you. And how are all your friends?"

"As well as men can be who are worried and badgered every hour of the
twenty-four. It 's no use in sending Englishmen here, they are never
trusted! I don't believe it's possible to find an honester man, nor a
truer friend to Ireland, than Portland; but his Saxon blood is quite
enough to mar his utility and poison every effort he makes to be of
service."

"The children are paying off the scores of their fathers, Rutledge.
The sentiment that has taken some centuries to mature, can scarcely be
treated like a mere prejudice."

"Very true; but what bad policy it is--as policy--to obstruct the flow
of concessions, even coming from a suspected channel. It 's rather too
hard to criticise them for doing the very things we ask them."

"I have not looked into a newspaper these few weeks," said my father,
half wearied of the theme.

"So that you know nothing, then, of--" He stopped short, for he just
caught himself in time.

"I know nothing whatever of the events that have occurred in that
interval; and--however inglorious the confession, Rutledge, I must make
it--I 'd almost as soon live over my attack again as hear them. Take it
as a sick man's peevishness or sound philosophy, as you may; but, in the
jarring, squabbling world we live in, there 's nothing so good as to let
bygones be bygones."

"That's taking for granted that anything is ever a 'bygone,' Walter;
but, faith, my experience says that we are feeling, to the end of
centuries, the results of the petty mischances that befell us in the
beginning of them."

My father sighed, but it was more in weariness than sorrow; and Rutledge
said,--

"I came out to have a long chat with you, Walter, about various things;
but I fear talking fatigues you."

"It does fatigue me,--I'm not equal to it," said my father, faintly.

"It's unlucky too," said the other, half peevishly, "one so seldom
can catch you alone; and though MacNaghten is the best fellow in the
world--"

"You must still say nothing against him, at least in my hearing," added
my father, as if to finish the sentence for him.

"I was only going to observe that in all that regards politics--"

"Pardon my interrupting you again," broke in my father, "but Dan never
pretended to know anything about them; nor is it likely that a fellow
that felt the turf a contamination will try to cultivate his morals by
the intrigues of party."

Rutledge affected to laugh at the sneering r