‘Ah!’ said Albinia, ’they have blackened your eyes like the bruises of material antagonists!  Yes, it is a gallant battle, but indeed you must give yourself all the help you can, for it would be doing your mother no good to fall ill.’

‘I’ve no fears,’ said Ulick; ’I know very well what is the matter with me, and that if I don’t give way, it will go off in time.  You’ve given it a good shove with your kindness, Mrs. Kendal,’ he added, with deep emotion in his sensitive voice; ’only you must not talk of my going home, or you’ll undo all you have done.’

’Then I won’t; we must try to make you a home here.  And in the first place, those lodgings of yours; you can never be comfortable in them.’

’Ah! you saw my fire smoking.  I never shall learn to make a coal fire burn.’

‘Not only that,’ said Albinia, ’but you might easily find rooms much better furnished, and fitter for you.’

‘I do assure you,’ exclaimed Ulick, ’you scarcely saw it!  Why, I don’t think there’s a room at the big house in better order, or so good!’

‘At least,’ said Albinia, repressing her deduction as to the big house of Ballymakilty, ’you have no particular love for the locality—­the river smell—­the stock of good leather, &c.’

‘It’s all Bayford and town smell together,’ said Ulick; ’I never thought one part worse than another, begging your pardon, Mrs. Kendal.’

‘And I am sure,’ she continued, ’that woman can never make your meals comfortable.  Yes, I see I am right, and I assure you hard head-work needs good living, and you will never be a match for the rogues in black and white without good beef-steaks.  Now confess whether she gives you dinners of old shoe-leather.’

‘A man can’t sit down to dinner by himself,’ cried Ulick, impatiently.  ‘Tea with a book are all that is bearable.’

‘And you never go out—­never see any one.’

‘I dine at my uncle’s every Sunday,’ said Ulick.

‘Is that all the variety you have?’

’Why, my uncle told me he would not have me getting into what he calls idle company.  I’ve dined once at the vicarage, and drunk tea twice with Mr. Hope, but it is no use thinking of it—­I couldn’t afford it, and that’s the truth.’

‘Have you any books?  What can you find to do all the evening?’

’I have a few that bear reading pretty often, and Mr. Hope as lent me some.  I’ve been trying to keep up my Greek, and then I do believe there’s some way of simplifying those accounts by logarithms, if I could but work it out.  But my mother told me to walk, and I assure you I do take a constitutional as soon as I come out at half-past four every day.’

’Well, I have designs, and mind you don’t traverse them, or I shall have to report you at home.  I have a lodging in my eye for you, away from the river, and a nice clean, tidy Irishwoman to keep you in order, make your fires, and cram you, if you wont eat, and see if she does not make a man of you—­’