Lady Mabel's susceptible Irish eyes were wet. She had missed her life's aim, not through her own fault: which fact perhaps helped to make her brother so tender to her failings, so anxious for her happiness.
"You speak feelingly, Claud," she said.
"Do I?" said the young man. He lowered his eyes to the carpet, and blushed, smiling a little.
"Claud!" vehemently cried his sister, "you are in love!"
"If I am, it is with my eyes open. I am not a boy, Mab."
"No, indeed; but who can she be. Won't you tell me, dear?"
"I can't tell you, because I'm afraid I am in the ignoble case of loving without return. You see," he faltered, "there is nothing very heroic about me—nothing that I ever said or did, as far as I know, would entitle me to the slightest respect from any woman with a high standard. Look at my life. What have I done with it? Just nothing. Why, Kathleen mavourneen," cried he, diving down to the rug, and catching the warm white child in his arms, "the most onerous of my duties has been to carry you up to bed on my shoulder, hasn't it?"
"Claud, my dear old man, you mustn't! Why, what an untold comfort you have been to me when Edwar—when I could not have lived but for you!" cried Mab, the tears splashing on her cheeks. "I envy your wife! She will have the most constant, loving care of any woman under heaven—you will be an ideal husband—the longer she is married the better she will learn to appreciate you!"
"I never shall have a wife at all, Mab, if I cannot get this one," said Claud, with a ring of determination in his voice which was quite new.
Lady Mabel contemplated him for a moment.