"Yes."
"You mean to tell me I am like Aunt Priscilla and Madam O'Connor?"
"Old women, I mean," with anxious haste, seeing a cloud descending upon the brow of his beloved.
"Oh!"
"And, after all, it is good news," says Brian, brightening, "because though I can't stop in the house for the week, still there is nothing to prevent my riding over there every one of the seven days."
"That's just what I thought," says Monica, ingenuously, with a sweet little blush.
"Ah! you wished for me, then?"
She refuses to answer this in any more direct manner than her eyes afford, but says, quickly, doubtfully,—
"It won't be deceiving Aunt Priscilla, your coming there to visit, will it? She must know she cannot compel Madam O'Connor to forbid you the house. And she knows perfectly you are an intimate friend of hers."
"Of course she does. She is a regular old tyrant,—a Bluebeard in petticoats; but——"