amused him-about him, and to indulge luxuriously every reasonable fancy, willing to forsake all, and follow the beck of that phantom. Had he knowledge, public talents, training? Nothing of the sort. Had he patriotism, any one noble motive or fine instinct to prompt him to public life? The mere suggestion was a sneer. It seemed to me, simply, that Stanley Lake was a lively, amusing, and even intelligent man, without any internal resource; vacant, peevish, with an unmeaning passion for corruption and intrigue, and the sort of egotism which craves distinction. So I supposed. Yet, with all its weakness, there was a dangerous force in the character which, on the whole, inspired an odd mixture of fear and contempt. I was bitten, however, already, by the interest of the coming contest. It is very hard to escape that subtle and intoxicating poison. I wondered what figure Stanley would make as a hustings orator, and what impression in his canvass. The latter, I was pretty confident about. Altogether, curiosity, if no deeper sentiment was highly piqued; and I was glad I happened to drop in at the moment of action, and wished to see the play out.

At the door of her boudoir, Rachel Lake met Dorcas.

"I am so glad, Radie dear, you are come. You must take off your things, and stay. You must not leave me tonight. We'll send home for whatever you want; and you won't leave me, Radie, I'm certain."

"I'll stay, dear, as you wish it," said Rachel, kissing her.

"Did you see Stanley? I have not seen him to-day," said Dorcas.

"No, dear; I peeped into the library, but he was not there; and there are two men writing in the Dutch Room, very busily."

"It must be about the election." "What election, dear?” asked Rachel.

There is going to be an election for the county, and-only think-he intends coming forward. I sometimes think he is mad, Radie."

"I could not have supposed such a thing. If I were he, I think I should fly to the Antipodes; I should change my name, sear my features with vitriol, and learn another language; I should obliterate my past self alto

gether; but men are so different, so audacious-some men, at least-and Stanley, ever since his ill-omened arrival at Redman's Farm, last autumn, has amazed and terrified me."

"I think Radie, we have both courage-you have certainly; you have shown it, darling, and you must cease to blame yourself; I think you a heroine, Radie; but you know I see with the wild eyes of the Brandons."

"I am grateful Dorcas that you don't hate me. Most women I am sure would abhor me-yes Dorcas— abhor me."

"You and I against the world, Radie!" said Dorcas, with a wild smile and a dark admiration in her look, and kissing Rachel again. "I used to think myself brave; it belongs to women of our blood; but this is no common strain upon courage, Radie; I've grown to fear Stanley somehow like a ghost; I'm sure it is worse than he says," and she looked with a horrible inquiry into Rachel's eyes.

"So do I, Dorcas," said Rachel, in a firm low whisper, returning her look as darkly.

"What's done cannot be undone," said Rachel, sadly, after a little pause, unconsciously quoting from a terrible soliloquy of Shakespeare. "I know what you mean, Radie; and you warned me, with a strange secondsight, before the evil was known to either of us. It was an irrevocable step, and I took it, not seeing all that has happened it is true; but_forewarned, and this I will say, Radie, if I had known the worst, I think even that would not have deterred me. It was madness-it is madness, for I love him still, Rachel, though I know him and his wickedness, and am filled with horror, I love him desperately."

"I am very glad, Rachel, that you do know everything. It is so great a relief to have companionship; I often thought I must go mad in my solitude."

"Poor Rachel!" I think you wonderful-I think you a heroine--I do, Radie; you and I are made for one another--the same blood--something of the same wild nature; I can admire you, and understand you, and will always love you.'

"I've been with William Wylder and Dolly. That wicked attorney,

Dorcas sighed.

"You know, Rachel, the world must not see this-we will carry our heads high. Wicked men and brave and suffering women-that is the history of our family-and men and women always quite unlike the rest of the world-unlike the human race; and somehow they interest me unspeakably. I wish I knew more about those proud, forlorn beauties, whose portraits are fading on the walls. Their spirit, I am sure, is in us, Rachel; and their pictures and tradition have always supported me. In my lonely childhood I used to look at them, with a feeling of melancholy and mystery. They were in my eyes reserved prophetesses, who could speak, if they would, of my own future."

"A poor support, Dorcas,- -abroken reed. I wish we could find anotherthe true one, in the present, and in futurity."

Dorcas smiled faintly, and I think there was a little gleam of a ghastly satire in it. I am afraid that part of her education which deals with futurity, had been neglected.

"I am more likely to turn into a Lady Macbeth than a dévote," said she, coldly, with the same painful smile. "I found myself last night sitting up in my bed, talking in the dark about it."

There was a silence for a time, and Rachel said

"It is growing late, Dorcas."
"But you must not go, Rachel-

you must stay and keep me company you must, indeed, Radie," said Dorcas.

"So I will," she answered; "but I must send a line to old Tamar; and I promised Dolly to go down to her to-night. If that darling little boy should be worse-I am very unhappy about him."

"And is he in danger, the handsome little fellow ?" said Dorcas.

"Very great danger, I fear," said Rachel. Doctor Buddle has been very kind-but he is, I am afraid, more desponding than poor William or Delly imagine Heaven help them!"

"But children recover wonderfully. What is his ailment ?"

"Gastric fever, the Doctor says. I had a foreboding of evil the moment I saw him-before the poor little man was put to his bed."

Dorcas rang the bell.

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"Now, Radie, if you wish to write, sit down here- or if you prefer a message, Thomas can take one very accurately; and he shall call at the Vicar's, and see Dolly, and bring us word how the dear little boy is. And don't fancy, darling, I have forgotten what you said to me about dutythough I would call it differentlyonly I feel so wild, I can think of nothing clearly yet. But I am making up my mind to a great and bold step, and when I am better able, I will talk it over with you-my only friend, Rachel."

And she kissed her.

THE time had now arrived when our friend Jos Larkin was to refresh the village of Gylingden with his presence. He had pushed matters forward with wonderful despatch. The deeds, with their blue and silver stamps, were handsomely engrossed-having been approved in draft by Crompton S. Kewes, the eminent Queen's Counsel on a case furnished by Jos Larkin, Esq., The Lodge, Brandon Manor, Gylingden, on behalf of his client, the Reverend William Wylder; and in like manner on behalf of Stanley Williams Brandon Lake, of Brandon Hall, in the county of Esq.

In neither draft did Jos Larkin figure as the purchaser by name. He did not care for advice on any difficulty depending on his special relations to the vendors in both these cases. He wished, as was his custom, everything above-board, and such "an opinion" as might be published by either client in the Times next day if he pleased it. Besides these matters of Wylder and of Lake, he had also a clause to insert in a private Act, on behalf of the trustees of the Baptist Chapel, at Naunton Friars; a short deed to be consulted upon on behalf of his client, Pudder Swynfen,

Esq., of Swynfen Grange, in the same county; and a deed to be executed at Shillingsworth, which he would take en route for Gylingden, stopping there for that night, and going on by next morning's train.

Those little trips to town paid very fairly.

In this particular case his entire expenses reached exactly £5 3s., and what do you suppose was the good man's profit upon that small item? Precisely £62 78.! The process is simple. Jos Larkin made his own handsome estimate of his expenses, and the value of his time to and from London, and then he charged this in its entirety -shall we say integrity-to each client separately. In these little excursions he was concerned for no less than five.

His expenses, I say, reached exactly £5 38. But he had a right to go to Dondale's if he pleased, instead of that cheap hostelry near Covent Garden. He had a right to a handsome lunch and a handsome dinner, instead of that economical fusion of both meals into one, at a cheap eating-house, in an out of the way quarter. He had a right to his pint of high-priced wine, and to accomplish his wanderings in a cab, instead of, as the Italians say, "partly on foot, and partly walking." Therefore, and on this principle, Mr. Jos Larkin had "no difficulty" in acting. His savings, if the good man chose to practise self-denial, were his ownand it was a sort of problem while he stayed, and interested him curiously-keeping down his bill in matters which he would not have dreamed of denying himself at home.

The only client among his wealthy supporters who ever went in a grudging spirit into one of these little bills of Jos Larkin's, was old Sir Mulgrave Bracton--the defunct parent of the Sir Harry, with whom we are acquainted.

"Don't you think, Mr. Larkin, you could perhaps reduce this, just a little."

"Ah, the expenses?”
"Well, yes.

Mr. Jos Larkin smiled--the smile said plainly, "what would he have me live upon, and where?" We do meet persons of this sort, who would fain fill our bellies with the husks" that swine digest; what of that

VOL. LXIII.-NO. CCCLXXIV.

-we must remember who we are-gentlemen--and answer this sort of shabbiness, and every other endurable annoyance, as Lord Chesterfield did -with a bow and a smile.

"I think so,” said the Baronet, in a bluff, firm way.

"Well, the fact is, when I represent a client, Sir Mulgrave Bracton, of a certain rank and position, I make it a principle-and, as a man of business, I find it tells--to present myself in a style that is suitably handsome.

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Oh; an expensive house-where was this, now ?"

"Oh, Sir Mulgrave, pray don't think of it--I'm only too happypray, draw your pen across the entire thing.'

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I think so," said the Baronet unexpectedly. "Don't you think if we said a pound a-day, and your travelling expenses?"

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Certainly any thing-whatever you please, sir."

And the Attorney waved his long hand a little, and smiled almost compassionately; and the little alteration was made, and henceforward he spoke of Sir Mulgrave as not quite a pleasant man to deal with in money matters; and his confidential friends knew that in a transaction in which he had paid money out of his own pocket for Sir Mulgrave he had never got back more than seven and sixpence in the pound; and, what made it worse, it was a matter connected with the death of poor Lady Bracton! And he never lost an opportunity of conveying his opinion of Sir Mulgrave, sometimes in distinct and confidential sentences, and sometimes only by a sad shake of his hand, or by awfully declining to speak upon the subject.

In the present instance Jos Larkin was returning in a heavenly frame of mind to The Lodge, Brandon Manor, Gylingden. Whenever he was away he interpolated "Brandon Manor," and stuck it on his valise and hatcase; and liked to call aloud to the porters tumbling among the luggage

"Jos Larkin, Esquire, Brandon Manor, if you please" and to see the people read the inscription in the hall of his dingy hostelry. Well might the good man glow with a happy consciousness of a blessing. In small things as in great he was prosperous.

This little excursion to London would cost him, as I said, exactly

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£5 38. It might have cost him £13 108., and at that sum his expenses figured in his ledger; and as he had five clients on this occasion, the total reached £67 10s., leaving a clear profit, as I have mentioned, of £62 7s. on this item.

But what was this little tip from fortune, compared with the splendid pieces of scrivenery in his despatch box. The white parchment-the blue and silver stamps in the corner-the German text and flourishes at top, and those broad, horizontal lines of recital, 'habendum," and soforthmarshalled like an army in procession behind his march of triumph into Five Oaks, to take the place of its deposed prince? From the Captain's deed to the Vicar's his mind glanced fondly.

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He would yet stand the highest man in his county. He had found time for a visit to the King-at-Arms and the Herald's Office. He would have his pictures and his pedigree. His grandmother had been a Howard. Her branch, indeed, was a little under a cloud, keeping a small provisionshop in the town of Dwiddleston. But this circumstance need not be in prominence. She was a Howard that was the fact he relied on-no mortal could gainsay it; and he would be, first, J. Howard Larkin, then Howard Larkin, simply; then Howard Larkin Howard, and the Five Oaks' Howards would come to be very great people, indeed. And the Brandons had intermarried with other Howards, and Five Oaks would naturally, therefore, go to Howards; and so he and his, with clever management, would be anything but novi homines in the county.

"He shall be like a tree planted by the water-side, that will bring forth his fruit in due season. His leaf also shall not wither." So thought this good man complacently. He liked these fine consolations of the Jewish dispensation-actual milk and honey, and a land of promise on which he could set his foot.

Jos Larkin, Esq., was as punctual as the clock at the terminus. He did not come a minute too soon or too late, but precisely at the moment which enabled him, without fuss, and without a tiresome wait, to proceed to the details of ticket, luggage, selection of place, and ultimate ascension thereto.

So now having taken all measures, gliding among the portmanteaus, hand-barrows, and porters, and the clangorous bell ringing, he mounted, lithe and lank, into his place.

There was a pleasant evening light still, and the gas-lamps made a purplish glow against it. The little buttercooler of a glass lamp glimmered from the roof. Mr. Larkin established himself, and adjusted his rug and mufflers about him, for, notwithstanding the season, there had been some cold, rainy weather, and the evening was sharp; and he set his two newspapers, his shilling book, and other triumphs of cheap literature in sundry shapes, in the vacant seat at his left hand, and made everything handsome about him. He glanced to the other end of the carriage, where sat his solitary fellow-passenger. This gentleman was simply a mass of cloaks and capes, culminating in a fur cap; his shoulders were nestled into the corner, and his face buried among his loose mufflers. They sat at corners diagonally opposed, and were, therefore, as far apart as was practicable-an arrangement, not sociable, to be sure, but, on the whole, very comfortable, and which neither seemed disposed to disturb.

Mr. Larkin had a word to say to the porter from the window, and bought one more newspaper; and then looked out on the lamp-lit platform, and saw the officials loitering off to the clang of the carriage doors; then the whistle, and then the clank and jerk of the start. And so the brick walls and lamps began to glide backward, and the mail train was off.

Jos Larkin tried his newspaper, and read for ten minutes, or so, pretty diligently; and then looked for a while from the window, upon receding hedge-rows and farm-steads, and the level and spacious landscape; and then he leaned back luxuriously, his newspaper listlessly on his knees, and began to read, instead, at his ease, the shapeless, wrapt-up figure diagonally opposite.

The quietude of the gentleman in the far corner was quite singular. He produced neither tract, nor newspaper, nor volume-not even a pocket-book or a letter. He brought forth no cigarcase, with the stereotyped, Have you any objection to my smoking a cigar ?" He did not even change his

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