e and long. What is there that I can do?
I can learn to care for these Canadians, just because you care for
them. If it was the beavers that you told me of, I should have to
care for the beavers." Then Phineas of course told her that such
sympathy from her was all and all to him. But the reader must not
on this account suppose that he was untrue in his love to Violet
Effingham. His back was altogether broken by his fall, and he was
quite aware that such was the fact. Not as yet, at least, had come
to him any remotest idea that a cure was possible.

Early in March he heard that Lady Laura was up in town, and of course
he was bound to go to her. The information was given to him by Mr.
Kennedy himself, who told him that he had been to Scotland to fetch
her. In these days there was an acknowledged friendship between these
two, but there was no intimacy. Indeed, Mr. Kennedy was a man who
was hardly intimate with any other man. With Phineas he now and
then exchanged a few words in the lobby of the House, and when they
chanced to meet each other, they met as friends. Mr. Kennedy had no
strong wish to see again in his house the man respecting whom he had
ventured to caution his wife; but he was thoughtful; and thinking
over it all, he found it better to ask him there. No one must know
that there was any reason why Phineas should not come to his house;
especially as all the world knew that Phineas had protected him from
the garrotters. "Lady Laura is in town now," he said; "you must go
and see her before long." Phineas of course promised that he would
go.

In these days Phineas was beginning to be aware that he had
enemies,--though he could not understand why anybody should be his
enemy now that Violet Effingham had decided against him. There was
poor Laurence Fitzgibbon, indeed, whom he had superseded at the
Colonial Office, but Laurence Fitzgibbon, to give merit where merit
was due, felt no animosity against him at all. "You're welcome, me
boy; you're welcome,--as far as yourself goes. But as for the party,
bedad, it's rotten to the core, and won't stand another session.
Mind, it's I who tell you so." And the poor idle Irishman, in so
speaking, spoke the truth as well as he knew it. But the Ratlers and
the Bonteens were Finn's bitter foes, and did not scruple to let him
know that such was the case. Barrington Erle had scruples on the
subject, and in a certain mildly apologetic way still spoke well of
the young man, whom he