"The noodle," said she vindictively, "mistook the purport of some merely civil words, and forthwith went about bleating to all Bath that he and I were to be wed."
"I'll soon stop his mouth for him," muttered Mr. O'Hara, moved to less refinement of diction than he usually affected. "Oh, Kitty," said he, and wiped his pale brow, "sure, it's the terrible fright you've given me!"
Here Mistress Bellairs became suddenly and inexplicably agitated.
"You don't understand," said she, and stamped her foot. "Oh, how can I explain? How are people so stupid! I was obliged to go to his rooms this morning—a pure matter of friendship, sir, on behalf of my Lady Standish. Who would have conceived that the calf would take it for himself and think it was for his sake I interfered between him and that madman, Sir Jasper! 'Tis very hard," cried Mistress Kitty, "for a lone woman to escape calumny, and now there is my Lord Verney, after braying it to the whole of Bath, this moment writing to his insufferable old mother. And there is that cockatoo aunt of his looking out her most ancient set of garnets and strass for a wedding-gift. And, oh dear, oh dear; what am I to do?"
She turned over the back of her chair, to hide her face in her pocket-handkerchief. In a twinkling, O'Hara was again at her feet.
"Soul of my soul, pulse of my heart!" cried he. "Sure, don't cry, Kitty darling, I'll clear that little fellow out of your way before you know where you are."
"Indeed, sir," she said, flashing round upon him with a glance surprisingly bright, considering her woe. "And is that how you would save my reputation? No, I see there's nothing for it," said Mistress Kitty with sudden composure, folding up her handkerchief deliberately, and gazing up again at the chandelier with the air of an early martyr, "there's nothing for it but to pay the penalty of my good-nature and go live at Verney Hall between my virtuous Lord Verney and that paragon of female excellence and domestic piety, his mother."
"Now, by Saint Peter," cried O'Hara, springing to his feet, "if I have to whip you from under his nose at the very altar, and carry you away myself, I'll save you from that, me darling!"
"Say you so?" cried the lady with alacrity. "Then, indeed, sir," she proceeded with sweetest coyness, and pointed her dimple at him, "I'll not deny but what I thought you could help me, when I sought you to-night. There was a letter, sir," she said, "which yester morning I received. 'Twas signed by a lock of hair——"
"Ah, Kitty!" cried the enraptured and adoring Irishman, once more extending wide his arms.