To reward him for his practical discretion, she contrived that Diana should give him a final dance; and the beautiful gill smiled quickly responsive to his appeal.  He was, moreover, sensible in her look and speech that he had advanced in her consideration to be no longer the mere spinning stick, a young lady’s partner.  By which he humbly understood that her friend approved him.  A gentle delirium enfolded his brain.  A householder’s life is often begun on eight hundred a year:  on less:  on much less:—­sometimes on nothing but resolution to make a fitting income, carving out a fortune.  Eight hundred may stand as a superior basis.  That sum is a distinct point of vantage.  If it does not mean a carriage and Parisian millinery and a station for one of the stars of society, it means at any rate security; and then, the heart of the man being strong and sound . . .

‘Yes,’ he replied to her, ’I like my experience of Ireland and the Irish; and better than I thought I should.  St. George’s Channel ought to be crossed oftener by both of us.’

‘I’m always glad of the signal,’ said Diana.

He had implied the people of the two islands.  He allowed her interpretation to remain personal, for the sake of a creeping deliciousness that it carried through his blood.

‘Shall you soon be returning to England?’ he ventured to ask.

‘I am Lady Dunstane’s guest for some months.’

’Then you will.  Sir Lukin has an estate in Surrey.  He talks of quitting the Service.’

‘I can’t believe it!’

His thrilled blood was chilled.  She entertained a sentiment amounting to adoration for the profession of arms!

Gallantly had the veteran General and Hero held on into the night, that the festivity might not be dashed by his departure; perhaps, to a certain degree, to prolong his enjoyment of a flattering scene.  At last Sir Lukin had the word from him, and came to his wife.  Diana slipped across the floor to her accommodating chaperon, whom, for the sake of another five minutes with her beloved Emma, she very agreeably persuaded to walk in the train of Lord Larrian, and forth they trooped down

a pathway of nodding heads and curtsies, resembling oak and birch-trees under a tempered gale, even to the shedding of leaves, for here a turban was picked up by Sir Lukin, there a jewelled ear-ring by the self-constituted attendant, Mr. Thomas Redworth.  At the portico rang a wakening cheer, really worth hearing.  The rain it rained, and hats were formless,’ as in the first conception of the edifice, backs were damp, boots liquidly musical, the pipe of consolation smoked with difficulty, with much pulling at the stem, but the cheer arose magnificently, and multiplied itself, touching at the same moment the heavens and Diana’s heart-at least, drawing them together; for she felt exalted, enraptured, as proud of her countrymen as of their hero.

‘That’s the natural shamrock, after the artificial !’ she heard Mr. Redworth say, behind her.