guished a barrister. The
girls declared that Phineas ought, at any rate, to have his chance,
and almost asserted that it would be brutal in their father to stand
in their brother's way. It was in vain that the doctor tried to
explain that going into Parliament could not help a young barrister,
whatever it might do for one thoroughly established in his
profession; that Phineas, if successful at Loughshane, would at once
abandon all idea of earning any income,--that the proposition, coming
from so poor a man, was a monstrosity,--that such an opposition
to the Morris family, coming from a son of his, would be gross
ingratitude to Lord Tulla. Mrs. Finn and the girls talked him down,
and the doctor himself was almost carried away by something like
vanity in regard to his son's future position.

Nevertheless he wrote a letter strongly advising Phineas to abandon
the project. But he himself was aware that the letter which he wrote
was not one from which any success could be expected. He advised
his son, but did not command him. He made no threats as to stopping
his income. He did not tell Phineas, in so many words, that he was
proposing to make an ass of himself. He argued very prudently against
the plan, and Phineas, when he received his father's letter, of
course felt that it was tantamount to a paternal permission to
proceed with the matter. On the next day he got a letter from his
mother full of affection, full of pride,--not exactly telling him to
stand for Loughshane by all means, for Mrs. Finn was not the woman to
run openly counter to her husband in any advice given by her to their
son,--but giving him every encouragement which motherly affection and
motherly pride could bestow. "Of course you will come to us," she
said, "if you do make up your mind to be member for Loughshane. We
shall all of us be so delighted to have you!" Phineas, who had fallen
into a sea of doubt after writing to his father, and who had demanded
a week from Barrington Erle to consider the matter, was elated to
positive certainty by the joint effect of the two letters from home.
He understood it all. His mother and sisters were altogether in
favour of his audacity, and even his father was not disposed to
quarrel with him on the subject.

"I shall take you at your word," he said to Barrington Erle at the
club that evening.

"What word?" said Erle, who had too many irons in the fire to be
thinking always of Loughshane and Phineas Finn,--or who a