attack seems to require the same sort of courage, and the same sort
of preparation, as a journey in quest of the north-west passage. One
thinks of a pedestal near the Athenaeum as the most appropriate and
most honourable reward of such courage. But, again, there are other
girls to abstain from attacking whom is, to a man of any warmth
of temperament, quite impossible. They are like water when one is
athirst, like plovers' eggs in March, like cigars when one is out
in the autumn. No one ever dreams of denying himself when such
temptation comes in the way. It often happens, however, that in spite
of appearances, the water will not come from the well, nor the egg
from its shell, nor will the cigar allow itself to be lit. A girl of
such appearance, so charming, was Mary Flood Jones of Killaloe, and
our hero Phineas was not allowed to thirst in vain for a drop from
the cool spring.

When the girls went down into the drawing-room Mary was careful to
go to a part of the room quite remote from Phineas, so as to seat
herself between Mrs. Finn and Dr. Finn's young partner, Mr. Elias
Bodkin, from Ballinasloe. But Mrs. Finn and the Miss Finns and all
Killaloe knew that Mary had no love for Mr. Bodkin, and when Mr.
Bodkin handed her the hot cake she hardly so much as smiled at him.
But in two minutes Phineas was behind her chair, and then she smiled;
and in five minutes more she had got herself so twisted round that
she was sitting in a corner with Phineas and his sister Barbara; and
in two more minutes Barbara had returned to Mr. Elias Bodkin, so that
Phineas and Mary were uninterrupted. They manage these things very
quickly and very cleverly in Killaloe.

"I shall be off to-morrow morning by the early train," said Phineas.