appy at hearing such words, and who was walking in to dinner
with him at the moment, could not refrain herself from pressing his
arm with her little fingers. She knew that Phineas in his position
could not marry at once; but she would wait for him,--oh, for ever,
if he would only ask her. He of course was a wicked traitor to tell
her that he was wont to think of her. But Jove smiles at lovers'
perjuries;--and it is well that he should do so, as such perjuries
can hardly be avoided altogether in the difficult circumstances of a
successful gentleman's life. Phineas was a traitor, of course, but he
was almost forced to be a traitor, by the simple fact that Lady Laura
Standish was in London, and Mary Flood Jones in Killaloe.

He remained for nearly five months at Killaloe, and I doubt whether
his time was altogether well spent. Some of the books recommended
to him by Mr. Monk he probably did read, and was often to be found
encompassed by blue books. I fear that there was a grain of pretence
about his blue books and parliamentary papers, and that in these days
he was, in a gentle way, something of an impostor. "You must not be
angry with me for not going to you," he said once to Mary's mother
when he had declined an invitation to drink tea; "but the fact is
that my time is not my own." "Pray don't make any apologies. We are
quite aware that we have very little to offer," said Mrs. Flood
Jones, who was not altogether happy about Mary, and who perhaps knew
more about members of Parliament and blue books than Phineas Finn had
supposed. "Mary, you are a fool to think of that man," the mother
said to her daughter the next morning. "I don't think of him, mamma;
not particularly." "He is no better than anybody else that I can see,
and he is beginning to give himself airs," said Mrs. Flood Jones.
Mary made no answer; but she went up into her room and swore before a
figure of the Virgin that she would be true to Phineas for ever and
ever, in spite of her mother, in spite of all the world,--in spite,
should it be necessary, even of himself.

About Christmas time there came a discussion between Phineas and his
father about money. "I hope you find you get on pretty well," said
the doctor, who thought that he had been liberal.

"It's a tight fit," said Phineas,--who was less afraid of his father
than he had been when he last discussed these things.

"I had hoped it would have been ample," said the doctor.

"Don't think for a moment,