day yesterday at Windlemont, engaged in
assisting to settle the succession. Where estates are not entailed!'

'The expectations of the family are undisciplined and certain not to be
satisfied,' Mr. Adister carried on the broken sentence. 'That house will
fall! However, you have lost no time this morning.--Mr. Patrick
O'Donnell.'

Mr. Camminy bowed busily somewhere in the direction between Patrick and
the sideboard.

'Our lawyers have us inside out, like our physicians,' Mr. Adister
resumed, talking to blunt his impatience for a private discussion with
his own.

'Surgery's a little in their practice too, we think in Ireland,' said
Patrick.

Mr. Camminy assented: 'No doubt.' He was hungry, and enjoyed the look of
the table, but the look of his client chilled the prospect, considered in
its genial appearance as a feast of stages; having luminous extension;
so, to ease his client's mind, he ventured to say: 'I thought it might be
urgent.'

'It is urgent,' was the answer.

'Ah: foreign? domestic?'

A frown replied.

Caroline, in haste to have her duties over, that she might escape the
dreaded outburst, pressed another cup of tea on Mr. Camminy and groaned
to see him fill his plate. She tried to start a topic with Patrick.

'The princess is well, I hope?' Mr. Camminy asked in the voice of
discretion. 'It concerns her Highness?'

'It concerns my daughter and her inheritance from her mad grandmother!'
Mr. Adister rejoined loudly; and he continued like a retreating thunder:
'A princess with a title as empty as a skull! At best a princess of
swamps, and swine that fight for acorns, and men that fight for swine!'

Patrick caught a glance from Caroline, and the pair rose together.

'They did that in our mountains a couple of thousand years ago,' said Mr.
Camminy, 'and the cause was not so bad, to judge by this ham. Men must
fight: the law is only a quieter field for them.'

'And a fatter for the ravens,' Patrick joined in softly, as if carrying
on a song.

'Have at us, Mr. O'Donnell! I'm ashamed of my appetite, Miss Adister, but
the morning's drive must be my excuse, and I'm bounden to you for not
forcing me to detain you. Yes, I can finish breakfast at my leisure, and
talk of business, which is never particularly interesting to
ladies--though,' Mr. Camminy turned to her uncle, 'I know Miss Adister
has a head for it.'

Patrick hummed a bar or two of an air, to hint of his being fanatico per
la musica, as a pr