woman's thoughts, or any of a woman's charms. And then it was so
natural that Clara should like to dance with almost the only
gentleman who was not absolutely a stranger to her. Lady Desmond had
been actuated rather by a feeling that it would be well that Clara
should begin to know other persons.

By that feeling,--and perhaps unconsciously by another, that it
would be well that Owen Fitzgerald should be relieved from his
attendance on the child, and enabled to give it to the mother.
Whether Lady Desmond had at that time realized any ideas as to her
own interest in this young man, it was at any rate true that she
loved to have him near her. She had refused to dance a second time
with Herbert Fitzgerald; she had refused to stand up with any other
person who had asked her; but with Owen she would either have danced
again, or have kept him by her side, while she explained to him with
flattering frankness that she could not do so lest others should be
offended.

And Owen was with her frequently through the evening. She was taken
to and from supper by Sir Thomas, but any other takings that were
incurred were done by him. He led her from one drawing-room to
another; he took her empty coffee-cup; he stood behind her chair,
and talked to her; and he brought her the scarf which she had left
elsewhere; and finally, he put a shawl round her neck while old Sir
Thomas was waiting to hand her to her carriage. Reader,
good-natured, middle-aged reader, remember that she was only
thirty-eight, and that hitherto she had known nothing of the
delights of love. By the young, any such hallucination on her part,
at her years, will be regarded as lunacy, or at least frenzy.