"I knew it was a duel; -- bedad I did," said Laurence Fitzgibbon, standing at the corner of Orchard Street and Oxford Street, when Phineas had half told his story. "I was sure of it from the tone of your voice, my boy. We mustn't let it come off, that's all; -- not if we can help it." Then Phineas was allowed to proceed and finish his story. "I don't see any way out of it; I don't, indeed," said Laurence.

Volume II of the engrossing Phineas Finn opens with a duel and then plunges immediately back into the fascinating and complex world of Victorian British Parliamentary politics.

Would the maturing young Irishman Phineas Finn marry the very English Lady Laura Standish? Or would he chose to return to Ireland and marry his childhood sweetheart, Mary Jones. And would there be a fox hunt on the way?

The journey to the answers herein is rich with the kind of reading pleasure that only the delightful novels of Anthony Trollope can provide.