose
"Berthe was of the womb of morning dew,
And her conception of the joyous prime."
And now the sparkling river comes in sight. Near its brink an old boat-house may be seen fast crumbling to decay; and on the river itself lies, swaying to and fro, a small punt in the very last stages of decline. It is a very terrible little boat, quite at death's door, and might have had those lines of Dante's painted upon it without libel:
"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."
But Monica, in happy ignorance of rotting timbers, thinks only of the joy she felt last evening when the discovery of this demoralized treasure was made. In the mouldering boat-house she had found it, and so had claimed it for her own.
She had told no one of her secret, not even Kit, who is, as a rule, her prime minister, her confidante, and her shadow. She has, indeed, had great difficulty in escaping from "her shadow" just now, but after much diplomatic toil had managed it. To find herself upon the calm and gentle river, to dream there her own sweet thoughts beneath the kindly shade of the pollard willows, to glide with the stream and bask in the sunlight all alone, has been her desire since yester-eve.
To-morrow, if to-day proves successful and her rowing does not fail her, of which she has had some practice during the last two years of her life, she will tell Kit and Terry all about it, and let them share her pleasure. But to-day is her own.
The boat is connected with the shore by a rope tied round the stump of a tree by most unskilful hands. Flinging her flowers into the punt, she strives diligently to undo the knot that she herself had made the night before, but strives in vain. The hard rope wounds her tender hands and vexes her gentle soul.
She is still struggling with it, and already a little pained frown has made a wrinkle on her smooth brow, when another boat shoots from under the willows and gains the little landing-place, with its pebbly beach, that belongs equally to Coole Castle and to Moyne.
This new boat is a tremendous improvement on our heroine's. It is the smartest little affair possible, and as safe as a church—safer, indeed, as times go now. Not that there is anything very elaborate about it, but it is freshly painted, and there are cushions in it, and all over it a suppressed air of luxury.
Besides the cushions, there is something else in it, too—a young man of about six and twenty, who steps lightly on to the bank, though it is a miracle he doesn't lose his footing and come ignominiously to the ground, so bent is his gaze on the gracious little figure at the other side of the boundary-fence struggling with the refractory rope.
It doesn't take any time to cross the boundary.
"Will you allow me to do that for you?" says the strange young man, raising his hat politely, and taking the rope out of Monica's hand without waiting for permission.
CHAPTER IV.
How Monica makes a most important discovery and, changing suddenly from "lively to severe," is reprehensibly cruel to a most unoffending young man.
"You are very kind," says Monica slowly, feeling not so much embarrassment as surprise at this sudden advent.
Then the young man looses the rope, and, having done so, casts a cursory glance at the boat to which it is attached. As he does so, he lifts his brows.
"Surely you are not dreaming of going on the river in that!" he says, indicating the wretched punt by a contemptuous wave of his hand.
"Yes. Why not?" returns she.
"There isn't a sound bit of timber in her. What can your people be thinking of, to let you trust yourself in such a miserable affair?"
"My people have nothing to do with it," says Monica, somewhat grandly. "I am my own mistress."
She has picked up her flowers again out of the despised punt, and now stands before him with her hands filled with the June blossoms, blue, and white, and red. They show bravely against the pallor of her gown, and seem, indeed, to harmonize altogether with her excessive fairness, for her lips are as red as her poppies, and her cornflowers as blue as her eyes, and her skin puts her drooping daisies all to shame.
"As you are your own mistress," says the young man, with a suspicion of a smile, as he takes in the baby sweetness of her mouth, and each detail of her slight girlish figure, that bespeaks the child rather than the woman, "I entreat you to have mercy upon yourself."
"But what is the matter with it?" asks Monica, peering into the boat. "It looks all right; I can't see a hole in it."
"It's nothing but holes, in my opinion," says the strange young man, peering in his turn. "It's a regular coffin. You will be committing nothing less than suicide if you put your foot in it."
"Dear me," says Monica, blankly, feeling impressed in spite of herself, "I do think I am the most unfortunate person alive. Do you know," lifting her eyes to his, "I didn't sleep a wink last night, thinking of this row on the
