"The Queen!" says Kit aghast. "You aren't going to ask her to Moyne are you? Windsor is a long way off, and she is pretty well on now, you know, and I don't believe she'd come."
"Not personally. But we shall pay her the compliment through her trusty servants the marines. Not that we owe her much," says Miss Priscilla, shaking her head. "I cannot think she has behaved quite fairly towards us in many ways. Never coming to see us, I mean, or sending the prince, or having a residence here, or that——"
"Still," breaks in Miss Penelope, coming to Her Majesty's relief, with the evident and kindly desire of showing her up in a more favorable light, "I have always understood that in private life she is a most exemplary woman,—a blameless wife so long as she was allowed to be so, and a most excellent mother."
"And grandmother," chimes in Miss Priscilla, gracefully, as though ashamed of her former acrimonious remarks. "From what I can glean from the papers, she seems quite devoted to those poor little motherless girls of Hesse."
It is quite plain that the Misses Blake regard their sovereign more as Victoria and sister than queen and mistress.
"She has sent these men to Clonbree to protect our lives and properties in these perilous times," goes on Miss Priscilla, in her clear, soft voice, "and so I think we are bound to show them any civility in our power."
"More especially the life and property of old Desmond," says Terry, at this moment, with a noble disregard of consequences. He is sitting at a distant window, tying flies, and makes this unfortunate remark without the faintest appearance of malice prepense. "They say he is running a regular rig with his tenants,—playing old Harry with 'em, in fact," he goes on, debonairly; "but they'll stop his little game for him with a bullet before long, I shouldn't wonder."
As the forbidden name is thus cavalierly thrown into their midst, like a bomb, Monica flushes first a warm crimson and then turns cold with fright.
The old ladies stiffen in their chairs, but never a word say they; they are too much overcome for ordinary rebuke. Kit, however, to whom any excitement is welcome, betrays an open admiration for the bold Terence and waits hopefully for what may come next.
It is even worse than might be expected. Terence, either unaware or careless of the sensation he has produced, closes one eye to examine with pleased scrutiny the gaudy fly he has just completed, after which he says, with a suggestion of jocoseness that under the circumstances is perfectly abominable,—