"Mr. O'Hara!" cried Mistress Bellairs, in tones of unmistakable indignation; tore off her mask, and stood with panting bosom and fiery eye.
"Tare and ages!" exclaimed the ingenuous Irishman. "If it isn't me lovely Kitty!"
"Mistress Bellairs, if you please, Mr. O'Hara," said the lady with great dignity. "I am glad to see, sir, that that other passion of which I have heard so much has not interfered with the strength of your family affections."
She sat down, and fanned herself with her mask, and, looking haughtily round the room, finally fixed her gaze, with much interest, upon the left branch of the chandelier.
For a second, Mr. O'Hara's glib tongue seemed at a loss; but it was only for a second. With a graceful movement he gathered the skirts of his fine-flowered damask dressing-gown more closely over the puce satin small clothes, which, he was sadly conscious, were not in their first freshness, besides bearing the trace of one over-generous bumper of what he was fond of calling the ruby-wine. Then, sinking on one knee, he began to pour a tender tale into the widow's averted ear.
"And it's the fine ninny ye must think me, Kitty darling—I beg your pardon, darling; ma'am it shall be, though I vow to see ye toss your little head like that, and set all those elegant little curls dancing, is enough to make anyone want to start you at it again. Oh, sure, it's the divine little ear you have, but, be jabers, Kitty, if it's the back of your neck you want to turn on me—there now, if I was to be shot for it, I couldn't help it—with the little place there just inviting my lips."
"Keep your kisses for your sister, sir, or your cousin!"
"What in the world—— And d'ye think I didn't know you?"
"A likely tale!"
"May I die this minute if I didn't know you before ever you were out of the ould chair!"