I ask you to come to me, not as a pleasure, but as a Christian duty.
Yours truly, ROBERT KENNEDY.
Phineas Finn, Esq.
As soon as he had read the letter Phineas felt that he had no alternative but to go.

The visit would be very disagreeable, but it must be made.

So he sent a line to Robert Kennedy naming a day; and wrote another to Lady Laura postponing his time at Dresden by a week, and explaining the cause of its postponement.

As soon as the debate on the Address was over he started for Loughlinter.
A thousand memories crowded on his brain as he made the journey.
Various circumstances had in his early life,--in that period of his life which had lately seemed to be cut off from the remainder of his days by so clear a line,--thrown him into close connection with this man, and with the man's wife.

He had first gone to Loughlinter, not as Lady Laura's guest,--for Lady Laura had not then been married, or even engaged to be married,--but on her persuasion rather than on that of Mr.Kennedy.When there he had asked Lady Laura to be his own wife, and she had then told him that she was to become the wife of the owner of that domain.