ffered them. They no more refuse a
bad suit than a doctor rejects a hopeless patient."

"And so will a doctor, if he happen to be an honest man," said
Longworth, half peevishly. "Just as he would also refuse to treat one
who would persist in following his own caprices in defiance of all
advice."

"Which touches me. Is not it so?" said the other, laughing. "Well,
I think I ought to have stayed quietly here, and not shown myself in
public. All the more, since it has cost me this," and he pointed to his
leg as he spoke. "But I can't help confessing it, Philip, the sight
of those fellows in their gay scarlet, caracoling over the sward, and
popping over the walls and hedges, provoked me. It was exactly like a
challenge; so I felt it, at least. It was as though they said, 'What
if you come here to pit your claims against ours, and you are still not
gentleman enough to meet us in a fair field and face the same perils
that we do.' And this, be it remembered, to one who had served in a
cavalry regiment, and made campaigns with the Chasseurs d'Afrique. I
could n't stand it, and after the second day I mounted, and--" a motion
of his hand finished the sentence.

"All that sort of reasoning is so totally different from an
Englishman's that I am unable even to discuss it. I do not pretend to
understand the refined sensibility that resents provocations which were
never offered."

"I know you don't, and I know your countrymen do not either. You are
such a practical people that your very policemen never interfere with a
criminal till he has fully committed himself."

"In plain words, we do not content ourselves with inferences. But tell
me, did any of these people call to see you, or ask after you?"

"Yes, they sent the day after my disaster, and they also told the
doctor to say how happy they should be if they could be of service to
me. And a young naval commander,--his card is yonder,--came, I think,
three times, and would have come up if I had wished to receive him; but
Kelson's letter, so angry about my great indiscretion, as he called it,
made me decline the visit, and confine my acknowledgment to thanks."

"I wonder what my old gatekeeper thought when he saw them, or their
liveries in this avenue?" said Longworth, with a peculiar bitterness in
his tone.

"Why, what should he think,--was there any feud between the families?"

"How could there be? These people have not been many months in Ireland.
What I meant was with re