passion for sly independence came up and curled away like the smoke of
the illicit still, wherein the fanciful discern fine sprites indulging
in luxurious grimaces at a government long-nosed to no purpose. Perhaps,
as Patrick said of him to Caroline Adister, he was a bard without a
theme. He certainly was a man of speech, and the having fearfully to
contain himself for the greater number of the hours of the day, for the
preservation of the domestic felicity he had learnt to value, fathered
the sentiment of revolt in his bosom.

By this time, long after five minutes had elapsed, the frost presiding
at the table was fast withering Captain Con; and he was irritable to
hear why Patrick had gone off to Earlsfont, and what he had done there,
and the adventures he had tasted on the road; anything for warmth. His
efforts to fish the word out of Patrick produced deeper crevasses in the
conversation, and he cried to himself: Hats and crape-bands! mightily
struck by an idea that he and his cousins were a party of hired mourners
over the meat they consumed. Patrick was endeavouring to spare his
brother a mention of Earlsfont before they had private talk together. He
answered neither to a dip of the hook nor to a pull.

'The desert where you 've come from 's good,' said the captain, sharply
nodding.

Mrs. Adister O'Donnell ejaculated: 'Wine!' for a heavy comment upon one
of his topics, and crushed it.

Philip saw that Patrick had no desire to spread, and did not trouble
him.

'Good horses in the stable too,' said the captain.

Patrick addressed Mrs. Adister: 'I have hardly excused myself to you,
madam.'

Her head was aloft in dumb apostrophe of wearifulness over another of
her husband's topics.

'Do not excuse yourself at all,' she said.

The captain shivered. He overhauled his plotting soul publicly: 'Why
don't you out with it yourself!' and it was wonderful why he had not
done so, save that he was prone to petty conspiracy, and had thought
reasonably that the revelation would be damp, gunpowder, coming from
him. And for when he added: 'The boy's fresh from Earlsfont; he went
down to look at the brav old house of the Adisters, and was nobly
welcomed and entertained, and made a vast impression,' his wife sedately
remarked to Patrick, 'You have seen my brother Edward.'

'And brings a message of his love to you, my dear,' the Captain bit his
nail harder.

'You have a message for me?' she asked; and Patrick replied: 'Th