chard, somehow, knew one of the jockeys, and, as we were
coming in from our ramble through the town, this man, or boy, asked
us to look at one of the racers he had the charge of."

"Well, my dear!"

"Well, mamma! Mr Donne is like that horse!"

"Nonsense, Jemima; you must not say so. I don't know what your father
would say, if he heard you likening Mr Donne to a brute."

"Brutes are sometimes very beautiful, mamma. I am sure I should think
it a compliment to be likened to a race-horse, such as the one we
saw. But the thing in which they are alike, is the sort of repressed
eagerness in both."

"Eager! Why, I should say there never was any one cooler than Mr
Donne. Think of the trouble your papa has had this month past, and
then remember the slow way in which Mr Donne moves when he is going
out to canvass, and the low, drawling voice in which he questions the
people who bring him intelligence. I can see your papa standing by,
ready to shake them to get out their news."

"But Mr Donne's questions are always to the point, and force out the
grain without the chaff. And look at him, if any one tells him ill
news about the election! Have you never seen a dull red light come
into his eyes? That is like my race-horse. Her flesh quivered all
over, at certain sounds and noises which had some meaning to her;
but she stood quite still, pretty creature! Now, Mr Donne is just as
eager as she was, though he may be too proud to show it. Though he
seems so gentle, I almost think he is very headstrong in following
out his own will."

"Well! don't call him like a horse again, for I am sure papa would
not like it. Do you know, I thought you were going to say he was like
little Leonard, when you asked me who he was like."

"Leonard! Oh, mamma, he is not in the least like Leonard. He is
twenty times more like my race-horse.

"Now, my dear Jemima, do be quiet. Your father thinks racing so
wrong, that I am sure he would be very seriously displeased if he
were to hear you."

To return to Mr Bradshaw, and to give one more of his various reasons
for wishing to take Mr Donne to Abermouth. The wealthy Eccleston
manufacturer was uncomfortably impressed with an indefinable sense of
inferiority to his visitor. It was not in education, for Mr Bradshaw
was a well-educated man; it was not in power, for, if he chose, the
present object of Mr Donne's life might be utterly defeated; it
did not arise from anything overbearing in manner, for Mr Don