e winning of the prize-fighter's lass the final
triumph or flag on the apex of the now despised philosophy. Vain to
ask how he had come to be mixed up with the lot, or why the stolidly
conceited, pretentious fellow had seat here, as by right, beside him!
We sow and we reap; 'plant for sugar and taste the cane,' some one
says--this Woodseer, probably; he can, when it suits him, tickle the
ears of the worldlings. And there is worthier stuff to remember; stuff
to nourish: Feltre's 'wisdom of our fathers,' rightly named Religion.

More in the country, when he traversed sweep and rise of open land,
Carinthia's image began to shine, and she threw some of her light on
Madge, who made Woodseer appear tolerable, sagacious, absurdly enviable,
as when we have the fit to wish we were some four-foot. The fellow's
philosophy wore a look of practical craft.

He was going to the girl he liked, and she was, one could swear, an
honest girl; and she was a comely girl, a girl to stick to a man. Her
throwing over a sot was creditable. Her mistress loved her. That said
much for any mortal creature. Man or woman loved by Carinthia could
not be cowardly, could not be vile, must have high qualities. Next
to Religion, she stood for a test of us. Had she any strong sense of
Religion, in addition to the formal trooping to one of their pallid
Protestant churches? Lord Feltre might prove useful to her. For merely
the comprehension of the signification of Religion steadies us. It had
done that for him, the earl owned.

He broke a prolonged silence by remarking to Gower 'You haven't much
to say to-day'; and the answer was 'Very little. When I'm walking, I'm
picking up; and when I'm driving, I'm putting together.'

Gower was rallied on the pursuit of the personal object in both cases.
He pointed at sheep, shepherd, farmer, over the hedge, all similarly
occupied; and admitted shamelessly, that he had not a thought for
company, scarce a word to fling. 'Ideas in gestation are the dullest
matter you can have.'

'There I quite agree with you,' said Fleetwood. Abrane, Chummy Potts,
Brailstone, little Corby, were brighter comrades. And these were
his Ixionides! Hitherto his carving of a way in the world had been
sufficiently ill-considered. Was it preferable to be a loutish
philosopher? Since the death of Ambrose Mallard, he felt Woodseer's
title for that crew grind harshly; and he tried to provoke a repetition
of it, that he might burst out in wrathful