"It is so, to your thinking, but not to his. In loving him or hating him you've got to love him or hate him as a boy. Of course it's wicked that a boy should lie,--or a man, or a woman, or a girl; but they do. I don't see why we are to turn against a boy of our own, when we know that other boys lie. He has got a notion into his head that he is doing quite right, because the priest has told him." "He is doing quite wrong," said Ada. "And now what are we to do about his breakfast? Papa says that he is not to be allowed to come into the room, and papa means it. You and I will have to breakfast with him and dine with him, first one and then the other." "But papa will miss us." "We must go through the ceremony of a second breakfast and a second dinner." This was the beginning of Edith's scheme. "Of course it's a bore; all things are bores. This about the flood is the most terrible bore I ever knew. But I'm not going to let Flory go to the devil without making an effort to save him. It would be going to the devil, if he were left alone in his present position." "Papa will see that we don't eat anything." "Of course he must be told. There never ought to be any secrets in anything. Of course he'll grow used to it, and won't expect us to sit there always and eat nothing. He thinks he's right, and perhaps he is. Flory will feel the weight of his displeasure; and if we talk to him we may persuade him." This state of things at Morony Castle was allowed to go on with few other words said upon the subject. The father became more and more gloomy, as the floods held their own upon the broad meadows. Pat Carroll had been before the magistrates at Headford, and had been discharged, as all evidence was lacking to connect him with the occurrence. Further effort none was made, and Pat Carroll went on in his course, swearing that not a shilling of rent should be paid by him in next March. "The floods had done him a great injury," he said laughingly among his companions, "so that it was unreasonable to expect that he should pay." It was true he had owed a half-year's rent last November; but then it had become customary with Mr. Jones's tenants to be allowed the indulgence of six months. No more at any rate would be said about rent till March should come.