but she is quickwitted, like most Irish people; and she enjoys a broad style of jesting which Ned is a great deal too tolerant of, though he would as soon die as indulge in it before me.  Then there is Mrs. Scott, who is just as shrewd as Belle, and much cleverer.  I have heard him ask her opinion as to whether he had acted well or not in some stroke of business—­something that I had never heard of, of course.  I wish I were half as hard and strong and self-reliant as she is. Her husband would be nothing without her.”

“I am afraid I was right all along, Marian.  Marriage is a mistake.  There is something radically wrong in the institution.  If you and Ned cannot be happy, no pair in the world can.”

“We might be very happy if——­” Marian stopped to repress a sob.

“Anybody might be very happy If.  There is not much consolation in Ifs.  You could not be better off than you are unless you could be Marian Lind again.  Think of all the women who would give their souls to have a husband who would neither drink, nor swear at them, nor kick them, nor sulk whenever he was kept waiting half a minute for anything.  You have no little pests of children——­”

“I wish I had.  That would give us some interest in common.  We sometimes have Lucy, Marmaduke’s little girl, up here; and Ned seems to me to be fond of her.  She is a very bold little thing.”

“I saw Marmaduke last week.  He is not half so jolly as he was.”

“He lives in chambers in Westminster now, and only comes out in this direction occasionally to see Lucy.  I am afraid she has taken to drinking.  I believe she is going to America.  I hope she is; for she makes me uncomfortable when I think of her.”

“Does your—­your Ned ever speak of her?”

“No.  He used to, before he changed as I described.  Now, he never mentions her.  Hush!  Here he is.”

The sound of the organ had ceased; and Conolly came out and stood between them.

“How do you like my consoler, as Marian calls it?” said he.

“Do you mean the organ?”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t listening to you.”

“You should have:  I played the great fugue in A minor expressly for your entertainment:  you used to work at Liszt’s transcription of it.  The organ is only occasionally my consoler.  For the most part I am driven to it by habit and a certain itching in my fingers.  Marian is my real consoler.”

“So she has just been telling me,” said Elinor.  Conolly’s surprise escaped him for just a moment in a quick glance at Marian.  She colored, and looked reproachfully at her cousin, who added, “I am sure you must be a nuisance to the neighbors.”

“Probably,” said Conolly.

“I do not think you should play so much on Sunday,” said Marian.

“I know. [Marian winced.] Well, if the neighbors will either melt down the church bells they jangle so horribly within fifteen yards or so of my unfortunate ears, or else hang them up two hundred feet high in a beautiful tower where they would sound angelic, as they do at Utrecht, then perhaps I will stop the organ to listen to them.  Until then, I will take the liberty of celebrating the day of rest with such devices as the religious folk cannot forbid me.”