peasants thronged to it. Lady Joan, till last. I drew your money out of the

forbidden by Holcroft to show her face beyond the farm, watched the Christmas moon above, the lights below, solitary, from her window. "On earth, peace— good-will toward men ? " Oh, mockery!

Her hands were clasped in their old attitude upon her knee. She sat tearless. The pond below her window was frozen, her tears, her soul, were frozen. The whole earth was bound in ice of despair.

Suddenly the outer door opened; a step wearily climbed the rough stairs. The farmer and his wife were at the church; but she was not afraid. She saw as in a dream, upon her threshold, a figure which might have been her husband's wraith. The ruddy color was gone even from the lips; the dark eyes were bloodshot and dim. The heavy breathing soon dispelled all ghostly fancies. Holcroft staggered,

and fell across the bed.

"Tom! Are you faint? I will go down and see what I can find for you."

bank when Bostock went. -I burned
and altered papers. There's no time
to explain - but there's your money.
I invested it in false names, in various
places a year ago, when I ran over
here for a holiday I told you - you
remember? I've dotted down memo-
randums - you'll find the book in my
ulster -a lawyer will dovetail them all
in for you; get an honest one, mind!*
The capital's right within £4,000.
Play your cards well, and you'll get out
of the wood yet."
"But, Tom, what
She stopped short. Were he dying
indeed, her question would be cruelty.
But he read it in her face.
And

"What have I spent it on? when I told you we were so hard up! Joan, I am not like you, I can't live y without friends of my own kind. I have had plenty all along, when you little thought it—and they have come expensive. But how could I stand such hard lines as we've fallen on since Easter without 'em? I'm not like you, I tell you. I'd have cut my

She was flitting rapidly away; but he throat long ago if I hadn't drowned caught her dress.

"Stop! It will make no difference. I must speak to you first. Raise my head."

She helped him as best she could to a less uneasy posture, and covered him with a shawl.

"I thought you were leagues away, Tom."

thought in pleasure."
He groaned heavily.

"I'd tell you a lot more, but there's no time. Joan, you had always pity for those wretches. Have you none for me?"

"The greatest, Tom - the deepest."
"Then pray.
Kneel down and

pray."

The clutch as of a drowning man tightened upon Lady Joan's slight wrist.

"Tom," she said, "I would die for you, in spite of all. I would die instead of you."

XI.

"THEY are all here, my lady. The hall is full."

"Are the cheques written ?"

"Every one. Your ladyship's lawyers have been most particular. And I know every face; so there is no possibility of cheating.'

"I am very grateful to you, Mr. Rudd. Now I will come."

a

More than two-and-a-half years had | night will be the first since Easter Monpassed since that Christmas eve in the day, more than three years ago, that I. French valley. "Madame Robert," shall sleep in peace. You have sorworking laboriously the while, had sup- rowed, and I have sorrowed with you. ported herself in a single room in But it is over now. I have only one Paris, while the income of her fortune request to make. Will you forgive — accumulated to increase the capital and my husband?" make a vast debt complete. The lawyers remonstrated; but Lady Joan would hear not a word. Secrecy had been carefully maintained. Very few beyond a mile of Bow had any notion of the great act of restitution now at hand.

All the shareholders and depositors robbed by Holcroft were assembled in their former entertainment room. The head lawyer and his clerk stood on the platform; before them an empty chair, below, a sea of faces upraised in dubious anticipation. In the rear a door opened; they saw their zealous friend, Rudd, escorting—whom ?

One half second and deafening shouts rang from wall to roof. "God bless him! God bless him!" they cried, with excited incoherence. Then they came tumbling over the benches, rushing upon that childlike figure. They cheered her again and again, they waved hats and handkerchiefs; they had almost raised her chair on their shoulders, when a commanding voice called, "silence!" A young man of a different order from themselves though thin and brown - sprang upon the platform.

"Lady Joan is worn out. She has given her all for you, and if you are A form still like that of a child, more grateful, go home. Go home," he than ever like a little white spirit, com- shouted again, as the rush continued; ing forward with a quiet step. She "she will see you another time. Towore the plainest and cheapest mourn-night she must rest." ing; beneath her small black bounet They understood at last, and trooped her fair hair shone like sunlight on out, still with cheers and vociferous fax. Her eyes, as they met the people, blessings. A faint color rose in Lady were deep and grave. Her face had Joan's white cheeks. no tinge of color.

"I am Lady Joan Holcroft," she said in clear tones. "Some of you knew

me

once. I should not have hand.

"Mr. Darcy! How did you know?” Before he could reply the tall demagogue pressed forward, and wrung her "You are an angel," he said been so long away from you, only I enthusiastically. "Your ladyship is was making up your money. Your an angel from Heaven. He strode money is all ready now, with interest away, brushing tears from his sharp for the last three years and four eyes. months."

"Let me take you to your lodging. You have gone through all you can endure," said Darcy.

Then, before they had recovered from the first surprise, the lawyer was calling names, and Lady Joan held a "I fully approve," said the old lawbasket full of cheques. A strange so-yer, with a quiet smile. lemnity brooded over the hall. Every Darcy smuggled her away by a side one, as he was called, stepped forth, door. The sky of the summer night received his cheque in silence, went stretched calm and soft above the elecback to his place, found every farthing tric lamps. right, and then watched the others. The long summer evening had closed in, and the gas was lighted, before the last payment was made. Lady Joan looked very tired, yet full of rest. She

Neither spoke until the cab was dismissed before a quiet little house in a prim row. Darcy followed to a tiny sitting-room. She sank at once into the leathern armchair.

"Forgive me

rose once more.
"I thank God," she said. "This stand," she said.

but I can hardly Yet she smiled. "I

"You have wandered through strange places since that morning at Somersby, when I fixed your probation," said Darcy.

A passing shadow saddened the calm eyes. "And I have learned strange lessons," she said. "I can work better than that ignorant girl whom you would not countenance, nearly seven years ago."

"You will be lonely here; too lonely. Who will take care of you?" "I want to take care of other people," said Lady Joan. But she looked a little desolate.

"I have trusty disciples in the South, who would carry on my plans. What if I came here instead? The Thrift Union buildings are in the market again. I am rich again, too, very rich -I have had legacies. And the two years are over! Would you still wish to work with me if I came ?"

the release of the sufferer and those | an appearance.

A meeting, conse

who watched beside him, as from re- quently, was arranged for the following

gret for the gallant soul that had gone to its rest.

For it was a gallant soul. Lord Randolph's sternest critics never denied that, and the place he won for himself in the popular fancy was, at one time, second only to that held by Mr. Gladstone. Despite the petulant self-will which flung him out of power, despite the failure of physical faculties which was so painfully visible during the last two years of his life, Lord Randolph remained, to the last, first favorite among his party with a very large section of the people. No one can doubt that, who was in London during the closing weeks of his life, for one had only to lend an ear to the talk on the cab-stands, the streets, even at the public house doors, to hear anxious discussion of the latest bulletins about Randy," as he was affectionately

66

called.

Saturday, to be addressed by Lord Randolph. The candidate appeared in due course, equipped with plentiful notes, decorously disposed in orthodox fashion in the crown of his hat. These notes got hopelessly disarranged, with fatal effect upon consecutive oratory. Lord Randolph completely broke down.

On the following Monday Mr. Clarke was at the Conservative Central Office when a representative of the Globe arrived to say that they could make neither head nor tail of Lord Randolph's speech. Mr. Clarke was ready for the occasion, and promptly wrote out an eloquent address, which was printed in due form, and had, it may be presumed, excellent effect, for the Conservative candidate came out at the top of the poll.

Few persons can have foreseen that the slim, nervous young dandy who came from Woodstock to swell DisThe initial steps in this strange, raeli's majority in the new Parliament eventful history were as little auspi- was so soon and so powerfully to influcious as those which led to its close. ence the fortunes and policy of the The borough of Woodstock had been Conservative party. Disraeli himself kept warm till some member of the must have been as unconscious of the house of Marlborough should be ready watchfulness of the disciple who took a to represent it. Lord Randolph was seat behind him as he was of the fervor nominated at the general election of and fidelity with which Lord Randolph 1874. Among the first to go there to was to exalt his leader's memory when support his candidature was Mr. (now that leader should have passed from Sir Edward) Clarke, who was adver- the scene. tised to address a meeting. On his Not until six years later did Churcharrival, Mr. Clarke was brought into a ill's opportunity come, and he was room where thirty or forty respectable ready for it. Pulverized as it had burgesses were seated. These received been at the polls, dispirited by a defeat him with such encouragement as may as crushing as it had been unexpected, be had from the bumping of thirty the Conservative party in the Comor forty sticks and umbrellas upon the mous assembled on the benches behind floor. Gradually it dawned upon him the kind-hearted, mild-mannered counthat this was the meeting he had been try gentleman upon whom had been invited to address. "But is the candi- laid the duty of leading it against the date not to speak ?” he asked. "Well, | fiery and radiant captor of Midlothian. sir," was the reply, "the fact is, our The prospect was not encouraging for candidate is a young gentleman with the broken Tories. The conditions of no experience of public speaking, and the campaign were so unequal that it we think it is better he should not ap- seemed almost ludicrous to draw the pear." Whereupon Mr. Clarke made sword. When the young and untried representations that the times were of champion stepped into the ring, few that nature that any Tory candidate among the new members knew him who wished to be returned must put in even by sight, and the old ones only

remembered Randolph as having made, | scene, when Churchill, after quoting a couple of years previously, an iso- from one of Bradlaugh's works, ended lated and bitter attack on Mr. Sclater-by flinging it with melodramatic conBooth, the "ponderous mediocrity tempt on the floor of the House; there with a double surname " who was - the smoke of a warm encounter with president of the Local Government Mr. Gladstone about the authority of a Board in Mr. Disraeli's ministry, and disputed passage in Origen. His early had introduced a scheme of county speeches on this subject were a trifle government on popularly elective lines. too rhetorical to please the sense of the "I have," Lord Randolph had said on House; but Churchill, too, was sensi- « that occasion, with his inimitable air of tive; he quickly amended his manner, cultivated effrontery, 66 no objection to and then it was discovered (and none * the president of the Local Government realized this sooner than Mr. Glad- * Board dealing with such questions as stone) that the Tory party had develthe salaries of inspectors of nuisances, oped a new debater, supple, pungent, but I do entertain the strongest possi- dangerously adroit, a perfect master of ble objection to his coming down here Parliamentary procedure, and curiously with all the appearance of a great law-able to blend personalities after the giver to repair, according to his small democratic taste with the traditions ideas and in his little way, breaches in of Parliamentary chivalry. Northcote the British Constitution." He had ap- himself, unable to the last to shake off pealed to the Tory party not to barter the habits of reverence due by an exaway their cherished institutions "for private secretary towards his old chief, such Brummagem trash as this bill, Mr. Gladstone, began to turn in mostuffed with all the little dodges of a ments of perplexity to that notable corpresident of the Local Government ner below the gangway which the Board," and had declared that he "had famous Fourth Party claimed as their ransacked the whole arsenal of denun- camp. More and more, as the years ciatory phrases, and had not found of that Parliament rolled on, did men any that adequately expressed his esti- forget their distrust of the madcap t mation, or his want of estimation, of "member for Woodstock; and, more the measure." This onslaught was significant still, more and more pressing stamped on the memories of members became the demands from the great of the former Parliament by a comical industrial centres for speeches from the incident. Speaking as he was from young David who never shrank from copious notes, the sheets got mixed up an encounter with Goliath. in the course of his address, some of Space will admit of no more than one them fluttered from his hand and fell extract from the sayings of this platin a gentle shower round the object of form crusade, but it shall be a charachis denunciation, Mr. Sclater-Booth, teristic one, containing a specimen of who was sitting immediately below the audacious, yet good-humored, perChurchill, and who collected and cour-sonalities which, at that period, served teously handed them back to his assail- so greatly to endear the speaker to his vast audiences. Speaking at Blackpool, on January 24th, 1884, he alluded to

ant.

Seldom, however, has the House of Commons been more quickly forced to recognize the merits of a speaker. Lord Randolph made his start in the new Parliament on a peculiarly unpromising and unpopular subject-as the chief opponent to Mr. Bradlaugh being allowed to take the oath. The record of that long and bitter conflict teems with piquant incident; here

a reflection of the Burke-and-dagger

A couple of the Gladstonian advertisements which appeared in the papers the other day. The first described the journey of a deputation of working-men from the pure and immaculate borough of Chester to

Hawarden Castle (it has always appeared to me somewhat incongruous and inappropriate that the great chief of the Radical party should reside in a castle). One would have thought that the deputation would