impulse was to smile at the conjunction; but the next moment she had dropped the books out of her hands, and was standing gazing out like a woman in a dream, with the colour all gone out of her cheeks, and even out of her lips, in the surprise of the moment. It was only surprise and a kind of dismay; it was not terror, like that which Mr Cavendish had exhibited at the same apparition. She dropped into her chair without knowing it, and probably would have fainted this time also, if something more urgent than mere "feelings" had not roused her up. As it was, it happened very happily for her that she had thus a little preparation. When she saw that her patroness was leading Mr Beverley up to the door, and that in a minute more he would inevitably be brought to her very side, Mrs Mortimer roused up all her strength. She gathered up her books in her hand without knowing very well what she was doing, and, taking virtue from necessity, went desperately out to meet them. It was Miss Marjoribanks who first saw her, white and tottering, leaning against the trellis of the little porch, and Lucilla could not but give a little cry of alarm and wonder.

What kind of man could this be, who thus struck down another victim without even so much as a glance? It was just then that the

In that mo

Archdeacon raised his eyes, and saw standing before him, among the faded roses, the woman whom he had been approaching so indifferently—the faded existence that had seen better days. He saw her, and he stood stock-still, as if it was she who was the basilisk, and the look of pleased interest went out of his face in a moment. ment he had become as unconscious of the presence of Lucilla as if he had never in his life softened his voice to her ear, or talked nonsense to please her. His eyes did not seem big enough to take in the figure which stood shrinking and looking at him in the porch. Then he made one long step forward, and took hold of her sleeve-not her hand-as if to convince himself that it was something real he saw. He showed no joy, nor satisfaction, nor anything but sheer amaze and wonder, at this unexpected appearance, for he had not had time to prepare himself as she had. "Am I dreaming, or is it you?" he said, in a voice that sounded as different from the voice with which he had been speaking to Lucilla, as if years had elapsed between the two. And it would be vain to describe the amazement and singular sense that the earth had suddenly given way under her feet, with which Miss Marjoribanks stood by and looked

on.

I HAVE often "ambitioned the acquaintance," to employ a French formulary for what I do not desire to affirm with great positiveness, of those people who, from conscientious motives, remit five or fifty pounds to the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a relief to the cravings of an irritable integrity. I do not mean to say that I have any strong desire to become their intimate or their associate. I feel myself too immeasurably their inferior for such a wish to be possible; but in my pursuit of strange humanities I would really be glad to see these people-to mark their lineaments, hear their words, and ponder over their general characteristics.

In the same way, but in a diminished degree, I should like to meet the man who writes these letters that we daily read to the constituency of this county or that borough, duly setting forth what the candidate's principles are, whether implied in the formula-we are very well as we are we might be better -or we can't be worse.

That it is one individual man writes these marvellous compositions, is a fact so clear and palpable it requires no demonstration. There is a charming simplicity in the style, with that small dash of complication which is the necessary ingredient of a certain evasiveness. Let the candidate be ever so wary and ever so wise, his prononciamento must still be, in a great measure, a leap in the dark. There are things will be inquired of him which he cannot possibly answer, and pledges exacted which, if he be only true to his word, will reduce him to an amount of insignifi

cancy positively pitiable. To meet these great difficulties, his address must be written by one long conversant with human frailty as displayed in the electoral system of this great country. He must, in fact, apply to that great genius who knows how to promise without making performance necessary -who can so jostle one set of ideas against another, so balance something here by something there, so adjust this by redressing that-that the British constitution may be made to resemble one of those phrenological heads, in which every quality is arrested in its action by some antagonistic development, and all that is good or bad in the individual finds its complement in something which makes it a matter of perfect indifference that it was there at all.

To be able to satisfy a modern constituency, a man very soon learns is a downright impossibility. The cry of Give, give, can scarcely be answered by one who, to be able to give, must sit beside men who have responsibilities as well as salaries. The candidate therefore is driven either to accept pledges which make his position in the House totally valueless, or he must practise some game of tricky evasiveness that may enable him to talk one way and vote another.

Now, in the old days of bribery and corruption-I do not mean the pre-Sarumite days, but in that more recent period preceding our last enactments against the buying of votes men usually went down to the country amply stocked with five-pound notes. Canvass and corruption became convertible terms, and the voter regarded the fran

chise as a privilege that could at will be demanded in gold. The candidate probably approached the electors with a feeling that a considerable number of them had no other interest in the contest than their own benefit. Some, of course, took a more elevated view, and preferred being bribed by the men with whose political leanings they concurred, and liked to have their pockets filled, and what they called their "principles" represented. Treating was freely practised, and the acute faculties of the electoral mind were perfectionated by a course of festivities which assuredly as little contributed to the dignity of the individual as to his powers of correct appreciation.

The constituency that cared for five-pound notes were for the most part easily dealt with. A sort of Parliamentary transparency was exhibited as to measures. Things were promised, assurances given, pledges made as to this or that other; but the great fact remained palpable, that the man to conciliate the voters should be he who could most certainly provide them with material guarantees of his goodwill.

To secure freedom of election was naturally a great object with the Legislature-to offer as many obstacles as possible to all corruption was a very legitimate ambition, and so they determined that there should be no bribery, no coercion, no treating, no unfair interference.

The candidate, in consequence, approached his constituency no longer with his purse. The law said, You shall not bribe; you shall only promise-cajole-prevaricate. You shall qualify a concession to this by some restriction on that -you shall declare yourself in favour of fifty things, in the secret confidence that nothing of them can ever be made practicable, and give assurances of your hopes in that which in your heart you would regard as a dire

calamity. You shall profess-what shall you not profess of Christian virtues? - benevolence, integrity, and self-devotion, albeit your life may offer some unhappy contrast to your declarations, and the wellknown opinions of your friends but little corroborate the high ground of your assumption. In one word, you shall transfer the course of your corruption from your purse to your person. Instead of going to your banker for the means of corruption, it shall be to your heart you shall apply. You shall fit yourself for the Legislature by a course of profligate profession which would disgrace a strolling actor in soliciting patronage for his benefit. You shall be, in the most humiliating sense of the expression, "all things to all men," and so accommodate your principles and shape your opinions, that you shall come out of this search after popular favour a creature without convictions—a man without one atom of manliness.

A word now for the voter. Not alone is the absurdity great in sending men to a deliberative assembly pledged to disregard all they shall hear there-bound, no matter how strong the evidence or how forcible the argument, to close their ears against all persuasion, and vote in open defiance of whatever may influence their convictions; but there is the added absurdity that presupposes the Radical attorney of the village, the Mazzinian baker, or the Ledru-Rollinite grocer to be a more adequate judge of political fitness than the trained and educated politician who has made law-making a study.

What should we say if, on the sailing of a great naval expedition, the boatswain, the carpenter, or the cook should step forward and demand explanations for what the fleet was intended; ask details of all that was to be done, and the means to do it; and impose certain pledges from the commanding officers that, under no circumstances, any interference was ever to

occur with the daily privileges of the crew, their rations, or their tobacco ?

We endure more outrageous absurdity than this. We permit ourselves to be lectured by ignorance and dragooned by self-conceit to have the high duties of legislation taught by men whose aptitude for politics is generally acquired by a failure in some honest calling. These are the people who impose the tests and exact the pledges; these are the men, very rarely endowed with even the franchise, who step forward to catechise and cross-question and confound.

How if this system were to be carried out and applied to our juries, and men were to be asked, before they entered the box, or listened to the cause, whether they would not pledge themselves to the plaintiff or the defendant? whether they would not give some assurance that they would hold themselves aloof from all pressure of persuasion, deaf to argument, obdurate to conviction, and indifferent to the evidence?

Is it likely such a procedure would serve the interests or advance the ends of justice? And are not the functions of a Parliament very many times those of a jury?

The fact is, we have imported into our public life the system of Civil Service Examinations. Our candidates have to "go up" like our consuls and our tide waiters, and, like them, the capable men are frequently plucked, while the well-drilled and well-ground postulants, "coached" by a practised hand, make a rather brilliant figure by the easy fluency with which they respond to what is asked of them.

If the world admire this-if they think it a good thing for the nation, and an element of strength or greatness to our people-they have the happiness of knowing that the coming autumn will give them an ample harvest of such benefits.

There are candidates and constituencies only impatient to show what a great thing is the election, and what a very small and ignoble one the elected.

I remember, when a boy, to have seen a man who passed his days wandering from one book-stall to another, stopping a while to read at each, and in this way gratifying that taste for letters his humble fortune had denied him the power of more legitimately enjoying.

He must have had some small pittance to live on, for he never seemed to do anything for his support. His dress and belongings bespoke him as very poor, and there was a degree of humility in his manner that still more indicated narrow fortune. Thus, for instance, he never would presume to occupy the place of a possible purchaser, but would move respectfully away when such approached. In the same way was he cautious not to

touch any volume in request, contenting himself for the most part with some old vellum-bound chronicle, some musty-looking record; and even these would he hastily surrender if a chance glance was turned towards them;—all such attentions declaring as plain as words themselves, "I am a mere interloper. I am here by no right. It is this good man's courtesy to let me run my eye over these pages." Though he never was known to buy, the stall-keepers bore him no illwill; he was far too meek, too modest for that; and some actually liked to see him standing there, offering, as it were, his homage to those stores of wisdom they possessed, and thus testifying to the busy world that swept past, what a rich

mine of knowledge lay there beside them, had they but the skill and the energy to work it.

At times too, rare indeed, he would venture on a word of remarka sentence, perhaps, of praise of the volume he had just laid down, sufficient to attract the attention of a buyer; and these little criticisms having been known to do good service, the dealers bore grateful memory of them.

He was an object of much interest to me. I used to watch him as he read, and hasten to take up the book he had quitted, curious to see whether one class of reading had its principal attraction for him, and what that class might be. No clue could I find to his nature through his studies. Now he would pore for hours over a volume of Marco Polo-now over a play of Ben Jonson's. I have seen him, on the same day, reading Dugald Stewart, 'Paul and Virginia,' 'Hopner's Equations,' and 'Bossuet's Sermons'-nothing in his manner showing which interested him the most. The branch of the "Trade" who deal under atmospheric pressure is probably not remarkable for learning; and it was not unfrequent, when a book was offered there for purchase, to see a reference made to this stranger, who in a moment pronounced on the edition, and whether it had or had not been superseded by another-what its merits, what its defects. Very cunning was he in Elzevirs and Aldines, and had a rare taste in the margins and capital letters of the old Italian printers.

Over and over used I to speculate as to how he came by this knowledge, and wonderingly ask myself if it were a source of happiness to him. Again, I questioned, would all this greedy pursuit of learning I saw in him survive if he were suddenly to become rich and affluent, the owner of a well-stocked library, abounding in every appliance of ease and comfort? Would he hang as enraptured over that volume in

the deep recess of a cushioned chair, as I have seen him when the rain beat against his face and the rude wind almost swept him and his treasure away? Would all the leisurely indulgence of literature equal in ecstasy those moments snatched hurriedly in this dark alley, or down that narrow lane? Perhaps not. The battle is not to the strong, nor the race to the swift, any more in worldly happiness than in other things. The heart to enjoy is the great requisite ; the objects to be enjoyed come only second; and there is a something in those pleasures won by a sacrifice which have a sweetness all their own,-just as the guinea of a man's own earning has its especial value. Doubtless, then, this poor Eugene Aram had many a bright moment even as he stood cold and shivering there, nor knew the pang of sorrow till he came to part with what had charmed and entranced him.

No doubt, too, he often wandered away in thought to day-dreams of what delight it would be to be the owner of these treasures to taste of them at will, having their society at all times to cheer, enliven, comfort, and console him. Nor is it impossible that his fancy gave to such a picture a colouring no reality could vie with, for there are few of us who cannot so cheat our own natures, and make the possible far more glowing than the actual.

one

What reminded me of this poor fellow was seeing what I may call his counterpart in society who, like him, was too poor to buy, yet longed to possess, and was thus forced to steal passing fitful glances of what he dare not linger over.

"Poor George! we are all very fond of him; but of course the girls never think of him." "He's too poor to marry," says mamma, who, like the benevolent stallkeeper, gives him leave to beguile his hour or so with what he must never possess. And how like is the Eugene Aram of Love to the Eugene