ck. The air begins
to chill. Con will never forgive me if you catch a cold, and I would not
incur his blame.'

The eyes of Jane and Philip shot an exchange.

'Anything you command, madam,' said Philip.

He looked up and breathed his heaven of fresh air. Jane pitied, she could
not interpose to thwart his act of resignation. The farmer, home for tea,
and a footman, took him between them, crutched, while Mrs. Adister said
to Jane: 'The doctor's orders are positive:--if he is to be a man once
more, he must rest his back and not use his legs for months. He was near
to being a permanent cripple from that fall. My brother Edward had one
like it in his youth. Soldiers are desperate creatures.'

'I think Mr. Adister had his fall when hunting, was it not?' said Jane.

'Hunting, my dear.'

That was rather different from a fall on duty before the enemy, incurred
by severe exhaustion after sunstroke! . . .

Jane took her leave of Philip beside his couch of imprisonment in his
room, promising to return in the early morning. He embraced her old dog
Wayland tenderly. Hard men have sometimes a warm affection for dogs.

Walking homeward she likewise gave Wayland a hug. She called him 'dear
old fellow,' and questioned him of his fondness for her, warning him not
to be faithless ever to the mistress who loved him. Was not her old
Wayland as good a protector as the footman Mrs. Adister pressed her to
have at her heels? That he was!

Captain Con's behaviour grieved her. And it certainly revived an ancient
accusation against his countrymen. If he cared for her so much, why had
he not placed confidence in her and commissioned her to speak of his
election to his wife? Irishmen will never be quite sincere!--But why had
his cousin exposed him to one whom he greatly esteemed? However angry he
might be with Con O'Donnell in his disapproval of the captain's conduct,
it was not very considerate to show the poor man to her in his natural
colours. Those words: 'The consolidation of the Union:' sprang up. She
had a dim remembrance of words ensuing: 'ceremonies going at a funeral
pace . . . on the highway to the solidest kind of union:'--Yes, he wrote:
'I leave you to . . .' And Captain Philip showed her the letter:

She perceived motives beginning to stir. He must have had his intention:
and now as to his character!--Jane was of the order of young women
possessing active minds instead of figured paste-board fronts, who see
what there is to be