Aprils Lady | Page 9

there," he winds up defiantly.
"Wild beasts!" echoes Mr. Dysart, bewildered. "Is this the teaching about their Saxon neighbors that the Irish children receive at the hands of their parents and guardians. Oh, well, come now, Tommy, really, you know----"
"Yes; they are there," says Tommy, rebelliously. "Frightful beasts! Bears! They'd tear you in bits if they could get at you. They have no reason in them, father says. And they climb up posts, and roar at people."
"Oh, nonsense!" says Mr. Dysart. "One would think we were having a French Revolution all over again in England. Don't you think," glancing severely at Joyce, who is giving way to unrestrained mirth, "that it is not only wrong, but dangerous, to implant such ideas about the English in the breasts of Irish children? There isn't a word of truth in it, Tommy."
"There is!" says Monkton, junior, wagging his head indignantly. "Father told me."
"Father told us," repeats the small Mabel, who has just come up.
"And father says, too, that the reason that they are so wicked is because they want their freedom!" says Tommy, as though this is an unanswerable argument.
"Oh, I see! The socialists!" says Mr. Dysart. "Yes; a troublesome pack! But still, to call them wild beasts----"
"They are wild beasts," says Tommy, prepared to defend his position to the last. "They've got manes, and horns, and tails!"
"He's romancing," says Mr. Dysart looking at Joyce.
"He's not," says she demurely. "He is only trying to describe to you the Zoological Gardens. His father gives him a graphic description of them every evening, and--the result you see."
Here both she and he, after a glance at each other, burst out laughing.
"No wonder you were amused," says he, "but you might have given me a hint. You were unkind to me--as usual."
"Now that you have been to London," says she, a little hurriedly, as if to cover his last words and pretend she hasn't heard them, "you will find our poor Ireland duller than ever. At Christmas it is not so bad, but just now, and in the height of your season, too,----"
"Do you call this place dull?" interrupts he. "Then let me tell you you misjudge your native land; this little bit of it, at all events. I think it not only the loveliest, but the liveliest place on earth."
"You are easily pleased," says she, with a rather embarrassed smile.
"He isn't!" says Tommy, breaking into the conversation with great aplomb. He has been holding on vigorously to Mr. Dysart's right hand for the last five minutes, after a brief but brilliant skirmish with Mabel as to the possession of it--a skirmish brought to a bloodless conclusion by the surrender, on Mr. Dysart's part, of his left hand to the weaker belligerent. "He hates Miss Maliphant, nurse says, though Lady Baltimore wants him to marry her, and she's a fine girl, nurse says, an' raal smart, and with the gift o' the gab, an' lots o' tin----"
"Tommy!" says his aunt frantically. It is indeed plain to everybody that Tommy is now quoting nurse, au naturel, and that he is betraying confidences in a perfectly reckless manner.
"Don't stop him," says Mr. Dysart, glancing at Joyce's crimson cheeks with something of disfavor. "'What's Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba?' I defy you," a little stormily, "to think I care a farthing for Miss Maliphant or for any other woman on earth--save one!"
"Oh, you mustn't press your confidences on me," says she, smiling and dissembling rather finely; "I know nothing. I accuse you of nothing. Only, Tommy, you were a little rude, weren't you?"
"I wasn't," says Tommy, promptly, in whom the inborn instinct of self-defence has been largely developed. "It's true. Nurse says she has a voice like a cow. Is that true?" turning, unabashed to Dysart.
"She's expected at the Castle, next week. You shall come up and judge for yourself," says he, laughing. "And," turning to Joyce, "you will come, too, I hope."
"It is manners to wait to be asked," returns she, smiling.
"Oh, as for that," says he, "Lady Baltimore crossed last night with me and her husband. And here is a letter for you." He pulls a note of the cocked hat order out of one of his pockets.
CHAPTER IV.
"Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply."
"An invitation from Lady Baltimore," says Joyce, looking at the big red crest, and coloring slightly.
"Yes."
"How do you know?" asks she, rather suspiciously.
The young man raises his hands and eyes.
"I swear I had nothing to do with it," says he, "I didn't so much as hint at it. Lady Baltimore spent her time crossing the Channel in declaring to all who were well enough to hear her, that she lived only in the expectation of soon seeing you again."
"Nonsense!" scornfully;