black cherry (we think that simile perfect), eyes and lips should do the double deed to-morrow. And young St. James, in a deep sea of eider-down, took his rest; none the worse, it may be, that he knew not of the conspiracy working against his freedom. Three sets of hymeneal chains were almost all night long hammered at by three young ladies, and yet the unconscious victim slept,-even as the culprit takes unbroken rest, whilst hammers fall upon the scaffold for to-morrow. If the reader will pass the intentions of the young ladies as at least benevolently purposed, he must confess that we have for the last three chapters left young St. James most tenderly cared for. Sleeping and waking he has had the prettiest cares, the sweetest attentions, like a shower of rose-leaves, cast upon him. And now Monday morning was come. The morning of the day of nomination was arrived. A law-maker was to be made by the voice of a free people; a senator, without crack or flaw; a perfect crystal vessel of the state was to be blown by the breath of unbought man. Nature seemed to sympathise with the work; at least, such was the belief of Doctor Gilead, his imagination kindling somewhat with the occasion. He rose only a little later than the sparrows; and from the beauty, the enjoyment of out-door objects, took the happiest omens. A member was to be returned to Parliament. Certainly the lark never fluttered nearer heaven-never sang so hopefully. Such was Doctor Gilead's sweet belief; and rapt in it, he did not the next moment hear the voice of an ass in a distant meadow - gave no ear to his own geese gaggling near his barn. Happy the superstition that on such occasions will only listen to the lark! Everybody appeared at breakfast with a face drest for triumph. "Had his lordship slept well?" asked Mrs. Gilead; and with voices that would melt the heart of a man, were the thing really soluble, each Miss Gilead put the same question, but with a manner that plainly said her peace of mind depended on an affirmative reply. His lordship had slept well. Each and all of the Miss Gileads were blest for their existence ! 66 How do you do, Mr. Folder?" asked his lordship, as that worthy man, with his old equable look, entered the breakfast parlour. Now, Mr. Folder had never looked better-never felt better. His calmness, his philosophy was astonishing, admirable; the more so, as it was his friend and not himself who had lost a treasure of gold. In few words, and in his own smiling way, Mr. Folder said he was charming. "But where's Tangle? eh ?-not left Tangle behind?" cried his lordship. "No, no, said Folder, with a happy smile. a walk across the fields." "He preferred "Poor fellow! he doesn't often get a bit of grass in London, I dare say," said the Doctor; who then turned to his lordship, and rubbing his hands, and laughing as at the enjoyment of a sweet secret, said, "it wouldn't do, my lord, to lose Tangle; no, no, we must take care of Tangle." Innocent Doctor Gilead! At that moment he thought the agent the happy keeper of thousands of the birds of Paradise hatched at the Mint: and alack! they had made wings for themselves, and flown away. Had the Doctor known the condition of Tangle, what an abject, forlorn varlet would he have seemed in the offended eyes of his admirer. Mr. Tangle was announced. He entered the room; his face galvanised into a smile. It was plain, at least to Folder, who knew all, that the agent had laboured so hard to get that smile into his countenance that it would be very difficult to dismiss it— it was so fixed, so very rigid. It was, in fact, the hardest smile cut in the hardest oak. 66 Quite well, I trust, Mr. Tangle? None the worse, I hope, for last night?" said young St. James, gaily. Such was Tangle's knees struck each other at his lordship's voice. Last night? Did his lordship, then, know of the robbery? the first confusion of Tangle's thoughts; and he then remembered that his lordship doubtless hinted at the wine swallowed, and not at the gold carried away. Whereupon, Tangle declared that he was quite well-never better. And then he resolutely put down a rising groan. 66 66 Nothing the worse for anything last night, I'll be bound, eh, Mr. Tangle?" cried Doctor Gilead, alive, as every man ought to be, to the reputation of his wine, when the wine, like the Roman's wife, is not to be suspected. I should think not. And, Mr. Tangle, I've not forgotten the carp that pleased you so much. There's plenty in the pond; and we'll have some of the finest, I can tell you. At this moment the Doctor was summoned from the room; whilst new visitors continued to arrive, assembling to escort the noble candidate to a very modest fabric, largely christened as the Town-Hall. Young St. James knew everybody welcomed everybody. There was not a man present with whom he would not and could not have shared his heart,-it was so unexpectedly large upon the happy occasion. 66 Don't wish, you my lord, that your noble father the excellent Marquess was here to see your triumph?" exclaimed one of the artless Miss Gileads. Rosy ignorance! She knew not that, however the paternal heart might have yearned to be present, it was sternly checked by a strong sense of constitutional duty. For the Marquess, as a peer of England, could not, must not, directly or indirectly seem to interfere in the election of a member of Parliament-in the free assertion of the people's choice. Therefore it was only permitted to the father, the peer, and the patriot to send his banker. 66 And still the visitors poured in; and as the crowd grew, every man looked more important, as though catching zeal and constancy of purpose from new-comers. The borough's been in the family these thousand years," cried a spare, fibrous, thin-faced man, with a high piercing voice, "and the Constitootion had better go to sleep at once if any nobody's to come to represent us." 66 "Tell 'ee what, Muster Flay, we own't stand it," said a freeholder in a smock frock, that in its unspecked whiteness might have typified the purity of election. 'We own't stand it. My father and his father-and hisn after hisn-all of 'em did vote for the family, and when folks come to ax me for my vote agin 'em, -why as I says to my wife, it's like a flyin' in the face of Providence.' "To be sure it is"-answered Flay-"it's ungrateful; and more, it's unconstitootional." "No, no, Muster Flay: the Blues have always paid me and mine very well." 66 Hush! Not so loud," said Flay, with his finger at his eloquent lip. "Bless 'ee, everybody knows as everybody's paid," answered the clean-breasted voter. "To be sure they do; nevertheless," observed Flay, "it isn't constitootional to know it. It's what we call a fiction in the law; but you know nothing o' these things, Master Stump," said the barber, who then drew himself back a little to take a better look of the fine specimen of ignorance before him. "What's a fickshun?" asked Stump. I 'spose?" "Somethin o' use, "I believe you—the constitootion couldn't go on without it. Fiction in the constitootion is like the flour in a plum-pudding -it holds all the prime things in it together." "I see," answered Stump, with a grin, "if they hadn't no fickshun, they'd make a very pretty biling of it!" And after this irreverent fashion, comparing the lofty uses and the various wisdom of the Constitution to the ingredients of a Christmas pudding, did Flay, the Blue barber, and his pupil in the art of government, discourse amid the mob assembled in the grounds of Lazarus Hall; when a faint cheer, an ineffectual shout, rose from some of the mob gathered about a horseman arrived in haste, with special news. This intelligence was speedily conveyed to Doctor Gilead, whose face suddenly glowed like stained glass, he was so delighted with the tidings. Making his way back to his lordship, the Doctor cried-" Joy, my lord! Joy! Joy! The enemy won't stand! The Yellow's mounted the white feather! No contest, my lord-no contest! Three cheers, gentlemen, for our member!" And Doctor Gilead, for a while forgetful of the meekness of the pastor in the zeal of the patriot, sprang upon a chair, and loudly huzzaed. His note of rejoicing was responded to, but somehow not heartily. The assembly tried to look very delighted, very triumphant; yet, it was plain, they felt a latent annoyance. Was it that they were disappointed of the pleasing excitement of a hard-contested, constitutional fight? Was it, too, that every man felt himself considerably lowered, not only in his self-estimation, but in the value that would otherwise have been set upon him by opposite buyers? It is a painful feeling to be at the tyrannous, the ignorant valuation of any one man; and doubtless, many of the electors of Liquorish shared in this annoyance, for now they might be bought at young St. James's own price. When a man does drive his principle, like his pig, to market, it must try the Christian spirit of the seller to find only a solitary buyer. The principle, like the pig, may be a very fine principle; a fine, healthy, thoroughgoing principle; and yet the one buyer, because the only one, may chaffer for it as though the goods were a very measly principle indeed. The man must sell; so there goes a principle for next to nothing: a principle that, with a full market, would have fetched any money. To sell a principle may be the pleasantest thing in the world, but to give it away is another matter. In Mr. Tangle, the news excited mixed emotions. He rejoiced that the money would be less needed than had there been an opposing buyer in the market and then he felt doubly sad at the loss for with the gold in his possession, and there being the less necessity for its wide expenditure, he might-he felt sure he could have done it somehow-yes, he might have levied a heavy per centage upon what remained. There would have been a larger body of metal for the experiment; and let this be said of him, Tangle always preferred such experiments on a grand scale. Thus Tangle, confused in soul, and downcast in demeanour, suffered himself to be led to one of the half-dozen carriages prepared for the procession to the Town Hall. Shall we attempt a description of the mob in vehicles-the mob on horseback-and the mob on foot, departing from the rectory, bound on the solemn duty of making a fire-new senator? No: we will merely chronicle the touching truth that, as the mob moved on, they sent forth a cheer, that was shrilly answered from the topmost windows of the rectory, whereat all sorts of maids, covered all over with blue ribands, screamed, and fluttered handkerchiefs and napkins in glad augury of triumph. The order of the rector for the profusest display of St. James's colours had been carried out with responding zeal by his retainers. Blue fluttered everywhere. The dairy-maid had decked Crumple's horns with blue, and the animal as the maid averred, seemed very proud indeed of the badge; had she worn it in honour of her own son, then only a fortnight old, she could not have looked more complacent, happy. There was not a single ass belonging to the rectory that did not somewhere carry the colour; and we do assure the reader, very grave and very wise the asses looked with it. They seemed, as Jock the hind observed, to understand "the thing like any Christian." A blue flag fluttered from the top of the rectory-and blue streamers from every out-house. Even the gilt weathercock-the fact somehow escaped the eye of the rector-bore at its four points a long, long strip of blue riband in honour of the political principles of the Blue candidate. The mob, we say, cheered as they set forward from the rectory, and the men-servants and the maid-servants cheered again. The household gods of Lazarus Hall drew a long breath as relieved from the crowd and tumult of the mob that had hustled and confused them; and the solemn row of Ecclesiastical Fathers, standing in Church-militant file upon the library shelves, once more |