Then, by degrees, the conversation got away to other things, and Lady Laura asked him after Loughshane.  “I’ve made up my mind to give it up,” said he, smiling as he spoke.

“I was afraid there was but a bad chance,” said Lady Laura, smiling also.

“My father has behaved so well!” said Phineas.  “He has written to say he’ll find the money, if I determine to contest the borough.  I mean to write to him by to-night’s post to decline the offer.  I have no right to spend the money, and I shouldn’t succeed if I did spend it.  Of course it makes me a little down in the mouth.”  And then he smiled again.

“I’ve got a plan of my own,” said Lady Laura.

“What plan?”

“Or rather it isn’t mine, but papa’s.  Old Mr. Standish is going to give up Loughton, and papa wants you to come and try your luck there.”

“Lady Laura!”

“It isn’t quite a certainty, you know, but I suppose it’s as near a certainty as anything left.”  And this came from a strong Radical Reformer!

“Lady Laura, I couldn’t accept such a favour from your father.”  Then Mr. Kennedy nodded his head very slightly and whispered, “Yes, yes.”  “I couldn’t think of it,” said Phineas Finn.  “I have no right to such a favour.”

“That is a matter entirely for papa’s consideration,” said Lady Laura, with an affectation of solemnity in her voice.  “I think it has always been felt that any politician may accept such an offer as that when it is made to him, but that no politician should ask for it.  My father feels that he has to do the best he can with his influence in the borough, and therefore he comes to you.”

“It isn’t that,” said Phineas, somewhat rudely.

“Of course private feelings have their weight,” said Lady Laura.  “It is not probable that papa would have gone to a perfect stranger.  And perhaps, Mr. Finn, I may own that Mr. Kennedy and I would both be very sorry that you should not be in the House, and that that feeling on our part has had some weight with my father.”

“Of course you’ll stand?” whispered Mr. Kennedy, still looking straight out of the window, as though the slightest attempt to turn his neck would be fraught with danger to himself and the Duchy.

“Papa has desired me to ask you to call upon him,” said Lady Laura.  “I don’t suppose there is very much to be said, as each of you know so well the other’s way of thinking.  But you had better see him to-day or to-morrow.”

Of course Phineas was persuaded before he left Mr. Kennedy’s room.  Indeed, when he came to think of it, there appeared to him to be no valid reason why he should not sit for Loughton.  The favour was of a kind that had prevailed from time out of mind in England, between the most respectable of the great land magnates, and young rising liberal politicians.  Burke, Fox, and Canning had all been placed in Parliament by similar influence.  Of course he, Phineas Finn, desired earnestly,—­longed