But presently I had the most painful sense of being stared out of countenance, and lifting my eyes I found the eyes of one of the visitors fixed upon me with so rude and insolent a gaze that the colour rushed into my cheeks as though some one had struck me.

The person was a youngish man, dressed in what I took to be the height of fashion.  We know little enough about fashion, and my grandfather’s knee-breeches and frilled shirt were very smart in the Forties.  The young man had red hair and very bold blue eyes; his complexion was ruddy, and his strong white teeth showed under his red moustache.

At the moment of looking at him I was aware of the greatest aversion and fear within myself.  I lowered my eyes and devoted myself to what I was doing, painfully conscious all the time of the colour in my cheeks which must make me conspicuous to those who were looking at me.  I heard a little giggle; then the voice of one of the ladies very slightly subdued—­

“Oh, come away, Dick.  Don’t you see how you are making that poor girl blush?”

To my relief I heard them go, but it was some time before I could recover myself.

I had no idea at all but that they were chance visitors brought into the neighbourhood by the light railway, but I was soon to be disillusioned.

Several times that day I caught the eyes of a very pretty and innocent-looking girl, named Nora Brady, fixed on me, and there was something odd about her look; so much so that later in the day, as I was putting on my hat to go home, while Nora was preparing to start without any such formality, I suddenly asked her—­

“Why have you been looking at me now and again to-day as though you were going to say something to me?”

To my amazement she blushed hotly and stammered something about not having known that she was looking at me.

“Never mind, Nora,” I said, pitying her confusion; “a cat may look at a king, you know.  Not that I’m a king nor a queen either.”

“Oh, indeed, Miss Bawn,” she said, blushing again.  “You’re pretty enough to be the Queen.  Sure that’s why poor Master Richard stared at you, not meaning to be impudent at all, let alone that he thought you a poor girl.”

“Master Richard?”

“Master Richard Dawson.  ’Twas him came in to-day with some of the quality ladies they have stopping at Damerstown.  He didn’t mean any harm, Miss Bawn.”

So it was Richard Dawson, the only son of the rich money-lender, on whom we of the older, more exclusive gentry turn our backs.  He had been wild in his boyhood, and had quarrelled with his father and flung himself off to America.  We had not heard of his return.

I noticed half consciously the pleading look of Nora’s blue eyes under their black lashes.  Why was the child so much concerned at what had offended me?  But I hardly thought of her.

I was thinking with an unreasonable wave of repulsion that I should doubtless meet Richard Dawson, if not in the drawing-rooms of our friends at least about our quiet lanes and roads, where hitherto there had been nothing to fear.  I wished he had stayed in America; and on one subject I made up my mind.  That was that if I must meet Richard Dawson I should certainly be as cold to him as was compatible with civility to those in whose houses I might meet him.