led with too strong light. Could n't you have said, He delights
to talk and walk with me, because he sees that he may expand freely, and
say what comes uppermost, without any fear of an unfair inference? That,
for the same reason,--the pleasure of an unrestricted intercourse,--he
wishes to know old Mrs. Butler, and talk with her,--over anything, in
short? Just to keep mind and faculties moving,--as a light breeze stirs
a lake and prevents stagnation?"

"Well. I 'm not going to perform Zephyr, even in such a high cause."

"Could n't you have said, We had a pleasant walk and a mild cigarette
together,--_voila tout?_" said he, languidly.

"I think it would be very easy to hate you,--hate you cordially,--Mr.
Norman Maitland."

"So I've been told; and some have even tried it, but always
unsuccessfully."

"Who is this wonderful foreigner they are making so much of at the
Castle and the Viceregal Lodge?" cried Mark, from one of the window
recesses, where he was reading a newspaper. "Maitland, you who know all
these people, who is the Prince Caffarelli?"

"Caffarelli! it must be the Count," cried Maitland, hurrying over to
see the paragraph. "The Prince is upwards of eighty; but his son, Count
Caffarelli, is my dearest friend in the world. What could have brought
him over to Ireland?"

"Ah! there is the very question he himself is asking about the great Mr.
Norman Maitland," said Mrs. Trafford, smiling.

"My reasons are easily stated. I had an admirable friend who could
secure me a most hospitable reception. I came here to enjoy the
courtesies of country home life in a perfection I scarcely believed
they could attain to. The most unremitting attention to one's comfort,
combined with the wildest liberty."

"And such port wine," interposed the Commodore, "as I am free to say no
other cellar in the province can rival."

"Let us come back to your Prince or Count," said Mark, "whichever he is.
Why not ask him down here?"

"Yes; we have room," said Lady Lyle; "the M'Clintocks left this
morning."

"By all means, invite him," broke in Mrs. Trafford; "that is, if he be
what we conjecture the dear friend of Mr. Maitland might and should be."

"I am afraid to speak of him," said Maitland; "one disserves a friend
by any over-praise; but at Naples, and in his own set, he is thought
charming."

"I like Italians myself," said Colonel Hoyle. "I had a fellow I picked
up at Malta,--a certain Geronimo. I 'm not sure he was not a