Solitary Island, Part Fourth, Chapters II-IV [pp. 185-212]

SOLITARY ISLAND.
eyes shut since you were born, girl. You didn't know Barbery?
She isn't one bit different from what she was twenty years ago,
for all her turning papist like yourself! Do you know what I
said?"
"Oh! yes, squire," with a charming smile. "Every one knows
what you say, and even what you think, or are going to say or
think. You'reda dear, soft-headed old idiot!"
"Jes' as you say," murmured the squire, for lack of words
to express his feelings, while Ruth listened in amazement.
"You might as well know," she said, with heightened color,
"that I am Florian's promised wife. Will you tell me now where
he is?"
"Don't you do it, Ruth," gasped the squire. "It's quite
likely she's-"
"0 papa!" said Ruth, "don't insinuate that. If you are
what you say, Barbara Merrion, what has become of Frances
Lynch?"
"Thrown aside like a toy. What did Florian want with her
-a dainty nonentity?" And she laughed.
"I think-I fear you are a bad woman, Barbara," said Ruth,
with the courage peculiar to her on such occasions. "If he has
wronged that sweet girl it was because of you and at your instigation. How could you, a Catholic, think of such a wicked
crime?
"She donned the Catholic rig to catch Flory, as I said at the
time,"' said the angry squire. "You did, Barbara. Your face
confesses it."
"I have nothing to do with these things. Can you, will you
tell me where is Florian?"
"If you're engaged to him," the squire remarked wickedly,
"you ought to know where he is."
"I have a batch of letters which he has written to me every
day since he catne here, and I know that he is here, and that is
all."
"You'll have to find him yourself, then," said the squire;
" and, as we don't care to mix ourselves up in your doings, perhaps you wouldn't mind going to stay with your friends in the
town."
"I have already decided on that, you funny old man, for it
would be too much to accept of your hospitality farther."
Ruth rose and left the room without a word, hurt beyond
measure at the vulgarity and wickedness of Barbara's character.
That it was light and insincere she well knew, but she had always
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