radually conformed, till it became
positively irksome to himself to keep the company of his equals. Whether,
however, it was that age had breached the stronghold of his good spirits,
or that conscience rebuked him for having derogated from his station,
certain it is that all his buoyancy failed him when away from society,
and that in the quietness of his home he was depressed and dispirited to
a degree; and to that genial temper, which once he could count on against
every reverse that befell him, there now succeeded an irritable, peevish
spirit, that led him to attribute every annoyance he met with to some fault
or shortcoming of others.

By his neighbours in the town and by his tenantry he was always addressed
as 'My lord,' and treated with all the deference that pertained to such
difference of station. By the gentry, however, when at rare occasions he
met them, he was known as Mr. Kearney; and in the village post-office, the
letters with the name Mathew Kearney, Esq., were perpetual reminders of
what rank was accorded him by that wider section of the world that lived
beyond the shadow of Kilgobbin Castle.

Perhaps the impossible task of serving two masters is never more palpably
displayed than when the attempt attaches to a divided identity--when a man
tries to be himself in two distinct parts in life, without the slightest
misgiving of hypocrisy while doing so. Mathew Kearney not only did not
assume any pretension to nobility amongst his equals, but he would have
felt that any reference to his title from one of them would have been an
impertinence, and an impertinence to be resented; while, at the same time,
had a shopkeeper of Moate, or one of the tenants, addressed him as other
than 'My lord,' he would not have deigned him a notice.

Strangely enough, this divided allegiance did not merely prevail with the
outer world, it actually penetrated within his walls. By his son, Richard
Kearney, he was always called 'My lord'; while Kate as persistently
addressed and spoke of him as papa. Nor was this difference without
signification as to their separate natures and tempers.

Had Mathew Kearney contrived to divide the two parts of his nature, and
bequeathed all his pride, his vanity, and his pretensions to his son,
while he gave his light-heartedness, his buoyancy, and kindliness to his
daughter, the partition could not have been more perfect. Richard Kearney
was full of an insolent pride of birth. Contrasting the positi