uming an aqueous fishlike nature into one's inner fibres. It must
be acknowledged that a man does sometimes get wet in Ireland; but
then a wetting there brings no cold in the head, no husky voice, no
need for multitudinous pocket-handkerchiefs, as it does here in this
land of catarrhs. It is the east wind and not the rain that kills;
and of east wind in the south of Ireland they know nothing.

But Herbert walked on quite unmindful of the mist, swinging his thick
stick in his hand, and ever increasing his pace as he went. He was
usually a man careful of such things, but it was nothing to him now
whether he were wet or dry. His mind was so full of the immediate
circumstances of his destiny that he could not think of small
external accidents. What was to be his future life in this world, and
how was he to fight the battle that was now before him? That was the
question which he continually asked himself, and yet never succeeded
in answering. How was he to come down from the throne on which early
circumstances had placed him, and hustle and struggle among the crowd
for such approach to other thrones as his sinews and shoulders might
procure for him? If he had been only born to the struggle, he said to
himself, how easy and pleasant it would have been to him! But to find
himself thus cast out from his place by an accident--cast out with
the eyes of all the world upon him; to be talked of, and pointed at,
and pitied; to have little aids offered him by men whom he regarded
as beneath him--all this was terribly sore, and the burden was almost
too much for his strength. "I do not care for the money," he said to
himself a dozen times; and in saying so he spoke in one sense truly.
But he did care for things which money buys; for outward respect,
permission to speak with authority among his fellow-men, for power
and place, and the feeling that he was prominent in his walk of life.
To be in advance of other men, that is the desire which is strongest
in the hearts of all strong men; and in that desire how terrible a
fall had he not received from this catastrophe!

And what were they all to do, he and his mother and his sisters?
How were they to act--now, at once? In what way were they to carry
themselves when this man of law and judgment should have gone from
them? For himself, his course of action must depend much upon the
word which might be spoken to him to-day at Desmond Court. There
would still be a drop of comfort left at the b