He cautioned him to reject those extreme opinions so fascinating to young minds, and which either give an unwarrantable bias to the judgment through life, or which, when their fallacy is detected, lead to a reaction as violent, and notions as false. “Win character and reputation first, Herbert: gain the position from which your opinions will come with influence, and then, my boy, with judgment not rashly formed, and a mind trained to examine great questions—then, you may fearlessly enter the lists, free to choose your place and party. You cannot be a patriot this way, in the newspaper sense of the term.—It is possible, too, our dear Kate may deem your ambition a poor one——”
“Kate, did you say?—Kate, uncle,” said she, raising her head, with a look of abstraction.
“Yes, my dear, I was speaking o' some of the dangers that beset the first steps in political opinion, and telling Herbert that peril does not always bring honour.”
“True, sir—true: but Mark——” She stopped, and the blush that covered her face suffused her neck and shoulders. It was not till her lips pronounced the name, that she detected how inadvertently she had revealed the secret of her own musings.
“Mark, my sweet Kate is, I trust, in no need of my warnings; he lives apart from the struggle, and were it otherwise, he is older, and more able to form his opinions than Herbert, here.”
These words were spoken calmly, and with a studious desire to avoid increasing Kate's confusion.
“What about Mark?” cried the O'Donoghue, suddenly aroused by the mention of the name. “It's very strange he should not be here to say 'good-bye' to Kate. Did any one tell him of the time fixed for your departure?”
“I told him of it, and he has promised to be here,” said Herbert; “he was going to Beerhaven for a day or two, for the shooting; but, droll enough, he has left his gun behind him.”
“The boy's not himself at all, latterly,” muttered the old man. “Lanty brought up two horses here the other day, and he would not even go to the door to look at them. I don't know what he's thinking of.”
Kate never spoke, and tried with a great effort to maintain a look of calm unconcern; when, with that strange instinct so indescribable and so inexplicable, she felt Sir Archy's eyes fixed upon her, her cheek became deadly pale.