rried life
has dwindled down to that. You play with the baby and you play with the
piano, and you write your letters. I don't know what you are writing in
them. You never speak to me of your ideas now. I know nothing of your
politics."

"I haven't spoken about politics much lately, Ellen, because I thought
you had lost interest in them."

"I have lost interest in nothing that concerns you. I have not spoken
to you about politics because I know quite well that my ideas don't
interest you any longer. You're absorbed in your own ideas, and we're
divided. You sleep now in the spare room, so that you may have time to
prepare your speeches."

"But I sometimes come to see you in your room, Ellen."

"Sometimes," she said, sadly, "but that is not my idea of marriage, nor
is it the custom of the country, nor is it what the Church wishes."

"I think, Ellen, you are very unreasonable, and you are generally so
reasonable."

"Well, don't let us argue any more," she said. "We shall never agree,
I'm afraid."

Ned remembered that he once used to say to her, "Ellen, we are agreed
in everything."

"If I had only known that it was going to turn out so disagreeable as
this," Ned said to himself, "I should have held my tongue," and he was
sorry for having displeased Ellen, so pretty did she look in her white
dress and her hat trimmed with china roses; and though he did not care
much for flowers he liked to see Ellen among her flowers; he liked to
sit with her under the shady apple-tree, and the hollyhocks were making
a fine show up in the air.

"I think I like the hollyhocks better than any flowers, and the
sunflowers are coming out," he said.

He hesitated whether he should speak about the swallows, Ellen did not
care for birds. The swallows rushed round the garden in groups of six
and seven filling the air with piercing shrieks. He had never seen them
so restless. He and Ellen walked across the sward to their seat and
then Ellen asked him if he would like to see the child.

"I've kept him out of bed and thought you might like to see him."

"Yes," he said, "go fetch the baby and I will shake the boughs, and it
will amuse him to run after the apples."

"Differences of opinion arise," he said to himself, "for the mind
changes and desire wanes, but the heart is always the same, and what an
extraordinary bond the child is," he said, seeing Ellen leading the
child across the sward. He forgot Ireland, forgot priests, and forgot