Lady O'Hara looked across at her sleeping husband with no little severity in her glance. He was stretched in a chair beneath a giant oak, and she was busied with some needlework a few paces from him. O'Hara's eyes were shut and his mouth open. My lady frowned and coughed. She rasped her throat quite considerably, but it was not without effect; her spouse shut his mouth and opened one lazy eyelid.
Immediately my lady assumed an air of gentle mournfulness, and the eye regarding her twinkled a little, threatening to close. Molly looked reproachful, and began to speak in an aggrieved tone: "Indeed, and I do not think it at all kind in you to go to sleep when I want to talk, sir."
O'Hara hastily opened the other eye.
"Why, my love, I was not asleep! I was-er-thinking!"
"Do you say so, sir? And do you usually think with your mouth open-snoring?"
O'Hara started up.
"I'll swear I did not snore!" he cried. "Molly, 'tis a wicked tease ye are!"
"Miles, 'tis a big baby you are!" she mimicked. "There is a caterpillar on your wig, and 'tis on crooked."
"The caterpillar?" asked O'Hara, bewildered.
"No, stupid, the wig. I had best straighten it for you, I suppose." She rose and stooped over him, settling the wig and removing the caterpillar by means of two leaves, judiciously wielded. Then she dropped a kiss on her husband's brow and sat down at his feet.
"First, you have never asked me where I was gone to all yesterday afternoon."
O'Hara had been carefully broken in, and he now knew what was expected of him, and put on an expression of great interest.
"Where did ye go, my lady?"
"I went to call on Miss Beauleigh and her niece, sir!"
She looked up at him triumphantly and a little challengingly.
"The devil ye did!"
"Certainly, sir. I knew that there was something in the air, and I remembered your letter to me saying that Jack was in love with Diana.
So I thought I would go and see her for myself."
Miles looked down at her half indulgently, half vexedly.
"Did you, puss?"
"I did. And I found that she was in love with him as well as he with her-of course."
"Of course?"
"Who could help falling in love with him? He's so monstrous captivating, I would like to marry him myself."
She bent her head to hide the roguish smile that had sprung to her lips.
"I beg your pardon?" asked O'Hara, startled.
My lady traced patterns on his knee.
"Provided, of course, that I had not already married you, Miles."