CHAPTER V.


"I AM ASHAMED OF YOU."

It was late that same evening, and the household at the Castle had
all retired to rest. Nora was in her own room. This room was not
furnished according to an English girl's fancy. It was plain and
bare, but, compared to Biddy Murphy's chamber, it was a room of
comfort and even luxury. A neat carpet covered the floor, there were
white dimity curtains to the windows, and the little bed in its
distant recess looked neat and comfortable. It is true that the
washhand-stand was wooden, and the basin and jug of the plainest
type; but Mrs. O'Shanaghgan herself saw that Nora had at least what
she considered the necessaries of life. She had a neat hanging-press
for her dresses, and a pretty chest of drawers, which her mother
herself had saved up her pin-money to buy for her.

Nora now stood by one of the open windows, her thick and very long
black hair hanging in a rippling mass over her neck and shoulders.
Suddenly, as she bent out of the window, the faint, very faint
perfume of a cigar came up on the night air. She sniffed excitedly
for a moment, and then, bending a little more forward, said in a low
tone:

"Is that you, Terry?"

"Yes--why don't you go to bed?" was the somewhat ungracious