"If I only had in my head one-half of what Alfred knew, I 'd be well satisfied," said the boy. "Ay, and what's better still, without his thinking a bit about it."

"And so," said she, musingly, "you are to go back to England?"

"That does not seem quite settled, for he says, in a postscript, that Sir George Rivers, one of the Cabinet, I believe, has mentioned some gentleman, a 'member of their party,' now in Italy, and who would probably consent to take charge of me till some further arrangements could be come to."

"Hold your chain till a new bear-leader turned up!" said she, laughing.

"Oh dear! I wonder when that wise generations of guardians will come to know that the real guide for the creatures like you is a woman. Yes, you ought to be travelling with your governess,--some one whose ladylike tone and good manners would insensibly instil quietness, reserve, and reverence in your breeding, correct your bad French, and teach you to enter or leave a room without seeming to be a housebreaker!"

"I should like to know who does that?" asked he, indignantly.

"Every one of you young Englishmen, whether you come fresh from Brasenose or the Mess of the Forty-something, you have all of you the same air of bashful bull-dogs!"

"Oh, come, this is too bad; is this the style of Charles Heathcote, for instance?"

"Most essentially it is; the only thing is that, the bulldog element predominating in his nature, he appears the less awkward in consequence."

"I should like to bear what you 'd say of the O'Shea."

"Oh, Mr. O'Shea is an Irishman, and _their_ ways bear the same relation to general good breeding that rope-dancing does to waltzing."

"I 'll take good care not to ask you for any description of myself,"

said he, laughingly.

"You are very wrong then, for you should have heard something excessively nattering," was her reply. "Shall I tell you who your new protector is to be?" cried she, after a moment's pause; "I have just guessed it: the O'Shea himself!"

"O'Shea! impossible; how could you imagine such a thing?"

"I'm certain I'm right. He is always talking of his friend Sir George Rivers--he calls him Rivers,--who is Colonial Secretary, and who is to make him either Bishop of Barbadoes or a Gold Stick at the Gambria; and you 'll see if I 'm not correct, and that the wardship of a young scapegrace lordling is to be the retaining fee of this faithful follower of his party. Of course, there will be no question of tutorship; in fact, it would have such an unpleasant resemblance to the farce and Mr.

O'Toole, as to be impossible. You will simply be travelling together. It will be double harness, but only one horse doing the work!"

"I never can make out whether you 're in jest or in earnest," said he, pettishly.

"I'm always in earnest when I'm jesting; that's the only clue I can give you."

"But all this time we have been wandering away from the only thing I wanted to think of,--how to part with dear Alfred. You have told me nothing about that."

"These are things which, as the French say, always do themselves, and, consequently, it is better never to plan or provide for; and, remember, as a maxim, whenever the current is carrying you the way you want to go, put in your oar as little as possible. And as to old associations, they are like old boots: they are very pleasant wear, but they won't last forever. There now, I have given you quite enough matter to think over: and so, good-bye."

As Agincourt turned his steps slowly towards the house, he marvelled with himself what amount of guidance she had given him.

CHAPTER XIX. JOE'S DIPLOMACY

MR. O'Shea's man was not one to put his light under a bushel; so, when he received at the post-office a very portentous-looking letter, heavily sealed, and marked "On Her Majesty's Service," he duly stopped the two or three English loungers he saw about to show them the document, on pretence of asking if any demand for postage could be made; if it had not been wrongfully detained; if they thought it had been opened and read; and so on,--all these inquiries having for their object to inform the general public that the Member for Inch was in close relation and correspondence with Downing Street.

In sooth, the letter had as significant an external as any gentleman in pursuit of a place might have desired. In color, texture, and fashion there was nothing wanting to its authenticity, and it might, without any disparagement to its outside, have named Mr. O'Shea a Governor of the Bahamas, or a Mahogany Commissioner at Ruatan. It was, in fact, a document that, left negligently in the way, might have made a dun appeasable, and a creditor patient There were few men it might not in some degree have imposed on, but of that few the O'Shea himself was one.

He knew well--too well--that it foretold neither place nor employment; that it was the shell of a very small kernel; nothing more, in short, than a note from an old friend and schoolfellow, then acting as the Private Secretary of a Cabinet Minister,--one who, indeed, kept his friend O'Shea fully informed as to everything that fell vacant, but, unhappily, accompanied the intelligence with a catalogue of the applicants, usually something like the list of the Smiths in a Directory.

So little impatient was O'Shea for the contents, that he had half eaten his breakfast and looked through "Punch" before he broke the seal.

The enclosure was from the hand of his friend Tom Radwell, but whose peculiar drollery it was to correspond in the form of a mock despatch.

The note, therefore, though merely containing gossip, was written with all attention to margin and calligraphy, and even in places affected the solemn style of the Office. It was headed "Secret and Confidential," and opened thus:--

"Sir,--By your despatch of the 18th ult, containing four enclosures,--three protested bills, and your stepmother's I O for 18L.

5s.,--I am induced to believe that no material change has occurred in the situation of your affairs,--a circumstance the more to be deplored, inasmuch as her Majesty's Government cannot at this moment, with that due regard imposed on them for the public service, undertake either to reconsider your claims, or by an extraordinary exercise of the powers vested in them by the Act of Teddy the Tiler, chap. 4, sees. 9 and 10, appoint you in the way and manner you propose. So much, my dear Gorman, old Rivers declared to me this morning, confidentially adding, I wish that Irish party would understand that, when we could buy them altogether in a basket, as in O'Connell's day, the arrangement was satisfactory; but to have to purchase them separately--each potato by himself--is a terrible loss of time, and leads to no end of higgling.

Why can't you agree amongst yourselves,--make your bargain, and then divide the spoils quietly? It is the way your forefathers understood the law of commonage, and nobody ever grumbled that his neighbor had a cow or a pig too many! The English of all this is, they don't want you just now, and they won't have you, for you 're an article that never kept well, and, even when bonded, your loss by leakage is considerable.

"Every Irishman I ever met makes the same mistake of offering himself for sale when the commodity is not wanted. If you see muffs and boas in Regent Street in July, ain't they always ticketed 'a great sacrifice'?

Can't you read the lesson? But so it is with you. You fancy you 'll induce people to travel a bad road by putting up a turnpike.

"I 'm sorry to say all this to you, but I see plainly politics will not do any longer as a pursuit. It is not only that all appointments are so scrutinized nowadays, but that every man's name in a division is weighed and considered in a fashion that renders a mere majority of less moment than the fact of how it was composed. If I cannot manage something for you in the West Indies, you must try Cheltenham.

"Rivers has just sent for me.

"'What of your friend O'Shea? Did n't you tell me he was in the north of Italy?'

"'Yes,' said I; 'he's getting up the Italian question. He has accumulated a mass of facts which will astonish the House next session.'

"'Confound his facts!' muttered he. 'Here has been Lord Sommerville with me, about some young ward of his. I don't well understand what he wants, or what he wishes me to do; but the drift is, to find some one--a gentleman, of course--who would take charge of the boy for a short time; he is a marquis, with large expectations, and one day or other will be a man of mark.'

"I tried the dignity tone, but old Rivers interrupted me quickly,--

"'Yes, yes, of course. Mere companionship, nothing more. Sound O'Shea upon it, and let me hear.'

"Here, then, my dear Gorman, is the 'opening' you so long have looked for; and if _you_ cannot turn such a position to good profit, _who_ can?

Nor are you the man I take you for, if you 're not married into the family before this day twelvemonth! There is no time to be lost, so telegraph back at once. A simple 'Yes' will do, if you accept, which I sincerely hope you will. All the minor arrangements you may safely trust to _me_."

When Mr. O'Shea had read thus far, he arose, and, walking with head erect and well thrown-out chest towards the looking-glass, he desired to "take stock" of his appearance, and to all semblance was not displeased at the result. He was autumnalizing, it is true; tints were mellowing, colors more sombre; but, on the whole, there was nothing in the landscape, viewed at due distance and with suitable light, to indicate much ravage from Time. Your hard-featured men, like mountains in scenery, preserve the same appearance unchanged by years. It is your genial fellow, with mobile features, that suffers so terribly from age.

The plough of Time leaves deep furrows in the arable soil of such faces.

As in those frescos which depend altogether on color, the devastations of years are awfully felt; when black degenerates into gray, mellow browns grow a muddy yellow, and the bright touches that "accentuated"

expression are little else than unmeaning blotches! If the Member for Inch had not travelled far upon the dreary road, I am bound in truth to own that he had begun the journey. A light, faint silvering showed on his whiskers, like the first touch of snow on an Alpine fern in October.

The lines that indicated a ready aptitude for fun had deepened, and grown more marked at the angles at the mouth,--a sad sign of one whose wit was less genial and more biting than of yore. Then--worst of all--he had entered upon the pompous lustre wherein men feel an exaggerated self-importance, imagine that their opinions are formed, and their character matured. Nothing is so trying as that quarantine period, and both men and women make more egregious fools of themselves in it than in all the wild heydey of early youth. Mr. O'Shea, however, was an Irishman, and, in virtue of the fact, he had a light, jaunty, semi-careless way with him, which is a soil of electroplate youth, and looks like the real article, though it won't prove so lasting.

"I must have a look into the Peerage," said he, as he turned to the bulky volume that records the alliances and the ages of the "upper ten thousand ":--

"'Lady Maria Augusta Sofronia Montserrat, born '--oh, by the powers, that won't do!--'born 1804.' Oh, come, after all, it's not so bad; 'died in '46.--Charlotte Rose Leopoldine, died in infancy.--Henrietta Louisa, born 1815; married in 1835 to Lord Julius de Raby; again married to Prince Beerstenshoften von Hahnsmarkt, and widowed same year, 1846.'

I'll put a mark against her. And there's one more, 'Juliana de Vere, youngest daughter, born '26 '--that's the time of day!--born '26, and no more said. The paragraph has yet to be filled with, 'Married to the O'Shea, Member of Parliament for Inchabogue, High Sheriff of Tipperary, and head of the ancient copt known as O'Meadhlin Shamdoodhlin Naboklish O'Shea'--I wonder if they 'd put it in--'formerly Kings of Tulloch Reardhin and Bare-ma-bookle, and all the countries west of the Galtee Mountains.' If pedigree would do it, O'Shea may call himself first favorite! And now, Miss Leslie," continued he, aloud, "you have no time to lose; make your bidding quickly, or the O'Shea will be knocked down to another purchaser. As Eugene Aram says, 'I 'm equal to either fortune.'"

"Well," said Joe, entering the room, and approaching his master confidentially, "is it a place?"

"Nothing of the kind; a friendly letter from a member of the Cabinet,"

replied he, carelessly.

"Devil take them! It isn't friendship we want; it's something to live on."

"You are a low-minded, mercenary creature," said O'Shea, oratorically.

"Is our happiness in this life, our self-respect, our real worth, dependent upon the accident of our station, or upon the place we occupy in the affections of men,--what we possess of their sympathy and love? I look around me, and what do I see?"