or them--Home Rule,
and all that is best: to see that they are heard in Parliament, and have
their wants attended to, instead of jobs and corruption everywhere. So
you will see, John, that if he has been fast, and gone a little too
far, and been very much mixed up in the Turf, and all that, it was only
in the exuberance of youth, liking the fun of it, as I feel I should
myself. But that now, now all that is to be changed when he steps into
settled, responsible life. I should not have told you if you had
repeated the lies that people say. But as you did not, but only found
fault with him for being fast----"

"Then you have heard--what people say?" He shifted his arm a little,
so that she instinctively perceived that the affectionate clasp of her
hands was no longer agreeable to him, and his face seemed suddenly to
have become a blank page, absolutely devoid of all expression. He kicked
vigorously at one of the hillocks he had stumbled against, as if he
thought he could dislodge it and get it out of his way.

"Mariamne told me there was a lot of lies--that people said--I am so
glad, John, oh! so thankful, that you have not repeated any of them;
for now I can feel you are my own good John, as you always were, not a
slanderer of any one, and we can go on being fond of each other like
brother and sister. I have told him you have been the best of brothers
to me."

"Oh," said John, without a sign of wonder or admiration in him, with a
dead blank in his face.

"And what do you think he said? 'Then I know he must be a capital
fellow, Ne----'"

"Not Nelly," said poor John, with a foolish pang that seemed to rend his
heart. Oh, if that scamp, that cheat, that low betting, card-playing
rascal were but here! he would capital-fellow him. To take not herself
only, but the dear pet name that she had said was only John's----

"He says Nell sometimes, John. Oh, not Nelly--Nelly is for you only. I
would never let him call me that. But they are all for short names,
one syllable--he is Phil, and Mariamne, well at home they call her
Jew--horrible, isn't it?--because she was called after some Jewess; but
somehow it seems queer when you see her, so fair and frizzy, like
anything but a Jew."

"So I have got one letter to myself," said John. "I don't know that I
think that worth very much, however. And so far as I can see, you seem
to think everything very fine--the bets, perhaps, and the rows and all."

"Well they are, you know," said