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All cricket ID Register +188K There is a faint pause,—so faint that Lady Rodney is unable to edge in the saving clause she would fain have uttered. Lady Lilias, recovering with wonderful spirit from so severe a blow, comes once more boldly to the front. She taps her white taper fingers lightly on the table near her, and says, apologetically,—the apology being meant for herself,—,"I am afraid you must class me with the ignorant," says Mona, shaking her pretty head. "I know nothing at all about thistles, except that donkeys love them!","Well, even that awful misfortune might be survived. We can live in our own home 'at ease,' as the old song says, until she comes to her senses. By and by, do you know you have never asked me about your future home,—my own place, Leighton Hall? and yet it is rather well worth asking about, because, though small, it is one of the oldest and prettiest places in the county.",The Rodneys are, for the most part, in the library, the room dearest to them. Mona is telling Doatie's fortune on cards, Geoffrey and Nicholas are discussing the merits and demerits of a new mare, Lady Rodney in still struggling with the crimson sock,—when the door is opened, and Nolly entering adds himself to the group.,"I will do my best," says Mona, earnestly; "but if I fail,—if after all my efforts your mother still refuses to love me, how will it be then?"，The duchess, on the contrary, gives way to mirth, and, leaning back in her chair, laughs softly but with evident enjoyment. Mona contemplates her curiously, pensively.，"By the by," he says, once more restored to something like hope, as he notes her drooping lids and changing color and how she hides from his searching gaze her dark, blue, Irish eyes, that, as somebody has so cleverly expressed it, seem "rubbed into her head with a dirty finger," so marked lie the shadows beneath them, that enhance and heighten their beauty,—"by the by, you told me you had a miniature of your mother in your desk, and you promised to show it to me." He merely says this with a view to gaining more time, and not from any overwhelming desire to see the late Mrs. Scully.，"Look here," says Geoffrey. "I won't have Mona spoiled. If she hadn't a headache, she hadn't, you know, and if you were at home, why, you were, and that's all about it. Why should she tell a lie about it?""What greedy little things!" cries she aloud, with the merriest laugh in the world. "Sure you can't eat more than enough, can you? an' do your best! Oh, Brownie," reproachfully, "what a selfish bird you are!"

"Am I not?" says he, humbly, putting on his carefully crestfallen air that has generally been found so highly successful. "Tell me my fault.","Is that a compliment?" she says, wistfully. "Is it well to be unlike all the world? Yet what you say is true, no doubt. I suppose I am different from—from all the other people you know.","I have only one thought," says the woman, sullenly, "I can't betther it. An' that is, that it was a bitther day when first I saw the light.","It almost amounts to it," says Nicholas, with a frown.,"Yes, let us," says Mona, gayly.,"No, no," she says, drawing herself up and speaking with a touch of pride that sits very sweetly on her; "I beg you will say nothing. Mere words could not cure the wound you have inflicted.","But—" begins he, impatiently, trying gently to put her to one side.,"Oh, no! it is not that! you must know it is not that," says Mona, in deep grief. "It is that I cannot marry you!","She is all your fancy could possibly paint her; she is lovely and divine. Don't try to analyze her charms, my dear Geoff. She is just the prettiest and sweetest woman I ever met. She is young, in the 'very May morn of delight,' yet there is nothing of that horrid shyness—that mauvaise honte—about her that, as a rule, belongs to the 'freshness of morning.' Her laugh is so sweet, so full of enjoyment.",And, oh! she dances such a way,,"Oh, never mind your young and innocent days: we never heard of them," says Dorothy, impatiently. "Do get on to it.",The inference is full of saddest meaning. Even Geoffrey feels the tears rise unbidden to his eyes..