his dinner. I'm certain she would. I have it
on authority.'

'What authority?' said Caroline coldly.

'Her own old nurse.'

'Jenny Williams?'

'The one! I had it from her. And how she loves her darling Miss Adiante!
She won't hear of "princess." She hates that marriage. She was all for
my brother Philip. She calls him "Our handsome lieutenant." She'll keep
the poor fellow a subaltern all his life.'

'You went to Jenny's inn?'

'The Earlsfont Arms, I went to. And Mrs. Jenny at the door, watching the
rain. Destiny directed me. She caught the likeness to Philip on a lift
of her eye, and very soon we sat conversing like old friends. We were
soon playing at old cronies over past times. I saw the way to bring her
out, so I set to work, and she was up in defence of her darling, ready
to tell me anything to get me to think well of her. And that was the
main reason, she said, why Miss Adiante broke with him and went abroad
her dear child wouldn't have Mr. Philip abused for fortune-hunting. As
for the religion, they could each have practised their own: her father
would have consented to the fact, when it came on him in that undeniable
shape of two made one. She says, Miss Adiante has a mighty soul; she has
brave ideas. Miss Deenly, she calls her. Ay, and so has Philip: though
the worst is, they're likely to drive him out of the army into politics
and Parliament; and an Irishman there is a barrow trolling a load of
grievances. Ah, but she would have kept him straight. Not a soldier
alive knows the use of cavalry better than my brother. He wanted just
that English wife to steady him and pour drops of universal fire into
him; to keep him face to face with the world, I mean; letting him be
true to his country in a fair degree, but not an old rainpipe and spout.
She would have held him to his profession. And, Oh dear! She's a friend
worth having, lost to Ireland. I see what she could have done there.
Something bigger than an island, too, has to be served in our days: that
is, if we don't forget our duty at home. Poor Paddy, and his pig, and
his bit of earth! If you knew what we feel for him! I'm a landlord, but
I'm one with my people about evictions. We Irish take strong root. And
honest rent paid over to absentees, through an agent, if you think of
it, seems like flinging the money that's the sweat of the brow into a
stone conduit to roll away to a giant maw hungry as the sea. It's the
bleeding to death of our land! Transactio