d not the property be
enough for both of them? Might not law and justice make a compromise?
Let Owen be the baronet, and take a slice of four or five thousand,
and add that to Hap House; and then if these things were well
arranged, might not Mr. Somers still be agent to them both?

Meditating all this in his newly tuned romantic frame of mind Mr.
Somers sat down and wrote a long letter to Mr. Prendergast, enclosing
the short letter from Owen, and saying all that he, as a man of
business with a new dash of romance, could say on such a subject.
This letter, not having slept on the road as Herbert did in Dublin,
and having been conveyed with that lightning rapidity for which the
British Post-office has ever been remarkable--and especially that
portion of it which has reference to the sister island,--was in Mr.
Prendergast's pocket when Herbert dined with him. That letter, and
another to which we shall have to refer more specially. But so much
at variance were Mr. Prendergast's ideas from those entertained by
Mr. Somers, that he would not even speak to Herbert on the subject.
Perhaps, also, that other more important letter, which, if we live,
we shall read at length, might also have had some effect in keeping
him silent.

But in truth Mr. Somers' mind, and that of Mr. Prendergast, did not
work in harmony on this subject. Judging of the two men together by
their usual deeds and ascertained character, we may say that there
was much more romance about Mr. Prendergast than there was about
Mr. Somers. But then it was a general romance, and not one with
an individual object. Or perhaps we may say, without injury to
Mr. Somers, that it was a true feeling, and not a false one. Mr.
Prendergast, also, was much more anxious for the welfare of Herbert
Fitzgerald than that of his cousin; but then he could feel on behalf
of the man for whom he was interested that it did not behove him to
take a present of an estate from the hands of the true owner.

For more than a week Mr. Somers waited, but got no reply to his
letter, and heard nothing from Mr. Prendergast; and during this time
he was really puzzled as to what he should do. As regarded himself,
he did not know at what moment his income might end, or how long
he and his family might be allowed to inhabit the house which he
now held: and then he could take no steps as to the tenants; could
neither receive money nor pay it away, and was altogether at his
wits' ends. Lady Fitzgerald lo