Kennedy."
"And papa has told me. I still see papa almost every day. You must
call upon him. Mind you do." Phineas said that he certainly would.
"Papa is very lonely now, and I sometimes feel that I have been
almost cruel in deserting him. And I think that he has a horror of
the house,--especially later in the year,--always fancying that he
will meet Oswald. I am so unhappy about it all, Mr. Finn."
"Why doesn't your brother marry?" said Phineas, knowing nothing as
yet of Lord Chiltern and Violet Effingham. "If he were to marry well,
that would bring your father round."
"Yes,--it would."
"And why should he not?"
Lady Laura paused before she answered; and then she told the whole
story. "He is violently in love, and the girl he loves has refused
him twice."
"Is it with Miss Effingham?" asked Phineas, guessing the truth at
once, and remembering what Miss Effingham had said to him when riding
in the wood.
"Yes;--with Violet Effingham; my father's pet, his favourite, whom he
loves next to myself,--almost as well as myself; whom he would really
welcome as a daughter. He would gladly make her mistress of his
house, and of Saulsby. Everything would then go smoothly."
"But she does not like Lord Chiltern?"
"I believe she loves him in her heart; but she is afraid of him.
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