though they were all at home, till he would have to make a midnight
ride of it before he reached Hap House. It seemed that no fear as to
he daughter had ever crossed the mother's mind; that no idea had
ever come upon her that her favoured visitor might learn to love the
young girl with whom he was allowed to associate on so intimate a
footing. Once or twice he had caught himself calling her Clara, and
had done so even before her mother; but no notice had been taken of
it. In truth, Lady Desmond did not know her daughter, for the mother
took her absolutely to be a child, when in fact she was a child no
longer.

"You take Clara round by the bridge," said the earl to his friend
one August evening, as they were standing together on the banks of
the river, about a quarter of a mile distant from the sombre old
pile in which the family lived. "You take Clara round by the bridge,
and I will get over the stepping-stones." And so the lad, with his
rod in his hand, began to descend the steep bank.

"I can get over the stepping-stones, too, Patrick," said she.

"Can you though, my gay young woman? You'll be over your ankles if
you do. That rain didn't come down yesterday for nothing."

Clara as she spoke had come up to the bank, and now looked wistfully
down at the stepping-stones. She had crossed them scores of times,
sometimes with her brother, and often by herself. Why was it that
she was so anxious to cross them now?

"It's no use your trying," said her brother who was now half across,
and who spoke from the middle of the river. "Don't you let her,