"Detraction! is that what you wanted to say to me?" asked Kate, freezing suddenly.
"Nay, nay; it was about the abbey. I find you can be an abbess without going and shutting yourself up and breaking one's heart. The way is, you build a convent in Ireland, and endow it; and then you send a nun over to govern it under you. Bless your heart, you can do anything with money; and I shall have money enough before the day is over. To be sure I did intend to build a kennel and keep harriers; and you know that costs a good penny: but we couldn't manage a kennel and an abbey too: so now down goes the English kennel and up goes the Irish abbey."
"But you are a Protestant gentleman. You could not found a nunnery."
"But my wife could. Whose business is it what she does with her money?"
"With your money, you mean."
"Nay with hers, when I give it her with all my heart."
"Well, you astonish me," said Kate, thoughtfully. "Tell me, now, who put it into your head to bribe a poor girl in this abominable way?"
"Who put it into my head?" said Griffith, looking rather puzzled: "why I suppose my heart put it into my head."
Kate smiled very sweetly at this answer, and a wild hope thrilled through Griffith that perhaps she might be brought to terms.
But at this crisis the lawyer from London was announced, and Griffith, as master of the house, was obliged to seat the company. He looked bitterly disappointed at the interruption, but put a good face on it, and had more chairs in, and saw them all seated, beginning with Kate and the other ladies.