as it were, the box, but the lid
would not open to assist her to it, and she let it go by, thinking in
her patriotic derision, that to choose to be likened to the unwilling
dog of the family was evidence of a want of saving pride.

Besides, she could not trust to the glibness of her tongue in a contest
with a young gentleman to whom talking was as easy as breathing, even if
sometimes his volubility exposed him to attack. A superior position was
offered her by her being silent and critical. She stationed herself
on it: still she was grieved to think of him as a renegade from his
country, and she forced herself to say: 'Captain O'Donnell talks in that
manner.'

'Captain Con is constitutionally discontented because he's a bard by
nature, and without the right theme for his harp,' said Patrick. 'He has
a notion of Erin as the unwilling bride of Mr. Bull, because her lord is
not off in heroics enough to please her, and neglects her, and won't let
her be mistress of her own household, and she can't forget that he once
had the bad trick of beating her: she sees the marks. And you mayn't
believe it, but the Captain's temper is to praise and exalt. It is.
Irony in him is only eulogy standing on its head: a sort of an upside
down; a perversion: that's our view of him at home. All he desires is to
have us on the march, and he'd be perfectly happy marching, never
mind the banner, though a bit of green in it would put him in tune, of
course. The banner of the Cid was green, Miss Adister: or else it's his
pennon that was. And there's a quantity of our blood in Spain too. We've
watered many lands.'

The poor young English lady's brain started wildly on the effort to be
with him, and to understand whether she listened to humour or emotion:
she reposed herself as well as she could in the contemplation of an
electrically-flashing maze, where every line ran losing itself in
another.

He added: 'Old Philip!' in a visible throb of pity for his brother;
after the scrupulous dubitation between the banner and the pennon of the
Cid!

It would have comforted her to laugh. She was closer upon tears, and
without any reason for them in her heart.

Such a position brings the hesitancy which says that the sitting is at
an end.

She feared, as she laid aside her music-books, that there would be more
to come about Adiante, but he spared her. He bowed to her departing, and
strolled off by himself.

CHAPTER VI. A CONSULTATION: WITH OPIN