The Charnock world murmured a little when, after a succession of De
Lancey visitors for four months, the Rectory was invaded by
Rosamond's eldest brother, Lord Ballybrehon, always the most hair-
brained of the family, and now invalided home in consequence of a
concussion of the brain while pigsticking in India. He was but a
year older than Rosamond, and her favourite of all, whose scrapes
she had shared, befriended, defended, and scolded in turn, very
handsome, very lazily daring, droll and mischievous, a sort of
concentration of all the other De Lanceys. His sister loved him
passionately, he fascinated the Rector, and little Julia was the
adorer of Uncle Bally.
But Rosamond was rather aghast to find Bally making such love as
only an Irishman could do to the prim little widow at Sirenwood,
dismayed and a little bit ashamed of her unspoken conviction that
Bally, after all his wild freaks and frolics, had come to have an
eye to the needs of the Rathforlane property; and what were her
feelings when, instead of finding the wild Irishman contemned, she
perceived that he was believed in and met fully half way? The
stiffness melted, the eyes softened and sparkled, the lips parted in
soft agitated smiles, the cheeks learnt to blush, and Cecil was
absolutely and thoroughly in love!
Yes, she had found her heart and was won--won in spite of the
Dunstone dislike to the beggarly title--in spite of Miles's well-
considered cautions--in spite of all her original self.
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