do not bore
you."

"Not in the least. I was, I own it, nervous and uneasy this morning;
now, however, my mind is at ease, and I am quite ready for anything."

"Well, then, without preamble, are you still of the same mind about
Parliament, because the time is hastening on when you ought to come to
some decision on the matter?"

"I have never bestowed a thought on the matter since," said Cashel.
"The truth is, when I hear people talk politics in society, I am only
astonished at their seeming bigotry and one-sidedness; and when I
read newspapers of opposite opinions, I am equally confounded at the
excellent arguments they display for diametrically contradictory lines
of action, so that my political education makes but little progress."

"What you say is perfectly just," said Linton, appearing to reflect
profoundly. "A man of real independence--not the mere independence of
fortune, but the far higher independence of personal character--has
much to endure in our tangled and complex system of legislation. As for
yourself, for instance, who can afford to despise patronage, who have
neither sons to advance in the Navy, nor nephews in the Foreign Office,
who neither want the Bath nor a baronetcy, who would be as sick of the
flatteries as you would be disgusted with the servility of party--why
you should submit to the dust and heat, the turmoil and fatigue of
a session, I can't think. And how you would be bored,--bored by the
ceaseless reiterations night after night, the same arguments growing
gradually weaker as the echo grew fainter; bored by the bits of 'Horace'
got off by heart to wind up with; bored by the bad jests of witty
members; bored by Peel's candor, and Palmerston's petulance; by Cobden's
unblushing effrontery, and Hume's tiresome placidity. You 'd never know
a happy day nor a joyous hour till you accepted the Chiltern Hundreds,
and cut them all. No; the better course for you would be, choose a
nominee for your borough; select a man in whom you have confidence.
Think of some one over whom your influence would be complete, who would
have no other aim than in following out your suggestions; some one, in
fact, who unites sufficient ability with personal friendship. What d' ye
think of Kennyfeck?"

"Poor Kennyfeck," said Cashel, laughing, "he'd never think of such a
thing."

"I don't know," said Linton, musing; "it might not suit him, but his
wife would like it prodigiously."

"Shall I propose it, then?" said Ca