place behind me, which I let her do without a word. But we were not half-a-mile out of town when she began to try with her coaxing and blandishments to dissipate my ill-humour.
‘Sure it’s a bitter night, Redmond dear, and you’ll catch cold without a handkerchief to your neck.’ To this sympathetic remark from the pillion, the saddle made no reply.
‘Did you and Miss Clancy have a pleasant evening, Redmond? You were together, I saw, all night.’ To this the saddle only replied by grinding his teeth, and giving a lash to Daisy.
‘O mercy! you’ll make Daisy rear and throw me, you careless creature you: and you know, Redmond, I’m so timid.’ The pillion had by this got her arm round the saddle’s waist, and perhaps gave it the gentlest squeeze in the world.
‘I hate Miss Clancy, you know I do!’ answers the saddle; ‘and I only danced with her because—because—the person with whom I intended to dance chose to be engaged the whole night.’
‘Sure there were my sisters,’ said the pillion, now laughing outright in the pride of her conscious superiority; ‘and for me, my dear, I had not been in the room five minutes before I was engaged for every single set.’
‘Were you obliged to dance five times with Captain Quin?’ said I; and oh! strange delicious charm of coquetry, I do believe Miss Nora Brady at twenty-three years of age felt a pang of delight in thinking that she had so much power over a guileless lad of fifteen. Of course she replied that she did not care a fig for Captain Quin: that he danced prettily, to be sure, and was a pleasant rattle of a man; that he looked well in his regimentals too; and if he chose to ask her to dance, how could she refuse him?
‘But you refused me, Nora.’
‘Oh! I can dance with you any day,’ answered Miss Nora, with a toss of her head; ‘and to dance with your cousin at a ball, looks as if you could find no other partner. Besides,’ said Nora—and this was a cruel, unkind cut, which showed what a power she had over me, and how mercilessly she used it,—‘besides, Redmond, Captain Quin’s a man and you are only a boy!’
‘If ever I meet him again,’ I roared out with an oath, ‘you shall see
Prev.
Back
Top