e through the town, sent you two good Whig men to Parliament to sit at Reform banquets; two unswerving party men, blest subscribers to the right Review, and personally

a wondrous sharp knife, and stuck and bled them, proving to his party, by trenchancy alone, that the Whig was the cause of Providence. Then politics presented y

erable Quotation, and call the aged creatur

tween a sig

t respectable words, the buri

ng treason to the Constitution; leaning on the people in earnest, instead of taking the popular shoulder for a temporary lift, all in high party policy, for the clever manoeuvre, to oust the Tory and sway the realm. See the consequences. For power, for no other consideration, tho

ough we admit party to be the soundest method for conducting us, party talk soon expends its attractiveness, as would a summer's afternoon given up to the contemplation of an encounter of rams' heads. Let us be quit of Mr. Grancey Lespel's lamentations. The Whig gentleman had some reason to complain. He had been trained to expect no other attack than th

s of wines. Her husband seemed to have lost in that Parliamentary seat the talisman which gave him notions distinguishing him from country squires; he had sunk, and he no longer cared for the months in London, nor for the speeches she read to him to re-awaken his mind and make him look out of himself, as he had done when he was a younger man and not a suspend

p occurred a few hours a

hin

fore, and she tasted the strange bitter relish of realization when it struck her

rave judicial spirit of her countrywomen, and could sit in judgement on the personages of tales which had entranced her, to condemn the heroines: it was impolitic in her sex to pity females. As fo

but we have agreed that we are deadly

for a beginning,

disposed to

an nodded. 'W

onversations with him have made me uncomfortable ever since; I can see nothing durable; I dream of surprises, outbreaks, dreadful events. At least it is perfectly true that I do not look with the same eyes on

ursday morning for his canvass; our driving into Bevisham is for Friday or Saturday. I do not see that he need have any suspicions. Those verses you are so angry about cannot be traced to Itchincope. My dear, they are a childish trifle. When my husband sto

suggested, remembering her father's w

ay be other things-another address, though it is not yet, placarded. Come with me. For fifteen

ale reek of tobacco assailed the ladies, as does that dire place o

m) a globe of a pill to swallow, crossed with the consolatory and reassuring name of Shrapnel, they disposed of likewise. And then they fled, chased forth either by the brilliancy of the politically allusive epigrams profusely inscribed around them on the walls, or by the atmosphere. Mrs. Lespel gave her orders for the walls to be scraped, and said to Cecilia: 'A strange air to breathe, was it not? The less men and women know of o

n, not anticipating extreme amusement, were calm: for it is an axiom in the world of buckskins and billiard-cues, that one man is very like another; and so true is it with them, that they can in time teach it to t

l to Mrs. Wardour-Devsreux and Miss Halkett, bowed to other ladies, shook hands with two or three men, and nodded over the heads of half-a

been canvassing ha

and Palmet looked from face to face, equ

id Mrs. Lespel; and her husband cri

calism,' Palmet murmured to h

ulbrett asked him; and several gentlemen

d over a mouth

Bevisham. The only chance there is for five

d he tells them,' Palmet mimicked Beauchamp, 'they shall not have one penny: not a farthing. I g

running over the under-lids, after the traditional style of our aristocracy; but perhaps more closely resembling an urchin on tiptoe peering above park-palings. Cougham's remark to Beauchamp, heard and repeated by Palmet with the object of giving an example of the senior Liberal's phraseology: 'I was necessitated to

shouts of the gentlemen were subsiding, 'do yo

ey flock to him

, then, and jing

an Irishman. I went to a meeting last night, and heard him; never heard anything finer in my life. You may laugh he whipped me off my legs; fellow spun me like a top; and while he was

a Dutchman or a Torbay trawler,' said S

mured anxiously to Mrs. Lespel

. Shot-Shrapnel! a wonderfully good-looking, clever-looking girl, comes across him in half- a-dozen streets to ask how he's getting on, and goes every night to his meetings, wit

evisham?' Mrs. Wardo

ally doctor and a bobtail of tea-drinking men and women and thei

quired Mr.

ake the liberty to step over my bank into my plantatio

I'm sure of the man's

rdour-D

he year before last,'

Palmet that her hu

what's the grand procession? I hear my man Davis has come all right, and I caught s

he table generally. He was a fair, huge, bush-bearded man, with a voice of unvarying bass: a squire in

well, but where do we drive the team

hurried glance

that it passed for humour, and gave Mrs. Lespel time to

aise for it. He asked, 'Why not know till to-morrow?' A word in a murmur from Mr. Culbrett,

sted the necessity for secresy, but yielded to her judgement when it was backed by Stukely Culbrett. Soon after Lord Palmet found himself encountered by evasio

Mr. Devereux, thinking him the likeli

d from the depths

autiful brunette and her lord-his addiction to the pipe

kett were walkin

g of you to betray the secrets of y

the poll to a certa

rget that you are not in the house of a Libera

e you, Miss Halkett,

ey're in lov

them everythi

the Radicals yell at him. One confessed he had sold his vote for five pounds last election: "you shall have it for the same," says he, "for you're

right, then!' Cecil

ed from Palmet, after warning the latter not, in commo

Lydiard as Captain Bea

inquire

the greatest trouble to remember them all; but it was not a day wasted. Now I know politics.

ain Beauchamp to me

g him? Nevil Beaucham

smiled with

ss, the Tory lawyer, stepped quickly up to Palmet, and

r's business, and of the social rule to accept rich brewers for gentlemen. The man's name might be Dollikins and not Tomlinson, and if so,

to me this morning, if he's not driving into the town. I'll have him before Beauchamp sees h

'if they are men to be persuad

pporters, and mightn't l

l ass

ted him on the heartine

y c

tle, and told him not t

ory?' sai

declined

t worth speaking to upon politics. Now I'll giv

ptain Beauchamp's man

hear Nevil himself in his emphatic political mood. 'Because the Whigs are defunct! They had no root in the people! Wh

se into your head?' Mr. Lespel re

up his ears; but he was taken out riding to

eir insignificance and helplessness. I begin to fear for Mr. Austin; and I find I can do nothing to aid him. M

he chasing away of melancholy, and as they were on the Bevisham high road, which was bordered by strips of turf

that opal where the sun should be has a suggestiveness richer than sunlight. I'm quite northern enough to understand it; but with me it must be either peace or strif

? I am not sure that I know what it

ad, not alone. A man, increasing in length like a telescope gradually reaching its end for observation, and coming to t

a said

the other fellow, the Denham-Shrapnel-Radical m

rs. Devereux remarked, and

hat. Palmet made demonstrations for the

ng, Cecilia prop

he lead,' she said, and started forward, pursued

wnward. Lydiard held Beauchamp by the hand. Some last words, after the man

eux wants to hear who that ma

hamp, convinced that Cecilia had check

Palmet informe

champ's admiring salutation with a little bow and smil

served Palmet, to jog

ets, yo

a pamphleteer', M

ng guess he had made at Miss Halkett's reluctance to come up to him when Dr. Shrapnel was with him had preoccupied his mind.

Dr. Shrapnel', she was

l recognize him,

ty of introducing him, he is no true Radical. He is a philosopher-one o

e. It was really the Mr. Lydiard Mrs. Devereux had met in Spain, so they were left in the rear to discuss their travels. Much convers

hope he was getting to be one of them again, until she heard him tell Lord Palmet that he had come early out of Bevisham for

He shouted, 'Yes, Dollikins! to be sure. Lespel has him to lunch to-day;-calls him a gentleman- tradesman; odd fish! and told a fellow called-where is it now?-a name like bras

state of confusion, Lo

admonishment was unpe

'm for fair play all r

just as I told you thi

ike is Lespel

vereux, and saying to Beauchamp, 'If your friend would return

p, that he might conduct Mr. Lydiard to the station, and perhaps hear a word of Miss Denham: at any rate be able to form a guess as to the