Phineas, in describing Lady Laura Standish to Mary Flood Jones at Killaloe, had not painted her in very glowing colours. Nevertheless he admired Lady Laura very much, and she was worthy¹ of admiration². It was probably the greatest pride of our hero’s life that Lady Laura Standish was his friend, and that she had instigated³ him to undertake the risk of parliamentary life. Lady Laura was intimate also with Barrington Erle, who was, in some distant degree, her cousin; and Phineas was not without a suspicion that his selection for Loughshane, from out of all the young liberal candidates, may have been in some degree owing to Lady Laura’s influence with Barrington Erle. He was not unwilling⁴ that it should be so; for though, as he had repeatedly told himself, he was by no means in love with Lady Laura — who was, as he imagined, somewhat older than himself — nevertheless, he would feel gratified at accepting anything from her hands, and he felt a keen desire for some increase to those ties of friendship which bound them together. No — he was not in love with Lady Laura Standish. He had not the remotest idea of asking her to be his wife. So he told himself, both before he went over for his election, and after his return. When he had found himself in a corner with poor little Mary Flood Jones, he had kissed her as a matter of course; but he did not think that he could, in any circumstances, be tempted⁵ to kiss Lady Laura. He supposed that he was in love with his darling little Mary — after a fashion. Of course, it could never come to anything, because of the circumstances of his life, which were so imperious to him. He was not in love with Lady Laura, and yet he hoped that his intimacy⁶ with her might come to much. He had more than once asked himself how he would feel when somebody else came to be really in love with Lady Laura — for she was by no means a woman to lack lovers — when someone else should be in love with her, and be received by her as a lover; but this question he had never been able to answer. There were many questions about himself which he usually answered by telling himself that it was his fate to walk over volcanoes. “Of course, I shall be blown into atoms some fine day,” he would say; “but after all, that is better than being slowly boiled down into

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