THE GALAXY.

VOL. XXIII.—MARCH, 1877.—No. 3.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by SHELDON & CO., in the office of the
Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

THE ENGLISH PEERAGE.

More than one reader must have felt impatient with Milton for spoiling the fine epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester with such unfortunate lines as "A Viscount's daughter, an Earl's heir," and "No Marchioness, but now a queen." Probably the expressions sounded less absurd to his contemporaries than they do to us, for titles of nobility, however unworthily conferred, had more significance in the reign of James I. than they bear in the reign of Queen Victoria. The memorable despatch in which Collingwood announced the victory of Trafalgar, and which has been described by great writers as a masterpiece of simple narration began with these words: "Sir: The ever to be lamented death of Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, in the moment of victory," etc. Now peers of all ranks, except the highest, are commonly spoken of under the general designation of "Lord So-and-So," and are rarely accorded in conversation the honors of "my lord," or "your lordship." Generally speaking, it may be said that in England titles, like decorations, are still greedily sought after, but when won are not openly displayed. They are felt by their bearers to be an anachronism, though no doubt a sufficiently agreeable one to those most immediately concerned.

Successive governments give as large a share of patronage to the peers and baronets, and their kinsfolk, as they reasonably can; while the Premier is only too glad to select men of rank as his colleagues in the Cabinet, if they are only possessed of decent abilities, and will work—for a minister must be a hard worker in these days. Thus, Mr. Gladstone's administration, the first which was ever designated as "Radical," contained a large proportion of the aristocratic element in its ranks, though it was even made a charge against Mr. Gladstone by conservative and pseudo-liberal papers, that he unjustly deprived the peerage of its due representation in the Cabinet.

As a matter of fact, when the Cabinet resigned it consisted of sixteen members. Of these, eight were peers or sons of peers. Of the remaining thirty-six Parliamentary members of the administration, fourteen were peers or sons of peers. Mr. Disraeli's Cabinet numbers but twelve ministers. Of these six are peers, another is heir presumptive to a dukedom; while an eighth is a baronet; and of the remaining members of the administration, nineteen out of thirty-eight are peers, baronets, or sons of peers. In the army and navy, in the diplomatic service, the peerage equally secures its full share of prizes; and even in the legal profession it is far from being a disadvantage to a young barrister that his name figures in the pages of Burke. In the Church a large proportion of the best livings are held by members of the same privileged class, and even the Stock Exchange lately showed itself eager to confer such honors as were in its gift on a duke's son, who had been courageous enough to "go into trade."

The British aristocracy is still, therefore, "a fact," if a favorite term of Mr. Carlyle's may be permitted in such a connexion, as it probably may, for the author of "The French Revolution" has himself been one of the latest eulogists of the governing families of England, and perhaps a few notes on the origin and history of some of the principal houses may not be unacceptable to American readers.

The House of Lords, as at present constituted, consists of something less than five hundred temporal peers. The first in order of hereditary precedence, after the princes of the blood royal, is the Duke of Norfolk, a blameless young gentleman of eight-and-twenty years, and a zealous Catholic, as it is generally supposed that a Howard is compelled to be by a mysterious law of his nature. As a matter of fact, however, no family in England has changed its religion so often. Henry Charles, thirteenth duke, seceded from the Church of Rome on the occasion of the papal aggression. He declared himself convinced that "ultramontane opinions were totally incompatible with allegiance to the sovereign and the Constitution." The Duke's expression of opinion might have had more weight with his coreligionists had his own reputation for wisdom stood higher. But it stood very low. His Grace had made himself very conspicuous during the agitation for the repeal of the corn laws by recommending a curry powder of his own manufacture as a substitute for bread, which singular piece of advice to a starving people earned him the sobriquet of "Curry Norfolk." Charles, eleventh duke, also renounced the old faith about the year 1780. He had not yet succeeded to his title, but was known as the Earl of Surrey; was immediately returned to Parliament for one of his father's boroughs. (The dukes of Norfolk had eleven boroughs at their disposition before the passing of the reform bill.) He was a notable personage in his day, and acted in concert with the party of Fox. For giving the toast of "The people, our Sovereign," at a public dinner he was deprived of his lord-lieutenancy and of his colonelcy of militia. He was remarkable, too, for a dislike of clean linen, which his friends were grieved to see him carry to excess.[A] Three other Howards of the same stock are more honorably distinguished in their country's annals. They are the victor of Flodden and two of his grandsons; the one the Surrey of history and romance, the other, Charles Lord Howard of Effingham, the conqueror of the Spanish Armada. The origin of the family is involved in obscurity, some maintaining that it sprung from the famous Hereward, the Wake, of whose name they affirm Howard to be a corruption; while others assert that the word Howard is neither more nor less than a euphonious form of Hogward, and that the premier duke and hereditary Earl Marshal of England might ultimately trace his descent to a swineherd if he were disposed so to do. The first Howard of whom genealogists can take serious cognizance was a respectable judge of the court of common pleas in the reigns of Edward I. and Edward II. (1297-1308). His descendant was ennobled in the reign of Edward IV.

Next on the roll of the Lords to the Duke of Norfolk is Edward St. Maur, the Duke of Somerset, an extremely clever man, "with a passion for saying disagreeable things." He recently published a smart attack on the evidences of Christianity, which occasioned not a little difficulty to some worthy editors. They were sincere Christians, but it jarred against their feelings to speak harshly of a duke. The St. Maurs (or Seymours) are of genuine Norman descent, and began to be heard of in the thirteenth century. They apparently remained estimable till the time of Henry VIII., when that uxorious monarch married Jane, the daughter of Sir John Seymour, by whom he became the father of Edward VI. Strangely enough, Jane's brother, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, afterward married Henry's widow, and the knot of family relationships becomes a little complicated in consequence. More inauspicious unions were never contracted. Lord Seymour was executed by order of his brother, the Protector (and first Duke of Somerset), and three years later the Protector's death-warrant was signed by his own nephew. From the close of this short chronicle of blood, the Seymours practically disappear from the pages of English history, though Macaulay has left a graphic picture of that Sir Edward Seymour who was Speaker of the House of Commons under Charles II., and who proudly replied to William III., when asked if he belonged to the Duke of Somerset's family, that "the Duke of Somerset belonged to his family." Francis, fifth duke, was the occasion of a few days' gossip and much scandal. During his travels in Italy he visited the convent of the Augustinians at Lerice, where he was foolish enough to offer an impertinence to some ladies of the family of Botti, and was shot by an angry Signor Botti a few hours later. His brother Charles, who succeeded him, is the hero of a less tragic story. His second wife, Lady Charlotte Finch, once tapped him with her fan, when he is said to have rebuked her in these terms: "Madam, my first wife was a Percy, and she never ventured to take such a liberty." He was known among his contemporaries as "the proud Duke of Somerset."

The next of the ducal houses in order of precedence traces its descent from Charles II. and Louisa de Querouaille, "whom our rude ancestors called Madam Carwell." The Dukes of Richmond have always been known as honorable gentlemen, but they have left no mark on the political history of England. The present Duke is perhaps the most distinguished man of his family, being leader of the Conservative party in the House of Lords, and, as is generally thought, Mr. Disraeli's destined successor in the Premiership. The third Duke held high office in the early part of the reign of George III.; while his nephew, Colonel Lennox, who afterward succeeded him in the title, had the honor of fighting a duel with a son of George III. Neither of the combatants suffered any hurt, and Colonel Lennox was reserved for the most melancholy of deaths; falling, thirty years after, a victim to hydrophobia, caused by the bite of a dog. His royal antagonist was Frederic, Duke of York, who subsequently became Commander-in-Chief of the British army in the most inglorious period of its annals. Indeed, so disgraceful was his Royal Highness's conduct of the campaign of 1794, that Pitt demanded one of two things from the King; viz., either that the Prince should be brought before a court-martial, or that the Prime Minister should in future have the right of appointing to great military commands. It must have cost George III. a bitter pang to accept the latter alternative.

The Duke of Grafton, who holds the fourth place on Garter's Roll, is equally descended from his Majesty, King Charles II., of happy memory. Henry Fitzroy, son of Barbara Villiers (created Duchess of Cleveland), was raised to the highest rank in the peerage, as Duke of Grafton, in 1675. He was one of the first to desert his uncle's cause in 1688, and two years later he died a soldier's death under the walls of Cork, fighting for William III. and the liberties of England. His great grandson was Augustus Henry, third Duke of Grafton, who may still be seen gibbeted in the pages of Junius. His Grace was a member of Chatham's second ministry, and succeeded his chief in the Premiership. Of other Dukes of Grafton history makes no special mention.

The fifth of the dukes in order of precedence quarters the royal arms of France and England, but without the bâton sinister. Henry Charles Fitzroy Somerset, Duke of Beaufort, is lineally descended from "old John of Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster" (third son of Edward III.) and Catherine Swinford. John of Gaunt's children by this union were afterward legitimatized by act of Parliament. Henry, the second son, took holy orders, and became Bishop of Lincoln, and afterward of Winchester, as well as Cardinal and Lord Chancellor. He is the Cardinal Beaufort who figures in the stately Gallery of Shakespeare. He and his brothers took the name they bore from the Castle of Beaufort, in Anjou, the place of their nativity. The Cardinal's elder brother was created Earl and afterward Marquis of Somerset. His descendant, Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, fell into the hands of the Yorkists, at the battle of Hexham, and was succeeded in the family honors by his brother Edmund, who was soon to share the same fate. With him the legitimate male line of John of Gaunt became extinct. Duke Henry, however, had left a natural son, who was called Charles Somerset, and who, to use the appropriate language of chronological dictionaries, "flourished" in the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. He was a brave soldier and a skilful diplomatist; having been chosen a Knight of the Garter; he was also appointed captain of the King's Guards for his services. Sir Charles Somerset obtained in marriage Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of William Herbert, Earl of Huntingdon, and Lord Herbert of Rayland, Chepston, and Gower; and, in his wife's right, was summoned to Parliament as Lord Herbert, in the first year of Henry VIII. In 1514 he was advanced to the Earldom of Worcester, having previously been constituted Lord Chamberlain for life, as a reward for the distinguished part he had in the taking of Terouenne and Tournay. He died in 1526, and was succeeded by his son. Little is heard of the Somersets—Earls of Worcester—during the sixteenth century, though the marriage of two ladies of that house called forth the well-known Epithalamium of Spenser. Henry, the fifth earl, created Marquis of Worcester by Charles I., is celebrated in English history for his defence of Rayland castle against the forces of the Parliament, under Sir Thomas Fairfax. On this subject, Mr. George MacDonald's last novel of "St. George and St. Michael" may be consulted with advantage.

The brave old cavalier did not long survive the surrender and destruction of his ancestral home. The same year he died, and was succeeded in his title by his son Edward, the famous author of the "Century of Inventions." It is scarcely too much to say that had this man been divested of rank and fortune, and had he been furnished with the requisite motive for exertion, he might have anticipated the work of Watt and Stephenson. As it was, the discoveries he made served but to amuse his leisure hours. The Marquis of Worcester was well-nigh the last of his race about whose doings his countrymen would much care to be informed. His son was created Duke of Beaufort in 1682, and with the attainment of the highest rank in the peerage came a cessation of mental activity in the family. One more Somerset, however, deserves honorable mention—Fitzroy, who was aide-de-camp to Wellington, and lost an arm at Waterloo. Raised to the peerage in 1852 as Lord Raglan, he was named two years later to the command of the English army in the Crimea. What he did, and what he did not, in that post, is still remembered. In truth he was a gallant soldier, distracted by contradictory instructions, feeling keenly the criticisms of newspaper writers, who complained that one of the strongest fortresses in the world was not taken in a few weeks. The siege had lasted eight months, when Lord Raglan resolved to make one desperate effort to carry the place by assault on the 18th of June, the fortieth anniversary of Waterloo. The attack failed, and the allies were repulsed with severe loss. Ten days later the English general succumbed to sickness and chagrin.

The Dukes of St. Albans enjoy precedence after the Dukes of Beaufort. William Amelius Aubrey De Vere Beauclerk, present and tenth duke, is lineally descended from the Merry Monarch and Nell Gwynn, and through the marriage of the first duke, from the De Veres, Earls of Oxford. His Grace is Hereditary Grand Falconer, a pleasant little sinecure of some $6,000 a year. Of the Dukes of Saint Albans history has nothing to say. The ninth duke married the widow of Mr. Thomas Coutts, of banking renown.

Next on Garter's roll comes the Duke of Leeds, lineally descended from Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby and Lord High Treasurer under Charles II., whom Dutch William afterward made Duke of Leeds. Danby (for he is better known by this title than by the one which he dishonored) must be considered to have been an average statesman, and even a patriot, as public spirit then went. He steadily opposed French influence under Charles II., and afterward contributed to the success of the Revolution. He was subsequently impeached by the Commons for taking bribes, but the principal witness on whom the House relied to substantiate the charge mysteriously disappeared when most wanted. From that day, however, the Duke of Leeds was morally extinguished. The subsequent Dukes led worthy and honorable lives, but were not otherwise notable. The seventh married (24th of April, 1828) an American lady, Louisa Catharine, third daughter of Mr. Richard Caton of Maryland, and widow of Sir Felton Bathurst Hervey.

The two next of the ducal houses, those of Bedford and Devonshire, are invested by Whig writers with almost a halo of glory, though in truth they have produced respectable rather than great men. The beginnings of the house of Russell are somewhat curious. One of the earliest ancestors of the family of whom anything is accurately known was Speaker of the House of Commons in the second and tenth years of Henry VI. His grandson, John Russell, a gentleman of property, resided at Berwick, about four miles from Bridport, in the county of Dorset. He was a bookish man, and would probably never have gone to seek out fortune; but fortune, as is her wont, came to him in the person of the Archduke Philip of Austria. This Prince, the son of the reckless Maximilian, having encountered a violent hurricane in his passage from Flanders to Spain, was driven into Weymouth, where he landed, and was hospitably received by a Sir Thomas Trenchard, who immediately wrote to court for instructions. Meanwhile he deputed his first cousin, Mr. Russell, to wait upon the Prince. His Highness was so fascinated by the conversation of Mr. Russell, that he begged that gentleman to accompany him to Windsor, where he spoke of him in such high terms to the King (Henry VII.), that the monarch at once took him into his favor. He subsequently accompanied Henry VIII. in his French wars, and afterward becoming a supple instrument of his master's ecclesiastical policy, was rewarded with a peerage and a grant of the Abbey of Tavistock, and the extensive lands thereto belonging. To these possessions the Protector Somerset added the monastery of Woburn and the Earldom of Bedford. Nor did the star of John Russell grow dim under the reign of the Catholic Mary, who named him Lord Privy Seal, and Ambassador to Spain, to conduct Philip II. to England. He died in 1555. From him were descended various Russells who enjoyed as many of the good things of this life as they could decently lay hands upon, and two of whom were famous men in their day. William, Lord Russell, is best known to posterity as the husband of the admirable Rachael Wriothesley, daughter of Thomas, Earl of Southampton, and widow of Francis, Lord Vaughan. With respect to his execution there has been some difference of opinion; but the probability is that it was a judicial murder of the worst kind. Immediately after the Revolution, Lord Russell's attainder was reversed by Parliament. His widow survived him forty years, and lived to see George I. on the throne and the Protestant succession firmly established. What is not so generally known, perhaps, is that the mother of Lord Russell was the daughter of Carr, Earl of Somerset, by the divorced wife of Essex. She was herself a virtuous lady, and is said to have fallen down in a fit when she first learned the horrible details of her family history.

Lord Russell's cousin was the victor of La Hogue, created Earl of Orford in 1697. He died in 1727 without issue, when the title became extinct—to be renewed fifteen years later in favor of Sir Robert Walpole.

Lord Russell's father was created Duke of Bedford by William III., May 11, 1694. He was succeeded by his grandson, Wriothesley, who was married at the ripe age of fourteen and elevated to a separate peerage the same year. He had previously been requested to come forward as a candidate for the county of Middlesex; but the prudent Lady Russell refused to allow him. In the then state of public opinion he would have been elected without opposition.

The eighteenth century was the golden age of Whig families, at least till George III. became king, and the house of Russell continued to provide the country with a succession of dignified placemen. John IV., Duke of Bedford, was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1756. In 1762 his Grace, as the plenipotentiary of England, signed the preliminaries of peace at Fontainebleau with France and Spain—a work on which he can scarcely be congratulated, seeing that by it England was juggled out of nearly every advantage she had won by seven years of victory. The Duke's son, Francis, called by courtesy Marquis of Tavistock, married Lady Elizabeth Keppel, who literally died of grief when her husband was killed by a fall from his horse. Dr. Johnson's characteristic comment on this event was that if her ladyship had been a poor washerwoman with twelve children to mind, she would have had no time to die of grief. Lord Tavistock left three sons, Francis and John, successively fifth and sixth Dukes of Bedford, and William (posthumous), the unfortunate nobleman who, within living memory, was murdered by his French valet Courvoisier.

John, Earl Russell, the distinguished statesman who "upset the coach," is a son of the sixth duke, Lord Odo Russell, one of the ablest of modern diplomatists, a grandson of the same peer.

On the day after the head of the house of Russell was raised to ducal rank, the head of the Cavendishes received the same honor, being created Marquis of Hartington and Duke of Devonshire. This family claims descent from Sir John Cavendish, Lord Chief Justice of England in 1366, 1373, and 1377. "In the fourth year of Richard II. his lordship was elected chancellor of the university of Cambridge, and was next year commissioned, with Robert de Hales, treasurer of England, to suppress the insurrection raised in the city of York, in which year the mob, having risen to the number of fifty thousand, made it a point, particularly in the county of Suffolk, to plunder and murder the lawyers; and being incensed in a more than ordinary degree against the Chief Justice Cavendish, his son John having killed the notorious Wat Tyler, they seized upon and dragged him, with Sir John of Cambridge, prior of Bury, into the marketplace of that town, and there caused both to be beheaded." Thus far Burke, who has small sympathy to bestow on Wat Tyler, albeit that reformer was murdered in a cowardly way, whether it were Walworth or Cavendish who struck the blow. "For William Walworth, mayor of London, having arrested him (Wat Tyler), he furiously struck the mayor with his dagger, but being armed [i.e. the mayor being in armor], hurt him not; whereupon the mayor, drawing his baselard, grievously wounded Wat in the neck; in which conflict an esquire of the King's house, called John Cavendish, drew his sword and wounded him twice or thrice, even unto death. For which service Cavendish was knighted in Smithfield, and had a grant of £40 per annum from the King." The great-great-grandson of this Sir John Cavendish was gentleman usher to Cardinal Wolsey; after the death of his master King Henry took him into his own employment, to reward him for the fidelity with which he had served his former patron. His elder brother William was in 1530 appointed one of the commissioners for visiting and taking the surrenders of divers religious houses. Needless to add that from that day Mr. Cavendish had but to do as the King told him and make his fortune. Before his death he had begun to build the noble seat of Chatsworth, in Derbyshire, which his descendants still possess. His second son, and eventual heir, was created Earl of Devonshire by King James I. in 1618. The first earl's nephew was the renowned cavalier general created Marquis and subsequently Duke of Newcastle. He was at one time governor of the Prince of Wales (afterward Charles II.), and there is a touching epistle extant in which his youthful charge entreats the Marquis that he may not be compelled to take physic, which he feels sure would do him no good.

William, fourth earl of Devonshire, although raised to a dukedom by William III., distinguished himself, as did his son, the Marquis of Hartington, in the House of Commons, by vehement opposition to the King's retention of his Dutch guards after the conclusion of peace in 1697; and for this uncourtly conduct the country owes them a deep debt of gratitude. The Dutch guards were not likely to do much harm, but foreign troops have no business in a free state.

Henry Cavendish, the eminent chemist and philosopher, was grandson to the second duke (who married Rachel, daughter of William, Lord Russell). The present duke was senior wrangler of his year; his eldest son is leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons.

Of the dukes of Marlborough, who are next on the list, it is unnecessary to say much. All the world knows the strange history of John Churchill, the noblest and the meanest of mankind. The great duke's only son died of the smallpox while yet a boy; but his honors were made perpetual in the female as well as the male line. The present duke is lineally descended on the father's side from a most worthy country gentleman, Sir Robert Spencer, of Althorp, raised to the peerage as Lord Spencer by James I. Lord Spencer's name should be dear to every American for the friendship he showed his neighbors the Washingtons. The Washingtons had at one time rather a severe struggle to make both ends meet, but they saw better days. John Washington, the heir of the house, was knighted and fought for Charles I. in the civil war. Disgusted with the commonwealth, he emigrated to America, hearing that men were more loyal on the other side of the Atlantic. He is commonly believed to have been the ancestor of George Washington. Such is the irony of fate.

The second Duke of Marlborough who, when unwell, would limit himself to a bottle of brandy a day, proved a real source of danger to his country. When he succeeded to his grandfather's honors in 1733, the faults of the victor of Blenheim were forgotten and only his surpassing military achievements remembered. King and people were alike determined to honor the man who bore his name, and, it was fondly deemed, inherited his qualities. He was made lord lieutenant of two counties, a knight of the garter, and promoted to high military command. Having conducted himself without discredit at Dettingen, he was thought equal to anything, and in the year 1758 Pitt, who felt kindly toward the Churchills, and who had been left £10,000 by Duchess Sarah, was so rash as to name him commander-in-chief of all the British forces in Germany destined to act under Prince Ferdinand. After all, the appointment did no harm, for the Duke died the same year. Exeunt the Dukes of Marlborough into infinite space. Henceforth they and their doings have no more human interest.

The Dukes of Rutland are another family dating their greatness from a share in the spoil of the monasteries. Thomas Manners, first Earl of Rutland, drew one of the best repartees ever made from Sir Thomas More, then Lord Chancellor. "Honores mutant mores," said the Earl to Sir Thomas in resent for some fancied affront. "Nay, my lord," replied More; "the pun is better translated into English—Honors change Manners." Among the descendants of this nobleman two are worthy a passing notice; viz., John, Marquis of Granby, the most dashing of cavalry officers, whose bluff features may still be seen on the signboards of many taverns in England; and Lord John Manners, heir-presumptive to the Dukedom of Rutland, and a member of the present Cabinet. Lord John is chiefly famous as the author of a poem in which occur the oft-quoted lines:

Let arts and learning, laws and commerce die, But keep us still our old nobility—

perhaps the most remarkable sentiment ever uttered even by a young man. It is fair to Lord John Manners to add that he was a fairly successful Minister of Public Works under two administrations, showing indeed a good deal of taste and no contempt at all for the arts. Another Manners was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1805 to 1828; but beyond having an income of something like $130,000 punctually during nearly a quarter of a century, this prelate cannot be considered to have done anything noteworthy. The Archbishop's son was Speaker of the House of Commons from 1817 to 1834, and was raised to the peerage in 1835 as Viscount Canterbury—a peerage being the invariable termination of a modern Speaker's career. The present Lord Canterbury (his son) has been Governor of Victoria and two or three other colonies; for men do not belong to a ducal family for nothing.

There are but eleven Dukes of England properly so called; that is, Dukes sitting in the House of Lords as such, and deriving their titles from creations before the union with Scotland. The Duke of Norfolk, as before stated, is the first of these, and the Duke of Rutland the last in order of precedence. The patent of the latter as Duke bears date March 29, 1703. There are also Dukes of Great Britain and of the United Kingdom, as well as of Scotland and Ireland; but those of the two sister kingdoms sit by inferior titles among their peers, and all the Dukes not of England take precedence among each other by somewhat intricate rules of precedence, into which it is not worth while to enter. The dukedoms are twenty-eight in all, exclusive of those held by princes of the blood royal. The honor has been very sparingly bestowed in late years. The last conferred by George III. was that of Northumberland, the King refusing to make any more creations, except in favor of his own descendants. The Prince Regent made Lord Wellington a duke, and after his accession to the throne raised Lord Buckingham to the same dignity. William IV. made two more, and her present Majesty has added an equal number to the list.

The history of one ducal family is the history of all. They generally boast a founder of some abilities, and produce one or two men, seldom more, who leave their mark on the annals of their country. It would be strange if it were otherwise, considering the enormous opportunities which a title, joined to fair means, gives to its possessor in England. The privileges with which acts of Parliament and courtly lawyers in bygone ages invested the nobility have long since become nominal. A peer has now no right as such to tender advice to the Queen. If libelled, he can no more terrify the offender with the penalties of scandalum magnatum, but must content himself with the same remedies as do other folk; if he cannot be arrested for debt, he shares that privilege with all the Queen's subjects; and if he continues to be a hereditary member of the Legislature, it is because the chamber in which he sits has been reduced to a moderating committee of the sovereign assembly. But the nameless privileges of persons of rank are great indeed. The army, the navy, the Church are filled with them or their dependents. Till within the last few years, the diplomatic service was regarded as their peculiar property. In the present House of Commons, the second elected by household suffrage, fully one-third of the members are sons of peers, baronets, or closely allied by marriage, or otherwise, to the titled classes. A fair proportion of these are Liberals; the Queen's son-in-law, Lord Lorne, member for Argyllshire, being a professor of "Liberal" opinions, as also Lord Stafford, son of the Duke of Sutherland, and Lord de Gray, son of the Marquis of Ripon. Such Liberals serve the useful function of "watering" the creed of their party, which might otherwise prove too strong for the Constitution. Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright would doubtless have gone much further in the path of reform if unfettered by ducal retainers.

And yet, though England is still very far from the realization of that political equality which American citizens enjoy among themselves, and which is perhaps one of the few ascertainable benefits Frenchmen have derived from the revolution, there can be no doubt as to the direction in which England is advancing. Democracy is the goal of the future, and it is even in sight, though a long way off. For instance, considerable as is the parliamentary influence of certain noblemen in the present day, it is influence and no more. Before the Reform act of 1832, the parliamentary "influence" of a peer, as it was euphemistically termed, meant that he had the absolute disposal of one or more seats in the House of Commons. The Duke of Norfolk, as before mentioned, returned eleven members, the Duke of Richmond three, Lord Buckingham six, the Duke of Newcastle seven. In the year 1820, out of the twenty-six prelates sitting in the House of Lords, only six were not directly or indirectly connected with the peerage; while the value of some of the sees was enormous. Now public opinion is too formidable to allow of jobbery that is not very discreetly managed, and a great deal no doubt is thus managed. But appearances must be kept up.

E. C. Grenville Murray.

[ [A]"Did your Grace ever try a clean shirt?" Abernethy is said to have asked the Duke, who had consulted him on some ailment.

MISS MISANTHROPE.

By Justin McCarthy.

CHAPTER IV.

"OH, MUCH DESIRED PRIZE, SWEET LIBERTY!"

The summer had gone and much even of the autumn, and Miss Grey and her companion were settled in London. Minola had had everything planned out in her mind before they left Dukes-Keeton, and little Miss Blanchet was positively awed by her leader's energy, knowledge, and fearlessness. The first night of their arrival in town they went to a quiet, respectable, old-fashioned hotel, well known of Keeton folk, where Miss Grey's father used to stay during his visits to London for many years, and where his name was still well remembered. Then the two strangers from the country set out to look for lodgings, and Miss Grey was able to test her knowledge of London, and satisfy her pride of learning, by conducting her friend straightway to the region in which she had resolved to make a home for herself. She had been greatly divided in mind for a while between Kensington and the West Centre; between the neighborhood of the South Kensington Museum, the glades of the gardens, and all the charms of the old court suburb, and the temptations of the National Gallery, the British Museum, and the old-fashioned squares and houses around the latter. She decided for the British Museum quarter. Miss Blanchet would have preferred the brightness and air of fashion which belonged to Kensington, but Miss Grey ruled that to live somewhere near the British Museum was more like living in London, and she energetically declared that she would rather live in Seven Dials than out of London.

To find a pleasant and suitable lodging would ordinarily have been a difficulty; for the regular London lodging-house keeper detests the sight of women, and only likes the gentleman who disappears in the morning and returns late at night. But luckily there are Keeton folk everywhere. As a rule nobody is born in London, "except children," as a lady once remarked. Come up to London from whatever little Keeton you will, you can find your compatriots settled everywhere in the metropolis. Miss Grey obtained from the kindly landlady of the hotel—who had herself been born in Keeton, and was married to a Glasgow man—a choice of Keeton folk willing to receive respectable and well-recommended lodgers—"real ladies" especially. Miss Grey, being cordially vouched for by the landlady as a real lady, found out a Keeton woman in the West Centre who had a drawing-room and two bedrooms to let.

Had Miss Grey invented the place it could not have suited her better. It was an old-fashioned street, running out of a handsome old-fashioned square. The street was no thoroughfare. Its other end was closed by a solemn, sombre structure with a portico, and over the portico a plaster bust of Pallas. This was an institution or foundation of some kind which had long outlived the uses whereto it had been devoted by its pious founder. It now had nothing but a library, a lecture hall, an enclosed garden (into which, happily for her, the windows of Miss Grey's bedroom looked), an old fountain in the garden, considerable funds, a board of trustees, and an annual dinner. This place lent an air of severe dignity to the street, and furthermore kept the street secluded and quiet by blocking up one of its ends and inviting no traffic. The house in which our pair of wanderers was lodging was itself old-fashioned, and in a manner picturesque. It had broad old staircases of stone, and a large hall and fine rooms. It had once been a noble mansion, and the legend was that its owner had entertained Dr. Johnson there and Sir Joshua Reynolds, and that Mrs. Thrale had often been handed up and down that staircase. Minola loved association with such good company, and it may be confessed went up and down the stairs several times for no other purpose whatever than the pleasure of fancying herself following in the footsteps of bright Mrs. Thrale, with whose wrongs Miss Grey, as a misanthrope, was especially bound to sympathize.

The drawing-room happily looked at least aslant over the grass and the trees of the square. Minola's bedroom, as has been said, looked into the garden of the institution, with its well-kept walks, its shrubs, and its old-fashioned fountain, whose quiet plash was always heard in the seclusion of the back of the house. Had the trunks of the trees been just a little less blackened by smoke our heroine might well have fancied, as she looked from her bedroom window of nights, that she was in some quaint old abode in a quiet country town. But in truth she did not desire to encourage any such delusion. To feel that she was in the heart of London was her especial delight. This feeling would have brightened and glorified a far less attractive place. She used to sit down alone in her bedroom of nights in order to think quietly to herself, "Now I am at last really in London; not visiting London, but living in it." There at least was one dream made real. There was one ambition crowned. "Come what will," she said to herself, "I am living in London." In London and freedom she grew more and more healthy and happy. As a wearied Londoner might have sought out say Keeton, and found new strength and spirits there, so our Keeton girl, who was somewhat pale and thin when she sat on the steps of the ducal mausoleum, grew stronger and brighter every day in the West Centre regions of London.

A happier, quieter, freer life could hardly be imagined, at least for her. She spent hours in the National Gallery and the Museum; she walked with Mary Blanchet in Regent's Park, and delighted to find out new vistas and glimpses of beauty among the trees there, and to insist that it was ever so much better than any place in the country. As autumn came on and the trees grew barer and the skies became of a heavier silver gray, Minola found greater charms in their softened half tones than the brighter lights of summer could give. Even when it rained—and it did rain sometimes—who could fail to see the beauty, all its own, of the green of grass, and the darker stems and branches of trees, showing faintly through the veil of the mist and the soft descending shower? It was, indeed, a delightful Arcadian life. Its simplicity can hardly be better illustrated than by the fact that our adventurous pair of women always dined at one o'clock—when they dined at all—off a chop, except on Sundays, when they invariably had a cold fowl.

Much as Miss Grey loved London, however, it was still a place made up of men whom she considered herself bound to dislike, and of women who depended far too much on these men. Therefore she made studies of scraps of London life, and amused herself by satirizing them to her friend.

"I have accomplished a chapter of London, Mary," she said one evening before their reading had set in. "I have completed my social studies of our neighbors in Gainsborough Place"—a little street of shops near at hand. "I am prepared to give you a complete court guide as to the grades of society there, Mary, so that you may know at once how to demean yourself to each and all."

"Do tell me all about it; I should very much like to know."

"Shall we begin with the highest or the lowest?"

"I think," Miss Blanchet said with a gentle sigh, expressive of no great delight in the story of the lower classes, "I would rather you begin low down, dear, and get done with them first."

"Very well; now listen. The lowest of all is the butcher. He is a wealthy man, I am sure, and his daughter, who sits in the little office in the shop, is a good-looking girl, I think. But in private life nobody in Gainsborough Place mixes with them on really cordial terms. Their friends come from other places; from butchers' shops in other streets. They do occasionally interchange a few courtesies with the family of the baker; but the baker's wife, though not nearly so rich, rather patronizes and looks down upon Mrs. Butcher."

"Dear me!" said the poetess. "What odd people!"

"Well, the pastry-cook's family will have nothing to do, except in the way of business, with butcher or baker; but they are very friendly with the grocer, and they have evenings together. Now the two little old maids, who keep the stationer's shop where the post-office is, are very genteel, and have explained to me more than once that they don't feel at home in this quarter, and that their friends are in the West End. But they are not well off, poor things, I fear, and they like to spend an evening now and then with the family of the grocer and the pastry-cook, who are rather proud to receive them, and can give them the best tea and Madeira cake; and both the little ladies assure me that nothing can be more respectable than the families of the pastry-cook and the grocer—for their station in life, they always add."

"Oh, of course," Miss Blanchet said, who was listening with great interest as to a story, having that order of mind to which anything is welcome that offers itself in narrative form, but not having any perception of a satirical purpose in the whole explanation. Minola appreciated the "of course," and somehow became discouraged.

"Well," she said, "that's nearly all, except for the family of the chemist, who live next to the little ladies of the post-office, and who only know even them by sufferance, and would not for all the world have any social intercourse with any of the others. It's delightful, I think, to find that London is not one place at all, but only a cluster of little Keetons. This one street is Keeton to the life, Mary. I want to pursue my studies deeper though; I want to find out how the gradations of society go between the mothers of the boy who drives the butcher's cart, the baker's boy, and pastry-cook's boy."

"Oh, Minola dear!"

"You think all this very unpoetic, Mary, and you are shocked at my interest in these prosaic and lowly details. But it is a study of life, my dear poetess, and it amuses and instructs me. Only for chance, you know, I might have been like that, and it is a grand thing to learn one's own superiority."

"You never could have been like that, Minola; you belong to a different class."

"Yes, yes, dear, that is quite true. I belong to the higher classes entirely; my father was a country architect, my stepfather is a Nonconformist minister—these are of the aristocracy everywhere."

"You are a lady—a woman of education, Minola," the poetess said almost severely. She could not understand how even Miss Grey herself could disparage Miss Grey and her parentage in jest.

"I can assure you, dear, that one of the pastry-cook's daughters, whom I talked with to-day, is a much better educated girl than I am. You should hear her talk French, Mary. She has been taught in Paris, dear, and speaks so well that I found it very hard to understand her. She plays the harp, and knows all about Wagner. I don't. I like her very much, and she is coming here to take tea with us."

The poetess was not delighted with this kind of society, but she never ventured to contradict her leader.

"You can talk to every one I do really believe," she said. "I find it so hard to get on with people—with some people."

"I feel so happy and so free here. I can say all the cynical things that please me—you don't mind—and I can like or dislike as I choose."

"I am afraid you dislike more than you like, Minola."

"I think I could like any one who had some strong purpose in life; not the getting of money, or making a way in society. There are such, I suppose; I don't know."

"When you meet my brother I am sure you will acknowledge that he has a purpose in life which is not the getting of money," said Miss Blanchet. "But you don't like men."

Minola made no reply. Poor little Miss Blanchet felt so kindly to all the race of men that she did not understand how any woman could really dislike them.

"I am going to do something that will please you to-morrow," Miss Grey said, feeling that she owed her companion some atonement for not warming to the mention of her brother. "I am positively going to hunt out Lucy Money. They must have returned by this time."

This was really very pleasant news for Miss Blanchet. She had been longing for her friend to renew her acquaintance with Miss Lucy Money, about whom she had many dreams. It did not occur to Mary Blanchet to question directly even in her own mind the decrees of Miss Grey, or to say to herself that the course of life which they were leading was not the most delightful that could be devised. But, if the little poetess could have ventured to translate vague yearnings into definite thoughts, she would, perhaps, have acknowledged to herself a faint desire that the brilliant passages of the London career she had marked out for herself in anticipation should come rather more quickly than they just now seemed likely to do. At present there was not much difference perceptible to her between London and Duke's-Keeton. Nobody came to see them. Even her brother had not yet presented himself. Her poem did not make much progress; there was no great incentive to poetic work. Minola and she did not know any poets, or artists, or publishers. Mary Blanchet's poetic tastes were of a somewhat old-fashioned school, and did not include any particular care for looking at trees, and fields, and water, and skies, although these objects of natural beauty were made to figure in the poems a good deal in connection with, and illustrative of, the emotions of the poetess. Therefore the rambles in the park were not so delightful to her as to her leader; and when the evening set in, and Minola and she read to each other, Mary Blanchet was always rather pleased if an opportunity occurred for interrupting the reading by a talk. She was particularly anxious that Minola should renew her acquaintance with her old schoolfellow, Miss Lucy Money, whose father she understood to be somehow a great sort of person, and through whom she saw dimly opening up a vista, perhaps the only one for her, into society and literature. But the Money family were out of town when our friends came to London, and Miss Blanchet had to wait; and, even when it was probable that they had returned, Miss Grey did not seem very eager to renew the acquaintance. Indeed, her resolve to visit Miss Money now was entirely a good-natured concession to the evident desire of Mary Blanchet. Minola saw her friend's little ways and weaknesses clearly, and smiled now and then as she thought of them, and liked her none the less for them—rather, indeed, felt her breast swell with kindliness and pity. It pleased her generous heart to gratify her companion in every way, to find out things that she liked and bring them to her, to study her little innocent vanities, that she might gratify them. What little dainties Mary Blanchet liked to have with her tea, what pretty ribbons she thought it became her to wear—these Miss Grey was always perplexing herself about. When she found that she liked to be alone sometimes, that she must have a long walk unaccompanied, that she must have thoughts which Mary would not care to hear, then she felt a pang of remorse, as if she were guilty of a breach of true camaraderie, and she could not rest until she had relieved her soul by some special mark of attention to her friend. On the other hand, Mary Blanchet, for all her dreams and aspirations, was a sensible and managing little person, who got for Miss Grey about twice the value that she herself could have obtained out of her money. This was a fact which Minola always took care to impress upon her companion, for she dreaded lest Miss Blanchet should feel herself a dependent. Miss Blanchet, however, in a modest way, knew her value, and had besides one of the temperaments to which dependence on some really loved being comes natural, and is inevitable.

So Minola set out next day, about three o'clock, to look up her schoolfellow, Miss Lucy Money. She went forth on her mission with some unwillingness, and with a feeling as if she were abandoning some purpose or giving up a little of a principle in doing so. "I came to London to live alone and independent," she said to herself sometimes, "and already I am going out to seek for acquaintances. Why do I do that? I want strength of purpose. I am just like everybody else"; and she began, as was her wont, to scrutinize her own weaknesses, and bear heavily on them. For, absurd as it may seem, this odd young woman really did propose to live alone—herself and Mary Blanchet—in London until they died—alone, that is, so far as social life and acquaintanceships in society were concerned. Vast and vague schemes for doing good to her neighbors, and for striving in especial to give a helping hand to troubled women, were in Miss Grey's plans of life; but society, so called, was to have no part in them. It did not occur to her that she was far too handsome a girl to be allowed to put herself thus under an extinguisher or behind a screen. When people looked after her as she passed through the streets, she assumed that they noticed some rustic peculiarity in her dress or her hat, and she felt a contempt for them. Her love of London did not imply a love of Londoners, whom in general she thought rude and given to staring. But even if she had thought people were looking at her because of her figure, her face, her eyes, her superb hair, she would have felt a contempt for them all the same. She had a proud indifference to personal beauty, and looked down upon men whose judgment could be affected by the fact that a woman had finer eyes, or brighter hair, or a more shapely mould than other women.

Once Minola was positively on the point of turning back, and renouncing all claim on the acquaintanceship of her former school companion. She suddenly remembered, however, that in condemning her own fancied weakness she had forgotten that her visit was undertaken to oblige Mary Blanchet. "Poor Mary! I have only one little acquaintanceship that has anything to do with society, and am I to deny her that chance if she likes it?" She went on rapidly and resolutely. Sometimes she felt inclined to blame herself for bringing Mary Blanchet away from Keeton, although Mary had for years been complaining of her life and her work there, and beseeching Miss Grey not to leave her behind when she went to live in London.

It was a beautiful autumn day. London looks to great advantage on one of these rare days, and Miss Grey felt her heart swell with mere delight as she looked from the streets to the sky and from the sky to the streets. She passed through one or two squares, and stopped to see the sun, already going down, send its light through the bare branches of the trees. The western sky was covered with gray, silver-edged clouds, which brightened into blots of golden fire as they came closer in the track of the sun. The air was mild, soft, and almost warm. All poets and painters are full of the autumnal charms of the country; but to certain oddly constituted minds some street views in London on a fine autumn day have an unspeakable witchery. Miss Grey walked round and round one of the squares, and had to remind herself of her purpose on Mary Blanchet's behalf in order to impel herself on.

The best of the day had gone, and the early evening was looking somewhat chill and gloomy between the huge ramparts of the Victoria street houses by the time that Miss Grey stood in that solemn thoroughfare, and her heart sank a little as she reached the house where her old school friend lived.

"Perhaps Lucy Money is altogether changed," Miss Grey said to herself as she came up to the door. "Perhaps she won't care about me; perhaps I shan't like her any more; and perhaps her mamma will think me a dreadful person for not honoring my stepfather and stepmother. Perhaps there are brothers—odious, slangy young men, who think girls fall in love with them. Oh, yes, here is one of them."

For just as she had rung the bell a hansom cab drove up to the door, and a tall, dark-complexioned young man leaped out. He raised his hat with what seemed to Miss Grey something the manner of a foreigner when he saw her standing at the door, and she felt a momentary thrill of relief, because, if he was a foreigner, he could not be Lucy Money's brother. Besides, she knew very well that the great houses in Victoria street were occupied by several tenants, and there was good hope that the young man might have business with the upper story, and she with the ground floor.

The young man was about to ring the bell, when he stopped and said:

"Perhaps you have rung already?"

"Yes, I have rung," Miss Grey coldly replied.

"This is Mr. Money's, I suppose?"

"Mr. Money lives here," she answered, with the manner of one resolute to close the conversation. The young man did not seem in the least impressed by her tone.

"Perhaps I have the honor of speaking to Miss Money?" he began, with delighted eagerness.

"No. I am not Miss Money," she answered, still in her clear monotone.

No words could say more distinctly than the young man's expression did, "I am sorry to hear it." Indeed, no young man in the world going to visit Mr. Money could have avoided wishing that the young lady then standing at the door might prove to be Miss Money.

The door opened, and the young man drew politely back to give Miss Grey the first chance. She asked for Miss Lucy Money, and the porter rang a bell for one of Mr. Money's servants. Miss Grey had brought a card with her, on which she had written over her engraved name, "For Lucy Money," and beneath it, "Nola," the short rendering of "Minola," which they used to adopt at school.

Then the porter looked inquiringly at the other visitor.

"If Mr. Money is at home," said the latter, "I should be glad to see him. I find I have forgotten my card case, but my name is Heron—Mr. Victor Heron; and do, please, try to remember it, and to say it rightly."

CHAPTER V.

MISS GREY'S FIRST CALL.

Mr. Money's home, like Mr. Money himself, conveyed to the intelligent observer an idea of quiet, self-satisfied strength. Mr. Money had one of the finest and most expensive suites of rooms to be had in the great Victoria street buildings, and his rooms were furnished handsomely and richly. He had servants in sober livery, and a carriage for his wife and daughters, and a little brougham for himself. He made no pretence at being fashionable; rather indeed seemed to say deliberately, "I am a plain man and don't care twopence about fashion, and I despise making a show of being rich; but I am rich enough for all I want, and whatever money can buy for me I can buy." He would not allow his wife and daughters to aim at being persons of fashion had they been so inclined, but they might spend as much money as ever they pleased. He never made a boast of his original poverty, or the humbleness of his bringing up, nor put on any vulgar show of rugged independence. The impression he made upon everybody was that of a completely self-sufficing—we do not say self-sufficient—man. It was not very clear how he had made his money. He had been at the head of one of the working departments under the Government, had somehow fancied himself ill treated, resigned his place, and, it was understood, had entered into various contracts to do work for the governments of foreign States. It was certain that Mr. Money was not a speculator. His name never appeared in the directors' list of any new company. He could not be called a city man. But it was certain that he was rich.

Mr. Money was in Parliament. He was a strong radical in theory, and was believed to have much stronger opinions than he troubled himself to express. There was a rough, scornful way about him, as of one who dearly considered all our existing arrangements merely provisional, and who in the mean time did not care to occupy himself overmuch with the small differences between this legislative proposition and that. It was not on political subjects that he usually spoke. He was a very good speaker, clear, direct, and expressive in his language, always using plain, effective words, and always showing a perfect ease in the finishing of his sentences. There was a savor of literature about him, and it was evident in many indirect ways that he knew Greek and Latin much better than most of the university men. The impression he produced was that of a man who on most subjects knew more than he troubled himself to display. It seemed as if it would take a very ready speaker indeed to enter into personal contest with Mr. Money and not get the worst of it.

He was believed to be very shrewd and clever, and was known to be liberal of his money. People consulted him about many things, and to some extent admired him; some were a little afraid of him, and, in homely phrase, fought shy of him. Perhaps he was thought to be unscrupulous; perhaps his blunt way of going at the very heart of a scruple in others made them fancy that he rather despised all moral conventionalities. Whatever the reason was, a certain class of persons always rather distrusted Mr. Money, and held aloof even while asking his advice. No one who had come in his way even for a moment forgot him, or was confused as to his identity, or failed to form some opinion about or could have put clearly into words an exact statement of the opinion he had formed.

On this particular day of autumn Mr. Money was in his study reading letters. He was talking to himself in short, blunt sentences over each letter as he read it, and put it into a pigeonhole, or tore it and threw it into the waste-paper basket. His sentences were generally concise judgments pronounced on each correspondent. "Fool." "Blockhead." "Just so; I expected that of you!" "Yes, yes, he's all right." "That will do." Sometimes a comment, begun rather gruffly, ended in a good-natured smile, and sometimes Mr. Money, having read a letter to the close with a pleased and satisfied expression, suddenly became thoughtful, and leaned upon his desk, drumming with the finger tips of one hand upon his teeth.

A servant interrupted his work by bringing him a message and a name. Mr. Money looked up, said quickly, "Yes, yes; show him in!" and Mr. Victor Heron was introduced.

Mr. Money advanced to meet his visitor with an air of cordial welcome. One peculiarity of Mr. Money's strong, homely face was the singular sweetness of the smile which it sometimes wore. The full lips parted so pleasantly, the white teeth shone, and the eyes, that usually seemed heavy, beamed with so kindly an air, that to youth at least the influence was for the moment irresistible. Victor Heron's emotional face sparkled with responsive expression.

"Well, well; glad to see you, glad to see you. Knew you would come. Shove away those blue books and sit down. We haven't long got back; but I tried to find you, and couldn't get at your address. They didn't know at the Colonial Institute even. And how are you, and what have you been doing with yourself?"

"Not much good," Heron replied, thinking as usual of his grievance. "I couldn't succeed in seeing anybody."

"Of course not, of course not. I could have told you so. People are not yet coming back to town, except hard working fellows like me. Have you been cooling your heels in the antechambers of the Colonial office?"

"Yes, I have been there a little; not much. I saw it was no use just yet, and that isn't a kind of occupation I delight in." The young man's face reddened with the bare memory of his vexation. "I hate that sort of thing."

"To go where you know people don't want to see you? Yes, it tries young and sensitive people a good deal. They've put you off?"

"As I told you, I have seen nobody yet. But I mean to persevere. They shall find I am not a man to be got rid of in that way."

Mr. Money made no observation on this, but went to a drawer in his desk and took out a little book with pages alphabetically arranged.

"I have been making inquiries about you," he said, "of various people who know all about the colonies. Would you like to hear a summary description of your personal character? Don't be offended—this is a way I have; the moment a person interests me and seems worth thinking about, I enter him in my little book here, and sum up his character from my own observation and from what people tell me. Shall I read it for you? I wouldn't, you may be sure, if I thought you were anything of a fool."

This compliment, of course, conquered Heron, who was otherwise a good deal puzzled. But there was something in Mr. Money's manner with those in whom he took any interest, that prevented their feeling hurt by his occasional bluntness.

"I don't know myself," Heron said.

"Of course you don't. What busy man, who has to know other people, could have time to study himself? That work might do for philosophers. I may teach you something now, and save you the trouble."

"I suppose I ought to make my own acquaintance," said Heron resignedly, while much preferring to talk of his grievance.

"Very good. Now listen.

"Heron, Victor.—Formerly in administration of St. Xavier's settlements. Got into difficulty; dropped down. Education good, but literary rather than businesslike. Plenty of pluck, but wants coolness. Egotistic, but unselfish. Good deal of talent and go. Very honest, but impracticable. A good weapon in good hands, but must take care not to be made a plaything."

Heron laughed. "It's a little like the sort of thing phrenologists give people," he said, "but I think it's very flattering. I can assure you, however, no one shall make a plaything of me," he added with emphasis.

"So we all think, so we all think," Mr. Money said, putting away his book. "Well, you are going on with this then?"

"I am going to vindicate my conduct, and compel them to grant me an inquiry, if you mean that. Nothing on earth shall keep me from that."

"So, so. Very well. We'll talk about that another time—many other times; and I may give you some advice, which you needn't take if you don't like, and I shan't be offended. Now, I want to introduce you to my wife and my girls, and you must have a cup of tea. Odd, isn't it, to find men drinking tea at five o'clock in the afternoon? Up at the club, any day about that hour, you might think we were a drawing-room full of old spinsters, to hear the rattling of teacups that goes on all around."

He took Heron's arm in a friendly, dictatorial way, and conducted him to the drawing-room on the same floor.

The drawing-room was entered, not by opening a door, but by withdrawing some folds of a great, heavy, dark-green curtain. Mr. Money drew aside part of the curtain to make way for his friend; and they both stopped a moment on the threshold. A peculiar, sweet, half melancholy smile gave a strange dignity for the moment to Mr. Money's somewhat rough face, and he gently let the curtain fall.

"Wasn't there some great person, Mr. Heron—Burke, was it?—who used to say that whatever troubles he had outside all ceased as he stood at his own door? Well, I always feel like that when I lift this curtain."

It was a pretty sight, as he again raised the curtain and led Heron in. The drawing-room was very large, and was richly, and, as it seemed to Heron, somewhat oddly furnished. The light in the lower part was faint and dim, a sort of yellowish twilight, procured by softened lamps. The upper extremity was steeped in a far brighter light, and displayed to Heron, almost as on a stage, a little group of women, among whom his quick eye at once saw the girl who had come up to the door at the same time with him. She was, indeed, a very conspicuous figure, for she was seated on a sofa, and one girl sat at her feet, while another stood at the arm of the sofa and bent over her. An elderly lady, with voluminous draperies that floated over the floor, was reclining on a low arm-chair, with her profile turned to Heron. On a fancy table near, a silver tea-tray glittered. A daintily dressed waiting-maid was serving tea.

"Take care of the floors as you come along," said Money. "We like to put rugs, and rolls of carpet, and stools now in all sorts of wrong places, to trip people up. That shows how artistic we are! Theresa, dear, this is my friend, Mr. Heron."

"I am glad to see you, Mr. Heron," said a full, deep, melancholy voice, and a tall, slender lady partly rose from her chair, then sank again amid her draperies, bowed a head topped by a tiny lace cap, and held out to Heron a thin hand covered with rings, and having such bracelets and dependent chainlets that when Heron gave it even the gentlest pressure, they rattled like the manacles of a captive.

"We saw you in Paris, Mr. Heron," the lady graciously said, "but I think you hardly saw us."

"These are my daughters, Mr. Heron, Theresa and Lucy. I think them good girls, though full of nonsense," said Mr. Money.

Lucy, who had been on a footstool at Miss Grey's feet, gathered herself up, blushing. She was a pretty girl, with brown, frizzy hair, and wore a dress which fitted her so closely from neck to hip that she might really have been, to all seeming, melted or moulded into it. The other young lady, Theresa, slightly and gravely inclined her head to Mr. Heron, who at once thought the whole group most delightful and beautiful, and found his breast filled with a new pride in the loved old England that produced such homes and furnished them with such women.

"Dear, darling papa," exclaimed the enthusiastic little Lucy, swooping at her father, and throwing both arms round his neck, "we have had such a joy to-day, such a surprise! Don't you see anybody here? Oh, come now, do use your eyes."

"I see a young lady whom I have not yet the pleasure of knowing, but whom I hope you will help me to know, Lucelet."

Mr. Money turned to Miss Grey with his genial smile. She rose from the sofa and bowed and waited. She did not as yet quite understand the Money family, and was not sure whether she ought to like them or not. They impressed her at first as being far too rich for her taste, and odd and affected, and she hated affectation.

"But this is Nola Grey, papa—my dearest old schoolfellow when I was at Keeton; you must have heard me talk of Nola Grey a thousand times."

So she dragged her papa up to Nola Grey, whose color grew a little at this tempestuous kind of welcome.

"Dare say I did, Lucelet, but Miss Grey, I am sure will excuse me if I have forgotten; I am very glad to see you, Miss Grey—glad to see any friend of Lucelet's. So you come from Keeton? That's another reason why I should be glad to see you, for I just now want to ask a question or two about Keeton. Sit down."

Miss Grey allowed herself to be led to a sofa a little distance from where she had been sitting. Mr. Money sat beside her.

"Now, Lucelet, I want to ask Miss Grey a sensible question or two, which I don't think you would care twopence about. Just you go and help our two Theresas to talk to Mr. Heron."

"But, papa darling, Miss Grey won't care about what you call sensible subjects any more than I. She won't know anything about them."

"Yes, dear, she will; look at her forehead."

"Oh, I have looked at it! Isn't it beautiful?"

"I didn't mean that," Mr. Money said with a smile; "I meant that it looked sensible and thoughtful. Now, go away, Lucelet, like a dear little girl."

Miss Grey sat quietly through all this. She was not in the least offended. Mr. Money seemed to her to be just what a man ought to be—uncouth, rough, and domineering. She was amused meanwhile to observe the kind of devotion and enthusiasm with which Mr. Heron was entering into conversation with Mrs. Money and her elder daughter. That, too, was just what a man ought to be—a young man—silly in his devotion to women, unless, perhaps, where the devotion was to be accounted for otherwise than by silliness, as in a case like the present, where the unmarried women might be presumed to have large fortunes. So Miss Grey liked the whole scene. It was as good as a play to her, especially as good as a play which confirms all one's own theories of life.

"England, Mr. Heron," said Mrs. Money in her melancholy voice, "is near her fall."

"Oh, Mrs. Money, pray pardon me—England! you amaze me—I am surprised—do forgive me—to hear an Englishwoman say so; our England with her glorious destiny!" The young man blushed and grew confused. One might have thought his mother had been called in question or his sweetheart.

Mrs. Money shook her head and twirled one of her bracelets.

"She is near her fall, Mr. Heron! You cannot know. You have lived far away, and do not see what we see. She has proved faithless to her mission."

"Something—yes—there I agree," Mr. Heron eagerly interposed, thinking of the St. Xavier's settlements.

"She was the cradle of freedom," Mrs. Money went on. "She ought to have been always its nursery and home. What have we now, Mr. Heron? A people absolutely in servitude, the principle of caste everywhere triumphant—corruption in the aristocracy—corruption in the city. No man now dares to serve his country except at the penalty of suffering the blackest ingratitude!"

Mr. Heron was startled. He did not know that Mrs. Money was arguing only from the assumption that her husband was a very great man, who would have done wonderful things for England if a perverse and base ruling class had not thwarted him, and treated him badly.

"England," Theresa Money said, smiling sweetly, but with a suffusion of melancholy, "can hardly be regenerated until she is once more dipped in the holy well."

"You see we all think differently, Mr. Heron," said the eager Lucy. "Mamma thinks we want a republic. Tessy is a saint, and would like to see roadside shrines."

"And you?" Heron asked, pleased with the girl's bright eyes and winning ways.

"Oh—I only believe in the regeneration of England through the renaissance of art. So we all have our different theories, you see, but we all agree to differ, and we don't quarrel much. Papa laughs at us all when he has time. But just now I am taken up with Nola Grey. If I were a man, I should make an idol of her. That lovely, statuesque face, that figure—like the Diana of the Louvre!"

Mr. Heron looked and admired, but one person's raptures about man or woman seldom awaken corresponding raptures in impartial breasts. He saw, however, a handsome, ladylike girl, who conveyed to him a sort of chilling impression.

"She was my schoolfellow at Keeton," Lucy went on, "and she was so good and clever that I adored her then, and I do now again. She has come to London to live alone, and I am sure she must have some strange and romantic story."

Meanwhile Mr. Money, who prefaced his inquiries by telling Miss Grey that he was always asking information about something, began to put several questions to her concerning the local magnates, politics, and parties of Keeton. Minola was rather pleased to be talked to by a man as if she were a rational creature. Like most girls brought up in a Nonconformist household in a country town, she had been surrounded by political talk from her infancy, but unlike most girls, she had sometimes listened to it and learned to know what it was all about. So she gave Mr. Money a good deal of information, which he received with an approbatory "Yes, yes" or an inquiring "So, so" every now and then.

"You know that there's likely to be a vacancy soon in the representation-member of Parliament," he added by way of explanation.

"I know what a vacancy in the representation means," Miss Grey answered demurely, "but I didn't know there was likely to be one just now. I don't keep up much correspondence with Keeton. I don't love it."

"Why not?"

"Oh, I don't know."

He smiled.

"You are smiling because you think that a woman's answer? So it is, Mr. Money, and I am afraid it isn't true; but I really didn't think of what I was saying. I do know why I don't care much about Keeton."

"Yes, yes; well, I dare say you do. But to return, as the books say—do you know a Mr. Augustus Sheppard?"

She could not help coloring slightly. "Yes, I know him," and a faint smile broke over her face in spite of herself.

"Is he strong in Keeton?"

"Strong?"

"Well liked, respectable, a likely kind of man to get good Conservative support if he stood for Keeton? You don't know, perhaps?"

"Yes, I think I do know. I believe he wishes to get into Parliament, and I am sure he is thought highly of. He is a very good man—a man of very high character," she added emphatically, anxious to repair the mental wrong doing of thinking him ridiculous and tiresome.

Just at this moment Mr. Heron rose to take his leave, and Mr. Money left the room with him, so that the conversation with Miss Grey was broken off. Then Lucy came to Nola again, and Nola was surrounded by the three women, who began to lay out various schemes for seeing her often and making London pleasant to her. Much as our lonely heroine loved her loneliness, she was greatly touched by their spontaneous kindness, but she was alarmed by it too.

A card was brought to Mrs. Money, who passed it on to Lucy.

"Oh, how delightful!" Lucy exclaimed. "So glad he has come, mamma. Nola, dear, a poet—a real poet!"

But Nola would not prolong her visit that day even for a poet. A very handsome, tall, dark-haired man, who at a distance seemed boyishly young, and when near looked worn and not very young, was shown in. For the moment or two that she could see him, Minola thought she had never seen so self-conceited and affected a creature. She did not hear his name nor a word he said, but his splendid, dark eyes, deeply set in hollows, took in every outline of her face and form. She thought him the poet of a schoolgirl's romance made to order.

Minola tore herself from the clinging embraces of Lucy, with less difficulty, perhaps, because of the poet's arrival, to whose society Lucy was clearly anxious to hasten back. It so happened that Mr. Money had kept Mr. Heron for a few minutes in talk, and the result was that exactly as Miss Grey reached the door Mr. Heron arrived there too. They both came out together, and in a moment they were in the gray atmosphere, dun lines of houses, and twinkling gaslights of Victoria street. Minola would much rather have been there alone.

Victor Heron, however, was full of the antique ideas of man's chivalrous duty and woman's sweet dependence, which still lingered in the out-of-the-way colony where he had spent so much of his time. Also, it must be owned that he had not yet quite got rid of the sense of responsibility and universal dictatorship belonging to the chief man in a petty commonwealth. For some time after his return to London he could hardly see an omnibus horse fall in the street without thinking it was an occasion which called for some intervention on his part. Therefore, when Miss Grey and he stood in the street together Mr. Heron at once assumed that the young woman must, as a matter of course, require his escort and protection.

He calmly took his place at her side. Miss Grey was a little surprised, but said nothing, and they went on.

"Do you live far from this, Miss Money?" he began.

"I am not Miss Money. My name is Grey."

"Of course, yes—I beg your pardon for the mistake. It was only a mistake of the tongue, for I knew very well that you were not Miss Money."

"Thank you."

"And your first name is so very pretty and peculiar that I could not have easily forgotten it."

"I am greatly obliged to my godfathers and godmothers."

"Did you say that you lived in this quarter, Miss Grey?"

"No—I did not make any answer; I had not time."

"I hope you do not live very near," the gallant Heron observed.

"Why do you hope that?" Miss Grey said, turning her eyes upon him with an air of cold resolution, which would probably have proved very trying to a less sincere maker of compliments, even though a far more dexterous person than Mr. Heron.

"Of course, because I should have the less of your company."

"But there is no need of your coming out of your way for me. I don't require any escort, Mr. Heron."

"I couldn't think of letting a lady walk home by herself. That would seem very strange to me. Perhaps you think me old-fashioned or colonial?"

"I have heard that you are from the colonies. In London people have not time to keep up all these pretty forms and ceremonies. We don't any longer pretend to think that a girl needs to be defended against giants, or robbers, or mad bulls, when crossing two or three streets in open day."

"Well, it is hardly open day now; it is almost quite dark."

"The lamps are lighted," Miss Gray observed.

"Yes, if you call that being lighted! You have such bad gas in London. Why does not somebody stir up people here, and put things to rights? You seem to me the most patient people in all the world. I wish they would give me the ruling of this place for about a twelvemonth."

"I wish they would."

"Do you?" and he looked at her with a glance of genuine gratitude in his dark eyes, for he thought she meant to express her entire confidence in his governing power, and her wish to see him at the head of affairs. Miss Grey, however, only meant that if he were engaged in directing the municipal government of London he probably would be rather too busy to walk with her.

"Yes," he went on, "you should soon see a change. For instance"—they were now at the end of Victoria street, near the Abbey—"I would begin by having a great broad street, like this, running right up from here to the British Museum. You know where the British Museum is, of course?"

"Yes; I live near it."

"Do you really? I am so glad to hear that. I have been there lately very often. How happy you Londoners are to have such glorious places. In that reading-room I felt inclined to bless England."

Miss Grey was now particularly sorry that she had said anything about her place of residence. Still it did not seem as if much would have been gained by any reticence unless she could actually dismiss her companion peremptorily. Mr. Heron was evidently quite resolved to be her escort all the way along. He was clearly under the impression that he was making himself very agreeable. The good-natured youth believed he was doing quite the right thing, and meant it all for the very best, and therefore could not suppose that any nice girl could fail to accept his attendance in a kindly spirit. That Miss Grey must be a nice girl he was perfectly certain, for he had met her at Mr. Money's, and Money was evidently a fine fellow—a very fine fellow. Miss Grey was very handsome too, but that did not count for very much with Heron. At least he would have made himself just as readily, under the circumstances, the escort of little Miss Blanchet.

So he talked on about various things—the Moneys, and what charming people they were! the British Museum, what a noble institution! the National Gallery, how hideous the building!—why on earth didn't anybody do something?—the glorious destiny of England—the utter imbecility of the English Government.

It was not always quite easy to keep up with his talk, for the streets were crowded and noisy, and Mr. Heron talked right on through every interruption. When they came to crossings where the perplexed currents and counter-currents of traffic on wheels would have made a nervous person shudder, Mr. Heron coolly took Miss Grey's hand and conducted her in and out, talking all the while as if they were crossing a ball-room floor. Minola made it a point of honor not to hesitate, or start, or show that she had nerves. But when he began to run into politics he always pulled himself up, for he politely remembered that young ladies did not care about politics, and so he tried to find some prettier subject to talk about. Miss Grey understood this perfectly well, and was amused and contemptuous.

"I suppose this man must be a person of some brains and sense," she thought. "He was in command of something somewhere, and I suppose even the Government he calls so imbecile would not have put him there if he were a downright fool. But because he talks to a woman, he feels bound only to talk of trivial things."

At last the walk came to an end. "Ah, I beg pardon. You live here," Mr. Heron said. "May I have the honor of calling on your family? I sometimes come to the Museum, and if I might call, I should be delighted to make their acquaintance."

"Thank you," Miss Grey said coldly. "I have no family. My father and mother are dead."

"Oh, I am so sorry! I wish I had not asked such a question." He looked really distressed, and the expression of his eyes had for the first time a pleasing, softening effect upon Miss Grey.

"We lodge here all alone—a lady—an old friend of mine—and I. We have no acquaintances, unless Lucy Money's family may be called so. We read and study a great deal, and don't go out, and don't see any one."

"I can quite understand," Mr. Heron answered with grave sympathy. "Of course you don't care to be intruded on by visitors. I thank you for having allowed me the pleasure of accompanying you so far."

He spoke in tones much more deferential than before, for he assumed that the young lady was lonely and poor. There was something in his manner, in his eyes, in his grave, respectful voice, which conveyed to Minola the idea of genuine sympathy, and brought to her, the object of it, a new conviction that she really was isolated and friendless, and the springs of her emotions were touched in a moment, and tears flashed in her eyes. Perhaps Mr. Heron saw them, and felt that he ought not to see them, for he raised his hat and instantly left her.

Minola lingered for a moment on the doorstep, in order that she might recover her expression of cheerfulness before meeting the eyes of Miss Blanchet. But that little lady had seen her coming to the door, and seen and marvelled at her escort, and now ran herself and opened the door to receive her.

"My dear Minola, do tell me who that handsome young man was! What lovely dark eyes he had! Where did you meet him? Is he young Mr. Money?"

The poetess's susceptible bosom still thrilled and throbbed at the sight, or even the thought, of a handsome young man. She could not understand how anybody on earth could avoid liking handsome young men. But in this case a certain doubt and dissatisfaction suddenly dissolved away into her instinctive gratification at the sight of Minola's escort. A handsome and young Mr. Money might prove an inconvenient visitor just at present.

Minola briefly told her when they were safe in their room. Miss Blanchet was relieved to find that he was not a young Mr. Money, for a young Mr. Money, if there were one, would doubtless be rich.

"Isn't he wonderfully handsome! Such a smile!"

"I hardly know," Minola said distressedly; "perhaps he is. I really didn't notice. He goes to the Museum, and I must exile myself from the place for evermore, or I shall be always meeting him, and be forced to listen politely to talk about nothing. Mary Blanchet, our days of freedom are gone! We are getting to know people. I foresaw it. What shall we do? We must find some other lodgings ever so far away."

"Do you like Miss Money, dear?" Mary Blanchet asked timidly.

"Lucy? Oh, yes, very much. But there is Mr. Money; and they are going to be terribly kind to us; and they have all manner of friends; and what is to become of my independence? Mary Blanchet, I will not bear it! I will be independent!"

"I have news for you, dear," Miss Blanchet said.

"If it please the destinies, not news of any more friends! Why, we shall be like the hare in Gay's fable if we go on in this way."

"Not of any more friends, darling, but of one friend. My brother has been here."

"Oh!"

"Yes; and he is longing to see you."

Minola sincerely wished she could say that she was longing to see him. But she could not say it, even to please her friend and comrade.

"You don't want to see him," said Mary Blanchet in piteous reproach.

"But you do, dear," Miss Grey said; "and I shall like to see any one, be sure, who brightens your life."

This was said with full sincerity, although at the very moment the whimsical thought passed through her, "We only want Mr. Augustus Sheppard now to complete our social happiness."

CHAPTER VI.

IS THIS ALCESTE?

Minola's mind was a good deal disturbed by the various little events of the day, the incidents and consequences of her first visit in London. She began to see with much perplexity and disappointment that her life of lonely independence was likely to be compromised. She was not sure that she could much like the Moneys, and yet she felt that they were disposed and determined to be very kind to her. There was something ridiculous and painful in the fact that Mr. Augustus Sheppard's name was thrust upon her almost at the first moment of her crossing for the first time a strange threshold in London; then there was Mary Blanchet's brother turning up; and Mary Blanchet herself was evidently falling off from the high design of lonely independence. Again, there was Mr. Heron, who now knew where she lived, and who often went to the British Museum, and who might cross her path at any hour. Sweet, lonely freedom, happy carelessness of action, farewell!

Mr. Heron was especially a trouble to Minola. The kindly, grave expression on his face when he heard of her living alone declared, as nearly as any words could do, that he considered her an object of pity. Was she an object of pity? Was that the light in which any one could look at her superb project of playing at a lifelong holiday? And if people chose to look at it so, what did that matter to her? Are women, then, the slaves of the opinion of people all around them? "They are," Minola said to herself in scorn and melancholy—"they are; we are. I am shaken to the very soul, because a young man, for whose opinion on any other subject I should not care anything, chooses to look at me with pity!"

The night was melancholy. When the outer world was shut out, and the gas was lighted, and the two women sat down to work and talk, nothing seemed to Minola quite as it had been. The evident happiness and passing high spirits of the little poetess oppressed her. Mary Blanchet was so glad to be making acquaintances, and to have some prospect of seeing the inside of a London home. Then Minola's kindlier nature returned to her, and she thought of Mary's delight at seeing her brother, and how unkind it would be if she, Minola, did not try to enter into her feelings. Her mind went back to her own brother, to their dear early companionship, when nothing seemed more natural and more certain than that they two should walk the world arm-in-arm. Now all that had come to an end—faded away somehow; and he had gone into the world on his own account, and made other ties, and forgotten her. But if he were even now to come back, if she were to hear in the street the sound of the peculiar whistle with which he always announced his coming to her—oh, how, in spite of all his forgetfulness and her anger, she would run to him and throw her arms around his neck! Why should not Mary Blanchet love her brother, and gladden when he came?

"What is your brother like, Mary, dear?" she said gently, anxious to propitiate by voluntarily entering on the topic dearest to her friend.

"Oh, very handsome—very, very handsome!"

Miss Grey smiled in spite of herself.

"Now, Minola, I know what you are smiling at; you think it is my sisterly nonsense, and all that; but wait until you see."

"I'll wait," Minola said.

Miss Grey did not go out the next day as usual, although it was one of the soft, amber-gray, autumnal days that she loved, and the Regent's Park would have looked beautiful. She remained nearly all the morning in her own room, and avoided even Mary Blanchet. Some singular change had taken place within her, for which she could not account, otherwise than by assuming that it was begotten of the fear that she would be drawn, willingly or unwillingly, into uncongenial companionship, and must renounce her liberty. She was forced into a strange, painful, self-questioning mood. Was the whole fabric of her self-appointed happiness and independence only a dream, or, worse than a dream, an error? So soon to doubt the value and the virtue of the emancipation she had prayed for and planned for during years? Not often, perhaps, has a warm-hearted, fanciful, and spirited girl been pressed down by such peculiar relationship as hers at Keeton lately; a twice removed stepfather and stepmother, absolutely uncongenial with her, causing her soul and her youth to congeal amid dull repression. What wonder that to her all happiness seemed to consist in mere freedom and unrestricted self-development? And now—so soon—why does she begin to doubt the reality, the fulfilment of her happiness? Only because an impulsive and kindly young man, whom she saw for the first time, looked pityingly at her. This, she said to herself, is what our self-reliance and our emancipation come to after all.

It was a positive relief to her, after a futile hour or so of such questioning, when Mary Blanchet ran up stairs, and with beaming eyes begged that Minola would come and see her brother. "He is longing to see you—and you will like him—oh, you will like him, Minola dearest?" she said beseechingly.

Miss Gray went down stairs straightway, without stopping to give one touch to her hair, or one glance at the glass. The little poetess was waiting a moment, with an involuntary look toward the dressing table, as if Miss Grey must needs have some business there before she descended, but Miss Grey thought nothing of the kind, and they went down stairs together.

Minola expected, she could not tell why, to see a small and withered man in Mary Blanchet's brother. When they were entering the drawing-room, he was looking out of the window, and had his back turned, and she was surprised to see that he was decidedly tall. When he turned around she saw not only that he was handsome, but that she had recognized the fact of his being handsome before. For he was unmistakably the ideal poet of schoolgirls whom she had met at Mr. Money's house the day before.

The knowledge produced a sort of embarrassment to begin with. Minola was about to throw her soul into the sacrifice, and greet her friend's brother with the utmost cordiality. But she had pictured to herself a sort of Mary Blanchet in trousers, a gentle, old-fashioned, timid person, whom, perhaps, the outer world was apt to misprize, if not even to snub, and whom therefore it became her, Minola Grey, as an enemy and outlaw of the common world, to receive with double consideration. But this brilliant, self-conceited, affected, oppressively handsome young man, on whom she had seen Lucy Money and her mother hanging devotedly, was quite another sort of person. His presence seemed to overcharge the room; the scene became all compound of tall, bending form and dark eyes.

"I am glad to see you, Mr. Blanchet," Miss Grey began, determined not to be put out by any self-conceited poet and ideal of schoolgirls. "I must be glad to see you, because you are Mary's brother."

"You ought rather to be not glad to see me for that reason," he said, with a deprecating bow and a slight shrug of the shoulders, "for I have been a very neglectful brother to Mary."

"So I have heard," Miss Grey said, "but not from Mary. She always defended you. But I have seen you before, Mr. Blanchet, have I not?"

"At Mrs. Money's yesterday? Oh, yes; I only saw you, Miss Grey. I went there to see you, and only in the most literal way got what I wanted."

"But, Herbert, you never told me that you were going, or that you knew Mrs. Money," his sister interposed.

"No, dear; that was an innocent deceit on my part. You told me that Miss Grey had gone there, and as I knew the Moneys I hurried away there without telling you. I wanted to know what you were like, Miss Grey, before seeing my sister again. I hope you are not angry? She is so devoted to you that she painted you in colors the most bewitching; but I was afraid her friendship was carrying her away, and I wanted to see for myself when she was not present."

Miss Grey remained resolutely silent. She thought this beginning particularly disagreeable, and began to fear that she should never be able to like Mary Blanchet's brother. "Oh, why do women have brothers?" she asked herself. There seemed something dishonest in Mr. Blanchet's proceeding despite the frank completeness of his confession.

"Well, Herbert, confess that I didn't do her justice; didn't do her common justice," the enthusiastic Mary exclaimed.

"If Miss Grey would not be offended," her brother said, "I would say that I see in her just the woman capable of doing the kind and generous things I have heard of."

"Yes; but we mustn't talk about it," the poetess said, with tears of gratefulness blinking in her eyes; "and we'll not say a word more about it, Minola; not a word, indeed, dear." And she put a deprecating little hand upon Minola's arm.

Then they all sat down, and Herbert Blanchet began to talk. He talked very well, and he seemed to have put away most of the airs of affectation which, even in her very short opportunity of observation, Minola had seen in him when he was talking to the Money girls.

"You have travelled a great deal," Miss Grey said. "I envy you."

"If you call it travelling. I have drifted about the world a good deal, and seen the wrong sides of everything. I make it pay in a sort of way. When any place that I know is brought into public notice by a war or something of the kind, I write about it. Or if a place is not brought into any present notice by anything, I write about it, and take a different view from anybody else. I have done particularly well with Italy, showing that Naples is the ugliest place in all the world; that the Roman women have shockingly bad figures, and that the climate is wretched from the Alps to the Straits of Messina.

"But you don't think that?" Mary Blanchet said wonderingly.

"Don't I? Well, I don't know. I almost think I do for the moment. One can get into that frame of mind. Besides, I really don't care about scenery. I don't observe it as I pass along. And I like to say what other people don't say, and to see what they don't see. Of course I don't put my name to any of these things; they are only done to make a living. I live on such stuff as that. I live for Art."

"It is glorious to live for art," his sister exclaimed, pressing her thin, tiny hands together.

Mr. Blanchet did not seem to care much about his sister's approval.

"My art isn't yours, Mary," he said, with a pitying smile. "Pictures of flowers and little children saying their prayers, and nice poems about good young men and women, are your ideas of painting and poetry, I am sure. You are a lover of the human race, I know."

"I hope I love my neighbors," Mary said earnestly.

"I hope you do, dear. All good little women like you ought to do that. Do you love your neighbor, Miss Grey?"

"I don't care much for any one," Miss Grey answered decisively, "except Mary Blanchet. But I have no particular principle or theory about it, only that I don't care for people."

Although Miss Grey had Alceste for her hero, she did not like sham misanthropy, which she now fancied her visitor was trying to display. Perhaps too she began to think that his misanthropy rather caricatured her own.

Miss Blanchet, on the contrary, was inclined to argue the question, and to pelt her brother with touching commonplaces.

"The more we know people," she emphatically declared, "the more good we see in them. In every heart there is a deep spring of goodness. Oh, yes!"

"There isn't in mine, I know," he said. "I speak for myself."

"For shame, Herbert! How else could you ever feel impelled to try and do some good for your fellow creatures?"

"But I don't want to do any good to my fellow creatures. I don't care about my fellow creatures, and I don't even admit that they are my fellow creatures, those men and those women too that one sees about. Why should the common possession of two legs make us fellow creatures with every man, more than with every bird? No, I don't love the human race at all."

"This is nonsense, Minola; you won't believe a word of it," the little poetess eagerly said, divided between admiration and alarm.

"You good, little, innocent dear, is it not perfectly true? What did I ever do for you, let me ask? There, Miss Grey, you see as kind an elder sister as ever lived. I remember her a perfect mother to me. I dare say I should have been dead thirty years ago but for her, though whether I ought to thank her for keeping me alive is another thing. Anyhow, what was my way of showing my gratitude? As soon as I could shake myself free, I rambled about the world, a very vagrant, and never took any thought of her. We are all the same, Miss Grey, believe me—we men."

"I can well believe it," Miss Grey said.

"Of course you can. In all our dealings with you women we are just the same. Our sisters and mothers take trouble without end for us, and cry their eyes out for us, and we—what do we care? I am not worse than my neighbors. But if you ask me, do I admire my fellow man, I answer frankly, no. Not I. What should I admire him for?"

"One must live for something," the poetess pleaded, much perplexed in her heart as to what Miss Grey's opinion might be about all this.

"Of course one must live for art; for music and poetry, and colors and decoration."

"And Nature?" Mary Blanchet gently insinuated.

"Nature—no! Nature is the buxom sweetheart of ploughboy poets. We only affect to admire Nature because people think we can't be good if we don't. No one really cares about great cauliflower suns, and startling contrasts of blazing purple and emerald green. There is nothing really beautiful in Nature except her decay; her rank weeds, and dank grasses, and funereal evening glooms."

While he talked this way he was seated on the piano stool, with his face turned away from the piano, on whose keys he touched every now and then with a light and seemingly careless hand, bringing out only a faint note that seemed to help the conversation rather than to interrupt it. He was very handsome, Minola could not help thinking, and there was something in his colorless face and deep eyes that seemed congenial with the talk of glooms and decay. Still, true to her first feeling toward all men, Minola was disposed to dislike him, the more especially as he spoke with an air of easy superiority, as one who would imply that he knew how to maintain his place above women in creation.

"I thought all you poets affected to be in love with Nature," she said. "I mean you younger poets," and she emphasized the word "younger" with a certain contemptuous tone, which made it just what it meant to be—"smaller poets."

"Why younger poets?"

"Well, because the elder ones I think really were in love with Nature, and didn't affect anything."

He smiled pityingly.

"No," he said decisively, "we don't care about Nature—our school."

"I am from the country; I don't think I know what your school is."

"We don't want to be known in the country; we couldn't endure to be known in the country."

"But fame?" Minola asked—"does fame not go outside the twelve-mile radius?"

"Oh, Miss Grey, do pray excuse me, but you really don't understand us; we don't want fame. What is fame? Vulgarity made immortal."

"Then what do you publish for?"

He rose from his seat and seized his hair with both hands; then constrained himself to endurance, and sat down again.

"My dear young lady, we don't publish; we don't intend to publish. No man in his senses would publish for us if we were never so well inclined. No one could sell six copies. The great, thick-headed public couldn't understand us. We are satisfied that the true artist never does have a public—or look for it. The public can have their Tennysons, and Brownings, and Swinburnes, and Tuppers, and all that lot——"

"That lot!" broke in Miss Blanchet, mildly horrified—"that lot! Browning and Tupper put together!"

"My dear Mary, I don't know one of these people from another; I never read any of them now. They are all the same sort of thing to me. These persons are not artists; they are only men trying to amuse the public. Some of them, I am told, are positively fond of politics."

"Don't your school care for politics?" Miss Grey asked, now growing rather amused.

"Oh, no; we never trouble ourselves about such things. What can it matter whether the Reform bill is carried—is there a Reform bill going on now?—I believe there always is—or what becomes of the Eastern Question, or whether New Zealand has a constitution? These are questions for vestrymen, not artists; we don't love man."

"There I am with you," Miss Grey said; "if that alone were qualification enough, I should be glad to be one of your fraternity, for I don't love man; I think he is a poor creature at his best."

"So do I," said the poet, turning toward her with eyes in which for the moment a deep and genuine feeling seemed to light up; "the poorest creature, at his best! Why should any one turn aside for a moment from his path to help such a thing? What does it matter, the welfare of him and his pitiful race? Let us sing, and play, and paint, and forget him and the destiny that he makes such a work about. Wisdom only consists in shutting our ears to his cries of ambition, and jealousy, and pain, and being happy in our own way and forgetting him."

Their eyes met for a moment, and then Minola lowered hers. In that instant a gleam of sympathy had passed from her eyes into his, and he knew it. She felt a little humiliated somehow, like a proud fencer suddenly disarmed at the first touch of his adversary. For, as he was speaking scorn of the human race, she was saying to herself, "This man, I do believe, has suffered deeply. He has found people cold, and mean, and selfish—as I have—and he feels it, and cannot hide it. I did him wrong; he is not a fribble or sham cynic, only a disappointed dreamer." The sympathy which she felt showed itself only too quickly in her very eloquent eyes.

Herbert Blanchet rose after an instant of silence and took his leave, asking permission to call again, which Miss Grey would have gladly refused if she could have stood up against the appealing looks of Mary. So she had to grant him the permission, thinking as she gave it that another path of her liberty was closed.

Mary went to the door with her brother, and, much to Minola's gratification, remained a long time talking with him there.

Miss Grey went to the piano and began to sing; softly to herself, that she might not be heard outside. The short autumnal day was already closing in London. Out in the country there would be two hours yet of light before the round, red sun went down behind the sloping fields, with the fresh upturned earth, and the clumps of trees, but here, in West-Central regions of London, the autumn day dies in its youth. The dusk already gathered around the singer, who sang to please or to soothe herself. In any troubled mood Miss Grey had long been accustomed to clear her spirits by singing to herself; and on many a long, dull Sunday at home—in the place that was called her home—she had committed the not impious fraud of singing her favorite ballads to slow, slow time, that they might be mistaken for hymns and pass unreproved. Her voice and way of singing made the song seem like a sweet, plaintive recitative, just the singing to hear in the "gloaming," to draw a few people hushed around it, and hold them in suspense, fearful to lose a single note, and miss the charm of expression. In truth, the charm of it sprang from the fact that the singer sang to express her own emotions, and thus every tone had its reality and its meaning. When women sing for a listening company, they sing conventionally, and in the way that some teacher has taught, or in what they believe to be the manner of some great artist; or they sing to somebody or at somebody, and in any case they are away from that truthfulness which in art is simply the faithful expression of real emotion. With Minola Grey singing was an end rather than a means; a relief in itself, a new mood in itself; a passing away from poor and personal emotions into ideal regions, where melancholy, if it must be, was always divine; and pain, if it would intrude, was purifying and ennobling. So, while the little poetess talked with her brother in the dusk, at the doorway, with the gas lamps just beginning to light the monotonous street, Minola was singing herself into the pure blue ether, above the fogs, and clouds, and discordant, selfish voices.

She came back to earth with something like a heavy fall, as Mary Blanchet ran in upon her in the dark and exclaimed—

"Now, do tell me—how do you like my brother?"

To say the truth, Miss Grey did not well know. "I wonder is he an Alceste?" she asked herself. On the whole, his coming had made an uncomfortable, anxious, uncanny impression upon her, and she looked back with a kind of hopeless regret on the days when she had London all to herself, and knew nobody.

WORDSWORTH'S CORRECTIONS.

When an author, in his later editions, departs from his earlier text, he is apt to reveal some traits of his method and genius that might not otherwise have been so evident, and a poet's corrections may thus have more than a merely curious interest. Take Mr. Tennyson's, for instance: "The Princess," to say nothing of his shorter emended poems, has been, one might say, rewritten since the first edition, and his corrections are always interesting. Yet they spring, I think, from a narrower range of motive than Wordsworth's; they are directed more exclusively toward the object of artistic finish; they commonly show the poet busied in casting perfume upon the lily. Take this example from "The Miller's Daughter." In the first version of that poem, as it appeared in 1842, we are told that before the heroine's reflection became visible in the mill-pool—

A water-rat from off the bank Plunged in the stream.

Later editions give us this more graceful version of what occurred: