single voice
of a speaker, stretched like a thin wire, joining roar to roar. All
through the proceedings there was never a laugh from the multitude.

"Listen!" cried Colonel Featherstone from the balcony, late in the
night; "here is a dramatic fellow."

The man then addressing the crowd was one who had from his first
sentence moved his audience to an extraordinary degree--one of those
magnetic voices of the people which flames the word that is smouldering
in every heart. He had used no cloak for his meaning, like the other
speakers; but boldly attacked the Legitimists, the Monarchy, the titles
and the privileges of the aristocracy.

"These are things of the past, and not of the future!" sounded from the
deep voice. "The England of to-morrow shall have no aristocracy but her
wisest and her best, shall have no hereditary rights but the equal right
of every Englishman!"

Here followed the thunderous approval of the multitude.

"Listen!" again cried Featherstone from his advanced place on the
balcony. "Listen!"

"Will that crime be attempted?" cried the electric voice of the orator.
"Yes! I believe it will be attempted." Then there was a low murmur among
the mass, and a changing of feet that made an ominous, scuffling sound.
"What then? Then it will be every man's duty to strike down the enemies
of the people--to destroy them, so that we and our children shall not be
destroyed. We do not appeal to the sword, but the sword is ours, and we
can use it terribly. Their blood be upon their own heads who dare to lay
their hands on the charter of the people's rights!"

In the wave of tremendous applause that followed these words Mary
Lincoln looked at Dacre, who had turned from the window. His face,
always severe, was now set in fierce sternness. Again she was on the
point of going to him to speak the warning that was burning her heart,
but she saw Dacre suddenly draw himself up proudly, as if he had been
challenged. She followed his look and saw her father meet Dacre's glance
as sword meets sword.

Every line in Richard Lincoln, from bent brow to clenched hand, seemed
filled with the meaning of the orator's ominous words.

The two men, standing almost within arm's reach, looked for one earnest
moment into each other's eyes and hearts. What might have followed, who
can say, had not the engagement been broken from without. Mary Lincoln
passed between them, and laying her hand on her father's arm spoke to
him, asking to be