did not suit them. The real, natural, un- | Aladdin's, and voices sound in the air, affected, innocent independence of her whose luring from commonplace things may manner, anxious for nothing, resenting noth-end in wrecking us; but sweet are the ing, did not please them. Some said she hours first passed, sailing with the tide, was haughty; and some that she was dowdy; down the rapid river of unreturning time !. and some that "she seemed to be as great. a fool as her mother."

Gertrude was sailing down that stream; lit by the warm sunshine of joy, and lulled by the music of its rippling waves.

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That

The stately, handsome, mature bridegroom was also the subject of captious re- Lady Charlotte was made a little restless mark. Some laughed at the wily widow and unhappy: both by the ironical jealousies catching" him for her daughter. Some we have alluded to, the great desire she thought that really the girl was not amiss, had to collect together all sorts of titled reand might have done better than marry a lations and guests, and the extreme reman twice her age. Some affected to be luctance of the bridegroom to be made a mightily amused and tickled at the story of public spectacle," as he termed it; a relucOld Sir Douglas going out to Italy to lec-tance which Gertrude seemed fully to share, ture his scapegrace nephew, and being and to yield only from love of her mothcaught in the toils himself, and brought er, to the desire of the latter for the pomps home captive. Some said he had "behaved and ceremonies of the nuptial day. abominably to the young man; persuaded The day came, and the guests. the mother to reject his suit, and then made agitated and agitating vision of bridal vestlove to the daughter on his own account." ments, murmuring replies at the altar, blushSome were of opinion that the mother and ing bridesmaids, and a veiled bride; the daughter were two intriguantes, who had sobbing kiss, the hurried departure, the thrown over the nephew when they found cheers of the mob gathered round the doors, they could entrap the uncle, and, "whee- and the blank silence afterwards, in spite of dled" a confirmed old bachelor till they crowds and tumultuous chattering, which brought him to the point of matrimony. mark the progress of "the Wedding Day," When was there ever a marriage ar- were all gone through, as they have been ranged, which bitter tongues did not slur, gone through a thousand times, and will be and idle tongues canvass, and envious gone through a thousand and a thousand tongues find fault with,- - and careless times more. tongues discuss? Proving only in the slurring, canvassing, fault-finding, and discussing, the great mystery of preference; and the impossibility of common-place understandings being brought to feel that such preference is God's inspiration, and not a scheme of man's making, - ruled like a map or an account-book, with the set boundaries of the one, or the apportioned valuing of the other to regulate the result. "Why did she love him? Curious fool, be still Is human love the growth of human will?"

And before Lady Charlotte's weak, vain, loving heart had recovered from its agitation, "Sir Douglas and Lady Ross" were off on their way to Glenrossie.

On their way to Glenrossie! Ah! what other rapture, what other fulness of joy, shall compare to the day when the woman, who loves deeply and truly, is borne on to the home of the man she so loves?

For ever! the human for ever;" the for ever "till death do us part; " how it stretches out its illimitable future of joy, as we sit, hand linked in hand, sure of each other, of existence, of love, of all that makes a paradise of earth; and the hedges and boundaries that divide lands, flee past before our dreaming eyes; and the morning sun glows into noon; and the noon burns and fades; and the day sinks again, with a crimson haze, into sunset- and perhaps the sweet and quiet light. the pale light of the moon-swims up into that sea of blue men call the sky; while still we are journeying on to the one spot on earth where we have cast our anchor of hope; to the trees and lawns, and rocks and hills, and gardens of flowers, and paths of delight, which were till now all HIS and are since the morning OURS!-the place we have loved without ever seeing it, perhaps, - the place that

With Bunyan's pilgrim, clogged by doubt and As Burns and Bacon; worthy of high praise —

CHAPTER XLVIII.

As the election approached, it became gradually the one absorbing object of interest in Carlingford. The contest was so equal that everybody took a certain share in it, and became excited as the decisive moment drew nigh. Most of the people in Grange Lane were for Mr. Ashburton, but then the Rector, who was a host in himself, was for Mr. Cavendish; and the coquetting of the Dissenting interest, which was sometimes drawn towards the liberal sentiments of the former candidate, but sometimes could not help reflecting that Mr. Ashburton "dealt " in George Street; and the fluctuations of the bargemen, who were, many of them, freemen, and a very difficult part of the population, excited the most vivid interest. Young Mr. Wentworth, who had but lately come to Carlingford, had already begun to acquire a great influence at Wharfside, where most of the bargees lived, and the steady ones would no doubt have been largely swayed by him had his inclinations been the same as the Rector's; but Mr. Wentworth, perversely enough, had conceived that intuitive repugnance for Mr. Cavendish which a high-principled and not very tolerant young man often feels for the middle-aged individual who still conceives himself to have some right to be called young, and whose antecedents are not entirely beyond suspicion. Mr. Wentworth's disinclination (and he was a man rather apt to take his own way) lay like a great boulder across the stream of the Rector's enthusiasm, and unquestionably interrupted it a little. Both the candidates and both the committees had accordingly work enough to do up to the last moment. Mr. Cavendish all at once became a connoisseur in hams, and gave a magnificent order in the most complimentary way to Tozer, who received it with a broad smile, and "booked" it, as he said. "It ain't ham he's awanting," the butterman said, not without amusement; for Tozer was well to do, and, except that he felt the honour of a mark of confidence, was not to be moved one way or another by one order. "If he dealt regular, it might be different. Them's the sort of folks as a man feels drawn to," said the true philosopher. Mr. Ashburton, on the other side, did not make the impression which his friends thought he ought to have made in Prickett's Lane; but at least nobody could say that he did not stick very close to his work. He went at it like a man night and day, and neglected no means of carrying it

to

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as if

a successful issue; whereas, as Mr. Centum and Mr. Woodburn mourned in secret to each other, Cavendish required He did not like to perpetual egging on. get up in the morning, and get early to his work. It went against all his habits his habits mattered in the face of so great an emergency; and in the afternoon it was hard to prevent him from lounging into some of his haunts, which were utterly out of the way of business. He would stay in Master's for an hour at a time, though he knew Mr. Wentworth, who was Master's great patron, did not care for him, and that his favour for such a Tractarian, sort of place was bitter to the Rector. Anything for a little idleness and waste of time, poor Mr. Centum said, who was two stone lighter on the eve of the election than when the Such a contrast would canvass began. make any man angry. Mr. Cavendish was goaded into more activity as the decisive moment approached, and performed what seemed to himself unparalleled feats. But it was only two days before the moment of fate when the accident happened to him which brought such dismay to all his supporters. Our own opinion is, that it did not materially affect the issue of the contest one way or other; but that was the reverse of the feeling which prevailed in Grange Lane.

It was just two days before the election, and all seemed going on sufficiently well. Mr. Cavendish had been meeting a Dissenting committee, and it was on leaving them that he found himself at the corner of Grove Street, where, under ordinary circumstances, he had no occasion to be. At a later period he was rather fond of saying that it was not of his own motion that he was there at all, but only in obedience to the committee, which ordered him about like a nigger. The spring afternoon was the Dissenters (almost darkening, and wholly unimpressed by his arguments, and remarking more strongly than ever where Mr. Ashburton "dealt," and how thoroughly everybody knew all about him) had all dispersed. It was but natural when Mr. Cavendish came to the corner of Grove Street, where, in other days he had played a very different part, that certain softening influences should take possession of his soul. "What a voice she had, by Jove!" he said to himself; "very different from that shrill pipe of Lucilla's." To tell the truth, if there was one person in Carlingford whom he felt a resentment against, it was Lucilla. She had never done him any harm to speak of, and once she had unquestionably done

him a great deal of good. But, on the other I slowly, and the lady before him walked hand, it was she who first was candidly con- quickly, even with something like a bounce scious that he had grown stout, and who all of excitement, and went in at Mr. Lake's along had supported and encouraged his door long before Mr. Cavendish had reached rival. It was possible, no doubt, that this it. When he came up on a level with the might be pique; and, mixed with his anger parlour window, which was partially open for her sins against him, Mr. Cavendish had, though the evening was so cold, Mr. Cavenat the same time, a counter-balancing sense dish positively started, notwithstanding the that there still remained to him in his life old associations which had been rising in one supereminently wise thing that he still his mind; for there was pouring forth from could do and that was, to go down Grange the half-open window such a volume of melLane instantly to the Doctor's silenced ody as had not been heard for years in house, and go down on his knees, or do any Grove Street. Perhaps the voice had lost other absurdity that might be necessary to some of its freshness, but in the surprise of make Lucilla marry him; after which act he the moment the hearer was not critical; would henceforward be, pecuniarily and and its volume and force seemed rather inotherwise (notwithstanding that she was creased than otherwise. It has been already poor), a saved man. It did not occur to mentioned in this history that a contralto him that Lucilla would never have married had a special charm for Mr. Cavendish. He him, even had he gone down on his knees; was so struck that he stood stock-still for but perhaps that would be too much to ask the moment, not knowing what to make of any man to believe of any woman; and his it; and then he wavered for another mofeeling that this was the right thing to do, ment, with a sudden sense that the old allerather strengthened than otherwise the re- gorical crisis had occurred to him, and that volt of his heart against Lucilla. It was Pleasure, in a magnificent gush of song, twilight, as we have said, and he had done woed him on one side, while Duty, with a hard day's work, and there was still an still small voice, called him at the other. hour before dinner which he seemed to He stood still, he wavered-for fifty seconds have a right to dispose of in his own way; perhaps the issue was uncertain, and the and he did hesitate at the corner of Grove victim was still within reach of salvation; Street, laying himself open, as it were, to but the result in such a case depends very any temptation that might offer itself. much upon whether a man really likes Temptations come, as a general rule, when doing his duty, which is by no means an they are sought; and thus, on the very eve invariable necessity. Mr. Cavendish had of the election, a grievous accident happen- in the abstract no sort of desire to do his ed to Mr. Cavendish. It might have happen- unless when he could not help it, and coned at any time, to be sure, but this was the sequently his resistance to temptation was most inopportune moment possible, and it very feeble. He was standing knocking at came accordingly now. Mr. Lake's door before half the thoughts apFor as he made that pause, some one pass-propriate to the occasion had got through ed him whom he could not but look after with a certain interest. She went past him with a whisk, as if she too was not without reminiscences. It was not such a figure as a romantic young man would be attracted by on such a sudden meeting, and it was not attraction but recollection that moved Mr. Cavendish. It was the figure of a large woman in a large shawl, not very gracefully put on, and making her look very square about the shoulders and bunchy at the neck; and the robe that was whisked past him was that peculiar kind of faded silk gown which looks and rustles like tin, or some other thin metallic substance. He made that momentary pause at the street corner, and then he went on slowly, not following her, to be sure, but merely, as he said to himself, pursuing his own course; for it was just as easy to get into Grange Lane by the farther end as by this end. He went along very

his mind, and found himself sitting on the
little sofa in Mr. Lake's parlour as he used
to do ten years ago, before he could explain
to himself how he came there. It was all,
surely, a kind of enchantment altogether.
He was there - he who had been so long
away from Carlingford - he who had been
so deeply offended by hearing his name
seriously coupled with that of Barbara
Lakehe who ought to have been any-
where in the world rather than here upon
the eve of his election, when all the world
was keeping watch over his conduct. And.
it was Barbara who sat at the piano sing-
ing-singing one of the same songs, as if
she had spent the entire interval in that
occupation, and never had done anything
The sensation was so
else all these years.
strange that Mr. Cavendish may be excused
for feeling a little uncertainty as to whether
or not he was dreaming, which made him

"Because I could not stay here any longer," said Barbara, with her old vehemence; "because I was talked about, and looked down upon, and. Well, never mind, that's all over now; and I am sure I am very glad to see you, Mr. Cavendish, as a

unable to answer himself the graver ques-
tion whether or not he was doing what he
ought to do. He did not seem to be able to
make out whether it was now or ten years
ago whether he was a young man free to
amuse himself, or a man who was getting
stout, and upon whom the eyes of an anx-friend."
ious constituency were fixed. And then,
after being so virtuous for a length of time,
a forbidden pleasure was sweet.

Mr. Cavendish's ideas, however, gradually arranged themselves as he sat in the corner of the little hair-cloth sofa, and began to take in the differences as well as the bewildering resemblances of the present and past. Barbara, like himself, had changed. She did not insult him, as Lucilla had done, by fresh looks and mischievous candour about "going off." Barbara had gone off, like himself, and, like himself, did not mean to acknowledge it. She had expanded all over, as was natural to a contralto. Her eyes were blacker and more brilliant in a way, but they were eyes which owned an indescribable amount of usage; and her cheeks, too, wore the deep roses of old, deepened and fixed by wear and tear. Instead of feeling ashamed of himself in her presence, as he had done in Lucilla's, Mr. Cavendish felt somehow consoled and justified and sympathetic. "Poor soul!" he said to himself, as he sat by while she was singing. She, too, had been in the wars, and had not come out scatheless. She did not reproach him, nor commiserate him, nor look at him with that mixture of wonder and tolerance and pity which other people had manifested. She did not even remark that he had grown stout. He was not a man fallen, fallen, fallen from his high estate to Barba

ra.

She herself had fallen from the pinnacles of youth, and Mr. Cavendish was still a great man in her eyes. She sang for him as she had sung ten years ago, and received him with a flutter of suppressed delight, and in her satisfaction was full of excitement. The hardworked candidate sank deeper and deeper into the corner of the sofa and listened to the music, and felt it very soothing and pleasant, for everybody had united in goading him on rather than petting him for the last month or two of his life.

"Now, tell me something, about yourself," he said, when the song was over, and Barbara had turned round, as she used to do in old times, on her music-stool; "I hear you have been away, like me."

"Not like you," said Barbara, "for you went, because you pleased, and I went ". "Why did you go?" asked Mr. Cavendish.

And with that something like a tear came into her eye. She had been knocked about a good deal in the world, and though she had not learned much, still she had learned that she was young no longer, and could not indulge in the caprices of that past condition of existence. Mr. Cavendish, for his part, could not but smile at this intimation that he was to be received as a friend, and consequently need not have any fear of Barbara's fascinations, as if a woman of her age, worn and gone off as she was, could be supposed dangerous; but still he was touched by her tone.

"We were once very good friends, Barbara," said the inconsistent man; we have lost sight of each other for a long time, as people do in this world; but we were once very good friends."

"Yes," she said, with a slight touch of arrogance in her voice; "but since we have lost sight of each other for so long, I don't see why you should call me Barbara. It would be much more becoming to say Miss Lake."

Mr. Cavendish was amused, and he was touched and flattered. Most people had been rather forbearing to him since he came back; putting up with him for old friendship's sake, or supporting his cause as that of a reformed man, and giving him, on the whole, a sort of patronizing, humiliating countenance; and to find somebody in whose eyes he was still the paladin of old times, the Mr. Cavendish whom people in Grange Lane were proud, of was balm to his wounded soul.

I don't know how I am to learn to say Miss Lake - when you are just as good to me as ever, and sing as you have just been doing," he said. "I suppose you say so because you find me so changed?"

Upon which Barbara lifted her black eyes and looked at him as she had scarcely done before. The eyes were as bright as ever, and they were softened a little for the moment out of the stare that seemed to have grown habitual to them; and her crimson cheeks glowed as of old; and though she was untidy, and looked worn, and like a creature much buffeted about by wind and waves, she was still what connoisseurs in that article call a fine woman. She looked full at Mr. Cavendish, and then she cast down her eyes, as if the sight was too much