There was, by-the-bye, a rumour--I know not how true--that these two sages were concocting between them, beside their folios on the Castle of Chapelizod, an interminable history of Ireland.
Devereux was secretly chafed at the sort of invisible, but insuperable resistance which pretty Lilias Walsingham, as it seemed, unconsciously opposed to his approaches to a nearer and tenderer sort of trifling.
'The little Siren! there are air-drawn circles round her which I cannot pass--and why should I?
How is it that she interests me, and yet repels me so easily?
And--and when I came here first,' he continued aloud, 'you were, oh dear! how mere a child, hardly eleven years old.

How long I've known you, Miss Lilias, and yet how formal you are with me.' There was reproach almost fierce in his eye, though his tones were low and gentle.
'Well!' he said, with an odd changed little laugh, 'you _did_ commit yourself at first--you spoke against card-playing, and I tell you frankly I mean to play a great deal more, and a great deal higher than I've ever done before, and so adieu.' He did not choose to see the little motion which indicated that she was going to shake hands with him, and only bowed the lower, and answered her grave smile, which seemed to say, 'Now, you are vexed,' with another little laugh, and turned gaily away, and so was gone.
'She thinks she has wounded me, and she thinks, I suppose, that I can't be happy away from her.

I'll let her see I can; I shan't speak to her, no, nor look at her, for a month!' The Chattesworths by this time, as well as others, were moving away--and that young Mr.Mervyn, more remarked upon than he suspected, walked with them to the gate of the fair-green.

As he passed he bowed low to good Parson Walsingham, who returned his salute, not unkindly--that never was--but very gravely, and with his gentle and thoughtful blue eyes followed the party sadly on their way.
'Ay--there he goes--Mervyn! Well!--so--so--pray Heaven, sorrow and a blight follow him not into this place.' The rector murmured to himself, and sighed, still following him with his glance.
Little Lilias, with her hand within his arm, wondered, as she glanced upward into that beloved face, what could have darkened it with a look so sad and anxious; and then her eyes also followed the retreating figure of that pale young man, with a sort of interest not quite unmixed with uneasiness..