“And for this reason you shall not go one step,” said Peter, slapping him cordially on the shoulder. “I verily believe that women think the world was made for nothing but love-making, just as the crack engineer believed rivers were intended by Providence to feed navigable canals; but you and I know a little better, not to say that a young fellow with the stamp gentleman indelibly marked on his forehead would not think of making a young girl fresh from a convent--a mere child in the ways of life--the mark of his attentions. Am I not right?” “I hope and believe you are!” “Stay where you are, then; be happy, and help us to feel so; and the only pledge I ask is, that whenever you suspect Dinah to be a shrewder observer and a truer prophet than her brother--you understand me--you'll just come and say, 'Peter Barrington, I'm off; good-bye!'” “There's my hand on it,” said he, grasping the old man's with warmth. “There's only one point--I have told Miss Barrington that I would start this evening.” “She'll scarcely hold you very closely to your pledge.” “But, as I understand her, you are going back to Ireland?” “And you are coming along with us. Isn't that a very simple arrangement?” “I know it would be a very pleasant one.” “It shall be, if it depend on me. I want to make you a fisherman too. When I was a young man, it was my passion to make every one a good horseman. If I liked a fellow, and found out that he couldn't ride to hounds, it gave me a shock little short of hearing that there was a blot on his character, so associated in my mind had become personal dash and prowess in the field with every bold and manly characteristic. As I grew older, and the rod usurped the place of the hunting-whip, I grew to fancy that your angler would be the truest type of a companion; and if you but knew,” added he, as a glassy fulness dulled his eyes, “what a flattery it is to an old fellow when a young one will make a comrade of him,--what a smack of bygone days it brings up, and what sunshine it lets in on the heart,--take my word for it, you young fellows are never so vain of an old companion as we are of a young one! What are you so thoughtful about?” “I was thinking how I was to make this explanation to Miss Barrington.” “You need not make it at all; leave the whole case in my hands. My sister knows that I owe you an _amende_ and a heavy one. Let this go towards a part payment of it. But here she comes in search of me. Step away quietly, and when we meet at the tea-table all will have been settled.” Conyers had but time to make his escape, when Miss Barrington came up. “I thought I should find you mooning down here, Peter,” said she, sharply. “Whenever there is anything to be done or decided on, a Barrington is always watching a fly on a fish-pond.” “Not the women of the family, Dinah,--not the women. But what great emergency is before us now?”