know nothing; I could not
even guess at what ought to be done."

"No? Now here is my idea. Why not plead my cause myself?"

"Plead your cause yourself? Can that be done?"

"Yes; myself--in Parliament."

Minola's mind at once formed and framed a picture of a stately
assembly, like a Roman Senate, or like the group of King Agrippa,
Festus, Bernice, and the rest, and Mr. Heron pleading his cause like
Cicero or Paul. The thing seemed hardly congruous. It did not seem to
her to fall in with modern conditions at all. Her face became blank;
she did not well know what to answer.

"Are people allowed to do such things now, in England?" she asked--"to
plead causes before Parliament?"

An odd idea came up in her mind, that perhaps by the time this strange
performance came to be enacted, Mr. Augustus Sheppard might be in
Parliament, and Mr. Heron's enthusiastic eloquence would have to be
addressed to him. She did not like the idea.

"You don't understand," Heron said. "You really don't this time. What I
mean is to get into Parliament--be elected for some place, and then
stand up and make my own fight for myself."

She kindled at the idea.

"Oh, yes, of course! How stupid I am not to see at once! That is a
splendid idea; the very thing I should like to do if I were a man and
in your place."

"You really think so?"

"Indeed I do. But then----" And she hesitated, for she feared that she
had been only encouraging him to a wild dream. "Does it not cost a
great deal of money to get into Parliament?"

"No; I think not; not always at least. I should look out for an
opportunity. I have money enough--for me. I'm not a rich man, Miss
Grey, but my father left me well enough off, as far as that goes; and
you know that in a place like St. Xavier's one couldn't spend any
money. There was no way of getting rid of it. No, my troubles are none
of them money troubles. I only want to vindicate my past career, and so
to have a career for the future. I ought to be doing something. I feel
in an unhealthy state of mind while all this is pressing on me. You
understand?"

"I can understand it," Miss Grey said, turning to leave the bridge, and
bestowing one glance at the yellow, slow-moving water, and the reeds
and the bushes, of which she and her companion had not spoken a word.
"It is not good to have to think of oneself. But you are bound to
vindicate yourself; that I am sure is your duty. Then you can think of
other things--of the publ