Very well, sir. Thank you. What time can we start ?"
Ten o'clock? Will that suit ?"
Thank you very much."

Any time you like.

"Oh, quite well, sir.

"Thank me for what?" laughed Mr. Carlyle: "for giving you a troublesome journey? Let me see-the doctor's fee will be a guinea,' he said, taking out his purse.

"Oh, that is nothing," she hastily interrupted. "I will pay for him myself: I would rather."

Mr. Carlyle looked surprised. He said nothing; simply laid down the sovereign and shilling on the table. Madame Vine blushed vividly: how could she, the governess, so have forgotten herself?

Poor, unhappy Lady Isabel! A recollection flashed over her of that morning, years ago, when Lord Mount Severn had handed out to her some gold, three sovereigns: and of the hundred-pound note so generously left in her hands afterwards by another. Then she was his chosen love:

ay, she was; though it had not been declared. Now?. death, shot through her bitter heart.

—a pang, as of "You can remind Dr. Martin that the child's constitution is precisely what his mother's was," continued Mr. Carlyle, a tinge lighting his face. "It may be a guide to his treatment. He said, himself, it was, when he

attended him for an illness a year or two ago."

"Yes, sir."

He crossed the hall on his entrance to the breakfast-room. She tore up-stairs to her chamber, and sank down in an agony of tears and despair. Oh! to love him as she did now! to yearn after his affection with this passionate, jealous longing, and to know that they were separated for ever and for ever; that she was worse to him than nothing! Softly, my lady! This is not bearing your cross.

II.

APPEARANCE OF A RUSSIAN BEAR AT WEST LYNNE.

MR. CARLYLE harangued the populace from the balcony of the Buck's Head, a substantial old house, renowned in the days of posting, now past and gone. Its balcony was an old-fashioned, roomy balcony, painted green, where there was plenty of space for his friends to congregate. He was a persuasive orator, winning his way to ears and hearts: but, had he spoken with plums in his mouth, and a stammer on his tongue, and a break-down at every sentence, the uproarious applause and shouts would have been equally rife. Mr. Carlyle was intensely popular in West Lynne, setting aside his candidateship and his oratory; and West Lynne made common cause against Sir Francis Levison.

Sir Francis Levison harangued the mob from the Raven, but in a more ignoble manner. For the Raven possessed no balcony, and he was fain to let himself down with a stride and a jump, from the first-floor window on to the top of the bow-window of the parlour, and stand there. The Raven, though a comfortable, old-established, and respectable inn, could boast only of casements for its upper windows, and they are not convenient to deliver speeches from. He was wont, therefore, to take his stand on the ledge of the bow-window, and that was not altogether convenient either,

for it was but narrow, and he hardly dared moved an arm or a leg, for fear of pitching over, on to the upturned faces. Mr. Drake let himself down also, to support him on one side, and, the first day, the lawyer supported him on the other. For the first day only: for that worthy, being not as high as Sir Francis Levison's or Mr. Drake's shoulder, and about five times their breadth, had those two been rolled into one, experienced a slight difficulty in getting back again. It was accomplished at last, Sir Francis pulling him up, and Mr. Drake hoisting him from behind, just as a ladder was being brought out to the rescue, amidst shouts of laughter. The stout man wiped the perspiration from his face when he was landed in safety, and recorded a mental vow never to descend from a window again. After that, the candidate and his friend shared the shelf between them. The lawyer's name was Rubiny, ill naturedly supposed to be a corruption of Reuben.

They stood there one afternoon, Sir Francis's eloquence in full play (but he was a shocking speaker), and the crowd, laughing, hissing, groaning, and applauding, blocking up the road. Sir Francis could not complain of one thing that he got no audience. For it was the pleasure of West Lynne extensively to support him in that respect: a few to cheer, a great many to jeer and hiss. Remarkably dense was the mob on this afternoon, for Mr. Carlyle had just concluded his address from the Buck's Head, and the crowd who had been listening to him, came rushing up to swell the ranks of the other crowd. They were elbowing and pushing and treading on each others' heels, when an open barouche drove suddenly up, to scatter them. Its horses wore scarlet and purple rosettes; and one lady, a very pretty one, sat inside it. Mrs. Carlyle.

But the crowd could not be so easily scattered: it was too thick: the carriage could advance but at a snail's pace, and now and then came to a stand-still. Sir Francis Levison's speech came to a stand-still also, till the confusion should be subsided: for where was the use of wasting words? He did not bow to Barbara: he remembered the result of his having done so to Miss Carlyle: and the little interlude of the pond had washed most of his impudence out of him. He remained at his post, not looking at Barbara, not looking at anything in particular, waiting till the interruption should have passed.

Barbara, under cover of her dainty lace parasol, turned her eyes upon him. At that very moment he raised his right hand, slightly shook his head back, and tossed his hair off his brow. His hand, ungloved, was white and delicate as a lady's, and his rich diamond ring gleamed in the sun. The pink flush on Barbara's cheek deepened to a crimson damask, and her brow contracted as with a remembrance of pain.

"The very action Richard described! the action he was always using at East Lynne! I believe from my heart that the man is Thorn: that Richard was labouring under some mistake, when he said he knew Sir Francis Levison."

She let her hands fall upon her knee as she spoke, heedless of the candidate, heedless of the crowd, heedless of all, save her own troubled thoughts. A hundred respectful salutations were offered her she answered them mechanically; a shout was raised, "Long live Carlyle! Carlyle for ever!" Barbara bowed her pretty head on either side, and the carriage at length got on.

The parting of the crowd brought Mr. Dill (who had come to listen for once to the speech of the second man) and Mr. Ebenezer James close to each other. Mr. Ebenezer James was one who for the last twelve or fifteen years had been trying his hand at many trades, and had not come out particularly well at any. A rolling stone gathers no moss. First, he had been clerk to Mr. Carlyle; next, he had been seduced into joining the corps of the Theatre Royal at Lynneborough; then he turned auctioneer; then traveller in the oil and colour line; then a parson, the urgent pastor of some new sect; then omnibus-driver; then collector of the water-rate; and now he was clerk again; not in Mr. Carlyle's office, but in that of Ball and Treadman, other solicitors of West Lynne. A good humoured, good natured, free-of-mannered, idle chap was Mr. Ebenezer James, and that was the worst that could be urged against him, save that he was sometimes out at pocket and out at elbows. His father was a respectable man, had made money in trade; but he had married a second wife, had a second family, and his eldest son did not come in for much of the paternal money; though he did for a large share of the paternal anger.

"Well, Ebenezer, and how goes the world with you?" cried Mr. Dill, by way of salutation.

"Jogging on. It never gets to a trot."

"Didn't I see you turning into your father's house yesterday ?"

"I pretty soon turned out of it again. I'm like the monkey when I venture there get more kicks than halfpence. Hush, old gentleman! we interrupt the eloquence."

Of course "the eloquence" applied to Sir Francis Levison, and they set themselves to listen, Mr. Dill with a serious face, Mr. Ebenezer with a grinning one. But, soon, a jostle and movement carried them to the outside of the crowd, out of sight of the speaker, though not entirely out of hearing. By these means they had view of the street, and discerned something advancing to them, which they took for a Russian bear on its hind legs. "I'll-be-blest," uttered Mr. Ebenezer James, after a prolonged pause of staring consternation, "if I don't believe it's Bethel!"

"Bethel!" repeated Mr. Dill, gazing at the approaching figure. "What has he been doing to himself?"

Mr. Otway Bethel it was, just arrived from foreign parts in his travelling costume. Something shaggy, terminating all over with tails. A shaggy cap surmounted his head, and the hair on his face would have set up Mr. Justice Hare in wigs for his life. A wild object he looked, and Mr. Dill rather backed as he drew near, as if fearing he were a real animal which might bite him.

"What's your name?" cried he.

"It used to be Bethel," replied the wild man, holding out his hand to Mr. Dill. "So you are in the world, James, and kicking, yet!"

"And hope to kick in it for some time to come," replied Mr. James. "Where did you hail from last? A settlement at the North Pole ?" "Didn't get quite as far. What's the row here?"

"When did you arrive, Mr. Otway?" inquired old Dill.

"Now. Four o'clock train. I say, what's up?"

"An election; that's all," said Mr. Ebenezer. "Attley went and kicked the bucket."

"I don't ask about the election; I heard all that at the railway station," returned Otway Bethel, impatiently. "What's this?" waving his hand at the crowd.

"One of the candidates, wasting breath and words. Levison."

"I say," repeated Otway Bethel, looking at Mr. Dill, "wasn't it rather rather of the ratherest, for him to oppose Carlyle?"

"Infamous! contemptible !" was the old gentleman's excited answer. "But he'll get his deserts yet, Mr. Otway; they have already begun. He was treated to a ducking yesterday in Justice Hare's green pond."

"And he did look a miserable devil when he came out, trailing through the streets," added Mr. Ebenezer, while Otway Bethel burst into a laugh. "He was smothered into some hot blankets at the Raven,' and a pint of burnt brandy put into him. He seems all right to-day."

"Will he go in and win ?"

"Chut! Win against Carlyle! He has not the ghost of a chance; and government-if it is the government who put him on it-must be a pack of fools: they can't know the influence of Carlyle. Bethel, is that style of costume the fashion where you come from?"

"For slender pockets. I'll sell 'em to you now, James, at half price. Let's get a look at this Levison, though. I have never seen the fellow." Another interruption to the crowd, even as he spoke, caused by the railway van bringing up some luggage. They contrived, in the confusion, to push themselves to the front, not far from Sir Francis. Otway Bethel stared at him in unqualified amazement.

"Why—what brings him here? What is he doing?"

"Who?"

He pointed with his finger. "The one with the white handkerchief in his hand."

"That is Sir Francis."

"No!" uttered Bethel, a whole world of astounded meaning in his tone. "By Jove! He Sir Francis Levison ?"

At that moment, their eyes met, Francis Levison's and Otway Bethel's. Otway Bethel raised his shaggy cap in salutation, and Sir Francis appeared completely scared. Only for an instant did he lose his presence of mind. The next, his eye-glass was stuck in his eye and turned on Mr. Bethel with a hard, haughty stare; as much as to say, Who are you, fellow, that you should take such a liberty? But his cheeks and lips were growing as white as marble.

"Do you know Levison, Mr. Otway?" inquired old Dill.

"A little. Once."

"When he was not Levison, but somebody else," laughed Mr. Ebenezer James. "Eh, Bethel ?"

Bethel turned as reproving a stare on Mr. Ebenezer, as the baronet had just turned on him. "What do you mean, pray? Mind your own business."

A nod to old Dill, and he turned off and disappeared, taking no further notice of James. The old gentleman questioned the latter.

"What was that little bit of by-play, Mr. Ebenezer?"

"Nothing, much," laughed Mr. Ebenezer. "Only he," nodding towards Sir Francis, "was not always the great man that he is now." "Ah!"

"I have held my tongue about it, for it's no affair of mine, but I don't mind letting you into the secret. Would you believe that that grand baronet there, would-be member for West Lynne, used, years ago, to dodge about Abbey Wood, mad after Afy Hallijohn? He didn't call himself Levison then."

Mr. Dill felt as if a hundred pins and needles were pricking at his memory, for there rose up in it certain doubts and troubles, touching Richard Hare and one Thorn. He laid his eager hand upon the other's "Ebenezer James, what did he call himself ?" "Thorn. A dandy then, as he is now. He used to come galloping down the Swainson road at dusk, tie his horse in the wood, and monopolise Miss Afy."

arm.

"How do you know this?"

"Because I have seen it, a dozen times. I was spooney after Afy myself in those days, and went down there a good deal in an evening. If it hadn't been for him, and-and perhaps that murdering villain, Dick Hare, Afy would have listened to me. Not that she cared for Dick; but, you see, they were gentlemen. I am thankful to the stars, now, for my luck in escaping her. With her for a wife, I should have been in a pickle always: as it is, I do get out of it once in a way."

"Did you know then that he was Francis Levison ?"

"Not I. He called himself Thorn, I tell you. When he came down, to offer himself for member and oppose Carlyle, I was thunderstruck; like Bethel was, a minute ago. Ho, ho, said I, so Thorn's defunct, and Levison has risen."

"What had Otway Bethel to do with him ?"

"Nothing-that I know of. Only Bethel was fond of the wood also -after other game than Afy, though-and must have seen Thorn often. You saw that he recognised him."

"Thorn-Levison, I mean- -did not appear to like the recognition," said Mr. Dill.

"Who would, in his position?" laughed Ebenezer James. "I don't like to be reminded of many a wild scrape of my past life, in my poor station; and what would it be for Levison, were it to come out that he once called himself Thorn, and came running after Miss Afy Hallijohn." Why did he call himself Thorn? Why disguise his own name?" "Not knowing, can't say. Is his name Levison? or is it Thorn?" "Nonsense, Mr. Ebenezer!"

Mr. Dill, bursting with the strange news he had heard, endeavoured to force his way through the crowd, that he might communicate it to Mr. Carlyle. The crowd was, however, too dense for him, and he had to wait the opportunity of escape with what patience he might. When it came, he made the best of his way to the office, and entered Mr. Carlyle's private room. That gentleman was seated at his desk, signing letters. "Why, Dill, you are out of breath!"

"Well I may be! Mr. Archibald, I have been listening to the most extraordinary statement. I have found out about Thorn. Who do you think he is?"

Mr. Carlyle laid down his pen, and looked full in the old man's face: he had never seen him so excited.

"It's that man, Levison."