my own money, I have borrowed of others, and the present stagnation of trade compels me to remind you of your promise: that is the explanation of my visit this morning.

"And to be business-like and to the point, you have come to ask me for a large sum of money?" said Mr. Bonsall.

"Two thousand pounds," said Mr. Martyn. "I have already sunk in the paper four thousand of my own. I am now threatened in respect of a sum borrowed; threatened with almost immediate execution. I am more than solvent; I have more than twenty shillings in the pound if the property were available. A thousand pounds would put my affairs in a comparatively healthy position; two thousand would make the paper."

"Who is pressing you?”

"A member of our own party."

"That is strange."

"He is a gas shareholder to a large amount, and is interested in other schemes which I have not always supported."

"Ah, you should always stick to your party."

"I have done so, as a party.”

"But you should also adhere to individual members of it. When a man goes in for politics he reduces the thing to a simple matter of figures; he

"

"I know your theory," said Mr. Martyn, interrupting the member; "you used to say that I returned you to Parliament; you said so on the hustings."

"That was unwise on my part; for once in my life my feelings overcame my judgment; it was not respectful to my constituents. But who is the person who is pressing you for this money?"

"Magar," said Mr. Martyn. "I must have been hard up indeed to have borrowed from him."

"A very rising man," said the member; "energetic, plain-spoken, a thorough party man. And how is Mr. Magar? He was a miller,

I think?"

"He is a scoundrel," said the journalist; "a deep, designing, vulgar ruffian."

"Really, Mr. Martyn!" said the member, laying down his knife and fork and leaning back in his chair.

"Plain-speaking," said the journalist; "I thought you admired plain-speaking."

Mr. Bonsall rang the bell.

"Charles, if Lord Fazbale calls, detain him; I am very anxious to see him."

"Yes, sir," said Charles, leaving the room as softly as he had entered it.

"I am wasting your time, and my own I fear," said Mr. Martyn ; 66 is my mission successful ? ”

"In respect of the money?" said the member, with tantalising coolness.

"Yes."

"Well, you see, Mr. Martyn," said the member, rising and planting his feet firmly upon the hearth-rug, and giving his back the full benefit of the fire; "the question is a very delicate one. Prior to my election I should have had no difficulty; then I was not pledged to the national work as it were; then I was not in the House, bound to its dictum of honour and independence; now, in my present position as a member of Parliament, as a legislator having taken certain oaths and entered upon certain duties, it would ill become me to advance money in the interest of party journalism. As a matter of inclination

I should like to write you a cheque for two thousand pounds; as a question of duty I cannot."

"That is your answer. I don't understand the pretended philosophy of it, but it means No."

"I fear so."

"In spite of your own words, 'We shall not be particular to a couple of thousand if ever you require the money.'"

"I don't remember the words," said the honest, plain-spoken, liberal-minded, and eloquent member for Middleton.

"You remember being returned?"

'Yes," said Mr. Bonsall, "and I shall always acknowledge myself much indebted to you, Mr. Martyn, for that honour, and I regret that you and I in this present business cannot quite agree with each other's views."

"There is an old English proverb," said the journalist, "I taught you to swim and you drown me,'

"I don't believe in proverbs," said Mr. Bonsall.

"If you reduce them to facts and figures you find the balance of experience against them; they are the aphorisms of disappointment."

"Good morning," said Mr. Martyn.

"Good morning, Mr. Martyn," said the member. "I hope we shall meet on a subject in which we mutually agree the next time I have the pleasure of seeing you."

Mr. Martyn had played his last card. When Don Quixote rescued the galley-slaves they rewarded him with stones and stole his squire's ass. The provincial journalist found London a desert. He never

had felt so lonely as he felt while walking along Waterloo Place, for he selected to go in that direction when he left Piccadilly. He passed the fine club-house where he had once dined with Mr. Bonsall and half a dozen other members of the House of Commons. Arrived at Trafalgar Square, he walked round the fountains there-round and round, until he thought a policeman looked curiously at him; then he went into the National Gallery and sat down opposite a Turner, his mind, however, being far away from the sunny mists of the landscape before him. "Poor Jacob," he said to himself. "Poor Jacob."

Presently Mr. Martyn returned to his hotel.

"Let me have my bill," he said, sitting down at an empty table near the fire.

"Right, sir," was the quick response.

"Very cold morning," said a gruff voice at the opposite side of the

room.

Mr. Martyn recognised a gentleman whom he had seen in the smoke-room on the previous night.

"It is," said Mr. Martyn.

"Excuse me, you look as if we were both in the same box," said the stranger.

"I don't understand," said the journalist. "You look disappointed."

"I am," said Mr. Martyn.

"Committee business?" said the stranger.

"No," said Mr. Martyn.

"I have seen you before," said the stranger.

"I think I can say the same with regard to yourself,” said Mr. Martyn. "Yes," said the stranger. "I've been up now every session for six years; for five years I have opposed a railway coming through my estate, and for five years I have beaten the marauders in one way or another; this time they have beaten me."

"Indeed," said Mr. Martyn, wondering for a moment how much good money had been wasted in the litigation.

"Yes; this session I came up to oppose the line going in a fresh direction, instead of through my land; they actually, sir, had the audacity to make fresh plans and leave me out of their calculations altogether! and, by the Lord Harry! they have licked me, sir! and it has cost me, one way and another, not less than twenty thousand pounds."

The obstinate old man tossed off the last glass of a bottle of sherry, and smacking his lips, said "But I'll be even with the beggars yet, if it costs me another twenty."

And yet Mr. Martyn's dear and honest hopes were to be blighted, his good name sullied, his son's future made miserable perhaps, for the want of a couple of thousand pounds!

CHAPTER XVI.

THE LAST OF JACOB'S HAPPY DAYS AT CARTOWN; UPON WHICH NOTABLE OCCASION HE RECEIVES BAD NEWS AND GOOD ADVICE, AND EXPERIENCES THE SWEET SORROW OF PARTING.

WHEN he wrote the letter mentioned in the previous chapter, Jacob Martyn little thought he would be suddenly summoned home a few months afterwards; and never for a moment, in all his dreams and speculations relative to the future, did he calculate upon such events as those which were then progressing towards consummation. So far as he was concerned, that short space of time had been full of happiness. He had frequently seen Lucy; they had walked hand in hand, full of hope, through the dead leaves of autumn; and Jacob had written to Lucy, and Lucy had written to Jacob, when winter set icy barriers and very early sunsets between the young lover and his half-holiday walks to the house among the trees. Mr. Spawling had once or twice been on the point of writing to Mr. Martyn upon the subject of the tender relationship between Jacob and Lucy; but he had each time dismissed it as unworthy of serious attention. Boys will be boys, he thought to himself, and girls will be girls-with this addition in the present case, however, ran on Mr. Spawling's thoughts, that there are few girls so fair as Dorothy's cousin.

"I am sorry," began Mr. Spawling, at breakfast on a March morning, which Jacob Martyn had cause long to remember, "I am exceedingly sorry to learn, Jacob, that you must leave us to-day on a journey of a sorrowful character. You have had a letter this morning?"

"I have, sir," said Jacob, sadly.

Spen gazed stedfastly into his coffee cup, and Dorothy, looking at Jacob with tears in her eyes, said she "hoped things would turn out better than was thought."

"I trust they will. And you must be hopeful too, Jacob, my boy; but never forget that we all have our cares and troubles, and that there are times when adversity is a blessing, coming to us as the forerunner of real and lasting peace," said Mr. Spawling.

Spen still looked at his coffee, and tears trickled slowly down Dorothy's ruddy cheeks.

"You have my heartiest sympathy, Jacob. I shall feel your trouble as if it were my own. We have been acquainted with each other a long time now; and for my own part, Jacob, the more I have known of you the higher you have risen in my estimation. Do not think I flatter; I am not given to mere lip compliments; you will have the good sense to regard what I say in the proper light. Praise and commendation, fairly earned, represent a just debt, and I pay it willingly and with satisfaction.”

"You are very kind, sir," said Jacob, a beam of gratitude lighting up his expressive features.

"Whatever may be our respective destinies, Jacob, I am sure we shall always remember each other with esteem and respect.” "Yes, sir," said Jacob.

When

"We cannot say what the future may have in store for us. autumn tinges the leaf its sure decay has begun. The fruit falls with its own ripeness. But true affection lives on to the last; and memory has consoling pleasures, sad though they sometimes be, for those who have lived to wear grey hairs. Old men look for their pleasures in memory. It is youth which looks hopefully into the future. May yours be a bright one, Jacob! Do not expect it to be without clouds, and storms, and tempests. Affliction will surely come to you, sooner or later. Already you have tasted of the bitter cup. When next it is presented to your lips, take it meekly, submissively, and religiously. We are the creatures of an all-powerful and beneficent Being who ordains everything to a good and wise end. He puts us through the fire of adversity that we may be made the purer for the burning, and our afflictions'are the offspring of His mercy. If ever you find it difficult to realise this, my dear boy, go down upon your knees and seek instruction and consolation at the hands of Him who will never desert you so long as you seek Him; and whose love is as infinite as His wisdom, and whose mercy endureth for ever."

Mr. Spawling spoke these words so solemnly, with an elocution so touching, and in a voice so rich and musical, that his hearers were no less astonished than they were affected. And when Mr. Spawling, after a short pause, said, "Let us pray," they fell upon their knees and joined the schoolmaster in his supplications with true religious fervour.

Family prayers had not formed part of the domestic arrangements of Mr. Spawling's household, though a blessing was asked upon every meal, and Mr. Spawling frequently closed the day by reading a VOL. IX., N.S. 1872.

L