something so cold and
comfortless in the theory that we do not relish the prospect even for
our children. I fancy your people have more real belief in it than
ours."

Now Phineas Finn was a Roman Catholic. But the discussion was stopped
by the noise of an arrival in the hall.

"There they are," said Lady Chiltern; "Oswald never comes in without
a sound of trumpets to make him audible throughout the house." Then
she went to meet her husband, and Phineas followed her out of the
drawing-room.

Lord Chiltern was as glad to see him as she had been, and in a very
few minutes he found himself quite at home. In the hall he was
introduced to Miss Palliser, but he was hardly able to see her as she
stood there a moment in her hat and habit. There was ever so much
said about the day's work. The earths had not been properly stopped,
and Lord Chiltern had been very angry, and the owner of Trumpeton
Wood, who was a great duke, had been much abused, and things had not
gone altogether straight.

"Lord Chiltern was furious," said Miss Palliser, laughing, "and
therefore, of course, I became furious too, and swore that it was
an awful shame. Then they all swore that it was an awful shame, and
everybody was furious. And you might hear one man saying to another
all day long, 'By George, this is too bad.' But I never could quite
make out what was amiss, and I'm sure the men didn't know."

"What was it, Oswald?"

"Never mind now. One doesn't go to Trumpeton Wood expecting to be
happy there. I've half a mind to swear I'll never draw it again."

"I've been asking him what was the matter all the way home," said
Miss Palliser, "but I don't think he knows himself."

"Come upstairs, Phineas, and I'll show you your room," said Lord
Chiltern. "It's not quite as comfortable as the old 'Bull', but we
make it do."

Phineas, when he was alone, could not help standing for awhile with
his back to the fire thinking of it all. He did already feel himself
to be at home in that house, and his doing so was a contradiction to
all the wisdom which he had been endeavouring to teach himself for
the last two years. He had told himself over and over again that that
life which he had lived in London had been, if not a dream, at any
rate not more significant than a parenthesis in his days, which,
as of course it had no bearing on those which had gone before, so
neither would it influence those which were to follow. The dear
friends of that period of feveri