are good, may one
day get nominated to Congress, as the Honorable Mr. Newt is, who was once
a scholar here, just like you. Hurrah for Mr. Gray's boys! Now eat your
dinners."

CHAPTER LXIX.

IN AND OUT.

"And Boniface Newt has failed," said Mr. Bennet to his wife, in a low
voice.

He was shading his eyes with his hand, and his wife was peacefully sewing
beside him.

She made no reply, but her face became serious, then changed to an
expression in which, from under his hands, for her husband's eyes were
not weak, her husband saw the faintest glimmering of triumph. But Mrs.
Bennet did not raise her eyes from her work.

"Lucia!" He spoke so earnestly that his wife involuntarily started.

"My dear," she replied, looking at him with a tear in her eye, "it is
only natural."

Her husband said nothing, but shook his slippered foot, and his neck sunk
a little lower in his limp, white cravat. They were alone in the little
parlor, with only the portrait on the wall for company, and only the
roses in the glass upon the table, that were never wanting, and always
showed a certain elegance of taste in arrangement and care which made the
daughter of the house seem to be present though she might be away.

"What a beautiful night!" said Mr. Bennet at last, as his eyes lingered
upon the window through which he saw the soft illumination of the full
moonlight.

His wife looked for a moment with him, and answered, "Beautiful!"

"How lovely those roses are, and how sweet they smell!" he said, after
another interval of silence, and as if there were a change in the
pleasant dreams he was dreaming.

"Yes," she replied, and looked at him and smiled, and, smiling, sewed on.

"Where is Ellen to-night?" he asked, after a little pause.

"She is walking in this beautiful moonlight."

"All alone?" he inquired, with a smile.

"No! with Edward."

"Ah! with Edward." And there was evidently another turn in the pleasant
dream.

"And Gabriel--where is Gabriel?" asked he, still shaking the slippered
foot.

His wife smoothed her work, and said, with an air of tranquil happiness,

"I suppose he is walking too."

"All alone?"

"No, with May."

Involuntarily, as she said it, she laid her work in her lap, as if her
mind would follow undisturbed the happy figures of her children. She
looked abstractedly at the window, as if she saw them both, the manly
candor of her Gabriel, and the calm sweetness of May Newt--the loyal
heart