’Jealous!  I should like to know why I should be jealous.  Of what?  I got all I tried for.  Besides, the truth about your French prize is that you may consider yourself very fortunate, for if’ (she mentioned the name of one of her schoolfellows) ’hadn’t been so shy and timid, you’d have come off second best.’

The rudeness of this retort drew a sharp answer from Violet; and then, in turn, but more often simultaneously, the girls discussed the justice of the distribution.  The names of an infinite number of girls were mentioned; but when, in the babbling flow of convent-gossip, a favourite nun was spoken of, one of the chatterers would sigh, and for a moment be silent.

The violet waters of the bay had darkened, and, like the separating banners of a homeward-moving procession, the colours of the sky went east and west.  The girdle of rubies had melted, had become the pale red lining of a falling mantle; the large spaces of gold grew dim; orange and yellow streamers blended; lilac and blue pennons faded to deep greys; dark hoods and dark veils were drawn closer; purple was gathered like garments about the loins; the night fell, and the sky, now decorated with a crescent moon and a few stars, was filled with stillness and adoration.  The day’s death was exquisite, even human; and as she gazed on the beautiful corpse lowered amid the fumes of a thousand censers into an under-world, even Violet’s egotism began to dream.

‘The evening is lovely.  I am glad; it is the last we shall pass here,’ said the girl pensively, ‘and all good-byes are sad.’

‘Yes, we have been happy,’ said May, ’and I too am sorry to leave; but then we couldn’t spend our lives here.  There are plenty of things to be done at home; and I suppose we shall all get married one of these days?  And there will be balls and parties before we get married.  I don’t think that I’d care to get married all at once.  Would you, Violet?’

‘I don’t know.  Perhaps not, unless it was to someone very grand indeed.’

’Oh, would you do that?  I don’t think I could marry a man unless I loved him,’ said May.

’Yes, but you might love someone who was very grand as well as someone who wasn’t.’

‘That’s true enough; but then—­’ and May stopped, striving to readjust her ideas, which Violet’s remark had suddenly disarranged.  After a pause she said: 

’But does your mother intend to bring you to Dublin for the season?  Are you going to be presented this year?’

‘I hope so.  Mamma said I should be, last vacation.’

’I shall take good care that I am.  The best part of the hunting will be over, and I wouldn’t miss the Castle balls for anything.  Do you like officers?’

The crudity of the question startled Alice, and it was with difficulty she answered she didn’t know—­that she had not thought about the matter.

May and Violet continued the conversation; and over the lingering waste of yellow, all that remained to tell where the sun had set, the night fell like a heavy, blinding dust, sadly and regretfully, as the last handful of earth thrown upon a young girl’s grave.