were too hard to think of, so
he abandoned the puzzle of fitting them to men's acts and their
consciences, and he put them aside as mere titles employed for the uses
of a police and a tribunal to lend an appearance of legitimacy to the
decrees of them that have got the upper hand. An insurrectionary rising
of his breast on behalf of his country was the consequence. He kept
it down by turning the whole hubbub within him to the practical
contemplation of a visionary South America as the region for him and a
fighting tenantry. With a woman, to crown her queen there, the prospect
was fair. But where dwelt the woman possessing majesty suitable to such
a dream in her heart or her head? The best he had known in Ireland and
in France, preferred the charms of society to bold adventure.

All the same, thought he, it's queer counsel, that we should set to work
by buying a bit of land to win a clean footing to rob our neighbours:
and his brains took another shot at Mr. Adister, this time without
penetrating. He could very well have seen the matter he disliked in a
man that he disliked; but the father of Adiante had touched him with the
gift of the miniature.

Patrick was not asked to postpone his departure from Earlsfont, nor was
he invited to come again. Mr. Adister drove him to the station in the
early morning, and gave him a single nod from the phaeton-box for a
good-bye. Had not Caroline assured him at the leave-taking between them
that he had done her uncle great good by his visit, the blank of the
usual ceremonial phrases would have caused him to fancy himself an
intruder courteously dismissed, never more to enter the grand old Hall.
He was further comforted by hearing the stationmaster's exclamation
of astonishment and pleasure at the sight of the squire 'in his place'
handling the reins, which had not been witnessed for many a day and so
it appeared that the recent guest had been exceptionally complimented.
'But why not a warm word, instead of turning me off to decipher a bit of
Egyptian on baked brick,' he thought, incurably Celtic as he was.

From the moment when he beheld Mr. Adister's phaeton mounting a hill
that took the first leap for the Cambrian highlands, up to his arrival
in London, scarcely one of his 'ideas' darted out before Patrick, as
they were in the habit of doing, like the enchanted bares of fairyland,
tempting him to pursue, and changing into the form of woman ever, at
some turn of the chase. For as he