on the part of the Irish Elk? No! there must be some finality in human
affairs.' And on this phrase the conversation came to a pause.

But if the opinions of those present were not in accord concerning the
rights of property, their tastes in conversation certainly differed as
widely. Olive's white face twitched from time to time with nervous
annoyance. Alice looked up in a sort of mild despair as she strove to
answer Mr. Lynch's questions; May had fallen into a state of morose
lassitude. If Mr. Adair would only cease to explain to her how
successfully he had employed concrete in the construction of his
farm-buildings! She felt that if he started again on the saw-mill she
must faint, and Olive's senses, too, were swimming, but just as she
thought she was going off Captain Hibbert looked so admiringly at her
that she recovered herself; and at the same time Mr. Scully succeeded in
making May understand that he would infinitely prefer to be near her
than Lady Sarah. In return for this expression of feeling the young lady
determined to risk a remark across the table; but she was cut short by
Mrs. Gould, who pithily summed up the political situation in the words:

'The way I look at it is like this: Will the Government help us to get
our rents, or will it not? Mr. Forster's Act does not seem to be able to
do that. There's May there who has been talking all the morning of
Castle seasons, and London seasons, and I don't know what; really I
don't see how it is to be done if the Land League--'

'And Mr. Parnell's a gentleman, too. I wonder how he can ally himself
with such blackguards,' gently insinuated Mrs. Barton, who saw a husband
lost in the politician.

But the difficulty the Government find themselves in is that the Land