"Who but that young black-a-viséd George Neville, that you have been coquetting with this month past,—and danced all night with him at Lady Munster's ball, you did."
Catharine blushed, and said, deprecatingly,—
"You were not there, Griffith, or to be sure I had not danced with him."
"And he toasts you by name, wherever he goes."
"Can I help that? Wait till I toast him, before you make yourself ridiculous, and me very angry—about nothing."
Griffith, sticking to his one idea, replied, doggedly,—
"Mistress Alice Peyton shilly-shallied with her true lover for years, till Richard Hilton came, that was not fit to tie his shoes; and then"——
Catharine cut him short,—
"Affront me, if nothing less will serve; but spare my sister in her grave."
She began the sentence angrily, but concluded it in a broken voice. Griffith was half disarmed; but only half. He answered, sullenly,—