And how could he not be proud?
was she not high in rank, proud in character, beautiful withal, and the mother of Clara Desmond?
What sweeter friend could a man have; what counsellor more potent to avert those dangers which now hovered round his head?
And as he rode home he was half in love with the countess.

Where is the young man who has not in his early years been half in love with some woman older, much older than himself, who has half conquered his heart by her solicitude for his welfare ?--with some woman who has whispered to him while others were talking, who has told him in such gentle, loving tones of his boyish follies, whose tenderness and experience together have educated him and made him manly?
Young men are so proud, proud in their inmost hearts, of such tenderness and solicitude, as long as it remains secret and wrapt as it were in a certain mystery.

Such liaisons have the interests of intrigue, without--I was going to say without its dangers.

Alas! it may be that it is not always so.
Owen Fitzgerald as he rode home was half in love with the countess.
Not that his love was of a kind which made him in any way desirous of marrying her, or of kneeling at her feet and devoting himself to her for ever; not that it in any way interfered with the other love which he was beginning to feel for her daughter.

But he thought with pleasure of the tone of her voice, of the pressure of her hand, of the tenderness which he had found in her eye.
It was after that time, as will be understood, that some goodnatured friend had told him that he was regarded in the county as the future husband of Lady Desmond.