to the place from whence he had come? These questions, which seemed
to Silverbridge to be as easy as they were attractive, almost made
him desirous of making a speech himself.

Then Mr. Williams, the rector, followed, a gentleman who had many
staunch friends and many bitter enemies in the town. He addressed
himself chiefly to that bane of the whole country,--as he conceived
them,--the godless dissenters; and was felt by Tregear to be injuring
the cause by every word he spoke. It was necessary that Mr. Williams
should liberate his own mind, and therefore he persevered with the
godless dissenters at great length,--not explaining, however, how a
man who thought enough about his religion to be a dissenter could be
godless, or how a godless man should care enough about religion to be
a dissenter.

Mr. Williams was heard with impatience, and then there was a clamour
for the young lord. He was the son of an ex-Prime Minister, and
therefore of course he could speak. He was himself a member of
Parliament, and therefore could speak. He had boldly severed himself
from the faulty political tenets of his family, and therefore on such
an occasion as this was peculiarly entitled to speak. When a man
goes electioneering, he must speak. At a dinner-table to refuse
is possible:--or in any assembly convened for a semi-private
purpose, a gentleman may declare that he is not prepared for the
occasion. But in such an emergency as this, a man,--and a member of
Parliament,--cannot plead that he is not prepared. A son of a former
Prime Minister who had already taken so strong a part in politics
as to have severed himself from his father, not prepared to address
the voters of a borough whom he had come to canvass! The plea was so
absurd, that he was thrust on to his feet before he knew what he was
about.

It was in truth his first public speech. At Silverbridge he had
attempted to repeat a few words, and in his failure had been covered
by the Sprugeons and the Sprouts. But now he was on his legs in a
great room, in an unknown town, with all the aristocracy of the place
before him! His eyes at first swam a little, and there was a moment
in which he thought he would run away. But, on that morning, as he
was dressing, there had come to his mind the idea of the possibility
of such a moment as this, and a few words had occurred to him. "My
friend Frank Tregear," he began, rushing at once at his subject, "is
a very good fellow, and I hope you'll