twice to see the lad, and on those occasions had dined there; and on
one occasion, at the young earl's urgent request, had stayed and
slept.

And then the good-natured people of Muskerry, Duhallow, and Desmond
began, of course, to say that the widow was going to marry the young
man. And why not? she was still a beautiful woman; not yet forty by
a good deal, said the few who took her part; or at any rate, not
much over, as was admitted by the many who condemned her. We, who
have been admitted to her secrets, know that she was then in truth
only thirty-eight. She was beautiful, proud, and clever; and if it
would suit her to marry a handsome young fellow with a good house
and an unembarrassed income of eight hundred a-year, why should she
not do so? As for him, would it not be a great thing for him to have
a countess for his wife, and an earl for his stepson?

What ideas the countess had on this subject we will not just now
trouble ourselves to inquire. But as to young Owen Fitzgerald, we
may declare at once that no thought of such a wretched alliance ever
entered his head. He was sinful in many things, and foolish in many
things. But he had not that vile sin, that unmanly folly, which
would have made a marriage with a widowed countess eligible in his
eyes, merely because she was a countess, and not more than fifteen
years his senior. In a matter of love he would as soon have thought
of paying his devotions to his far-away cousin, old Miss Barbara
Beamish, of Ballyclahassan, of whom it was said that she had set her
cap at every unmarried man that had come into the west riding of the
county for the last forty years. No; it may at any rate be said of
Owen Fitzgerald, that he was not the man to make up to a widowed
countess for the sake of the reflected glitter which might fall on