The ￡200 was not spent in a manner of which Lord Castlewell would have altogether approved. About the end of August Mr. O\'Mahony was summoned back to Ireland, and was induced, at a meeting held at the Rotunda, to give certain pledges which justified the advanced Irish party in putting him forward as a new member for the County of Cavan. The advanced Irish party had no doubt been attracted by the eloquence he had exhibited both in Galway and in London, and by the patriotic sentiments which he had displayed. He was known to be a Republican, and to look for the formation of a Republic to American aid. He had expressed most sincere scorn for everything English, and professed ideas as to Irish property generally in regard to which he was altogether ignorant of their meaning. As he was a sincerely honest man, he did think that something good for his old country would be achieved by Home Rule; though how the Home-Rulers would set to work when Home Rule should be the law of the land, he had not the remotest conception. There were many reasons, therefore, why he should be a fit member for an Irish county. But it must be admitted that he would not have been so unanimously selected had all the peculiarities of his mind been known. It might be probable that he would run riot under the lash of his leader, as others have done both before and since, when he should come to see all the wiles of that strategy which he would be called upon to support. And in such case the quarrel with him would be more internecine than with other foes, such as English members, Scotch members, Conservative Irish members, and Liberal Irish members, not sworn to follow certain leaders. A recreant one out of twenty friends would be regarded with more bitter hatred than perhaps six hundred and thirty ordinary enemies. It might be, therefore, that a time of tribulation was in store for Mr. O\'Mahony, but he did not consider these matters very deeply when the cheers rang loud in the hall of the Rotunda; nor did he then reflect that he was about to spend in an injudicious manner the money which must be earned by Rachel\'s future work.

When Rachel had completed her engagement with Mr. Moss, it had been intended that they should go down to Ambleside and there spend Lord Castlewell\'s money in the humble innocent enjoyment of nature. There had at that moment been nothing decided as to the County of Cavan. A pork-butcher possessed of some small means and unlimited impudence had put himself forward. But The Twenty had managed to put him through his facings, and had found him to be very ignorant in his use of the Queen\'s English. Now of late there had come up a notion that the small party required to make up for the thinness of their members by the strength of their eloquence. Practice makes perfect, and it is not to be wondered at therefore if a large proportion of The Twenty had become fluent. But more were wanted, and of our friend O\'Mahony\'s fluency there could be no doubt. Therefore he was sent for, and on the very day of his arrival he proved to the patriotic spirits of Dublin that he was the man for Cavan. Three days afterwards he went down, and Cavan obediently accepted its man. With her father went Rachel, and was carried through the towns of Virginia, Bailyborough, and Ballyjamesduff, in great triumph on a one-horse car.

This occurred about the end of August, and Lord Castlewell\'s ￡200 was very soon spent. She had not thought much about it, but had been quite willing to be the daughter of a Member of Parliament, if a constituency could be found willing to select her father. She did not think much of the duties of Parliament, if they came within the reach of her father\'s ability. She did not in truth think that he could under any circumstances do half a day\'s work. She had known what it was to practise, and, having determined to succeed, she had worked as only a singer can work who determines that she will succeed. Hour after hour she had gone on before the looking-glass, and even Mr. Moss had expressed his approval. But during the years that she had been so at work, she had never seen her father do anything. She knew that he talked what she called patriotic buncombe. It might be that he would become a very fitting Member of Parliament, but Rachel had her doubt. She could see, however, that the ￡200 quickly vanished during their triumphant journeyings on the one-horse car. Everybody in County Cavan seemed to know that there was ￡200 and no more to be spent by the new member. There he was, however, Member of Parliament for the County of Cavan, and his breast was filled with new aspirations. Enmity, the bitterest enmity to everything English, was the one lesson taught him. But he himself had other feelings. What if he could talk over that Speaker, and that Prime Minister, that Government generally, and all the House of Commons, and all the House of Lords! Why should not England go her way and Ireland hers,—England have her monarchy and Ireland her republic, but still with some kind of union between them, as to the nature of which Mr. O\'Mahony had no fixed idea in his brain whatsoever. But he knew that he could talk, and he knew also that he must now talk on an arena for admission to which the public would not pay twenty-five cents or more. His breast was much disturbed by the consideration that for all the work which he proposed to do no wages were to be forthcoming.

But while Mr. O\'Mahony was being elected Member of Parliament for County Cavan, things were going on very sadly in County Galway. Wednesday, the 31st of August, had been the day fixed for the trial of Pat Carroll; and the month of August was quickly wearing itself away. But during the month of August Captain Clayton found occasion more than once to come into the neighbourhood of Headford. And though Mr. Jones was of an opinion that his presence there was adequately accounted for by the details of the coming trial, the two girls evidently thought that some other cause might be added to that which Pat Carroll had produced.

It must be explained that at this period Frank Jones was absent from Morony Castle, looking out for emergency men who could be brought down to the neighbourhood of Headford, in sufficient number to save the crop on Mr. Jones\'s farm. And with him was Tom Daly, who had some scheme in his own head with reference to his horses and his hounds. Mr. Persse and Sir Jasper Lynch had been threatened with a wide system of boycotting, unless they would give up Tom Daly\'s animals. A decree had gone forth in the county, that nothing belonging to the hunt should be allowed to live within its precincts. All the bitterness and the cruelty and the horror arising from this order are beyond the limit of this story. But it may be well to explain that at the present moment Frank Jones was away from Castle Morony, working hard on his father\'s behalf.

And so were the girls working hard—making the butter, and cooking the meat, and attending to the bedrooms. And Peter was busy with them as their lieutenant. It might be thought that the present was no time for love-making, and that Captain Clayton could not have been in the mood. But it may be observed that at any period of special toil in a family, when infinitely more has to be done than at any other time, then love-making will go on with more than ordinary energy. Edith was generally to be found with her hair tucked tight off her face and enveloped in a coarse dairymaid\'s apron, and Ada, when she ran downstairs, would do so with a housemaid\'s dusting-brush at her girdle, and they were neither of them, when so attired, in the least afraid of encountering Captain Clayton as he would come out from their father\'s room. All the world knew that they were being boycotted, and very happy the girls were during the process. "Poor papa" did not like it so well. Poor papa thought of his banker\'s account, or rather of that bank at which there was, so to say, no longer any account. But the girls were light of heart, and in the pride of their youth. But, alas! they had both of them blundered frightfully. It was Edith, Edith the prudent, Edith the wise, Edith, who was supposed to know everything, who had first gone astray in her blundering, and had taken Ada with her; but the story with its details must be told.

"My pet," she said to her elder sister, as they were standing together at the kitchen dresser, "I know he means to speak to you to-day."

"What nonsense, Edith!"

"It has to be done some day, you know. And he is just the man to come upon one in the time of one\'s dire distress. Of course we haven\'t got a halfpenny now belonging to us. I was thinking only the other day how comfortable it is that we never go out of the house because we haven\'t the means to buy boots. Now Captain Clayton is just the man to be doubly attracted by such penury."

"I don\'t know why a man is to make an offer to a girl just because he finds her working like a housemaid."

"I do. I can see it all. He is just the man to take you in his arms because he found you peeling potatoes."

"I beg he will do nothing of the kind," said Ada. "He has never said a word to me, or I to him, to justify such a proceeding. I should at once hit him over the head with my brush."

"Here he comes, and now we will see how far I understand such matters."

"Don\'t go, Edith," said Ada. "Pray don\'t go. If you go I shall go with you. These things ought always to come naturally,—that is if they come at all."

It did not "come" at that moment, for Edith was so far mistaken that Captain Clayton, after saying a few words to the girls, passed on out of the back-door, intent on special business. "What a wretched individual he is," said Edith. "Fancy pinning one\'s character on the doings of such a man as that. However, he will be back again to dinner, and you will not be so hard upon him then with your dusting-brush."

Before dinner the Captain did return, and found himself alone with Edith in the kitchen. It was her turn on this occasion to send up whatever meal in the shape of dinner Castle Morony could afford. "There you have it, sir," she said, pointing to a boiled neck of mutton, which had been cut from the remains of a sheep sent in to supply the family wants.

"I see," said he. "It will make a very good dinner,—or a very bad one, according to circumstances, as they may fall out before the dinner leaves the kitchen."

"Then they will have to fall out very quickly," said Edith. But the colour had flown to her face, and in that moment she had learned to suspect the truth. And her mind flew back rapidly over all her doings and sayings for the last three months. If it was so, she could never forgive herself. If it was so, Ada would never forgi............