Much as the magnificence and comfort in-doors had astonished Malone, he was far more captivated by the beauty of the garden. Here were a vast variety of objects which he could thoroughly appreciate. The luxuriant vegetation, the fruit-trees bending under their fruit, the proffusion of rare and rich flowers, the trim order of the whole, that neatness which the inexperienced eye has seldom beheld, nor can, even when seeing, credit, struck him at every step; and then there were plants utterly new and strange to him—pines and pomegranates, and enormous gourds, streaked and variegated in gorgeous colours, and over and through all a certain pervading odour that distilled a sense of drowsy enjoyment very captivating. Never, perhaps, in his whole life, had he so fully brought home to him the glorious prerogative of wealth, that marvellous power that culls from life, one by one, every attribute that is pleasure-giving, and surrounds daily existence with whatever can charm or beguile.

When he heard from the gardener that Sir Gervais seldom or never came there, he almost started, and some vague and shadowy doubt shot across his mind that rich men might not be so triumphantly blessed as he had just believed them.

“Sure,” he muttered, “if he doesn’t see this he can’t enjoy it, and if he sees it so often that he doesn’t mind, it’s the same thing. I wondher, now, would that be possible, and would there ever come a time to myself when I wouldn’t think this was Paradise.”

He was musing in this wise, when a merry burst of childish laughter startled him, and at the same instant a little girl bounded over a melon-frame and ran towards him. He drew aside, and took off his hat with respectful deference, when suddenly the child stopped, and burst into a ringing laugh, as she said, “Why, grandfather, don’t you know me?”

Nor even then did he know her, such a marvellous change had been wrought in her by one of Ada’s dresses, and a blue ribbon that fastened her hair behind, and fell floating down her back with the rich golden tresses.

“Sure it isn’t Kitty?” cried he, shading his eyes with his hand.

“And why wouldn’t it be Kitty?” replied she, tartly, and piqued that her own attractions were not above all adventitious aid. “Is it a white frock makes me so grand that ye wouldn’t know me again?”

“May I never,” cried he, “but I thought you was a young lady.”

“Well, and what’s the differ, I wonder? If I look like one, couldn’t I be one?”

“Ay, and do it well, too!” said he, while his eyes glistened with a look of triumph. “Come here, Kitty, darlin’,” said he, taking her hand, and leading her along at his side, “I want to spake a word to you. Now, Kitty, though you’re only a child, as one may say, you’ve more wit in your head nor many a grown woman, and if you hadn’t, it’s the heavy heart I’d have this day leavin’ you among strangers.”

“Don’t fret about that, grandfather; it’s an elegant fine place to be in. Wait till I show you the dairy, that’s grander inside than ever I seen a house in Ireland; and if you saw the cowhouse, the beasts has straps with buckles round their necks, and boords under their feet, just like Christians, only betther.”

“A long sight betther nor Christians!” muttered he, half savagely. Then recovering, he went on: “You see, here’s how it is. ‘Twas out of a ‘conceit’—a sort of fancy—they took you, and out of the same, my honey, they may leave you some fine mornin’ when you’ve got ways that would be hard to give up, and used to twenty things you couldn’t do without; and I was tellin’ them that, and askin’ how it would be if that day was to come?”

“Ah,” cried she, with an impatient toss of her head, “I wish you hadn’t put such thoughts into their heads at all. Sure, ain’t I here now? Haven’t they tuk me away from my home, and where would I go if they turned me out? You want to make it asy for them, grandfather, isn’t that it?”

“Faix, I believe you’re right, Kitty.”

“Sure, I know I am. And why would they send me away if I didn’t displase them, and you’ll see that I’ll not do that.”

“Are you sure and certain of that?”

“As sure as I’m here. Don’t fret about it, grandfather.”

“Ay, but darlin’, what will plase one wouldn’t, may be, be plasin’ to another; there’s the mistress and her sister—and they’re not a bit like each other—and there’s the master and that ould man with the goold chain round his neck—he’s your guardian.”

“Oh, is he?” cried she; “see what he gave me—he took it off his watch-chain. He said, ‘There’s a little sweetheart for you.’” And she drew from her bosom her handkerchief, in which she had carefully rolled up a small figure of a man in armour, of fine gold and delicate workmanship. “And the little girl here—Ada, they call her—tells me that he is far richer than her papa, and has a house ten times grander.”

“That’s lucky, anyhow,” said the old man, musing. “Well, honey, when I found that I couldn’t do any better, I said I’d go and talk to yourself, and see whether you were set upon stayin’ with all your heart, or if you’d like to go back again.”

“Is it back to Derryvaragh?”

“Yes; where else?”

“Catch me at it, Peter Malone, that’s all! Catch me goin’ to eat potatoes and lie on straw, work in the fields and go barefoot, when I can be a lady, and have everything I can think of.”

“I wonder will ye ever larn it?”

“Larn what?”

“To be a lady—I mane a raal lady—that nobody, no matter how cute they were, could find you out.”

“Give me two years, Peter Malone, just two years—maybe not so much, but I’d like to be sure—and if I don’t, I’ll promise you to go back to. Derryvaragh, and never lave it again.”

“Faix, I think you’d win!”

“Sure, I know it.”

And there was a fierce energy in her look that said far more than her words.

“Oh, Kitty, darlin’, I wondher will I live to see it?”

Apparently, this consummation was not which held chief sway over her mind, for she was now busy making a wreath of flowers for her head.

“Won’t the gardener be angry, darlin’, at your pluckin’ the roses and the big pinks?”

“Let him, if he dare. Miss Ada told him a while ago that I was to go everywhere, and take anything just like herself; and I can eat the fruit, the apples, and the pears, and the grapes that you see there, but I wouldn’t because Ada didn’t,” said she, gravely.

“You’ll do, Kitty—you’ll do,” said the old man; and his eyes swam with tears of affection and joy.

“You begin to think so now, grandfather,” said she, archly.

“And so I may go in now and tell them that you’ll stay.”

“You may go in, Peter Malone, and tell them that I won’t go, and that’s better.”

The old man stepped back, and, turning her round full in front of him, stood in wondering admiration of her for some seconds.

“Well?” said she, pertly, as if interrogating his opinion of her—“well?”

But his emotion was too strong for words, and the heavy tears coursed after each other down his wrinkled cheeks.

“It’s harder for me to leave you, Kitty, darlin’, than I thought it would be, and I know, too, I’ll feel it worse when I go back.”

“No you won’t, grandfather,” said she, caressingly. “You’ll be thinking of me and the fine life I’m leadin’ here, and the fine times that’s before me.”

“Do you think so, honey?” asked he, in a half-sobbing tone—“do you think so?”

“I know it, grandfather—I know it, so don’t cry any more; and, whenever your heart is low, just think of what’s coming. That’s what I do. I always begin to think of what’s coming!”

“And when that time comes, Kitty ‘Alannah,’ will you ever renumber yer ould grandfather, who won’t be to ‘the fore’ to see it?”

“And why won’t he be?”

“Because, darlin’, I’m nigh eighty years of age, and I can’t expect to see above a year or two, at farthest. Come here, and give me a kiss, ma Cushleen! and cut off a bit of your hair for me to have as a keepsake, and put next my heart in my coffin.”

“No, grandfather; take this, it will do as well”—and she handed him the little golden trinket—“for I can’t cut my hair, after hearin’ the gentlemen sayin’ how beautiful it is!”

The old man, however, motioned away the gift with one hand, while he drew the other across his eyes.

“Is there anything you think of now, Kitty,” said he, with an effort to appear calm, “for I must be goin’?”

“Give my love to them all beyant,” said she, gravely, “and say if there’s a thing I could do for them, I’ll do it, but don’t let them be comin’ after me!”

A sickly paleness spread over the old man’s face, and his lips trembled as he muttered, “No fear of that! They’ll not trouble you! Good-by!” And he stooped and kissed her.

When he had walked a few paces away, he turned, and, with hands fervently clasped above his head, uttered a blessing in Irish.

“God speed you, grandfather, and send you safe home!” cried she. And, skipping over a flower-bed, was lost to his view, though he could hear her happy voice as she went away singing.

“The devil a doubt of it,” muttered the old man, “them’s the ones that bate the world; and, if she doesn’t come in first in the race, by my soule, it isn’t the weight of her heart will keep her back!”

“Well, Malone!” cried Sir Gervais, as they met at the garden-gate, “have you been able to make up your mind?”

“Yes, your honour; Kitty says she’ll stay.” Sir Gervais paused for a moment, then said:

“Because we have been talking the matter over amongst ourselves, Malone, and we have thought that, as possibly your expectations might be greater than were likely to be realised, our best way might be to make you some compensation for all the trouble we have given you, and part the same good friends that we met. I therefore came to say, that if you like your present holding, that little farm——”

“No, your honour, no,” broke he in, eagerly; “her heart’s in the place now, and it would be as much as her life’s worth to tear her away from it.”

“If that be so, there’s no more to be said; but remember, that we gave you a choice, and you took it.”

“What does he mean to do?” asked Georgina, as she now came up the path.

“To leave her here,” answered Vyner.

“Of course. I never had a doubt of it. My good man, I’m much mistaken if your granddaughter and I will not understand each other very quickly. What do you think?”

“It is little trouble it will give your Ladyship to know all that’s inside a poor ignorant little child like that!” said he, with an intense servility of manner. “But her heart is true, and her conscience clean, and I’m lavin’ you as good a child as ever broke bread this day!”

“So that if the tree doesn’t bear the fruit it ought, the blame will lie with the gardener; isn’t that what you mean?” asked she, keenly.

“God help me! I’m only a poor man, and your Ladyship is too hard on me,” said he, uncovering his snow-white head, and bowing deeply and humbly.

“After all,” whispered she in Vyner’s ear, “there has really been nothing determined about the matter in dispute. None of us know what is to be done, if the contingency he spoke of should arise.”

They walked away, arm in arm, in close conference together, but when they returned, after a half-hour or so, to the place, Malone was gone. The porter said he had come to the lodge for his bundle, wished him a good-by, and departed.