himself. This was a small
business, but if Phyl in the future was to do things that he did not
approve of it would be his plain duty to remonstrate with her. An odious
position for youth to be placed in. How she would loathe and hate him!

Pinckney, though a man of the world in many ways and a good business man,
was still at heart a boy just as young as Phyl; even in years he was very
little older than she, and the boy side of his mind was in full revolt at
the job set before him by fate.

Then he came to a resolution.

"She can do jolly well what she pleases," said he to himself, "without my
interference. Aunt Maria can attend to that. My business will be to look
after her property and keep sharks off it. _I'm_ not going to set up in
business to tell a girl what she ought or oughtn't to do--that's a woman's
job."

Satisfied with this seeming solution of the difficulty he went to bed.

Meanwhile, Phyl, having marched off with the book under her arm found,
when she reached her room, that she had forgotten a matchbox, and, too
proud to return to the hall for one, went to bed in the dark.

She lay awake for an hour, her mind obsessed by thoughts of this man who
had suddenly stepped into her life, and who possessed such a strange power
to disturb her being and fill it with feelings of unrest, irritation and,
strangely enough, a vague attraction.

The attraction one might fancy the iron to feel for the distant magnet, or
the floating stick for the far-off whirlpool.

Then she fell asleep and dreamed that they were at dinner and Mr.
Hennessey was waiting at table. Her father was there and, before the dream
converted itself into something equally fatuous she heard Pinckney's
voice, also in the dream; he seemed looking for her in the hall and he was
calling to her, "Phyl--Phyl!"

CHAPTER V

Next morning came with a burst of sunshine and a windy, cloudless sky.
Pinckney, dressing with his window open, could see the park with the rooks
wheeling and cawing over the trees, whilst the warm wind brought into the
room all sorts of winter scents on the very breath of summer.

This rainy land where the snow rarely comes has all sorts of surprises of
climate and character. Nothing is truly logical in Ireland, not even
winter. That is what makes the place so delightful to some minds and so
perplexing to others.

Hennessey was staying for a day or two to go over accounts and explain the
working of the estate to Pinck