d silver, slender and
simple in pattern, its well-worn Turkey carpet, and its political
portraits--"the Duke," Johnny Russell, Lord Althorp, Peel,
Melbourne--seemed, to the observer on the rug, steeped in the typical
habit and reminiscence of English public life.

Well, if the father, poor fellow, had been distinguished in his day, the
son had gone far beyond him. The Dean ruminated on a conversation
wherewith he had just beguiled his cup of tea at the Athenaeum--a
conversation with one of the shrewdest members of Lord Parham's cabinet,
a "new man," and an enthusiastic follower of Ashe.

"Ashe is magnificent! At last our side has found its leader. Oh! Parham
will disappear with the next appeal to the country. He is getting too
infirm! Above all, his eyes are nearly gone; his oculist, I hear, gives
him no more than six months' sight, unless he throws up. Then Ashe will
take his proper place, and if he doesn't make his mark on English
history, I'm a Dutchman. Oh! of course that affair last year was an
awful business--the two affairs! When Parliament opened in February
there were some of us who thought that Ashe would never get through the
session. A man so changed, so struck down, I have seldom seen. You
remember what a handsome boy he was, up to last year even! Now he's a
middle-aged man. All the same, he held on, and the House gave him that
quiet sympathy and support that it can give when it likes a fellow. And
gradually you could see the life come back into him--and the ambition.
By George! he did well in that trade-union business before Easter; and
the bill that's on now--it's masterly, the way in which he's piloting it
through! The House positively likes to be managed by him; it's a sight
worthy of our best political traditions. Oh yes, Ashe will go far; and,
thank God, that wretched little woman--what has become of her,
by-the-way?--has neither crushed his energy nor robbed England of his
services. But it was touch and go."

To all of which the Dean had replied little or nothing. But his heart
had sunk within him; and the doubtfulness of a certain enterprise in
which he was engaged had appeared to him in even more startling colors
than before.

However, here he was. And suddenly, as he stood before the fire, he
bowed his white head, and said to himself a couple of verses from one of
the Psalms for the day:

"Who will lead me into the strong city: who will bring me into Edom?
Oh, be thou our help in t