be delighted to have you. My horses all
pull like the mischief, and rush like devils, and want a deal of
riding; but an Irishman likes that."

"I do not dislike it particularly."

"I like it. I prefer to have something to do on horseback. When
a man tells me that a horse is an armchair, I always tell him to
put the brute into his bedroom. Mind you come. The house I stay
at is called the Willingford Bull, and it's just four miles from
Peterborough." Phineas swore that he would go down and ride the
pulling horses, and then took his leave, earnestly advising Lord
Chiltern, as he went, to keep the appointment proposed by his father.

When the morning came, at half-past eleven, the son, who had been
standing for half an hour with his back to the fire in the large
gloomy dining-room, suddenly rang the bell. "Tell the Earl," he said
to the servant, "that I am here and will go to him if he wishes it."
The servant came back, and said that the Earl was waiting. Then Lord
Chiltern strode after the man into his father's room.

"Oswald," said the father, "I have sent for you because I think it
may be as well to speak to you on some business. Will you sit down?"
Lord Chiltern sat down, but did not answer a word. "I feel very
unhappy about your sister's fortune," said the Earl.

"So do I,--very unhappy. We can raise the money between us, and pay
her to-morrow, if you please it."

"It was in opposition to my advice that she paid your debts."

"And in opposition to mine too."

"I told her that I would not pay them, and were I to give her back
to-morrow, as you say, the money that she has so used, I should be
stultifying myself. But I will do so on one condition. I will join
with you in raising the money for your sister, on one condition."

"What is that?"

"Laura tells me,--indeed she has told me often,--that you are
attached to Violet Effingham."

"But Violet Effingham, my lord, is unhappily not attached to me."

"I do not know how that may be. Of course I cannot say. I have never
taken the liberty of interrogating her upon the subject."

"Even you, my lord, could hardly have done that."

"What do you mean by that? I say that I never have," said the Earl,
angrily.

"I simply mean that even you could hardly have asked Miss Effingham
such a question. I have asked her, and she has refused me."

"But girls often do that, and yet accept afterwards the men whom they
have refused. Laura tells me that she believes that Vio