y. "You two fine gentlemen have
conspired against this poor simple boy,--for really, in all dealings
with the world, he is a boy; and you would like us to believe that if we
saw him under other circumstances and with other surroundings, we should
be actually ashamed of him. Now, Mr. Maitland, I resent this supposition
at once, and I tell you frankly I am very proud of his friendship."

"You are pushing me to the verge of a great indiscretion; in fact, you
have made it impossible for me to avoid it," said he, seriously. "I must
now trust you with a secret, or what I meant to be one. Here it is.
Of course, what I am about to tell you is strictly to go no
further,--never, never to be divulged. It is partly on this young man's
account--chiefly so--that I am in Ireland. A friend of mine--that same
Caffarelli of whom you heard--was commissioned by a very eccentric old
Englishman who lives abroad, to learn if he could hear some tidings
of this young Butler,--what sort of person he was, how brought up, how
educated, how disciplined. The inquiry came from the desire of a person
very able indeed to befriend him materially. The old man I speak of is
the elder brother of Butler's father; very rich and very influential.
This old man, I suppose, repenting of some harshness or other to his
brother in former days, wants to see Tony,--wants to judge of him for
himself,--wants, in fact, without disclosing the relationship between
them, to pronounce whether this young fellow is one to whom he could
rightfully bequeath a considerable fortune, and place before the
world as the head of an honored house; but he wants to do this without
exciting hopes or expectations, or risking, perhaps, disappointments.
Now, I know very well by repute something of this eccentric old man,
whose long life in the diplomatic service has made him fifty times more
lenient to a moral delinquency than to a solecism in manners, and
who could forgive the one and never the other. If he were to see your
diamond in the rough, he 'd never contemplate the task of polishing,--he
'd simply say, 'This is not what I looked for; I don't want a
gamekeeper, or a boatman, or a horse-breaker.'"

"Oh, Mr. Maitland!"

"Hear me out. I am representing, and very faithfully representing,
another; he 'd say this more strongly too than I have, and he 'd leave
him there. Now, I 'm not very certain that he 'd be wrong; permit me
to finish. I mean to say that in all that regards what the ol