mes the connubial pull. She's a good woman,
a dear good soul, but she's a savage patriot; and Philip might have saved
his kinsman if he had liked. He had only to say the word: I could have
done all the business for him, and no contest to follow by my fireside.
He's on his couch--Mars convalescent: a more dreadful attraction to the
ladies than in his crimson plumes! If the fellow doesn't let slip his
opportunity! with his points of honour and being an Irish Bayard. Why
Bayard in the nineteenth century's a Bedlamite, Irish or no. So I tell
him. There he is; you'll see him, Kathleen: and one of them as big an
heiress as any in England. Philip's no fool, you'll find.'

'Then he's coming all right, is he?' said Kathleen.

'He 's a soldier, and a good one, but he 's nothing more, and as for
patriotic inflammation, doesn't know the sensation.'

'Oh! but he's coming round, and you'll go and stroke down mother with
that,' Kathleen cried. 'Her heart's been heavy, with Patrick wandering
and Philip on his back. I'll soon be dressed for breakfast.'

Away she went.

'She's got an appetite, and looks like a strapped bit of steel after the
night's tumbling,' said the captain, seeing her trip aloft. 'I'm young as
that too, or not far off it. Stay, I'll order breakfast for four in a
quiet corner where we can converse--which, by the way, won't be possible
in the presence of that gaping oyster of a fellow, who looks as if he
were waiting the return of the tide.'

Father Boyle interposed his hand.

'Not for . . .' he tried to add 'four.' The attempt at a formation of the
word produced a cavernous yawn a volume of the distressful deep to the
beholder.

'Of course,' Captain Con assented. He proposed bed and a sedative
therein, declaring that his experience overnight could pronounce it good,
and that it should be hot. So he led his tired old friend to the bedroom,
asked dozens of questions, flurried a withdrawal of them, suggested the
answers, talked of his Rubicon, praised his wife, delivered a moan on her
behalf, and after assisting to half disrobe the scarce animate figure,
which lent itself like an artist's lay-model to the operation, departed
on his mission of the sedative.

At the breakfast for three he was able to tell Kathleen that the worthy
Father was warm, and on his way to complete restoration.

'Full fathom five the Father lies, in the ocean of sleep, by this time,'
said Con. 'And 'tis a curious fact that every man in t