Page:Hornung - Irralies Bushranger.djvu/84

 purely random lighting of the yard. The gross effect, however, would have been better, undoubtedly, without a moon; as it was, by ten o'clock the night was lighter than many a northern day.

About this hour two things happened. The new owner, then making himself most attentive to Mrs. Browne of Quandong (whose diamonds were worthy of Park Lane), felt a tug at his armless sleeve. He turned his head, and there was Irralie. The girl was dressed in white, trimmed (by her own hands) with rowan-berries; there were more berries in her hair; and earlier in the evening, at all events, health and youth and radiant high spirits had made her beautiful in many eyes. She was now, however, very visibly overheated, for she had been dancing everything with the utmost abandon; and she was also, in the judgment of Mrs. Browne of Quandong (who had spent a recent year in England), decidedly "bad form."

"Well, Miss Villiers"