With an instinctive readiness all his own, he saw in the embarrassed and conscious looks around that he had himself been the object of their discussion, and with the same shrewdness he detected their favorable feeling towards him.
“I have made them my own!” muttered he to himself.
“He 'll do our work well!” said the priest in his heart.
CHAPTER XI. YOUNG NELLIGAN, AS INTERPRETED IN TWO WAYS.
“I rather like that young Nelligan,” said Martin, the day after Joseph had made his first appearance at dinner. “He talks pleasantly, and nothing of a pedant, as I half dreaded he might be.”
“I thought his manner respectful, and very proper for his station,” said Lady Dorothea, with an air of dignity.
“He spoke of politics, too, with less of prejudice, less of class bitterness, than I could have expected.”
“Some policy, perhaps, in that,” remarked her Ladyship.
“Possibly!” said Martin, with a careless shrug of the shoulders.