‘I must say, sir,’ said the priest, ‘I am much more gratified to know that you are a Lieutenant of Lancers in Austria than a British Minister in Downing Street.’ ‘I have little doubt myself,’ said the other, laughing, ‘that I am more in my place; but of this I am sure, that if we were as mealy-mouthed with our Croats and Slovacks as you are with your Fenians, Austria would soon go to pieces.’ ‘There is, however, a higher price on that man Donogan’s head than Austria ever offered for a traitor,’ said Miller. ‘I know how you esteem money here,’ said Gorman, laughing. ‘When all else fails you, you fall back upon it.’ ‘Why did I know nothing of these sentiments, young man, before I asked you under my roof?’ said Miss Betty, in anger. ‘You need never to have known them now, aunt, if these gentlemen had not provoked them, nor indeed are they solely mine. I am only telling you what you would hear from any intelligent foreigner, even though he chanced to be a liberal in his own country.’ ‘Ah, yes,’ sighed the priest: ‘what the young gentleman says is too true. The Continent is alarmingly infected with such opinions as these.’ ‘Have you talked on politics with young Kearney?’ asked Miller. ‘He has had no opportunity,’ interposed Miss O’Shea. ‘My nephew will be three weeks here on Thursday next, and neither Mathew nor his son have called on him.’ ‘Scarcely neighbourlike that, I must say,’ cried Miller. ‘I suspect the fault lies on my side,’ said Gorman boldly. ‘When I was little more than a boy, I was never out of that house. The old man treated me like a son. All the more, perhaps, as his own son was seldom at home, and the little girl Kitty certainly regarded me as a brother; and though we had our fights and squabbles, we cried very bitterly at parting, and each of us vowed we should never like any one so much again. And now, after all, here am I three weeks, within two hours’ ride of them, and my aunt insists that my dignity requires I should be first called on. Confound such dignity! say I, if it lose me the best and the pleasantest friends I ever had in my life.’ ‘I scarcely thought of _your_ dignity, Gorman O’Shea,’ said the old lady, bridling, ‘though I did bestow some consideration on my own.’ ‘I’m very sorry for it, aunt, and I tell you fairly--and there’s no unpoliteness in the confession--that when I asked for my leave, Kilgobbin Castle had its place in my thoughts as well as O’Shea’s Barn.’ ‘Why not say it out, young gentleman, and tell me that the real charm of coming here was to be within twelve miles of the Kearneys.’ ‘The merits of this house are very independent of contiguity,’ said the priest; and as he eyed the claret in his glass, it was plain that the sentiment was an honest one. ‘Fifty-six wine, I should say,’ said Miller, as he laid down his glass. ‘Forty-five, if Mr. Barton be a man of his word,’ said the old lady reprovingly.