Patrick's opening speech concluded on the sound of a short laugh coming
from Mr. Adister.

It struck the young Irishman's ear as injurious and scornful in relation
to Captain Con; but the remark ensuing calmed him:

'He has no children.'

'No, sir; Captain Con wasn't born to increase the number of our clan,'
Patrick rejoined; and thought: By heaven! I get a likeness of her out of
you, with a dash of the mother mayhap somewhere. This was his Puck-
manner of pulling a girdle round about from what was foremost in his head
to the secret of his host's quiet observation; for, guessing that such
features as he beheld would be slumped on a handsome family, he was led
by the splendid severity of their lines to perceive an illimitable pride
in the man likely to punish him in his offspring, who would inherit that
as well; so, as is the way with the livelier races, whether they seize
first or second the matter or the spirit of what they hear, the vivid
indulgence of his own ideas helped him to catch the right meaning by the
tail, and he was enlightened upon a domestic unhappiness, although Mr.
Adister had not spoken miserably. The 'dash of the mother' was thrown in
to make Adiante, softer, and leave a loophole for her relenting.

The master of Earlsfont stood for a promise of beauty in his issue,
requiring to be softened at the mouth and along the brows, even in men.
He was tall, and had clear Greek outlines: the lips were locked metal,
thin as edges of steel, and his eyes, when he directed them on the person
he addressed or the person speaking, were as little varied by motion of
the lids as eyeballs of a stone bust. If they expressed more, because