be descended from kings in that
part of Ireland. It certainly did not become him to fear Lady Laura
on the score of rank, if it was to be allowed to Mr. Kennedy to
proceed without fear on that head. As to wealth, Lady Laura had
already told him that her fortune was no greater than his. Her
statement to himself on that head made him feel that he should not
hesitate on the score of money. They neither had any, and he was
willing to work for both. If she feared the risk, let her say so.

It was thus that he argued with himself; but yet he knew,--knew as
well as the reader will know,--that he was going to do that which he
had no right to do. It might be very well for him to wait,--presuming
him to be successful in his love,--for the opening of that oyster
with his political sword, that oyster on which he proposed that they
should both live; but such waiting could not well be to the taste
of Lady Laura Standish. It could hardly be pleasant to her to look
forward to his being made a junior lord or an assistant secretary
before she could establish herself in her home. So he told himself.
And yet he told himself at the same time that it was incumbent on him
to persevere.

"I did not expect you in the least," said Lady Laura.

"And yet I spoke very positively."

"But there are things as to which a man may be very positive, and yet
may be allowed to fail. In the first place, how on earth did you get
home?"

"Mr. Kennedy got me a pony,--Donald Bean's pony."

"You told him, then?"

"Yes; I told him why I was coming, and that I must be here. Then he
took the trouble to come all the way off the mountain to persuade
Donald to lend me his pony. I must acknowledge that Mr. Kennedy has
conquered me at last."

"I am so glad of that," said Lady Laura. "I knew he would,--unless it
were your own fault."

They went up the path by the brook, from bridge to bridge, till they
found themselves out upon the open mountain at the top. Phineas had
resolved that he would not speak out his mind till he found himself
on that spot; that then he would ask her to sit down, and that while
she was so seated he would tell her everything. At the present moment
he had on his head a Scotch cap with a grouse's feather in it, and he
was dressed in a velvet shooting-jacket and dark knickerbockers; and
was certainly, in this costume, as handsome a man as any woman would
wish to see. And there was, too, a look of breeding about him which
had come to him,