shrivelled. He turned his dark short-sighted eyes on Christian, and
took up his parable with excitement.

"Did he tell you he's learning Irish? I'll engage it'll be no trouble
to _him_!"

"He's always getting hold of new ideas," said Christian; "I wish
_I_ could learn Irish."

"There's a branch of the Gaelic League in Cluhir," said Barty,
eagerly. "There are a lot learning Irish. I suppose you wouldn't be
disposed to become a member, Miss Christian?" He gazed at her
imploringly.

"I don't know if I should be allowed," said Christian, hesitatingly.
"You see I've only just come home. I've been at school in Paris for
the last two years--"

A memory of a ferocious denunciation of the Gaelic League by her
father came to her; she wondered what Barty would do if she offered
him one of the profane imitations of the Major that had earned for her
the laurels of the schoolroom.

"Oh, I'm quite sure I mightn't become a Gaelic Leaguer!" she repeated,
beginning to laugh, while samples of her father's rhetoric welled up
in her mind.

Barty thought he had never seen anything so enchanting as her face, as
she looked at him, laughing, with wavering lights, filtered through
young beech leaves, in her eyes. He felt a delirious desire to show