Poor Mr. O\'Mahony had enemies on every side. There had come up lately a state of things which must be very common in political life. The hatreds which sound so real when you read the mere words, which look so true when you see their scornful attitudes, on which for the time you are inclined to pin your faith so implicitly, amount to nothing. The Right Honourable A. has to do business with the Honourable B., and can best carry it on by loud expressions and strong arguments such as will be palatable to readers of newspapers; but they do not hate each other as the readers of the papers hate them, and are ready enough to come to terms, if coming to terms is required. Each of them respects the other, though each of them is very careful to hide his respect. We can fancy that the Right Honourable A. and the Honourable B. in their moments of confidential intercourse laugh in their joint sleeves at the antipathies of the public. In the present instance it was alleged that the Right Honourable A. and the Honourable B. had come to some truce together, and had ceased for a while to hit each other hard knocks. Such a truce was supposed to be a feather in the cap of the Honourable B., as he was leader of a poor party of no more than twenty; and the Right Honourable A. had in this matter the whole House at his back. But for the nonce each had come off his high horse, and for the moment there was peace between them.

But Mr. O\'Mahony would have no peace. He understood nothing of compromises. He really believed that the Right Honourable gentleman was the fiend which the others had only called him. To him it was a compact with the very devil. Now the leader of his party, knowing better what he was about, and understanding somewhat of the manner in which politics are at present carried on, felt himself embarrassed by the honesty of such a follower as Mr. O\'Mahony. Mr. O\'Mahony, when he was asked whether he wished to lead or was willing to serve, declared that he would neither lead nor serve. What he wanted was the "good of Ireland." And he was sure that that was not to be obtained by friendship with Her Majesty\'s Government. This was in itself very well, but he was soon informed that it was not as a free-lance that he had been elected member for Cavan. "That is between me and my constituency," said Mr. O\'Mahony, standing up with his head thrown back, and his right hand on his heart. But the constituency soon gave him to understand that he was not the man they had taken him to be.

He, too, had begun to find that to spend his daughter\'s money in acting patriotism in the House of Commons was not a fine r?le in life. He earned nothing and he did nothing. Unless he could bind himself hand and foot to his party he had not even a spark of delegated power. He was not allowed to speak when he desired, and was called upon to sit upon those weary benches hour after hour, and night after night, only pretending to effect those things which he and his brother members knew could not be done. He was not allowed to be wrathful with true indignation, not for a moment; but he was expected to be there from question time through the long watches of the night—taking, indeed, his turn for rest and food—always ready with some mock indignation by which his very soul was fretted; and no one paid him the slightest respect, though he was, indeed, by no means the least respectable of his party. He would have done true work had it been given him to do. But at the present moment his own party did not believe in him. There was no need at present for independent wrathful eloquence. There seldom is need in the House of Commons for independent eloquence. The few men who have acquired for themselves at last the power of expressing it, not to empty benches, not amidst coughings and hootings, and loud conversation, have had to make their way to that point either by long efficient service or by great gifts of pachydermatousness. Mr. O\'Mahony had never served anyone for an hour, and was as thin-skinned as a young girl; and, though his daughter had handed him all her money, so that he might draw upon it as he pleased, he told himself, and told her also, that his doing so was mean. "You\'re welcome to every dollar, father, only it doesn\'t seem to make you happy."

"I should be happy to starve for the country, if starving would do anything."

"I don\'t see that one ever does any good by starving as long as there is bread to eat. This isn\'t a romantic sort of thing, this payment of rents; but we ought to try and find out what a man really owes."

"No man owes a cent to any landlord on behalf of rent."

"But how is a man to get the land?" she said. "Over in our country a rough pioneering fellow goes and buys it, and then he sells it, and of course the man who buys it hasn\'t to pay rent. But I cannot see how any fellow here can have a right to the land for nothing." Then Mr. O\'Mahony reminded his daughter that she was ill and should not exert herself.

It was now far advanced in May, and Mr. O\'Mahony had resolved to make one crushing eloquent speech in the House of Commons and then to retire to the United States. But he had already learned that even this could not be effected without the overcoming of many difficulties. In himself, in his eloquence, in the supply of words, he trusted altogether; but there was the opportunity to be bought, and the Speaker\'s eye to be found,—he regarded this Speaker\'s eye as the most false of all luminaries,—and the empty benches to be encountered, and then drowsy reporters to be stirred up; and then on the next morning,—if any next morning should come for such a report,—there would not be a tithe of what he had spoken to be read by any man, and, in truth, very little of what he could speak would be worthy of reading. His words would be honest and indignant and fine-sounding, but the hearer would be sure to say, "What a fool is that Mr. O\'Mahony!" At any rate, he understood so much of all this that he was determined to accept the Chiltern Hundreds and flee away as soon as his speech should be made.

It was far advanced in May, and poor Rachel was still very ill. She was so ill that all hope had abandoned her either as to her profession or as to either of her lovers. But there was some spirit in her still, as when she would discuss with her father her future projects. "Let me go back," she said, "and sing little songs for children in that milder climate. The climate is mild down in the South, and there I may, perhaps, find some fragment of my voice." But he who was becoming so despondent both for himself and for his country, still had hopes as to his daughter. Her engagement with Lord Castlewell was not even y............