‘How is your head now?’ asked Mr. Kendal. ‘You are late this evening.’
‘Yes,’ said Ulick, entering the drawing-room, which was ruddy with firelight, and fragrant with the breath of the conservatory, and leaning over an arm-chair, as he tried to rub the aching out of his brow; ‘there were some accounts to finish up and my additions came out different every time.’
‘A sure sign that you ought to have left off.’
‘I was just going to have told my uncle I was good for nothing to-day, when I heard old Johns mumbling something to him about Mr. More being unwell, and looking up, I saw that cold grey eye twinkling at me, as much as to say he was proud to see how soon an Irishman could be beaten. So what could I do but give him look for look, and go on with eight and seven, and five and two, as unconcerned as he was.’
‘Well,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘you know I think that your uncle’s apparent indifference may be his fashion of being your best friend.’
‘I’d take it like sunshine in May from a stranger, and be proud to disappoint him,’ said Ulick, ‘but to call himself my uncle, and use my mother’s own eyes to look at me that way, that’s the stroke! and to think that I’m only striving to harden myself by force of habit to be exactly like him! I’d rather enlist to-morrow, if that would not be his greatest triumph!’ he cried, pressing his hands hard on his temple. ‘It is very childish, but I could forgive him anything but using my mother’s eyes that way!’
‘You will yet rejoice in the likeness,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘You must believe in more than you can trace, and when your perseverance has conquered his esteem, the rest will follow.’
‘Follow? The rest, as you call it, would go before at home,’ sighed Ulick, wearily. ‘Esteem is like fame! what I want begins without it, and lives as well with or without it!’
‘Perhaps,’ said his friend, ‘Mr. Goldsmith would think it weakness to show preference to a relation before it was earned.’
‘Ah then,’ cried Ulick, in a quaint Irish tone, ‘Heaven have mercy on the little children!’