t my parentage, than have
it concealed for fear of hurting my feelings. He may act upon the
information as he sees fit; so I will send him a certified copy of this
confession, and write him a few lines besides. I want to tell him how
happy I am: he was a friend to us in our sorrows, and he ought to know
when any prosperity, or pleasure, or happiness, comes to either of us.
I must tell him I can confide in you now."

"That is a very pleasant piece of news, I am sure," said Brandon.

"Jane will write to him from Wiriwilta, but she cannot know of our
engagement till too late for the mail."

"I think Jane formed a very shrewd guess as to my intentions, and, if
she writes fully to Hogarth, will mention them. But, by-the-by, you
must write a few lines to my mother. She will be delighted to hear this
good news; and, as for Fanny, the idea that there will be some one at
Barragong to take a motherly care of Edgar, and make him change his
clothes when he gets wet, and see that he wears flannel in winter, will
be very soothing to her maternal anxiety."

Chapter XI.

Elsie Melville's Letter

Francis Hogarth had devoted himself to public life even more
assiduously after the departure of Jane than before, and had made
himself more prominent in Parliament as practice strengthened his
powers of debate and study increased his stock of information. He was
invaluable on a committee to those who really wanted to elicit the
truth; while those who had anything to conceal dreaded his searching
questions and careful weighing of conflicting testimony. His own
peculiar crotchet--the reconstruction of electoral districts, so as to
secure the rights of minorities--to increase the purity and diminish
the expense and the bitterness of elections in the meantime, and to
pave the way for the elevation of the masses by the gradual extension
of the suffrage, by securing that the new voters should not have all
political power in their hands--was one that, of course, found little
sympathy within the walls of Parliament.

"There never has yet been," says Mr. J. S. Mill, "among political men
in England any real and serious attempt to prevent bribery, because
there has been no real desire that elections should not be costly.
Their costliness is an advantage to those who can afford the expense by
excluding a multitude of competitors; and anything, however noxious, is
cherished as having a conservative tendency if it limits the access to
Parlia