in every man.... He wondered, but never asked, and, by dint of hard
work and a resolute cleansing of his mind, kept the thing at bay.

The summer was a singularly perfect one, and the contrast between its
emptiness and that time only a year ago when he came down from London
and was expecting Blanche to follow, pricked him at every turn. He felt
convinced he no longer cared for Blanche; he was regaining interest in
the world without, but she had left this legacy of reaction behind her.
He told himself that this too must be borne with, but all the time his
youth and natural disposition to get all that was possible out of life
were preparing him for fresh enterprise. He could no longer be happy
over nothing but the sheer joy of life, yet simple pleasures began to
appeal to him once more, as Boase noted thankfully. The daily
expectation, that absurd delicious hope, that "something" would happen,
had not yet deserted him, and once again he began to live on it.

One day there arrived a letter from Vassie--a letter written in
superlatives, a letter that made Ishmael and John-James both feel relief
in their different ways and that made the Parson very glad. Vassie had
achieved her end, the great end of mid-Victorian womanhood, and more
vital to her even than most--she was engaged to be married, and to a man
whose social position seemed, as far as her judgment could be trusted,
satisfactory. Mr. Daniel O'Connell Flynn was, according to Vassie, more
than she could have dared hope for, and if she said little as to any
personal feelings for him, Ishmael knew how unimportant that would be to
her compared with the satisfaction of her ambitions. For, as his name
denoted, he was engaged in politics--an Irish-Canadian, a Free Trader, a
Home Ruler, perhaps even a Chartist, for all Vassie said to the
contrary. The third Derby Ministry was in power, and Mr. Flynn was for
the time agitating in the Opposition; but at least he was a member of