mamma and papa. Mamma thought it very hard that their own cousin
should be refused admittance to their house, and very dreadful that
his sins should be considered to be of so deep a dye as to require
so severe a sentence; and then papa, much balancing the matter, gave
final orders that the prodigal cousin should be admitted.

He was admitted, and dangerously he used the privilege. The
countess, who was there, stood up to dance twice, and twice only.
She opened the ball with young Herbert Fitzgerald the heir; and in
about an hour afterwards she danced again with Owen. He did not ask
her twice; but he asked her daughter three or four times, and three
or four times he asked her successfully.

"Clara," whispered the mother to her child, after the last of these
occasions, giving some little pull or twist to her girl's frock as
she did so, "you had better not dance with Owen Fitzgerald again
to-night. People will remark about it."

"Will they?" said Clara, and immediately sat down, checked in her
young happiness.

Not many minutes afterwards, Owen came up to her again. "May we have
another waltz together, I wonder?" he said.

"Not to-night, I think. I am rather tired already." And so she did
not waltz again all the evening, for fear she should offend him.

But the countess, though she had thus interdicted her daughter's
dancing with the master of Hap House, had not done so through
absolute fear. To her, her girl was still a child; a child without a