to them; fourthly, that it would be most improper usage of Mr. Calcott
to curry favour with men who systematically opposed him; and, fifthly,
that they could only vote for him on a misunderstanding of his
intentions.

The eighth trustee was a dead letter,--an old gentleman long retired
from business at his bank to a cottage at the Lakes, where he was
written to, but without much hope of his taking the trouble even to
reply. However, if the choice lay only between James and the
representative of the new lights, there could be little reasonable fear.

Much fretting and fuming was expended on the non-arrival of a letter
from Mr. Calcott; but on the appointed tenth day he came home, and the
next morning James was at Ormersfield in an agony of disappointment.
The Squire had sent him a note, kind in expression, regretting his
inability to give his interest to one for whom he had always so much
regard, and whose family he so highly respected, but that he had
already promised his support to a Mr. Powell, the under-master of a
large classical school, whom he thought calculated for the situation,
both by experience and acquirements.

James had been making sure enough of the school to growl at his
intended duties; but he had built so entirely on success, and formed so
many projects, that the disappointment was extreme; it appeared a cruel
injury in so old a friend to have overlooked him. He had been much
vexed with his grandmother for regarding the veto as decisive; and he
viewed all his hopes of happiness with Isabel as overthrown.

Louis partook and exaggerated his sentiments. They railed--the one
fiercely, the other philosophically--against the Squire's domineering;
they proved him narrow and prejudiced--afraid of youth, afraid of
salutary reform, bent on prolonging the dull old system, and on
bringing in a mere usher. They recollected a mauvais sujet from the
said classical school; argued that it never turned out good scholars,
nor good men; and that they should be conferring the greatest benefit
on Northwold burghers yet unborn, by recalling the old Squire to a
better mind, or by bringing in James Frost in spite of him.

Not without hopes of the first, though, as James told him, no one would
have nourished them save himself, Louis set forth for Little Northwold,
with the same valour which had made him the champion of the Marksedge
poacher. He found the old gentleman good-natured and sympathizing, for
he liked the w