Rossmoyne Part 65

Without waiting for permission this time, he stoops and presses his lips to hers. An instant later he knows with a thrill of rapture that his kiss has been returned.

CHAPTER XXIII.

How Mary Browne makes confession, though not by creed a Romanist; and how those who receive it are far removed from being holy fathers!--Moreover, I would have you see there is more acting off the stage than on it.

Monica's week at Aghyohillbeg is drawing to a close. The day has dawned that is to usher in at even the famous representation of "The School for Scandal," as given by Miss Fitzgerald, Captain Cobbett, etc.

The whole house is topsy-turvy, no room being sacred from the actors and actresses (save the mark!), and all the servants are at their wit's end.

There have been men down from the Gayety Theatre, Dublin, who have seen about the stage, and there have been other men from the village of Rossmoyne to help in the decoration of the ballroom, and between these two different sets of men an incessant war has been raging for many days.

Now at last the house is comparatively quiet, and, as four o'clock strikes, Madam O'Connor finds herself in her own special den (the only spot that has not been disturbed), with a tea-equipage before her, and all her ladies-in-waiting round her.

These ladies, for the most part, are looking full of suppressed excitement, and are in excellent spirits and irreproachable tea-gowns.

Mary Browne, who has developed into a general favorite, is making some laughing remark about Lord Rossmoyne, who, with all the other men, is absent.

"D'ye know what it is, Mary?" says Madam O'Connor, in her unchecked brogue; "you might do something else with Rossmoyne besides making game of him."

"What?" says Mary Browne.

"Marry him, to be sure. A young woman like you, with more money than you know what to do with, ought to have a protector. Faith, you needn't laugh, for it's only common sense I'm talking. Tenants, and the new laws, will play the mischief with your soft heart and your estate, if you don't get some one to look after them both."

"Well?" says Mary Browne.

"Well, there's Rossmoyne, as I said before, actually going a begging for a wife. Why not take him?"

"I don't care about beggars," says Miss Browne, with a slight smile. "I am not one of those who think them picturesque."

"He isn't a beggar in any other sense than the one I have mentioned. He is a very good match. Think of it, now."

"I am thinking. Indeed, ever since my first day here I been thinking how deeply attached he is to Mrs. Bohun. Forgive me, Mrs. Bohun."

Olga laughs lightly. There is something about this plain girl that repels the idea of offence.

"What on earth put that idea into your head?" says her hostess, opening her eyes, who talks too much both in season and out of it to be able to see all the by-play going on around her. "You aren't setting your cap at him, are you, Olga my dear?"

"Indeed, no," says Olga, still laughing. "How could so absurd a notion have got into _any_body's head?"

"How, indeed?" says Monica, gayly.

"There's Owen Kelly, then; though he isn't as well off as Rossmoyne, still he will be worth looking after by and by, when the old man drops off. He's as good hearted a fellow as ever lived, when you know what he's at,--which isn't often, to do him justice. It struck me he was very civil to you last night."

"He was," says Miss Browne, whose merriment is on the increase. "But I never met any one who wasn't civil to me: so I found him commonplace enough. Ah! if he had only been uncivil, now!"

"Well, there he is, at all events," says Madam O'Connor, sententiously.

"I hope he's comfortable," says Miss Browne, kindly, "I shan't try to make him less so, at least. Why don't you recommend Mr. Desmond or Mr.

Ronayne to my notice?" with a mischievous glance at Monica and Olga Bohun.

"I'm afraid they are done for," says Madam, laughing now herself. "And I only hope that handsome boy Ronayne isn't laying up sorrow for himself and living in a fool's paradise. Indeed, Olga, pretty as you are, I'll be very angry with you if I hear you have been playing fast and loose with him."

The old lady shakes her head grimly at Mrs. Bohun, who pretends to be crushed beneath her glance.

"To prevent you offering me any more suitors," says Mary Browne, steadily, but with a rising blush, "I may as well tell you that I am engaged to be married."

"Good gracious, my dear! then why didn't you say so before?" says Madam, sitting bolt upright and letting her _pince-nez_ fall unheeded into her lap.

"I really don't know; but I daresay because you took it for granted I wasn't."

"Mary," says Mrs. Herrick, speaking for the first time, and for the first time, too, calling Miss Browne by her Christian name, "tell us all about it."

"Yes, _do_," says Monica, and all the women draw their chairs instinctively a degree closer to the heroine of the hour, and betray in her a warm interest. After all, what can equal a really good love-affair?

"Go on, my dear," says Madam O'Connor, who is always full of life where romance is concerned. "I hope it is a good marriage."

"The best in the world, for me," says Mary Browne, simply, "though he hasn't a penny in the world but what he earns."

As she makes this awful confession, she isn't in the least confused, but smiles brightly.

"Well, Mary, I must say I wouldn't have believed it of you," says Madam.

"I would," says Monica, hastily laying her hand on one of Mary's. "It is just like her. After all, what has money got to do with it? Is he _nice_, Mary?"

"So nice!" says Mary, who seems quite glad to talk about him, "and as ugly as myself," with a little enjoyable laugh, "so we can't call each other bad names; and his name is Peter, which of course will be considered another drawback, though I like the name myself. And we are very fond of each other--I have no doubt about that: and that is all, I think."

"No, it is not all," says Madam O'Connor, severely. "May I ask when you met this young man?"

"I must take the sting out of your tone at once, Gertrude," says her cousin, pleasantly, "by telling you that we were engaged long _before_ poor Richard died." (Richard was the scampish brother by whose death she inherited all.)

"Then why didn't you marry him?" says Madam.

"I was going to,--in fact, we were going to run away," says Miss Browne, with intense enjoyment at the now remote thought,--"doesn't it sound absurd?--when--when the news about d.i.c.k reached us, and then I could not bring myself to leave my father, no matter how unpleasant my home be."

"What is he?" asks Olga, with a friendly desire to know.

"A doctor. In rather good practice, too, in Dublin. He is very clever,"

says Miss Browne, telling her story so genially, so comfortably, that all their hearts go out to her, and Madam O'Connor grows lost in a revery about what will be the handsomest and most suitable thing to give "Peter" as a wedding-present. As she cannot get beyond a case of dissecting-knives, this revery is short.

"Perhaps if you saw some one else you might change your mind," she says, a new thought entering her head (of course there would be a difficulty about offering dissecting-knives to a barrister or quiet country gentleman).

"I have had five proposals this year already," says Miss Browne, quietly, "but, if I could be a princess by doing so, I would not give up Peter."

"Mary Browne, come here and give me a kiss," says Madam O'Connor, with tears in her eyes. "You are the best girl I know, and I always said it.

I only hope your Peter knows the extent of his luck."