’She met with a bad accident, and has not been out hunting lately.  She was riding a pounding match with Mrs. Manly across country:  May’s horse came to grief at a big wall, and broke several of her ribs.  They say she has given up riding—­now she does nothing but paint.  You remember how well she used to paint at school.’

‘And the Brennans?’

’Oh, they go up to the Shelbourne every year, but none of them are married; and I am afraid that they must be very hard up, for their land is very highly let, and the tenants are paying no rent at all now—­Ireland is worse than ever; we shall all be ruined, and they say Home Rule is certain.  But I am sick of the subject.’

Then the Duffys, the Honourable Miss Gores, and the many other families of unmarried girls—­the poor muslin martyrs, whose sufferings were the theme of this book, were again passed in review; their failures sometimes jeeringly alluded to by Olive, but always listened to pityingly by Alice—­and, talking thus of their past life, the sisters leant over the spring fire that burnt out in the grate.  At the end of a long silence Alice said: 

’Well, dear, I hope you have come to live with us, or at any rate to pay us a long visit.’

THE END