‘You’ll be all the freer to catch a young aide-de-camp from the Castle,’ said she sneeringly; ‘or maybe, indeed, a young lord—a rank equal to your own.’
‘Haven’t you said enough?’ screamed he, wild with rage.
‘No, nor half, or you wouldn’t be standing there, wringing your hands with passion and your hair bristling like a porcupine. You’d be at my feet, Mathew Kearney—ay, at my feet.’
‘So I would, Miss Betty,’ chimed he in, with a malicious grin, ‘if I was only sure you’d be as cruel as the last time I knelt there. Oh dear! oh dear! and to think that I once wanted to marry that woman!’
‘That you did! You’d have put your hand in the fire to win her.’
‘By my conscience, I’d have put myself altogether there, if I had won her.’
‘You understand now, sir,’ said she haughtily, ‘that there’s no more between us.’
‘Thank God for the same!’ ejaculated he fervently.
‘And that no nephew of mine comes courting a daughter of yours?’
‘For his own sake, he’d better not.’