octagonal apartment fitted up as a lady's
boudoir; and here, in one corner of a wide couch,
sat a tiny old woman, clad in long rustling
robes of violet silk, and with a gorgeous cobweb
of antique lace hanging from the back of
her jet-black wig.

On Clement's entrance, the tiny old woman
sprang off the couch, with unexpected alacrity,
and, clasping her hands, cried in a high, shrill
voice, "For God's sake don't prepare me!"

Clement stood stock-still in dumb surprise.

"Don't prepare me!" repeated her ladyship,
in great agitation. "There's nothing so dreadful
as being prepared in that way. If anything
terrible has happened, out with it at once."

"I assure you, on my honour," said Clement,
earnestly, and still very much bewildered, "that
nothing terrible has happened, and that you
have no cause for apprehension."

Lady Popham fell back on the sofa with her
handkerchief to her eyes.

"I made up my mind that you had come to
tell me Geraldine was dead," she whimpered.

"I am shocked beyond measure to have
alarmed you thus," said Clement. But in his
heart he was considerably relieved by this
explanation of the little old lady's extraordinary
behaviour, for he had at the first moment
entertained considerable doubts of her sanity.

"I came prepared to offer many apologies for
my intrusion, Lady Popham," he said, "but I
never thought of the possibility of your being
so startled by my arrival."

"Of course not," said Lady Popham, wiping
her eyes, and smiling quite cheerfully. "You
couldn't be expected to know what an excitable
fluttering creature I am. Always was from a
child. An aspen-leaf, moved with a breath.
They used to call me an April sky at home.
Clouds and sunshine, smiles and tears. There
isn't an ounce of your terrible British sang
froid in my composition. But I really beg
your pardon, Mr. Charlewood. Luke, place
a chair for Mr. Charlewood, and go away, and
don't let me hear the creak of your shoes in
the corridor.

When the servant had left the room, her
ladyship raised her eye-glass and surveyed
Clement steadily for a few seconds, and then—
apparently well satisfied with the result of
her inspection—skipped up to him with the
queerest little mincing gait imaginable, and
holding out her lean, withered, white little
hand, all a-blaze with diamonds, shook his
heartily.

"Welcome to Cloncoolin, Mr. Clement Charlewood,"
said she, and made him a low sweeping
curtsey.

"I hope you will pardon the liberty I have
taken, Lady Popham——"

"Liberty? Not at all. Since my dear
Geraldine's first cousin is going to marry a
member of your family——"

"My sister."

"Your sister? Really! Well then, you see,
you and I are almost relations, ain't we?"

"Your ladyship is very good, but——"

"But? Now that 'but' is very uncivil.
Surely you won't refuse to call cousins with
me? But perhaps you'd have no objection to
allow Geraldine's claim, though you don't want
an old woman like me for a cousin. Aha, Mr.
Clement!" And the old lady nodded and
showed her double range of false teeth with
surprising archness.

At another time Clement might perhaps have
been amused by her ladyship's oddities. But
his heart was now too full of anxiety and
apprehension to allow him to think of anything but
the one object of his visit. Lady Popham having
quite recovered from her fright, and being
assured of Miss O'Brien's perfect health and
safety, became so brisk and vivacious, and
chatted away so incessantly, that Clement began
to fear the time would slip by and the interview
come to an end before he could approach the
subject on which he desired to speak. Lady
Popham asked if he were fond of pictures, and
without waiting for a reply, began an extravagant
eulogy on some in her own possession, the
work of an unappreciated genius, whom she had
patronised in Naples, but whom the world had
steadily refused to crown as the modern Titian.
Then she proceeded to speak of sculpture, and
insisted on taking Clement into the great
drawing-room, to show him a marble bust of her late
husband, executed by another of her artistic
protégés, and which she pronounced to be a
marvellous likeness. "You saw Sir Bernard's
portrait in the little blue room down-stairs?"
said Lady Popham. "That was taken many
years previous to this. And, do you know, Mr.
Charlewood, what I have had done? The fashion
of wearing moustaches was not so general when
Sir Bernard was living, as it has become since.
Now I adore moustaches. So manly, so
distingué, and I know they would have been most
becoming to him. So about two years before I
left Italy, I made them put on a pair of
moustaches—cleverly done in plaster—to this bust,
and there they are, as you see. The effect is
very good, I think."

Whatever might have been thought of the
effect, the fact was undoubted. There were the
luxuriant plaster moustaches, affixed to the upper
lip of the marble face. And her ladyship stood
contemplating the bust with perfect satisfaction
and approval.

Clement was on thorns, as the eccentric little
woman skipped and rustled about the room,
pointing out this and that chef-d'Å“uvre of art,
and talking incessantly.

At last, being reduced almost to desperation,
he stopped her in the full flow of her discourse,
and representing that his time at Kilclare was
necessarily limited, begged that she would do
him the favour of allowing him to speak on the
business which had brought him to Cloncoolin.

Lady Popham immediately assumed an attentive
face, and seating herself once more on the
couch in her boudoir, desired him to speak.

"It is difficult, Lady Popham, because I feel
that I have no right to trouble you on the
subject. But I must crave your indulgence, and