"Not because you did not agree with me,--but because you did not think me fit to be trusted with any judgment of my own. I don't know why I'm always to be looked upon as different from other women,--as though I were half a savage." "You are what you have made yourself, and I have always rejoiced that you are as you are, fresh, untrammelled, without many prejudices which afflict other ladies, and free from bonds by which they are cramped and confined. Of course such a turn of character is subject to certain dangers of its own." "There is no doubt about the dangers. The chances are that when I see her Grace I shall tell her what I think about her." "You will I am sure say nothing unkind to a lady who is supposed to be in the place she now fills by my authority. But do not let us quarrel about an old woman." "I won't quarrel with you even about a young one." "I cannot be at ease within myself while I think you are resenting my refusal. You do not know how constantly I carry you about with me." "You carry a very unnecessary burden then," she said. But he could tell at once from the altered tone of her voice, and from the light of her eye as he glanced into her face, that her anger about "The Robes" was appeased. "I have done as you asked about a friend of yours," he said. This occurred just before the final and perfected list of the new men had appeared in all the newspapers. "What friend?" "Mr. Finn is to go to Ireland." "Go to Ireland!--How do you mean?" "It is looked upon as being very great promotion. Indeed I am told that he is considered to be the luckiest man in all the scramble." "You don't mean as Chief Secretary?" "Yes, I do. He certainly couldn't go as Lord Lieutenant." "But they said that Barrington Erle was going to Ireland." "Well; yes. I don't know that you'd be interested by all the ins and outs of it. But Mr. Erle declined. It seems that Mr. Erle is after all the one man in Parliament modest enough not to consider himself to be fit for any place that can be offered to him." "Poor Barrington! He does not like the idea of crossing the Channel so often. I quite sympathise with him. And so Phineas is to be Secretary for Ireland! Not in the Cabinet?" "No;--not in the Cabinet. It is not by any means usual that he should be." "That is promotion, and I am glad! Poor Phineas! I hope they won't murder him, or anything of that kind. They do murder people, you know, sometimes." "He's an Irishman himself." "That's just the reason why they should. He must put up with that of course. I wonder whether she'll like going. They'll be able to spend money, which they always like, over there. He comes backwards and forwards every week,--doesn't he?" "Not quite that, I believe." "I shall miss her, if she has to stay away long. I know you don't like her." "I do like her. She has always behaved well, both to me and to my uncle."