‘His father! I’m sure I did not say a tenth part of what the fellow richly deserves. If the young gentleman is so touchy, he had better go back to Ireland again.’ Nothing more favourable could Mr. Kendal obtain, though he thought Mr. Goldsmith uneasy, and perhaps impressed by the independence of his nephew’s attitude. It was an arduous office for a peace-maker, where neither party could comprehend the feelings of the other, but on his return he found that Ulick had stormed himself into comparative tranquillity, and was listening the better to the womankind, because they had paid due honour to the amiable ancestral Tigearnach and all his guttural posterity, whose savage exploits and bloody catastrophes acted as such a sedative, that by the time he had come down to Uncle Bryan of the Kaffir war, he actually owned that as to the mighty ‘O,’ Mr. Goldsmith might have erred in sheer ignorance. ‘After all,’ said Albinia, ‘U. O’More is rather personal in writing to a creditor.’ ‘It might be worse,’ said Ulick, laughing, ‘if my name was John. I. O’More would be a dangerous confession. But I’ll not be come round even by your fun, Mrs. Kendal, I’ll not part with my father’s name.’ ‘No, that would be base,’ said Sophy. ‘Who would wish to persuade you?’ added Albinia. ‘I am sure you are right in refusing with your feelings; I only want you to forgive your uncle, and not to break with him.’ ‘I’d forgive him his ignorance, but my mother herself could not wish me to forgive what he said of my father.’ ‘And how if he thinks this explosion needs forgiveness?’ ‘He must do without it,’ said Ulick. ‘No, I was cool, I assure you, cool and collected, but it was not fit for me to stand by and hear my father insulted.’ Albinia closed the difficult discussion by observing that it was time to dress, and Sophy followed her from the room burning with indignant sympathy. ‘It would be meanly subservient to ask pardon for defending a father whom he thought maligned,’ said Albinia, and Sophy took exception at the word ‘thought.’ ‘Ah! of course _he_ cannot be deceived!’ said Albinia--but no sooner were the words spoken than she was half-startled, half-charmed by finding they had evoked a glow of colour. ‘How do you think it will end?’ asked Sophy. ‘I can hardly fancy he will not be forgiven, and yet--it might be better.’ ‘Yes, I do think he would get on faster in India,’ said Sophy eagerly; ‘he could do just as Gilbert might have done.’ Was it possible for Albinia to have kept out of her eyes a significant glance, or to have disarmed her lips of a merry smile of amused encouragement! How she had looked she knew not, but the red deepened on Sophy’s whole face, and after one inquiring gaze from the eyes they were cast down, and an ineffable brightness came over the expression, softening and embellishing.