th could be taken together, like sugared-medicine--in
one child-like gulp. 'There is, of course, no one I should prefer to _le
beau capitaine_--there is no one to whom I would confide my Olive more
willingly; but, then, one must look to other things; one cannot live
entirely on love, even if it be the love of a _beau capitaine_.'

Nevertheless, the man's face darkened. The eyebrows contracted, the
straight white nose seemed to grow straighter, and he twirled his
moustache angrily.

'I am aware, my dear Mrs. Barton, that I cannot give your daughter the
position I should like to, but I am not as poor as you seem to imagine.
Independent of my pay I have a thousand a year; Miss Barton has, if I be
not mistaken, some money of her own; and, as I shall get my majority
within the next five years, I may say that we shall begin life upon
something more than fifteen hundred a year.'

'It is true that I have led you to believe that Olive has money, but
Irish money can be no longer counted upon. Were Mr. Barton to create a
charge on his property, how would it be possible for him to guarantee
the payment of the interest in such times as the present? We are living
on the brink of a precipice. We do not know what is, and what is not,
our own. The Land League is ruining us, and the Government will not put
it down; this year the tenants may pay at twenty per cent. reduction,
but next year they may refuse to pay at all. Look out there: you see
they are making their own terms with Mr. Barton.'

'I should be delighted to give you thirty per cent. if I could afford
it,' said Mr. Barton, as soon as the question of reduction, that had
been lost sight of in schemes for draining, and discussion concerning
bad seasons, had been re-established; 'but you must remember that I have
to pay charges, and my creditors won't wait any more than yours will. If
you refuse to pay your rents and I get sold out, you will have another
landlord here; you'll ruin me, but you won't do yourselves any good. You
will have some Englishman here who will make you pay your rents.'

'An Englishman here!' exclaimed a peasant. 'Arrah! he'll go back quicker
than he came.'

'Maybe he wouldn't go back at all,' cried another, chuckling. 'We'd make
an Oirishman of him for ever.'

'Begad, we'd make him wear the grane in raal earnest, and, a foine scraw
it would be,' said a third.

The witticism was greeted with a roar of laughter, and upon this
expression of a somewhat ve