Lord Erymanth was anxious, not only about Dermot’s health, and his sister’s strength and spirits, but he wanted to hear what Harold thought of the place and of the tone of the country; and, after our meal, when he grew more confidential, he elicited short plain answers full of information in short compass, and not very palatable.  The estate was “not going on well.”  “Did Harold think well of the agent?” “He had been spoilt.”  “How?” “By calls for supplies.”  “Were the people attached to Dermot?” “To a certain degree.”  “Would it be safe for him to live there?” “He ought.”

Lord Erymanth entirely assented to this, and we found that he had all along held that his sister had been in error for not having remained at Killy Marey, and brought up her son to his duties as a landlord, whatever the danger; though of course she, poor thing, could hardly be expected to see it in that light.  He evidently viewed this absenteeism as the cause of the wreck of Dermot’s youth, and those desultory habits of self-indulgence and dissipation which were overcoming that which was good and noble in him; and the good old man showed that he blamed himself for what he had conceded to his sister in the first shock of her misfortune.  Harold had told him of the warm feeling shown by the tenantry when Dermot was lying in danger of his life, and their rejoicing when he turned the corner and began to recover, and he asked anxiously whether all this affection might not awaken a responsive chord, and draw him to “what was undoubtedly his proper sphere.”

“It will,” said Harold.

“You think so?  And there is little doubt but that your cousin’s influence at such a critical period may have great effect in turning the scale?”

Harold nodded.

“More especially as, from the intelligence I have received, I have little doubt that the connection will be drawn a good deal closer before long,” said Lord Erymanth with a benignant smile at us both.  “I suppose we must not begin to congratulate one another yet, for I may conclude that nothing had actually taken place when you came away.”

“Nothing.”

“When my sister became conscious of the condition of affairs and wrote to consult me, I had no hesitation in replying that, though Viola’s connections might warrant greater expectations in a worldly point of view, yet I thought that there was every reason for promoting an attachment to a gentleman of family equal to her own on one side at least, and whose noble exertions during the past two years for the welfare of all concerned with him, not only obliterate all recollection of past disadvantages, but in every way promise honour and happiness to all connected with him.”

I was not a little excited, but one of the worst fits of restlessness under Lord Erymanth’s harangues had come upon Harold.  He only sat it out by pulling so many hairs out of his beard that they made an audible frizzle in the fire when he brushed them off his knee, and stood up, saying gruffly, “You are very good; he deserves it.  But I must get Lucy home in good time.  May I go and speak to your coachman?  Tracy gave me a message for him.”