. Kennedy's
lawyer that we are coming, and he is to find out, if he
can, whether any interference in the management of the
property has been as yet made by the family. Perhaps I
ought to tell you that Mr. Forster has expressed surprise
that you did not call on the police when the shot was
fired. Of course I can understand it all. God bless you.

Your affectionate friend,

L. K.

Phineas was obliged to console himself by reflecting that if she
understood him of course that was everything. His first and great
duty in the matter had been to her. If in performing that duty he had
sacrificed himself, he must bear his undeserved punishment like a
man. That he was to be punished he began to perceive too clearly. The
conviction that Mr. Daubeny must recede from the Treasury Bench after
the coming debate became every day stronger, and within the little
inner circles of the Liberal party the usual discussions were made
as to the Ministry which Mr. Gresham would, as a matter of course,
be called upon to form. But in these discussions Phineas Finn did
not find himself taking an assured and comfortable part. Laurence
Fitzgibbon, his countryman,--who in the way of work had never been
worth his salt,--was eager, happy, and without a doubt. Others of the
old stagers, men who had been going in and out ever since they had
been able to get seats in Parliament, stood about in clubs, and in
lobbies, and chambers of the House, with all that busy, magpie air
which is worn only by those who have high hopes of good things to
come speedily. Lord Mount Thistle was more sublime and ponderous
than ever, though they who best understood the party declared that
he would never again be invited to undergo the cares of office. His
lordship was one of those terrible political burdens, engendered
originally by private friendship or family considerations, which
one Minister leaves to another. Sir Gregory Grogram, the great Whig
lawyer, showed plainly by his manner that he thought himself at last
secure of reaching the reward for which he had been struggling all
his life; for it was understood by all men who knew anything that
Lord Weazeling was not to be asked again to sit on the Woolsack.
No better advocate or effective politician ever lived; but it was
supposed that he lacked dignity for the office of first judge in
the land. That most of the old lot would come back was a matter of
course.

There would be the Duke,--the Du