Mr. Hogarth’s Will by Catherine Helen Spence (page 5)

battling with the world alone and unprotected, and doing always the right thing at the right time, and in the right way–and truly she has her reward. Those orphan children will rise up and call her blessed, and if she has no husband to do it, her own works will praise her in the gates.”

“I did not think that you knew as much of your Bible as to be able to make so long a quotation,” said Miss Phillips, who could not understand or sympathize with Brandon’s enthusiasm; but Elsie fully appreciated this generous and well-deserved tribute to Peggy’s character. She saw now that she had been too rash in her rejection of her only lover. It was only now that she had lost him for ever that she had discovered the real goodness of his character; but she was pleased, very much pleased to find out that Peggy’s conduct had been understood and admired by Mr. Brandon, and had done him such excellent service. To think him worthy was delightful, even though she should never see anything more of him henceforward. The colour rose to her cheek and the lustre to her eye, and when Brandon’s glance met her bright face, he could not help confessing that she was very pretty, let the Phillipses say what they pleased, and the idea of having a little conversation with her in the evening was much more agreeable to him than Harriett would have at all approved of.

Chapter VIII.

Francis Makes A Favourable Impression On Harriett Phillips

With all Harriett Phillips’s success in society she had never had much admiration from the other sex. This she did not attribute so much to anything as to her own superiority; it really wanted a great deal of courage for an average mortal to propose to her. Her unconscious egotism had something rather grand in it; it was rarely obtrusive, but it was always there. Her mind was naturally a vigorous one, but it had moved in a narrow channel, and whatever was out of her own groove, she ignored. She appreciated whatever Jane Melville knew that she was herself acquainted with, but whatever she–Harriett Phillips–was ignorant of, must be valueless. Now a comfortable opinion of oneself is not at all a disagreeable thing for the possessor, and kept within due bounds it is also a pleasant thing to one’s friends and acquaintances. Brandon had been disposed to take Harriett Phillips at her own valuation, and to consider her very superior to himself in many things; while she liked him, for his attentions gave her importance; and though he wearied her sometimes, she could make up her mind to pass her life with him without any feeling of its being a great sacrifice. But he must stay in England; all his talk of returning to Victoria was only talk; her influence would be quite sufficient to induce him to do that. Though her heart was, in this lukewarm way, given to Mr. Brandon, she had a great curiosity to see this Mr. Hogarth, whom Brandon had called, in his rather vulgar colonial phraseology, “just her sort”. She laid herself out to please the new comer; and Brandon was disposed to take offence–and did so. The events of the morning had made an impression on him; but if she had possessed the tact which sympathy and imagination alone can give, she might have appeased him, and brought him back to his allegiance. She did not guess where the shoe pinched, and she still further estranged the lover she had been secure of. She was charmed at the idea of making him a little jealous; it was the first opportunity she had ever had of flirting with another person in his presence, and the flirtation was carried on in such a sensible way that there was not a word said he had a right to be offended with. She only talked of things about which Brandon knew very little, and Mr. Hogarth a great deal, and she thought she was convincing both gentlemen of her great conversational powers. It was really time Brandon should be brought to the point, and this was the way to do it. While Brandon felt the chains not of love, but of habit, dropping off him, and wished that Elsie Melville was beside him, and not sitting between her cousin and another Australian, who was talking to her vigorously on his favourite subject of spirit-rapping and table-turning, and she was listening so patiently, and making little smart speeches–he could tell quite well by the expression of her eyes, though he could not hear the low sweet voice distinctly enough to tell exactly what she said. He recollected the party at Mrs. Rennie’s, and how pleasant her voice was; and felt Harriett Phillips’s was not at all musical, at least, when she was talking about the fine arts and tomorrow’s exhibition to Mr. Hogarth; while Francis wondered at any one presuming to have so much to say while his cousin Jane was in the room.

“Now, as to table-turning, Mr. Dempster,” said Harriett, who fancied she saw Brandon’s eyes directed to that side of the table a little too often, “you will never convince me there is an atom of truth in it. I am quite satisfied with Faraday’s explanation. You may think you have higher authority, but I bow to Faraday.”

“Faraday’s explanation is most insufficient and most unsatisfactory; it cannot account for things I have seen with my own eyes,” said Mr. Dempster.

“But to what do all these manifestations tend?” asked Jane. “Of what value are the revelations you receive from the so-called spiritual world?”

“Of infinite value to me,” said Mr. Dempster, “I have had my faith strengthened, and my sorrows comforted. We do want to know more of our departed friends–to have more assurance of their continued existence, and of their continued identity than we have without spiritualism. I always believed that nothing was lost in the divine economy; that as matter only decayed to give way to new powers of life, so spirit must only leave the material form it inhabits to be active in a new sphere, or to be merged in the One Infinite Intelligence. But this is merely an analogy–a strong one, but only an analogy, which cannot prove a fact.”

“But, Mr. Dempster, I think we have quite sufficient grounds for believing in immortality from revelation. In scientific matters, I bow to Faraday, as I said before; in religious matters, I would not go any further than the Bible. But if that does not satisfy you, of course you must inquire of chairs and tables,” said Miss Phillips, with a condescending irony, which she thought very cutting.

“The Bible is indistinct and indefinite as to the future state–so much so that theologians differ on the possibilities of recognition in heaven,” said Mr. Dempster. “Now, eternal existence without complete identity is not to me desirable. That our beloved ones no longer have the warm personal interest in us which they felt in life–that they are perhaps merged in the perfection of God, or undergoing transmigration out of one form of intelligence to another, without any recollection of what happened in a former state, is not consoling to the yearning human heart that never can forget, and with all the sufferings which memory may bring, would not lose the saddest memory of love for worlds. This assurance of continued identity is what I find in spiritualism; and it meets the wants of my soul.”

“What extraordinary heathenish ideas!” said Miss Phillips, who in her Derbyshire retreat had never heard anything of pantheism, or of this doctrine of metempsychosis as being entertained by sane Englishmen. “If you have such notions, I do not wonder at your flying to anything; for my part, I have never been troubled with doubts.”

“The Bible is, I think, purposely indistinct on the subject of the future life,” said Elsie. “Each soul imagines a heaven for itself, different in some degree from that of any other soul; but to me memory and identity are so necessary to the idea of continued existence that I cannot conceive of a heaven without it.”

“I do not know,” said Mr. Dempster, shaking his head. “Till I saw these wonderful manifestations, I had no clear or satisfactory feeling of it, and now I have. The evidence is first hand from the departed spirits themselves, and their revelations are consistent with our highest ideas of the goodness of God, and of the eternal nature of love.”

“‘That which is seen is not faith,’ St. Paul says, and the very minuteness of your information would lead me to doubt its genuineness,” said Francis. “I do not think it was intended that we should have such assurance; but that we should have a large faith in a God who will do well for us hereafter as he has done well for us here. But though I may not feel the need of such assurance, I do not deny that others may. There is much that is very remarkable about these spiritual manifestations;–whether it is mesmerism, or delusion, or positive fraud, I think it is a remarkable instance of the questioning spirit of the day, unsatisfied with old creeds and desirous of reconstructing some new belief.”

“I should like you to come to a seance” said Mr. Dempster, glad to find some one who was disposed to inquire on the subject. He had only recently become a convert, and was very anxious to induce others to think with him. “I am quite sure that you will see something that will impress you with the reality of the manifestations.”

“I should like to go too,” said Mrs. Phillips.

“I certainly should not,” said Harriett. “I think these things are quite wicked,”

“These questions have never given me any trouble,” said Mr. Phillips, “and to my mind, Mr. Dempster, the revelations, such as I have heard at least, are very puerile and contemptible; but that there must be a singular excitement attending even an imaginary conversation with the dead I can easily believe, and I do not care for exposing myself to it.”

“Nor I,” said Brandon; “as Miss Alice says, I have got my own idea of heaven, and I am satisfied with it. I think we are not intended to know all the particulars.”

Why did Brandon, in giving no original opinion of his own (poor fellow, he was incapable of that), give Elsie’s argument in preference to hers? Miss Phillips felt still more inclined to be agreeable to Mr. Hogarth from this slight to herself, and began to think that an inquiring spirit, in a man at least, was more admirable than Brandon’s lazy satisfaction with things as they are at present.

Mr. Dempster’s eagerness after a possible convert was only to be satisfied by Francis making an appointment with him to attend a seance on the following evening in his own house. And then the conversation changed to politics–English, foreign, and colonial–in which Francis and his cousins were much interested.

Mr. Dempster was rather an elderly man, who had lost his wife and all his family, with the exception of one daughter, who was married and settled in South Australia. Though so enthusiastic a believer in spiritualism, he was a very shrewd and well-informed man in mundane matters. He had been a very old colonist on the Adelaide side; and, having been a townsman, had taken a more active part in politics than the Victorian squatters, Phillips and Brandon. They were all in the full tide of talk about the advantages and disadvantages of giving to their infant States constitutional government, and allowing each colony to frame its constitution for itself. The good and evil effects of manhood suffrage and vote by ballot Francis for the first time heard discussed by people who had lived under these systems, and English, French, and American blunders in the science of politics looked at from a new and independent point of view. At what Jane and Elsie considered the most interesting part of the conversation, Mrs. Phillips and Harriett, who cared for none of these subjects, gave the signal for the ladies to withdraw, so they had to leave with them.

Jane saw the children to bed, and Elsie got on with Mrs. Phillips’s bonnet, while the gentlemen remained in the dining room; but both reappeared in the drawing-room by the time they came upstairs. Elsie did not like to disappoint any one, and the idea struck her that if she got up very early in the morning, and things went all well with her, she could finish Harriett’s bonnet also in time, for really Mrs. Phillips’s new one would make her sister-in-law’s look very shabby. It was the first new bonnet she had been trusted to make since she came; she had had CARTE BLANCHE for the materials, and had pleased herself with the style, and Elsie believed it would be her CHEF-D’OEUVRE. The idea of giving Miss Phillips such an unexpected pleasure made her feel quite kindly disposed towards her, though the feeling was not reciprocated, for as Harriett did not know of Elsie’s intentions, she could not be supposed to be grateful for them; but, on the contrary, she felt a grudge at her for enjoying herself in this way at the expense of her bonnet. Harriett Phillips played and sang very well; her father was fond of music, and that taste had been very well cultivated for her time and opportunities, and she had kept up with all the modern music very meritoriously. Perhaps it was this, more than anything else, that had made her Dr. Phillips’s favourite daughter, for in all other things Georgiana was more self-forgetful and more sympathising. Stanley, too, admired his sister’s accomplishment; he had missed the delightful little family concerts and the glee-singing that he had left for his bush life, and if it could have been possible for his wife to acquire music it would certainly have been a boon to him; but as she had no ear and no taste, even he saw that it was impracticable; but Emily was to be an accomplished musician. She did not go to bed with the little ones, but sat up to play her two little airs to her papa’s friends–to teach her confidence, Mrs. Phillips said, but, in reality, to give her a little spur to application.

“As for Emily needing confidence,” whispered Brandon to Alice Melville, “that is a splendid absurdity. These colonial children do not know what bashfulness or timidity means–not but what I am very fond of all the Phillipses, and Emily is my favourite.”

“She is mine, too,” said Elsie; “she is an affectionate and an original child, with quick perceptions and quick feelings. I believe she is very fond of me; I like little people to be fond of me.”

“Not big people, too?” said Brandon, with an expression half comic, half sad.

Elsie blushed. Emily came up to her dear friend, Mr. Brandon, and her favourite, Alice. “Aunt Harriett is going to play and sing now, and after that, Alice, you must sing. I like your songs better than Aunt Harriett’s twenty times, because I can hear all your words.”

“I cannot sing,” said Elsie, “I never had a lesson in either music or singing in my life.”

“Oh! but you sing very nicely; indeed she does, Mr. Brandon: and there is not a thing that happens that she cannot turn into a song or a poem, just like what there is in books, and you would think it very pretty if you only heard them. We get her to bring her work into our nursery in the evenings, and there we have stories and songs from her.”

“You are in luck,” said Mr. Brandon; “but now that you have told us of Miss Alice Melville’s accomplishments, we must be made to share in your good fortune.”

“No, indeed,” said Elsie; “as Burns says, ‘crooning to a body’s sel’ does weel eneugh;’ but my crooning is not fit for company, except that of uncritical children.”

“You know I am as uncritical as the veriest child,” said Brandon. “I must have given you a very erroneous impression of my character, if you can feel the least awe of me; but I recollect your twisting a very innocent speech of mine, the first evening I had the pleasure of meeting you, into something very severe. That was rather ill natured.”

“Alice is not ill-natured at all,” said Emily. “Aunt Harriett sometimes is. She is looking cross at me now for talking while she is singing.”

“It is very rude in all of us,” said Elsie, composing herself to give attention to Miss Phillips’s song.

“I tell you what, you dear old boy,” whispered Emily. “I don’t think Alice will sing here, or tell you any of her lovely stories; but I will smuggle you into the nursery some day, and you will just have a treat.”

“What have I done since I came to England,” said Brandon in the same undertone, “that I should have been banished in this cruel way from the nursery? Did you ever refuse me admission at Wiriwilta–did not I kiss every one of you in your little nightclothes, and see you tucked into bed? If I was worthy of that honour then, why am I debarred from it now?”

“You saved our lives, papa says–you and Peggy–and so we always liked you; and, for my part, I like you as well as ever I did now; but we are in England now, and it is so different from Wiriwilta–dear old Wiriwilta, I wish I was back to it. I wish papa was not so rich, for then we would go back again; but it’s no use as long as he has got enough of money to stay here. The letters that came the other day–you recollect.”

“I got none,” said Brandon; “I suppose mine are sent by Southampton.”

“Well, I don’t think they had good news, or papa’s face looked rather long, and he has been so quiet and dull ever since; so I am in hopes that things are not going very well without him, and then we will have another beautiful long voyage with you, and get back to dear, darling Australia again. Harriett wants to go back too.”

“What a chatterbox you are, Emily,” said her aunt, who had finished her song. “It is quite time you were in bed.”

“Not quite, auntie; papa said I might sit up till ten tonight; and Mr. Brandon and I are so busy talking about old times, that I do not feel it a bit late.”

“Old times, indeed,” said Harriett; “what old times can a little chit like you find to talk of?”

“Oh, the dear old times at Wiriwilta, when we were such friends; and, the time that I cannot recollect of when there was the fire, and Peggy and this old fellow saved our lives. I wish I could remember about it–mamma does, though.”

“Indeed I do,” said Mrs. Phillips, with a tranquil expression of satisfaction at the thought of the danger she had escaped. “We was all in terrible danger, and all through that horrid doctor. Stanley should have let me have my own way, and taken me to Melbourne; but he would not listen to reason.”

“Well, Lily, you are none of the worse now, and I hope you do not feel it burdensome to be so much obliged to our old friend Brandon.”

“Oh no, not at all.”

“You need not be,” said he, laughing; “don’t attempt to make a hero of me: a mere neighbourly good turn happened to have important consequences. Peggy’s conduct was far beyond mine.”

“But you were badly scorched,” said Emily. “Do let us see the scar on your arm once more–I have not seen it in England.” Brandon indulged the child; turned up his sleeve, and Emily gave the arm a hug and a kiss.

This was rather a strange exhibition for a drawing-room, Harriett Phillips thought, but Brandon never was much of a gentleman. Even Stanley had sadly fallen back in his manners in Australia, and what could be expected of Brandon? Mr. Hogarth had more taste; he had the dignified reserve of a man of birth and fortune; he had made remarks on her musical performance that showed he was really a judge. It was not often that she had met with any man so variously accomplished, or so perfectly well bred. He had promised to accompany them to the exhibition of paintings on the morrow, and she had great pleasure in anticipating his society, if it were not for the thought of her bonnet.

Chapter IX.

A Bonnet Gained And A Lover Lost

“My letters have come at last,” said Brandon, next morning, as he joined his friends at breakfast. “My overseer, I suppose, wanted to show his economy, and posted them by the Southampton mail, which does not suit me at all. I would rather do without my dinner on mail-day than have my letters delayed for nearly a week. And now there is bad news for me, I must leave by the first ship. Had I got my letters when you received yours, I should have gone by the mail steamer and saved a month, but I cannot possibly manage to get off so soon.”

“Oh! Mr. Brandon,” said Mrs. Phillips, calmly, “there surely is no such need for hurry.”

“Everything is going to the dogs at my station. I will probably have to buy land at a high price; and there appears to have been great mismanagement, from the accounts I hear. Another six months like the last and I will be a ruined man. It is very hard that one cannot take a short holiday without suffering so grievously for it. What were your accounts, Phillips; I think you said they were rather unsatisfactory?”

“Not very good, certainly; but not so bad as that comes to. You will look to Wiriwilta a little when you return, and send me your opinion. I had better entrust you with full powers to act for me, for I should prefer you as my attorney to Grant.”

“I hope he will not be offended at the transfer,” said Brandon.

“Oh! I think not; he took it very reluctantly, for he said his own affairs were enough for him.”

“And perhaps a little more than enough,” said Brandon, with a smile. “In that case I will be very glad to do all in my power for you.”

“I have no wish to return to Australia,” said Mr. Phillips, “if I can possibly afford to live here. With a family like mine, England offers so many advantages. In fact, there is only one place in the world worth living in, and that is London.”

“Very true, if you have enough to live on,” said Brandon, shrugging his shoulders. “I must go now to work as hard as ever to get things set to rights again, and perhaps in another dozen of years, when I am feeble, old, and grey, I may return and spend the poor remnant of my days in this delightful centre of civilization. But with me, fortunately, there are only the two alternatives, either London or the bush of Australia–there is no middle course of life desirable. If I cannot attain the one, I must make the best of the other.”

Harriett Phillips listened to all this, and believed that matters were much worse with Brandon than they really were. She had no fancy for a twelve years’ banishment from England, nor for a rough life in the bush. Mr. Brandon had been represented to her as a thriving settler who had made money. She saw the very comfortable style in which her brother lived, and she had no objection to such an establishment for herself; but she was not so particularly fond of Mr. Brandon as to accept for his sake a life so very different and so very much inferior. She felt that she had been deceived, and she did not like being deceived, or mistaken, and she still less liked to make mistakes; and instead of blaming herself, she was angry with everyone else–her brother, her sister-in-law, Brandon himself–for leading her to believe that his circumstances were so much better than they were. Of course, he would ask her–he could not help doing so; but as to accepting him–that was quite a different question.

She had put on her old bonnet with a grudge at Elsie; and when Mrs. Phillips appeared in the drawing-room ready for the party to the exhibition in all the splendour of her new one, which really looked lovely, and she lovely in it, and Harriett caught the reflection of both figures in the large mirror, she felt still more dissatisfied with everybody than she had done before. The gentlemen were ready, and they were just about to start, when a light quick step came to the door, and a little tap was heard.

Harriett opened it, and was delighted to see Elsie holding in her hand the second bonnet completed–equally beautiful, equally tasteful, and apparently quite as expensive.

“Oh, Alice, how good of you! What a love of a bonnet! Come in and see Mr. Hogarth. Look, Mrs. Phillips–look at Alice’s clever handiwork.”

And Alice was introduced a little unwillingly into the drawing room to be complimented on her taste and her despatch, and to shake hands with the two gentlemen. Miss Phillips was too much engrossed with her bonnet, and with the improvement it would make in her appearance, to observe the earnest, anxious looks of her two fancied admirers, as they greeted her sister’s lady’smaid; or that they looked with interest and concern on her tired face, which, though now a little flushed with excitement, bore to those who knew the circumstances traces of having been up very late and very early over her work.

“I knew she could do it,” Harriett whispered to Mr. Brandon, when Alice left the room; “she is so excessively quick. I never would have said so much about it yesterday, if I had not known she could easily do it; and does not mine look as well as Mrs. Phillips’s? I said it would.” And so she accepted Mr. Hogarth’s arm, and went to see the pictures with a better judge than Brandon, in all the triumph of her new bonnet–the lightest, the most becoming she had ever had in her life: but her influence with Walter Brandon was lost for ever. He wished he had had Jane Melville, with her good common sense, or Elsie, with her sweet voice and winning ways, hanging on his arm instead of Mrs. Phillips, who was very uninteresting to him, though her great beauty and excellent style of dress made her an object of interest to other people, and who always enjoyed being well stared at in public places. But Jane was engaged with her pupils at this time, and Elsie was always kept very busy, so that neither of them could accompany the party, and Francis Hogarth felt disappointed, for he had anticipated the society of one or both of them.

How curiously the egotist, who fancies every one is engrossed with him or with her, would be disappointed if he or she could see the real thoughts of the people about them.. How Harriett Phillips would have started if she could have read the hearts of Hogarth and Brandon, and seen what a very infinitesimal share she had in either.

Francis was only impelled to pay attention to Miss Phillips by his natural sense of politeness, and by the wish to make the situation of his cousins in the family pleasant, as far as it lay in his power to do so; while Brandon, who had at last struck the key-note of Harriett’s character, was astonished to find new proofs of her selfishness and egotism peeping out in the most trifling circumstances. He observed how different her manner was towards him, now that a man of property in the old country had appeared in the circle of her acquaintances, and he could not fail to see that an additional coldness had come over her when his circumstances were supposed to be less flourishing, and this made him rather disposed to make the most and the worst of his bad news.

In Derbyshire, where she had her own established place in the household, and where her father and her sister Georgiana gave way to her so much, she had appeared more amiable than she did now. The armed neutrality which she maintained with her sister-in-law had amused Brandon at first, but now it appeared to him to be unladylike and ungraceful to accept of hospitality in her brother’s house without any gratitude or any forbearance. He began to question the reality of her very great superiority over Mrs. Phillips; with all her advantages of education and society she ought to have shown more gentleness and affection both to her brother’s wife and his children. He analysed, as he had never done before, her expressions, and weighed her opinions, and found they generally had more sound than sense; and her habitual assumption that she knew everything much better than other people, became tiresome when he did not believe in her superiority.

He began, too, to contrast the charm of a face, when the colour went and came with every emotion, with that of one so unimpressible as Harriett Phillips’s–whose self-possession was nearly as different from that of Jane Melville as it was from the timidity and diffidence of Elsie. Jane’s calmness was the result of a strong will mastering the strong emotions which she really felt, and not in the absence of any powerful feeling or emotion whatever. Brandon had learned to like Jane better as he knew more of her, and rather enjoyed being preached to by one who could practise as well as preach. He felt that if she was superior to him she did not look down on him; and she certainly had the power of making him speak well, and of bringing out the very large amount of real useful practical knowledge that he had acquired in his Australian life. Her eagerness to hear everything about Australia and Australians certainly was in pleasing contrast to Miss Phillips’s distaste for all things and people colonial; but above all, Miss Phillips’s want of consideration for Alice Melville had weaned Mr. Brandon’s heart from her. It was not merely unladylike; it was unwomanly. He could not love a wife who had so little sympathy and so little generosity.

Chapter X.

A Seance

Francis Hogarth did not forget his promise to Mr. Dempster, and went to his house at the hour appointed, to be witness of the seance. A number of his friends and fellow-converts were there, and the proceedings of the evening were opened by a short and earnest prayer that none but good spirits should be permitted to be present, and that all the communications they might be permitted to hear might be blessed to the souls of all of them.

The medium was a thin, nervous-looking youth of about nineteen; but, as Mr. Dempster assured Mr. Hogarth, was in every way to be trusted, as his character was irreproachable, and of great sincerity and simplicity. Francis was very incredulous as to the appearances being caused by spiritual agency, and though he could give no satisfactory explanation of the extraordinary movements of tables, easy chairs, sofas, &c., he felt that these things were very undignified and absurd, as every unbeliever always feels at first; but the eagerness of the large party who were gathered together had something infectious in it. Many of them had known severe bereavement–many of them had been tossed on the dark sea of doubt and despondency–and the brief messages communicated by raps, or by the voice of the medium, gave them consolation and hope.

To Francis, the details communicated appeared to be meagre and unsatisfactory. The spirits all said that they were happy, which to some present was a fact of inestimable value, but to him it was a matter of course. He never had believed, since he had thought out the subject in early manhood, that God would continue existence if He did not make it a blessing. But to others who, like many before him, had intelligently accepted of a sterner theology, and who had been struggling through years of chaotic doubts and fancies for footing on which to rest, he saw that these assurances gave real strength and support. An hour had passed amidst these manifestations–the interest of the believers continued to be unflagging, but Francis felt a little tired of it. He had lost no dear friend by death. The future world had not the intense personal interest to him that it had to others. The dearest beings in the world to him were his two cousins, and they were divided from him by circumstances almost as cruel as the grave. How few have done justice to the sad partings, the mournful alienations that have been caused by circumstances! Bereavement in all its varied bitterness has been sung by many poets in strains worthy of the subject; but circumstances are so insidious, and often so prosaic, that their tragical operation has been rarely treated of in verse.

His thoughts recurred, as they always did when he felt sad or serious, to Jane Melville–to the will that had brought them together, and at the same time so cruelly parted them–to the unknown father, whose own life had been blighted by the loss of domestic happiness, dealing so fatal a blow to the son whom he meant to bless and reward, by placing him in circumstances where he could not help loving Jane, and forbidding–so far as he could forbid–the marriage of two souls made for one another. Francis was wondering if his father now saw the mistake he had committed, or regretted it, when he was startled by the announcement that his father was in the room, and wished to communicate with him.

“How am I to know it is he?” said Francis, starting up incredulously, but at the same time somewhat awed by the mere possibility that such a one was there, out of the body, owning him as his son, which he had not done while he was alive.

“Does the spirit mean to communicate by raps or through the medium?” asked Mr. Dempster.

“By raps,” was the answer given.

“Take the alphabet in your own hand,” said Mr. Dempster, “and ask the spirit his name, and then pass your finger over the alphabet–the rap will arrest you at the right letter.”

Francis passed his finger along the alphabet, half disdainfully, half in curiosity. The rap stopped him at the letter H. He had never thought the curious little taps sounded so unearthly before. Next he was stopped at E, then at N, then at R, and next at Y; and so on, till the full name of Henry Hogarth was spelled out.

“You wish to communicate with me;–then you love me now?”

The three quick raps meaning “Yes” was the immediate reply.

“Are you satisfied with what I have done at Cross Hall since your death?”

Again the alphabet was called for, and the raps spelled out, “Very much pleased.”

“Are you sorry for the will you made?”

“All will be well in the end,” was spelled out.

“Did you see your nieces’ sufferings unmoved–their poverty, their disappointments, their unfitness for the work that you had set them to do?”

“They are better for what they have suffered,” was spelled out; “and you too.”

“Does the letter in my pocket come from my mother?”

The three raps replied in the affirmative.

“Did you give her an annuity, as she says you did?”

A single rap, meaning “No,” was the reply.

“What did you give her, then, to make her forego her claims on you?”

“A sum of money,” was the reply.

Francis observed a great difference in the character of the raps proceeding from Mr. Hogarth from those of the spirit last summoned, which had been supposed to be that of Mr. Dempster’s eldest daughter, who had died at sixteen, and of a lingering disease. The latter were faint, and almost inaudible to an unpractised ear, while those of his father were firm and distinct. There was never any power of knowing from what part of the room the raps would come, and as answer after answer appeared to come so readily to his questions, it is not to be wondered at that Francis felt excited and awed at the mysterious intercourse.

“Advise me, my father; tell me what to do if you see more and know than more I can do. Should I assist my mother, as she asks me to do?”

The single impatient rap, meaning “No,” was the immediate reply.

“Is she not in poverty and want?”

Again the answer was “No.”

“Should not I write to her?”

“No; have nothing to do with her,” was the answer.

“Can I ever have what I most desire in the world? You promise improvement–I want happiness,” said Francis, passionately, startled out of himself by the extraordinary pertinence of the answers to his questions, and careless in the company of absolute strangers as to what they thought of him.

“Patience! I watch over you,” was the reply.

“What do you do in the spiritual world?”

“I am learning,” answered the spirit, “from one who loves me.”

“What is her name?” asked Francis.

The alphabet was in his hands; he was anxious not to let any sign of his give any clue in case of its being all imposture and extraordinary quickness of sight. He purposely passed over the letters, but was rapped back by the recognised signal till the name “Marguerite” was spelled out.

“Yes,” said he to himself, “you think all is well in the end; you have met Marguerite in the spirit world, after being separated for a lifetime in this, and this is very sweet to you; but I want Jane now to help me to live worthily. Can I win her in this life?”

“After a time,” said the spirit, rapping by the alphabet this answer to his inaudible question.

“You then can answer mental questions,” thought Francis. “What connection can Mr. Phillips possibly have with Mrs. Peck, or rather Elizabeth Hogarth?” But to this inaudible question the spirit made no reply, and told him, through the medium, that he was disinclined for any further communication. Certainly it was a question which he felt conscious he had no right to put, after what Mr. Phillips had said to him. The spirit was in the right not to answer it.

“Are you convinced?” said Mr. Dempster, who had seen the surprise with which Mr. Hogarth had spelled out the answers.

“I am staggered,” said Francis. “The general answers might have been given at random, but the names, I am convinced, were unknown to every one here except myself.”

“It always is the names that convince people,” said a friend of the host’s.

“I have asked some questions as to the future,” said Francis. “I do not know if it is allowable to do so. Do your spirits claim to have a knowledge of what is to come?”

“Oh, yes; they do–those of the highest class in particular,” said Mr. Dempster.

“I do not see how they can,” said Francis musingly. “To know the future is a prerogative of Omniscience, and even the highest created intelligence cannot tell what His purposes may be.”

“How do we guess at the future with sufficient accuracy to direct us in the present but by generalization from experience? Now, a departed spirit certainly has had a wider experience–sees more into other souls and their workings than we can possibly do while encumbered with these robes of clay–and consequently can make a juster generalization,” said Mr. Dempster.

“But not an infallible one?” said Francis.

“No; certainly not,” said Mr. Dempster.

“But, as to the present, their views are sure to be correct?” said Francis.

“If they are good spirits, and not lying spirits. We prayed against their appearance, and I do not believe that the spirit who has been communicating with you was of that kind,” said Mr. Dempster.

“How, then, do you judge between lying spirits and true ones?” asked Francis.

“By the nature of their communications. A false or an immoral message cannot be delivered by a good spirit.”

“Then you still continue to be the judges of the spirits? You do not bow your morality to theirs–you select and reject as you see good?”

“Morality is universal and eternal,” said Mr. Dempster. “Even God himself cannot make evil good or good evil by any fiat of his own.”

“Then have these manifestations taught you anything that could not have been otherwise learned?” asked Francis.

“They have taught ME much that I could not have otherwise learned. I cannot say what other people may attain to through pure reason or through a simple faith in the revealed will of God. There are diversities of administration, but the same spirit,” said Mr. Dempster, with a simple earnestness that weighed much with Francis. But here Mr. Dempster’s attention was called to a message from an old friend who had just died one of the saddest of deaths, having been lost in the Australian scrub twelve years before.

These raps were still stronger than those of Mr. Hogarth, being violent, and following immediately on the question wherever a negative or affirmative was used.

Mr. Dempster said he had been a powerful young man, of the most unquestionable determination, and that the raps were always consonant to the character of the spirit when in life. He eagerly turned to identify him. The name was correctly given; the date of his death; the length of time he had existed without food and water, and the clothes he had on when he died. Then a message was sent to his aged mother, who had so long mourned for her youngest born, that he was expecting her soon to join him in the spirit land. The place where the old lady lived was mentioned, and her state of health was described as being bad.

“All perfectly true, perfectly true, Mr. Hogarth. Poor Tom! His was a distressing fate. I expected that we should have something good in manifestations this evening, but I scarcely looked for anything so perfectly satisfactory as this. Every name and every date exactly correct. Are you not convinced now?”

“I am certainly very much staggered,” said Francis. “Have you been thinking much about your friend or his mother lately?”

“Not particularly that I know of; but I liked him very much, and I often think of his solitary death.”

“Have you heard that his mother is in bad health?”

“She has been an invalid for years, and you heard her age; but we must make a note of the date, and ascertain if she is particularly worse to-night. I feel sure that there are not many days of this earth for her, and how blessed a thing it is that we have such an assurance of a reunion and recognition as these communications give to us.”

When Francis got into the open air after the excitement of the evening, he was inclined to think that all had been a dream or a delusion, but the answer and the names recurred with startling significance; the difficulty and almost the impossibility of any cheat or collusion, and the apparent sincerity of all who had been sitting by him during the manifestations, increased the bewilderment of his mind.

“I must see Jane about this to-morrow,” said he; “her clear head can perhaps solve this curious problem; but if I had not seen it, I would not have believed what I saw. Will she believe without seeing? Yes, she will receive my testimony, for I would receive hers. After a time I may hope to be happy. How long a time, I wonder?”

Chapter XI.

Spiritualism, Love, And Politics

Great was the grief of Emily when she heard that Mr. Brandon was going away in a week or two, and that he might never come back to England for a dozen of years; and now, instead of spending the rest of his time in London with them, he had to go to Ashfield, to spend his last days in England with his mother and sisters and nephews and nieces. She felt quite wronged by this conduct, and bade him goodbye when he came to take his temporary leave of them, with an amount of sulkiness rather foreign to her character. Lessons were a far greater bore than usual on that day, and both Emily and Harriett tried Jane’s patience sorely. After they were set free for two hours in the middle of the day, Jane found her cousin was waiting for her to go out with him, and she wished very particularly to see him, on account of some news she had got from Scotland. He had not been satisfied to have none of her society on the preceding day, and had appointed with Mrs. Phillips to come when she would be at leisure, which that lady had forgotten or neglected to tell Jane or Elsie. It was Jane alone whom he wished to see–it was to her alone that he could speak about the communication with reference to his letter. Jane was sorry that Elsie was not asked to accompany their walk; but when Francis said he had something on his mind, and proceeded to tell all the singular circumstances of the previous evening, she listened with the greatest attention and with a suspended judgment. When he came to the mental question which related to herself, he simply called it something on which his heart was greatly set–it might have been his allotments or his cottages; but Jane asked no questions, and took no notice of his want of completeness in his narrative. Then he told of the inquiry as to Mrs. Peck’s connection with Mr. Phillips, which he ought not to have asked, and which had received no answer. He paused for Jane’s opinion before he came to narrate Mr. Dempster’s message from his friend lost in the bush.

“Now, what do you think of all this, Jane?”

“I am a little staggered, as you were,” said she. “I wish you had heard more or less–it bewilders me.”

“Should I then follow this advice so strangely given?”

“I think the advice exactly corresponds with what you had resolved to do at any rate. It need not influence you either one way or the other. You asked my advice the other day, but neither from me nor from a departed spirit should you accept of or follow any advice which appears to your own soul not to be good. You cannot shift off your personal responsibility. As I said, it is your affair, not mine; and I feel sorry that consideration for me, and for my generous employer, has weighed so much with you that you scarcely give the claims of your mother their just due.”

“And the spirit said she was my mother, but at the same time advised, or rather commanded me to have nothing to do with her. I do not wish to have anything to do with her. What is it to be grateful for–such a loveless, joyless life as mine has been–thwarted even now in my dearest hopes and wishes.”

“Francis,” said Jane, “you have a great deal to be thankful for, and so have I. With all the sufferings of the past year, I would not have been without it for the world. We have both learned much, both from circumstances and from each other.”

“Jane, I am weary of all this talk about progress and perfection. I am hungering for happiness, as I told this strange interlocutor last night,” said Francis, earnestly.

“And you will attain to it, Francis! but do not set your heart on what it is not right, or wise, or expedient for you to obtain. And you cannot look me in the face and say that, if one thing is denied, you have not many sources of happiness.”

Jane looked at him with her sisterly eyes, feeling the pain she was giving, but determined not to show that she had any personal regret. It was very kind, but it was very discouraging. She felt for him like a sister–and nothing more.

“If I have any eyes,” said Francis, trying violently to change the subject, “Brandon is still an admirer of your sister’s. What in the world keeps him from declaring himself? Why does he not offer her all he has, and all he may hope to gain? He cares no more for Miss Phillips than I do, and she would never consent to accompany him to Australia. And Elsie looks so pretty and so sad, she needs a protector; she would be grateful to him; she cannot stand alone, as you do; and she knows she makes your position here much more difficult.”

“The truth is, Elsie refused him, and it is difficult for a man to make a second offer when he has such slight opportunities of seeing her, even if he has not made a transfer of his affections.”

“I would make an opportunity–I would write–I would ask point-blank to see her–I would speak to you about it, if I were in his place. It is cowardly in Brandon.”

“Why, Francis, you are very unreasonable. Elsie refused him as positively and uncompromisingly as possible on her way down to Derbyshire. I do not think she would do so now; but how is he to know that?”

“I would hint as much to him, if I were you. Why, Jane, a word from you might secure your sister’s happiness for life, and you shrink from saying it.”

“Indeed I do,” said Jane. “I think no good can come from interfering in such matters, and I am particularly ill-adapted for such a delicate communication. Besides, if one may judge by the last few weeks, it is Miss Phillips who ought to receive the offer of marriage, and not Elsie. If her brother were to ask what Mr. Brandon’s intentions are, as he might very well do, the result would be a marriage of two very ill-assorted people. She cannot comprehend the real goodness and simplicity of his character, and despises the man whom she is scarcely worthy to wait on. She even looks down on her generous brother; she has no love for her brother’s children, and no sympathy with anyone. I am really very glad to observe, with you, that her influence with Mr. Brandon has decreased of late; but he certainly has paid her a great deal of attention, and she expects a proposal.”

“Her face has no charm to me,” said Francis. “Taken feature by feature it is handsome enough; but it wants play and variety, and it has not the perfect harmony of Mrs. Phillips’s. That is a singularly beautiful index to a soul that appears to be nothing particular. I have heard it said that we have all our ugly moments. Have you ever seen such a time with Mrs. Phillips?”

“There are times when she certainly does not look beautiful to me, nor to Elsie either. But I wanted to speak to you of your own affairs. I had letter from Tom Lowrie this morning, in which he says that he hears from one of his old schoolfellows that you have been asked to stand for the Swinton group of burghs, and that every one says you will easily be able to carry them over the duke’s man.”

“Ah! has he heard about it? I should have told you of it, but the more pressing personal interest of the letter from Melbourne, Mr. Phillips’s strange agitation, and this mysterious spiritual communication, put it out of my head for the time, and a word from you would put it aside for ever,” said Francis, with the old wistful look.

Jane, like all women who are interested in public matters at all, and they form a very small minority of her sex, rather over-estimated the importance of a parliamentary career. She knew the turn of her cousin’s mind, his education as a man of the people, his position as a man of property, his earnest desire to do right, his patient habits of business, and his thorough method of research and inquiry, were all certain guarantees that he could not fail; and she had the belief that his abilities, and readiness, and confidence would make him an eloquent and skilful debater. It appeared to her to be an object of great importance that a perfectly honest and independent member should replace for the burghs in her native country the nominee of a great family, who only voted with his party, and never had done any credit either to the electors or to the nation. She said truly when she spoke of her ambition finding its vent in dreams about him and her pupil, Tom Lowrie. She certainly had influenced Francis Hogarth’s character greatly during the turning-point of his life; the ideas she had nursed in her trials had been on his mind with force and earnestness, and through him she could hope to give a voice to a number of her crotchets and theories. Where a woman writes as well as thinks, she does not feel this dependence on the other sex so strongly; for, though at a disadvantage, she can for herself utter her thoughts–but Jane, as my readers will have observed, was not literary. She was an intelligent, well-informed, observing woman, but her field was action, and not books. In her present situation she had very little time for reading; but, from all that she saw, and from all the conversation she could hear, she found hints for action and subjects for thought. To see Francis in the British Parliament was a worthy ambition, and to give up such a probable career for an inglorious and obscure life with herself was not to be thought of. His wistful looks and earnest tones were to be treasured up in her heart for ever; but her own love for him was not of that imperious and unreasonable nature that she could not live without him.

Chapter XII.

Chiefly Political

“Do you think that you can really get in?’ said Jane, eagerly. ‘I know that my uncle said the Liberal interest was much stronger in the burghs of late, and you are really the fittest man they could have. I was quite pleased to hear from Tom that you are so soon appreciated. Of course, he is enthusiastic on the subject.”

“I do not know if I am appreciated or not, but the burghs are a little tired of a struggle between the Conservative duke and the Whig earl, always resulting in some one being put up on both sides, to whom there were no strong objections, and no strong recommendations–a mere nobody, in fact.”

“You are popular in the county, are you not?” asked Jane.

“No, not exactly. I do not think I could possibly carry the county, even if I could afford the contest, for I am not considered a safe person for the landed interest. I gained some eclat on the road trusteeship, by opening a road which was a great public convenience, but I lost more than I gained there, by my allotments, which are looked on as a dangerous precedent. The cottages make me popular with those who have no votes, and with the more enlightened class of farmers, but the old school of tenants object to them, and almost all the landlords fear that they may be asked to lay out money in the same way. On the whole, I am considered rather a dangerous man in the county, but in the burghs I am popular, I think. I have the character of being a man of the people, who has not lost sympathy with his class, and I can afford to give them my time and services, such as they are.”

“If you go in, you want to do so independently,” said Jane.

“Yes, I do; and here I risk my election. The Liberal party want a certain vote, which they think they could secure better by sending up a stranger from the Reform Club, who knows little and cares less about the burghs, than by supporting a man who will look into political and national questions for himself, and who will not be a mere partisan. If they mistrust me and send some one to divide the Liberal interest, I can only save the Swinton burghs from the duke’s man, by retiring.”

“But how foolish to divide the Liberal interest,” said Jane.

“My dear Jane, you forget that his party is dearer to a party man than anything else. The question to be considered–and I want to see how your nice conscience will guide you through the bewildering mazes of political morality–is this: Whether it would be right to pledge myself to the party, in which case I am sure of my return, or to remain independent, and so make it very doubtful,” said Francis.

“You cannot vote always with the Liberals–at least with the Liberals who form governments and oppositions,” said Jane. “They are often in the wrong, and particularly so in the bestowal of patronage, which, I suppose, is a very important matter among party politicians. The appointments which the Whigs have made of late years have often been most shamefully actuated by family or party reasons, and not with a single eye to the public service. Many times the Conservatives are really more liberal than the Whigs–sometimes the Whigs are more Conservative than the Tories. It is of the first importance that there should be many men such as you in Parliament, who will watch over both parties; and, if this determined dualism is at work everywhere, how are such men to get into the legislature? But, surely, you could carry the burghs–you can speak, can you not?”

“I don’t know, I never tried; but I dare say I could beat Mr. Fortescue, the duke’s candidate. He has never opened his mouth in the House, but to give his vote, and on the hustings he made no figure.”

“Try the independent course, by all means; you may be beaten, but then if you succeed, you will be so much more useful.”

“It will probably cost me a thousand pounds.”

“It is shameful that the duty of serving one’s country for nothing should be so dearly bought. If you get in, you must try to introduce some measure to reduce election expenses.”

“A difficult matter. The object of the Parliament, when once assembled, is to make it difficult and expensive to get in. To keep the candidature within the limits of a privileged body is considered a great safeguard.”

“Not by me, or by you,” said Jane. “I want you to get in because you know the feelings and the wants of the people who have no votes better than ninety-nine out of a hundred, who are members of Parliament. Oh! Francis, I feel quite sure that if you exert yourself you can get in. And what is a thousand pounds?–you have it to spare.”

“I am doubtful,” said Francis, shaking his head, “if I can afford to go into Parliament.”

“Have you not two thousand a year? and do not lawyers who can scarcely make a living go into Parliament? I am sure there is some perjury on the subject of property qualification–but as, perhaps, the latter is unnecessary, it is the less matter.”

“They go to increase their means, or their practice, or their influence, and generally take the first opportunity of accepting something better than the Chiltern Hundreds under Government,” said Francis.

“There must be something very wrong somewhere, if a country gentleman of your standing cannot afford to give his services to the House of Commons. Have you brought the requisition that was sent to you?” said Jane.

“Yes; do you really want to see it? I have it in my pocket, and if I really felt in earnest on the subject, I ought to communicate with Mr. Freeman, the earl’s political agent in London, to know how he will favour a man who would support the general policy of Government, but who will hold himself free to vote against them whenever he sees them in the wrong. My only means of securing the earl’s influence is by convincing him that he cannot carry the burghs against Fortescue by such a man as he has to put up; and as I am rather doubtful on that point, I can scarcely assert it confidently. If he chooses to withhold his family interest he can make me fail; but if it comes to the push, I would rather retire than let Fortescue get in.”

“Electioneering, then, is very nice and difficult work,” said Jane.

“Very difficult for the scrupulous, the sincere, and the far-seeing.”

“Who are just the sort of people whom we want to see in Parliament.”

“Whom YOU want to see, Jane, but not whom the two great parties wish to see. Then, should I go to Mr. Freeman, do you think, with this requisition and a frank declaration of my principles, and hear what he says on the matter? If the earl supports me I may count on a majority of twenty–a safe enough one; and if not, shall I spend the thousand pounds in a glorious defeat; writing the boldest and most independent of addresses; making the most uncompromising speeches from the hustings, if I can find voice?”

“No fear of your finding voice, Francis,” said Jane, warmly.

“Regardless of the savour of rotten eggs; undaunted by the sneers at my birth and breeding; the tales about my father, the jeers at my mother; and only retiring at the last moment, when I have said all that I have got to say, but which, I fear, my audience were not much in a mood to hear. My own idea is, that I should succeed better in the calm argumentative debates in Parliament, than as a hustings orator, or a popular declaimer.”

“Yes, you will, and you certainly should try the second, that you may attain to the first. My uncle was asked to stand for these burghs some ten years ago, but he was too crotchety, and could not write an address that was at all likely to be acceptable to the electors, so he gave up the contest before it began. Yet, you know, it would be well to have a few crotchety people in the House of Commons. The game of life, whether social or political, is not played by only two sets of black and red men–like chess or backgammon.”

“I have met a gentleman at Miss Thomson’s pretty frequently,” said Francis, “who struck me as having the most remarkable qualifications for a member of Parliament. He has a habit of recurring to first principles which is rather startling, but which always forces you to give a reason for the faith that is in you, and which either confirms your opinion satisfactorily, or changes, or modifies it. He has retired from business on about 700 pounds a year–which he has made in America, principally–has no family, no cares, and plenty of leisure–is the most upright of men, and knows more of the principles of jurisprudence, and the details of commercial matters than any one I ever knew; but no constituency would choose him, and he cannot afford to throw away a thousand pounds for the privilege of having his say out. He is one of the electors of Swinton, and particularly anxious that I should contest the burghs. His own vote he can answer for, but he boasts of no large following; though he is a man who ought to exert mental influence, he is too far ahead to be popular. If I were to stand, and were to succeed, I will find him a most useful prompter; and with you to inspire enthusiasm for the public service, and this Mr. Sinclair to suggest principles and details, I ought to distinguish myself.”

“I am quite sure that you will,” said Jane; “so my advice is to lose no time in seeing Mr. Freeman. I cannot believe that people who call themselves liberal can act so illiberally as to endeavour to stifle independence. You will tell me a different tale tomorrow.”

Francis did as Jane advised him, and as he himself thought he should do, and waited on Mr. Freeman. It happened to be a time of a lull in party politics; there was no question strongly before the public mind on which Whigs and Tories were so equally pitted that one vote was of extreme importance; there was no near prospect of a change of Ministry, and the great Whig houses had been much baited lately about their family selfishness and their party selfishness being quite as bad as that of the old Tory set. So it appeared to Mr. Freeman at the present crisis to be a very wise and expedient thing to offer support to an independent man like Mr. Hogarth, for it was very questionable if the duke, who had been more liberal in his expenditure in the towns, would not carry it against a mere club man, and they had no better man to spare. Mr. Hogarth, at least, was sure to ask nothing of the Government. His support, when they got it, would cost nothing; his adverse vote would be only on outside questions, as a rule. It would look very well for the county election, which was to be a very tough affair between a younger son of the duke and a younger brother of the earl, that Mr. Hogarth, of Cross Hall, should have the earl’s cordial support in the burghs. His vote was secure for the Honourable James, and all those he could influence, he hoped. Francis said he could answer for his own, but his tenants must please themselves.

“Oh, yes, certainly; but tenants generally find it for their advantage to vote with their landlord,” said the agent.

“I will give my tenants distinctly to understand that they must vote from conviction, and that that will please me. That is my view of being a Liberal,” said Francis.

“And if all the other county proprietors had the same view the Honourable James would walk the course; but we must oppose all the stratagems of war of an enemy who takes every advantage, and strains to the utmost the influence of property and patronage.”

“I want to go in with perfectly clean hands,” said Francis.

“Bless you, so does everybody,” said the parliamentary agent; “but somehow there is a lot of queer work must be done to get fairly seated on the benches.”

“I not only wish it, but I mean to do it,” said Mr. Hogarth.

“Well, well–I hope you will be able to manage it. I must introduce you to the earl. I think he will say, as I say, that he will give you cordial support; so that the sooner you get your address out the better–as soon in the field as possible, and don’t fall asleep over it. The other party are like weasels–they are not to be caught napping; and will undermine what you fancy secure ground, if you only give them a chance.”

The result of Francis’ interview with the earl was as satisfactory as that with the agent. Party for once was inclined to waive its high prerogative, and to allow a person to slip into Parliament without any pledge as to future action. His manner prepossessed the earl; he received an invitation to dinner to meet a few political friends, and to talk over the canvass for the county, which was one on which all their strength was to be expended. Harriett Phillips was all the more interested in Mr. Hogarth when he had been invited to dinner with a peer of the realm, and stood a good chance of adding M.P. (though only for a Scotch group of burghs) to his name. Even Mrs. Phillips felt a little excited at the idea of a British member of Parliament, and seemed to view both Jane and Elsie with more favour than she had done before; while Mr. Phillips, anxious to do away with the impression of his first interview with Mr. Hogarth, was quietly and cordially hospitable, and hoped that the Swinton burghs would return him, that they might have the pleasure of his society in London for the coming sessions. Francis spent a week or more in London, and promised Miss Phillips to pay a visit to her father in Derbyshire by and by. Mr. Brandon was completely at a discount, and as fairly out of the circle of Harriett’s probable future life at Ashfield as if he had sailed for Australia.

Chapter XIII.

Good-Bye

While Jane and Francis were discussing the state of Brandon’s affections, the object of their solicitude was going as fast as the railway could take him to Ashfield, where his widowed mother lived with his unmarried sister, a confirmed invalid, and a widowed sister, Mrs. Holmes, the mother of those wonderful nephews and nieces whose ignorance on the subject of dirt-pies had so much impressed Emily Phillips. Brandon had always been very glad to go to see them, and to stay a short time, but the intolerable dullness of the place had always driven him back to London. Australians generally prefer a large town as a residence, and London most of all; for though their relatives in small country towns or rural neighbourhoods fancy that it must be so much more lively with them than it is in the bush, there is a great difference between the dullness where there is plenty of work to be done, and the dullness where there is absolutely nothing.

Mrs. Brandon was a conscientious and, to a certain extent, rather a clever woman, but she had many prejudices and little knowledge of the world. Mary Brandon was the most amiable and the most pious and patient of sufferers, who only got out in a Bath chair, and received a great deal of care from her mother, while Mrs. Holmes devoted herself to her children with a fidelity and an exclusiveness that made her influence elsewhere almost infinitesimal. All of them loved Walter dearly, and were very anxious that he should be married–most disinterestedly–for their circumstances were straitened, and but for Walter’s assistance, which had been given whenever he could possibly afford to do so, they would have found it difficult to make ends meet. Mr. Holmes had been unfortunate in business, and the widow had sacrificed part of her jointure, and the invalid sister as much of her little fortune as was at her own disposal, to assist him in his difficulties. Their generosity had the usual result of only delaying the crash for him, and of finally impoverishing themselves.

One most promising brother had died at the close of a long, expensive professional education, which he had expected to turn to great account for the benefit of his sisters. Walter himself had been sent out to Australia in his father’s lifetime with a better capital than could have been given afterwards, so that he always considered that he had got more than his share, and that his assistance was nothing at all generous.

The young Holmeses were taught and guarded by their mother night and day; she accompanied their walks, she overlooked their games, she read all their books before giving them to the children to read, and cut out or erased anything that she thought incorrect in fact or questionable in tendency. She allowed no intercourse with servants, and almost as little with playfellows of their own age. And when Uncle Walter from Australia came first to disturb the even tenor of their way by lavish presents of sweetmeats, cakes, and toys, and by offers to take the whole family to every attainable amusement, he was first reasoned with, and then, as he was not convinced, he was put down, his gifts returned, and the children instructed to say that they would rather not have the treats he offered. He certainly preferred the wild spirits and rebellious conduct of the little Phillipses, even in their worst days, to the prim good-child behaviour of his own nephews and nieces.

He had the pleasure of telling Mrs. Holmes on this occasion that the wild young Australians had been reduced to something like order by an admirable governess whom he had been the means of procuring for them: that in spite of all the overindulgence she had suffered from, Emily was proving a very tolerable scholar–that she had good abilities and an excellent heart, though she did climb on his knee for comfits, and beg to be taken to Astley’s. Mrs. Holmes wondered at his procuring a governess for the children, and asked a good deal about her, with the view of ascertaining if her brother was fixed at last; but he talked about her with perfect NONCHALANCE, saying that she was a particular favourite of an old servant of his called Peggy Walker, and that her account of Miss Melville’s qualifications was perfectly satisfactory, as the result had proved. Mrs. Holmes was bewildered as to the curious social relations of Australian people, but her mind was set at rest about Jane Melville.

“But, Fanny,” said he to his sister, “you know I have come to bid you goodbye in a week or ten days. I cannot help it; things look so badly just at present that unless I am on the spot I cannot see my way at all clearly. I have little doubt that I will work things all right again; the master’s eye makes all go well. There need be no difference in the little allowance I sent to my mother and you–that will be sent home regularly as before. But I want to assist you otherwise if you will allow me to do it. You have enough to do to bring up those six children of yours, even with my little help. I will take your boy Edgar with me; as I am not going overland it will not be so expensive. I will train him to be useful to me, and make a man of him.”

“No, no, Walter, I could not let him be away from under my own eye; he is so young–his education is not finished,” said Mrs. Holmes.

“And never will be, if you keep him always at your apron-string. You cannot do it, Fanny; you must turn him into the world some day, and surely he will be better turned out under my guidance than under none at all. Why, the lad is sixteen, and though he is uncommonly ignorant of the world, he knows enough of books and that sort of thing to acquit himself very fairly in Australia. I promise to do my very best for him, and he can be of great service to me very soon, if he has only a head on his shoulders. And though it is very hard to find out what your children are fit for, I dare say the boy has average intelligence.”

“Average intelligence!” exclaimed Mrs. Holmes; “his memory is admirable. If you would only examine him in history, or geography, or Latin, or scientific dialogues, or chronology, you would find—–“

“That I do not know the tenth part of what he does, no doubt,” said Brandon. “But that is not what will make him get on in the world. You cannot afford to give him a profession.”

“I fear not. I wish I could. Perhaps I might by more economy. The education of my children has cost me very little hitherto, only the classics and mathematics from the curate. I should like to bring Edgar up for the Church.”

“But, my dear Fanny, if you were to give him a profession, you must send him away from you. If I take him I will do my utmost to get him on, and I will really look after him, and keep him out of mischief, better than you can do at a public school or a university.”

“Oh! Walter, you know what a state Victoria is in–full of runaway convicts, and all sorts of bad characters, attracted there by the gold-diggings. I should not like Edgar to meet with such people.”

“At my sheep stations he will see little or nothing of these people. I will keep him busy, and by and by, when he comes to man’s estate, I will give him a start; and if you think I succeed with Edgar, I will take Robert, too, when he is old enough.”

“I know, Walter, that you mean very kindly by me and mine, but I do not care so much for my boys being rich, or getting on, as you call it; I want them to be good. I do not wish to throw them into the world till their principles are fixed, and strong enough to withstand temptation. Edgar is very young, and you are not firm enough to have the guidance of him.”

“I can be firm enough in important things,” said Brandon; “but there are a number of little matters that a lad should learn to determine for himself. Let us ask Edgar if he would like to go. Don’t say anything for or against. For once let the boy exercise his choice, and have the freedom of his own will. You may reverse his decision afterwards if you see fit.”

Mrs. Holmes assented to this, but with some fear and trembling. Edgar was called in, and his uncle kindly and fairly made him the offer. The lad hesitated–looked at his mother, then at his uncle, then at the floor.

“What do you think I should do, mamma?” said he.

“Your mother wishes you to make your own choice,” said Brandon.

“Then I think I should like to go with you, Uncle Walter.”

“No, no; I cannot part with you yet, my dear boy.”

“Nonsense, Fanny; do not stand in the boy’s light,” said Brandon, a little ruffled at being taken at his word, and the lad’s decision reversed by his mother.

“I don’t want to go if you do not wish it, mamma,” said Edgar, looking rather ashamed at his choice.

“Consult our mother and Mary on the matter, Fanny; I believe they will be more reasonable.”

The advice of both grandmother and aunt was to the effect that Mrs. Holmes should take advantage of her brother’s kindness, and entrust Edgar to his care. It was not without a great effort that she made up her mind to part with her son, and she had many serious compunctions of conscience afterwards; but as his letters home were regular and very prettily expressed, and as his uncle Walter generally added a few lines to say that the boy was doing remark ably well, and growing strong and large, she took comfort, and hoped that all was for the best.

Brandon was rather surprised at the cool reception he got from Harriett Phillips on his return; it was a relief to him to see that she could part from him without regret, for he felt none at leaving her. He had been putting on his Australian set of feelings, and preparing to like his bush life very much, as he had done in reality before. He had Edgar with him when he came to bid the Phillipses goodbye, and Emily was much amused at the idea of this model lad going out to Melbourne in a large ship, and seeing dear Wiriwilta before she could do so. She gave him messages to some of the people, and desired him to inquire after the welfare of her pet opossum and her rose-crested cockatoo, and write her a full, true, and particular account of them all, and of how he liked the colony, which Edgar readily promised to do.

“And so this Mr. Hogarth has left London, Emily?” said Mr. Brandon.

“Oh, he has gone home to see about getting into Parliament–what stupid work it must be!”

“Don’t talk so absurdly,” said Aunt Harriett.

“I see by the newspapers that he is likely to be put up; and you think it stupid work, Emily, do you? You are a young lady of taste. I think the same.”

“He is quite sure of success,” said Harriett Phillips, who thought the question and remarks might have been addressed to her, as the best informed person in the house.

“Miss Melville will be pleased at her cousin’s going into the political line,” said he.

“Indeed, we are all pleased. I never saw any one so fitted to shine in Parliament,” said Harriett. “He has promised, when the election is over, to visit papa; their politics will suit, I think.”

“And how is Miss Melville?” asked Brandon.

“Quite well, she is always well; but we have been very much troubled about servants of late. I believe really that all the good servants have gone to Australia, for we cannot hear of a housemaid or nurse to suit us, and it puts every one about. I know it annoys me, and Miss Melville (who holds rather a singular combination of employments, and I must say that she certainly discharges both of them extremely well) is particularly engaged just now, making up her housekeeping books.”

“And how is Miss Alice Melville? She is not so invariably well as her sister is.”

“No, she mopes more. She has not half the spirit of Miss Melville; but I believe she is quite well just now.”

“Well”, said Brandon, with a half sigh, “I have come to bid you all goodbye; no one can tell when we may meet again.”

“Oh! no fear,” said Mrs. Phillips, “we will see you here again in a year or two. Mr. Phillips is often grumbling about his affairs, but I know it just ends in nothing.”

“By the by, Emily,” whispered Brandon, “you promised if I was a good boy that you would give me a great treat. You will never have another opportunity.”

“Oh! yes,” said Emily, “I recollect quite well–come along with me,” and Brandon followed the child to the nursery. Elsie was singing something to a tune that sounded like that of “Chevy Chase,” a great favourite with Brandon in his childhood–but she caught the sound of footsteps at the door and stopped abruptly.

“This is our nursery,” said Emily; “mamma says it is far better than the old one at Wiriwilta, but I do not like it half so well. I have brought Mr. Brandon here, Alice, to hear your songs and your stories, as I promised him the night you would not sing in the drawing-room when he asked you.”

“Go on, Miss Alice, I beg of you; do not let me interrupt you. Indulge me for once–that old air carries me back many years,” said Brandon.

“Oh, no,” said Alice; “I could not venture on a stanza before you. You cannot imagine what doggerel I make to please the children.”

“It is not doggerel; it is beautiful,” said little Harriett; “it is the best song of all, and the newest–the one that Alice has made about the fire, when we were such tiny babies; and how poor mamma was so weak and ill, and papa was away, and the flames were all around; and Peggy and Jim–you recollect Jim, black Jim, Mr. Brandon–and Mrs. Tuck–Martha, you know–were working so hard to save us; and then when Mr. Brandon came up on his horse, Cantab–we told Alice his name was Cantab–she knew all the rest of the story–and rode so fast and got off in such a hurry, and fetched water and quenched the fire. Oh! Mr. Brandon, it is a lovely song.”

“And all made up after our talk of old times the other night; for I thought it was just the thing for a ballad, and Alice will do anything I ask her. You see that we will make a hero of you, and we will sing this song in your praise when you are far away,” said Emily.

“Then I am not be forgotten,” said Brandon, speaking to Emily, but looking very hard at Elsie. “I do not wish to be forgotten by any one here; but I do not care for being remembered as a hero, which I do not deserve to be–but as a–a friend.”

“Our friends here have been so few that we are not likely to forget any of them, and with Emily beside us we stand a good chance of hearing your name frequently,” said Elsie.

“And you made a song about me–actually about me,” said Brandon, looking as if he wished the five young Phillipses out of the way.

“Oh! Alice can make a song about anything,” said Constance; “she made one about my little kitten.”

“And such a nice one about my humming-top–how it goes whiz–whiz,” said Hubert.

“And Peggy told Alice and Miss Melville about the fire, and all about you long ago–long before she saw any of us,” said Emily.

“She made up a pretty story to amuse them just as Alice does for us when they were sad and dull–only Peggy’s story was all true, and Alice’s are mostly not.”

Brandon’s quick eye could observe the faintest additional flush pass over Elsie’s already crimson cheek, and guessed that Peggy’s revelations had been a little too true and minute. What motive had she to conceal anything about him when she was relating her own experiences to divert the minds of the two poor girls in their troubles and perplexities? Was this the solution of his refusal in the railway carriage? If it was. he should try again. He had been a fool, an idiot, to give up so readily at the first nay-say. Now, it was too late; his passage was taken out for himself and Edgar, and he was to sail on the morrow; but if things looked decently well at Barragong on his return he must write, though he was no great scribe.

“Shall I not call Jane?” said Elsie, who felt embarrassed by his looks and manner, and dreaded his saying anything particular before a group of the sharpest children in the world. “She is extremely busy, but if you have come to bid her goodbye, she must see you for that.”

“You used to talk of going to Australia–to Melbourne, I mean–with your sister and Peggy, when she returns.”

“We hope to be able to do so,” said Elsie.

“Then I will see you again–I must see you again. Don’t call your sister yet–don’t.”

Here Brandon was interrupted by the entrance of Miss Harriett, whose curiosity as to where Emily had taken her friend had led her to the nursery, a place she seldom visited.

“Why, Emily, what a thing to bring Mr. Brandon into the nursery! You are a dreadful girl! I must tell Miss Melville of this.”

“I have only come to bid goodbye to some friends,” said Brandon.

“They should have come to you in the drawing-room, only those children are so fond of their liberty that they prefer the nursery, where they can torment Alice to their hearts’ content, to anything like restraint in the drawing-room. What a litter the place is in! I do wish we could get a nurse.”

“I must see Miss Melville, too, and bid her goodbye,” said Brandon.

“She is in the housekeeper’s room,” said Harriett. “As you have been introduced by Emily into the nursery, perhaps you will let me take you there.”

“Goodbye, then, Miss Alice,” said Brandon.

“Goodbye,” said she.

Brandon could not drop a word of his intention to Jane, for Harriett Phillips was at his elbow when he made his adieu; but somehow Elsie treasured up his parting looks, and embarrassed expressions, with as much fidelity as if he had made an open declaration of love. Many a woman’s heart lives long on such slight food as this. And the next day, Brandon was on board, and soon on the high seas, on his way back to his sheep-stations and his troubles.

Chapter XIV.

Francis Hogarth’s Canvass And Election

There can be little doubt that Jane Melville was a good deal influenced in her decision as to the position she ought to hold with Francis by the letter she had received from Tom Lowrie on the morning of the day in which her cousin had betrayed to her more unmistakably than ever the state of his own heart. It was something more for him to give up, and, as I have said before, she rather overestimated both the importance of the public duty and the amount of success in it which Francis was likely to attain to. It might seem to impartial observers rather Utopian to hope and expect some regeneration of the political world of Great Britain from the return of an intelligent country gentleman of independent and original principles, for a few obscure Scottish burghs, to be one of an assembly of six hundred and fifty-eight legislators, but it is from such Utopianism, felt, not in one instance, but in many, that the atmosphere of politics, both in Great Britain and in Australia, can be cleared and purified. When people, whether as electors or candidates (or, as in the case of Jane Melville, even those who are neither), take an exaggerated view of the trouble, expense, and annoyance attending the discharge of public duty, and form a low estimate of the good that each honest energetic individual can do to his country by using every means in his power to secure good government, to promote public spirit, and to raise the standard of political morality, the country is on the decline. It may grow rich, it may increase in national prosperity, but, as a nation, it wants the soul of national life and national freedom. I prefer Jane Melville’s rather unreasonable hopes to the pusillanimous fears–the LASSEZ FAIRE policy of those who think they know the world far better, and who believe the game of public life is not worth the cost of the candle that lights it up.

If she had been the only woman in the world, or the only woman likely to suit Francis, and to make him happy, she would have felt very differently; but surely he could have no difficulty in finding, among the hundreds of thousands of marriageable women in Great Britain, some one as likely (she even thought, more likely), to satisfy his heart than herself. It was only because circumstances had made him know her so well, and because he had been so intimately connected with no one else, that he believed he loved her. He was a man whom any woman might easily learn to love; and if she steadily held out to him that she was only his dear sister–his faithful friend, and that she could never be anything else, he would ere long form a tenderer tie. But she hoped and wished that his lot might be cast with a good woman, who would not grudge her the secondary place that she felt she could not give up. She tried to convince herself that it could be only friendship really on his part; but he had been so unused to affectionate friendships, especially with one of the other sex, that he was very likely to mistake his feelings.

The state of her own heart she did not like to look into very closely; she knew that Francis was inexpressibly dear to her, but the absolute absence of all jealousy made her doubt if it were really what is called love. She could look forward without pain to another person becoming more to him than herself. My readers will think that if it had been really love, it would have forced itself upon her, and burst through all the barriers that were laid across its course. But love in a strong nature is a very different thing from the same amount of love in a feeble nature. If it had been her own property and career that had to be given up for his sake, her love would have probably conquered all private ambition; but the very high estimation in which she held her cousin, fought against her instinctive wish to make him happy. And if the irrevocable step were taken, what security would she have that he might not regret it?

She dwelt in her own mind on the disparities between them, which, but for the peculiar circumstances in which they had been placed by her uncle’s will, must have prevented the formation even of the friendship, now so close and so precious. She was perhaps scarcely aware that such contrasts are more favourable to the growth and the continuance of love than too near resemblance in character and temperament. She was so different in many ways from him–he was literary–she was practical; he was poetical and artistic, and by no means scientific–she was destitute of taste, and saw more romance in the wonders of science than in much of the poetry he admired so much; he was aristocratic by temperament, and only forced by her influence at the turning-point of his life into her democratic views–she could not rest from the over-activity of her nature, while he liked repose, meditative, literary, and DILETTANTI. The strong sense of duty, which certainly was the guiding principle of his nature, led him to exertion; while Jane worked because she could not help it. With Jane’s temperament Francis never would have stayed for fifteen years clerk in the Bank of Scotland, while there were new countries to conquer, or new fields to work in. He found pleasure in beautiful things; all disorder or disorganization was positively painful to him. To begin again a life of comparative poverty, burdened with the care of Elsie, would be far more trying to him than to her; for though she had been brought up in greater affluence, she cared less for the elegances of life. She loved him far too well to allow him to sacrifice a great deal more than she thought she was worth for such a doubtful good, and she entered heart and soul into the prospects of this election, as the thing which would decide Francis’ fate, and would give him still nobler work to do, to keep him from regretting what it was better he should not obtain.

The spiritual communication on the subject of Francis’ hopes, to the effect that after a time he should succeed in the object dearest to his heart, had made far less impression on her mind than on his. She had not heard the unearthly taps; she had not been startled by the appropriate answers; she had not herself had her hand arrested at the letters which spelled out the unknown names. Her curiosity led her to attend a seance with Francis at the same place, but everything on that occasion was a failure. The spirits had not got rightly EN RAPPORT with her; her dead relations were misnamed; their messages were uncharacteristic; and the spirit of Mr. Hogarth never could be summoned up again. She therefore determined to dismiss the whole subject from her thoughts, and advised Francis to do the same. Mr. Dempster, however, was not willing to relinquish his half-made proselyte; and certainly, the less Jane was inclined to believe in these manifestations the more she became attached to the simple-minded pious visionary who rested so completely in them.

Jane’s own life was particularly full of work and of worry at this time; for, as Miss Phillips might have taken part of the blame to herself, if she had conceived it possible that she could do wrong; for it was on her account that the housemaid had given warning–she said that two missusses, that was, Mrs. Phillips and Miss Melville, was enough for her, and she could not submit to a third, and she couldn’t abear Miss Phillips’s interference. The nursemaid took umbrage at Elsie sitting so much in the nursery with the children, though it was what Mr. Phillips liked, and what the children delighted in; and besides there was no other convenient place for her except her own bedroom, which was too cold for comfort and too dark for fine work. Elsie’s position in the house was rather anomalous, and certainly added to Jane’s difficulties.

While Francis was busily engaged with his canvass, Mr. and Mrs. Phillips took a short tour on the Continent. Harriett would have liked to accompany them, and threw out hints to show that she expected an invitation; but her sister-in-law thought they had done quite enough for her, having her all that time in London, and taking her about everywhere. Jane was to be left in charge of the children, and Elsie was to go with her mistress. Now that Mrs. Phillips had a lady’s-maid, she could not possibly travel without one; and as neither her husband nor herself knew any modern language but their own, Elsie might be useful besides as an interpreter, as she understood French very tolerably, and had learned a good deal of Italian. There might be advantage by and by from being able to advertise French and Italian acquired off the Continent, for perhaps a school might suit the Melvilles better than going into business; so Jane was very glad indeed that her sister, who would profit most by it, should take the trip rather than herself. Miss Phillips returned to Derbyshire, as she had no desire to stay even with such a congenial companion as Miss Melville, with the drawback of a houseful of children.

In the meantime Francis’ canvass went on briskly; Mr. Sinclair constituted himself his most active agent, and certainly took more trouble and fatigue about it than any paid agent; but he sometimes seemed to do his cause more harm than good by his constant recurrence to first principles, which alarmed the jog-trot old Whigs, and occasionally even the out-and-out Radicals.

The five burghs, whose representation Mr. Hogarth was about to contest, were grouped together because they lay in adjoining counties, and not because they had any identity of interests. In the good old times, before the passing of the Reform Bill, each burgh sent one delegate to vote for the member. The delegate was elected by the majority of the town council, and as that body invariably elected their successors, the representation of the citizens, either municipal or parliamentary, by such means, was the most glorious fiction that has ever been devised by the wisdom of our ancestors. The double election in this case had no good tendency. The Reform Bill was, on the whole, a very good thing, more because it was a great change in the representation, which was carried out without endangering the constitution, and was an earnest of still greater reforms being made in the future, than because there is any very great improvement either in the character of the electors or their representatives; but to Scotland it was a greater boon than to England; for the semblance of representative institutions without the reality was a mockery to a free people, and a very mischievous mockery. In 185–the burghs had each their registered voters on the roll, who each voted for his favourite candidate, so that the votes of five hundred men in one burgh could not be neutralized by those of eighty men in another.

The stronghold of the Conservative party lay in Swinton, the genteel, and Freeburgh, the county town. The Liberals mustered very strong in Ladykirk, which had taken to the woollen manu factory within the last quarter of a century, and had increased very much in extent and population, so that it had far more voters paying 10 pounds rent than any of the other towns. In Auldbiggin and Plainstanes parties were so equal that no majority on either side could be reckoned on, but the Whig majority in Ladykirk was expected to overtop the Tory majority in the two first towns by as much as would secure Hogarth’s return. The Honourable Mr. Fortescue was again to be put up for the Tory interest, for though he had not distinguished himself last parliament, he was a perfectly safe party man, and connected by marriage, not with the duke, but with a Tory marquis, next in consideration in the district, who had great influence in the county returns.

Mr. Fortescue found he had a different man to fight with in Francis Hogarth from his opponent last election, Mr. Turnbull; so he felt he needed more backing, and brought with him a Mr. Toutwell, a great gun with his party, who went his rounds both with and without him, and acted as his mouthpiece.

“One has confidence in an experienced man,” said this gentleman, in a confidential way, to the electors, when he met them singly or by twos and threes. “If the earl had put up a man of greater parliamentary experience, he might have had a chance to oust Mr. Fortescue, but his picking up this quill-driver, who has spent his life behind a bank-counter, and offering him to the burghs, is really an insult to the constituency. Mr. Fortescue is no orator–there is enough of us in the House to speak, Heaven knows–there is only too much talk about nothing; but Mr. Fortescue’s vote was never given wrong–never once did he forsake his colours! Don’t look to the speeches–look to the division list, and there you will see that you can trust your member. As for this Hogarth, there is not a single thing that he has done that inspires confidence, even with his own party. He is far too Radical even for the earl. I cannot imagine how that old fox has been so misled as to take him up–probably for a consideration. Look at those allotments he has made over or given away to his labourers–the most dangerous innovation that could possibly be made in such a country as this. When the non-propertied classes see such things, they fancy they should all share in the spoil. This is how Socialism is to come in upon us. These levelling and no doubt godless views prepare the way for such revolutions as we have seen with so much horror across the Channel. Old Cross Hall was a sceptic of the worst kind, and picked up his views of religion and politics in France, and this new man could not rest till he too went to France to improve his mind in the same way. These cottages he has built on his estate, no doubt to increase his popularity, and perhaps at Ladykirk they may go down, but in Swinton and Freeburgh people see things differently, and even Plainstanes and Auldbiggin like no such new fangled notions put into working people’s heads. The idea of compelling proprietors to build such palaces for their tenants’ labourers, when the labourers themselves do not ask for them, and do not care for them when they get them!–and I hear that Hogarth says they should all build houses just like his. Mere clap-trap to win political influence–for his own people break the windows, and take no care of their fine new houses. I am sure property is burdened heavily enough without this absurd crotchet for additional spoliation. Old Cross Hall was crazy enough to leave him a lot of money as well as the estate; he certainly might have left the money to the poor girls he had brought up like his daughters, and not have left them to starve, and to be a burden on the country; and young Cross Hall can see no better way of spending it than in throwing it away for the chance of this seat–but he has no chance. The bank-clerk’s hoards will be somewhat diminished before all his expenses are paid. We need take no trouble–indeed, Mr. Fortescue might walk the course.”

But, in spite of all this careless talk, Mr. Fortescue, and Mr. Toutwell too, did take a great deal of trouble, and employed every possible means to secure the certain majority of thirty which they spoke of. The greatest hope they had was in a split between the new man and the earl’s party, and Mr. Fortescue’s agents managed to make the most of every little point in dispute.

Reports reached the earl from different quarters, mostly reliable, that the return of Mr. Hogarth would not at all strengthen his party in the country. He had but a small following, and was comparatively little known. The county voters were mostly tenant farmers, who generally voted with their landlords. The race of portioners, or small proprietors, was dying out in—–shire, as it is in all the British island, and large proprietors were very much opposed to Cross Hall, on account of his loose views as to the rights of property. At Newton, however, which was a large manufacturing town of recent growth, and not a royal burgh, but which was of very great importance in the county representation, Francis Hogarth was extremely popular. He was the real friend of the people–the only man in the county who seemed to understand anything about the rights of labour. The electors of Newtown felt aggrieved that they, who were far more numerous than those of any of the five royal burghs, were thrown into the county representation, where their votes did not count for one-fourth of what they would do in the burghs. They felt personally interested in the return of Cross Hall (as he was generally called), and would not leave a stone unturned to secure it. The non-electors of Newtown–a still more numerous body–regretted that they could do nothing to further his views, except by going EN MASSE to Ladykirk on the day of the election, and combining with the non-electors there, so as to make as great a physical demonstration as possible, for they considered that Cross Hall, if returned, would be their representative–ready to fight their battles, and to redress their grievances.

“Be careful, Mr. Hogarth, be careful,” said Mr. Prentice, his Freeburgh agent. “Say nothing that may awaken jealousy or mistrust among our own party. You are much too frank in your assertion of your opinions–correct enough, no doubt; but your people are not prepared for them, and your majority is not so large that you can afford to lose a single vote.”

“It certainly is not large in your burgh,” said Francis.

“A minority of twenty-three is the most favourable thing you can expect here–I think twenty-four. At Swinton there is a certain minority of fourteen, which the least imprudence on your part would double. Auldbiggin and Plainstanes are ties at present, so your majority at Ladykirk should be large, to cover up our deficit. We have the hardest work to do, with the least credit; we should have double pay at these losing burghs,” said Prentice, laughing. “But, for Heaven’s sake! Mr. Hogarth, keep your friend Sinclair quiet. If he would only take a fever or something of that kind, to keep him in bed till he is wanted to vote, it would be a real service to the cause. You must address the electors tonight at a public meeting, and if possible, keep Mr. Sinclair away. We will get Mr. Hunter, and Mr. Thirlstane, and a few others, to speak in a quiet, taking way, and you need not say too much yourself, and do not make it too distinct. I have been agent here ever since the passing of the Reform Bill, and I should know what electioneering for these burghs is. Our people admire fine speaking–a few flowers of rhetoric. A little oratory and enthusiasm are very telling, but you need not pin yourself down to any definite course of action.”

“I am, perhaps, too much disposed to an indefinite course of action; my principles I wish the electors to confide in, and I will act up to them as the occasion may offer,” said Francis.

“But if you are too broad and direct in your assertion of principles, you may offend a third part of our sure votes. Nothing like a few good large words, with not much meaning, for these burghs. By the by, there is a deputation from Ladykirk come to wait on you, before you speak at this meeting. It is nearer for them to come here than to Swinton, so it is more convenient.”

In fact there were two deputations awaiting the Liberal candidate–one from the electors of Ladykirk, headed by Sandy Pringle, a man who had risen by the fabrication of woollen yarn from a weaver into a millowner, though not in a very large way; and the other from the non-electors of Newtown, who, though they had no legitimate right to take up Cross Hall’s time, wanted a few words with him before election. Their spokesman was Jamie Howison, of the class called in the south country, in common parlance, a CREESHEY WEAVER, who had not risen, and was not likely to rise.

Both deputations appeared at once, which to a man less honest and direct than Francis, would have been inconvenient. He might have requested one to retire while he gave audience to the other, but he had so little the fear of Mr. Prentice before his eyes, that he really wished every elector and every non-elector to hear his sentiments and opinions as fully and openly as possible, and he received both of the deputations together.

He first heard what his own would-be constituents had to say, and satisfied them as to his perfect independence of the great Whig families, and that he meant to keep his judgment unbiassed by party politics.

“Then what about the extension o’ the suffrage?” asked Sandy Pringle; “we want five-pound voters at Ladykirk.”

“That is a question likely to be kept in abeyance during the sitting of this parliament,” said Francis. “If it is brought forward I must say that I cannot at present vote for extension of the suffrage.”

“Oh! we thocht ye were an oot-an’-oot Leeberal–nane o’ your finality Whigs that took ae bit step in the richt direction, and then durstna venture further. Ye maun vote for the five-pound vote if ye are to be oor man,” said Sandy Pringle.

“We thocht ye would be for a baulder step than a five-pound vote,” said Jamie Howison; “ye’re said to be the puir man’s friend. Is it fair that the like o’ huz, that mak the country what it is, should hae nae voice in the elections? We’re for manhood suffrage, an’ the ballot, and we look to you to be oor advocate, for we thocht ye was to be oor member. If so be as we had had our richts, and had votes to gie, ye should hae them a’.”

“It’s fear–it’s fear of the earl and the Freeburgh gentry that keeps him frae speakin’ oot his mind,” said Sandy Pringle; “but his heart is a’ richt. He kens what’s wanted, and if he’s no thirled to the Elliotts and the Greys, he can vote as he thinks fit. I think we can depend on him.”

“My friends,” said Francis, “I wish to show no fear and no favour. I would not say to you what I would not say to the earl, nor to the earl what I would be sorry or ashamed to let you hear. I wish you to know, as clearly as I can explain them, my political principles, so that I may raise no unfounded expectations and disappoint no one wilfully or designedly. I think with you that it is a great evil that the working man has no voice in the election of the members of the Legislature. I hope to live to see the day–and I will labour to advance it–when every man shall feel his influence in greater or less measure in that most important part of the duty of a free people; but have any of you ever seriously considered the effect which would follow the adoption in Great Britain, at present, of manhood suffrage, or even of reducing the franchise to a five-pound vote?”

“There would be far mair economy in the public service,” said Sandy