“You know, Charles, it is very disagreeable to have to listen to reason,” she objected pathetically. He laughed, but persisted. “I have heard you say many a time that disinterested and intelligent men were to blame in withdrawing from public affairs, and leaving them in the hands of dishonest politicians. You said, very sensibly, that, if such men were not strong enough to prevent abuses, they should at least protest against them, and let the world see that patriotism was not quite dead. Perhaps, you added, such a protest might shame others into joining you. Oh! you were eloquent on that subject, little woman, and quoted from _Tara’s Halls_. The idea was that even the indignant breaking of a heart in the cause of truth showed that truth still lived, which was some good. What do you say, milady? Was it all talk? Are you going to fail me? ‘I appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober.’” Mrs. Yorke was smiling, and her face had caught a slight color. The repetition of her own sentiments had encouraged her, as the recollection of our own heroic aspirations often does help us in weaker moments. His wife pacified, Mr. Yorke went out to work off his own irritation. He would not have had her know it, but he had been attacked in the street that very day when stopping to speak to Father Rasle. The priest seldom went into the street unless absolutely obliged to, and 161 would gladly have avoided subjecting any one to annoyance on his account; but Mr. Yorke would as soon have denied his faith as have shrunk from stopping to greet the priest cordially--would have so greeted him, indeed, if a hundred guns had been aimed at him for it. But it was not pleasant. He was a fastidious gentleman, accustomed to respect, and the impertinence of the rabble was to him peculiarly offensive. He had come home fuming with anger, which had not abated while restrained. Fortunately, he found something to scold at the minute he went out. A grapevine, which he had coaxed to grow in that unaccustomed country, had this year put forth its first clusters; by some mistake, Patrick had clipped the leaves off, and left the green bunches exposed to the sun. “Pat, what fool told you to do that?” his master demanded angrily. “Yourself, sir!” answered Patrick, without flinching. He had his cause of annoyance also. Mr. Yorke denied the charge with emphasis: “It is no such thing, you--you vertebrate!” Patrick drew himself up with an air of dignified resolution. “Sir,” he said, “I’ve done my duty by you, and you’ve done your duty by me, and I’ve taken many a sharp word from you, and made no complaint. But I’m an honest man, if I am not rich nor learned, and I won’t stand and let any one call me such a name as that.” Mr. Yorke laughed out irrepressibly. “Well, well, Pat,” he said, “I beg your pardon. You’re not a vertebrate.” “All right, sir!” Pat answered cheerfully, and went about his work satisfied. Mr. Yorke, his good humor quite restored, went into the house again.