“Now, Mr. Kennedy,” said Lady Laura, “you are going to pretend to understand all about sheep and oxen.”  Mr. Kennedy, owning that it was so, went away to his farm, and Phineas with Lady Laura returned towards the house.  “I think, upon the whole,” said Lady Laura, “that that is as good a man as I know.”

“I should think he is an idle one,” said Phineas.

“I doubt that.  He is, perhaps, neither zealous nor active.  But he is thoughtful and high-principled, and has a method and a purpose in the use which he makes of his money.  And you see that he has poetry in his nature too, if you get him upon the right string.  How fond he is of the scenery of this place!”

“Any man would be fond of that.  I’m ashamed to say that it almost makes me envy him.  I certainly never have wished to be Mr. Robert Kennedy in London, but I should like to be the Laird of Loughlinter.”

“’Laird of Linn and Laird of Linter,—­Here in summer, gone in winter.’  There is some ballad about the old lairds; but that belongs to a time when Mr. Kennedy had not been heard of, when some branch of the Mackenzies lived down at that wretched old tower which you see as you first come upon the lake.  When old Mr. Kennedy bought it there were hardly a hundred acres on the property under cultivation.”

“And it belonged to the Mackenzies.”

“Yes;—­to the Mackenzie of Linn, as he was called.  It was Mr. Kennedy, the old man, who was first called Loughlinter.  That is Linn Castle, and they lived there for hundreds of years.  But these Highlanders, with all that is said of their family pride, have forgotten the Mackenzies already, and are quite proud of their rich landlord.”

“That is unpoetical,” said Phineas.

“Yes;—­but then poetry is so usually false.  I doubt whether Scotland would not have been as prosaic a country as any under the sun but for Walter Scott;—­and I have no doubt that Henry V owes the romance of his character altogether to Shakspeare.”

“I sometimes think you despise poetry,” said Phineas.

“When it is false I do.  The difficulty is to know when it is false and when it is true.  Tom Moore was always false.”

“Not so false as Byron,” said Phineas with energy.

“Much more so, my friend.  But we will not discuss that now.  Have you seen Mr. Monk since you have been here?”

“I have seen no one.  I came with Mr. Ratler.”

“Why with Mr. Ratler?  You cannot find Mr. Ratler a companion much to your taste.”

“Chance brought us together.  But Mr. Ratler is a man of sense, Lady Laura, and is not to be despised.”

“It always seems to me,” said Lady Laura, “that nothing is to be gained in politics by sitting at the feet of the little Gamaliels.”

“But the great Gamaliels will not have a novice on their footstools.”

“Then sit at no man’s feet.  Is it not astonishing that the price generally put upon any article by the world is that which the owner puts on it?—­and that this is specially true of a man’s own self?  If you herd with Ratler, men will take it for granted that you are a Ratlerite, and no more.  If you consort with Greshams and Pallisers, you will equally be supposed to know your own place.”