Rossmoyne

"No doubt," says Priscilla, severely.

Miss Penelope sighs.

CHAPTER II.

How two Old Maids are made acquainted with a very Young One.

Already we have reached the afternoon. In these warm June days, when all the earth is languorous and glad with its own beauty, time slips from us unannounced, and the minutes from morn to eventide, and from the gloaming till nightfall, melt into one another, until all seem one sweet, lengthened hour.

Just now the hot sun is pouring down upon garden and gravelled walks at Moyne; except the hum of the industrious bees, not a sound can be heard; even the streamlet at the end of the long lawn is running sleepily, making sweet music as it goes, indeed, but so drowsily, so heavily, that it hardly reaches the ear; and so, too, with the lap-lapping of the waves upon the shore below, as the tide comes and goes.

Not a breath of air comes to disturb the languid grandeur of th