now quitted their places. Coming into the lobby,
they found themselves commingled with a crowd of members who had also
quitted their seats, after Gordon's speech, in order to discuss its
merits, as they gathered round the refreshment table for oranges or
soda-water. Among them was George Belvoir, who, on sight of the younger
of the two gentlemen issuing from the Speaker's gallery, accosted him
with friendly greeting,--

"Ha! Chillingly, how are you? Did not know you were in town. Been
here all the evening? Yes; very good debate. How did you like Gordon's
speech?"

"I liked yours much better."

"Mine!" cried George, very much flattered and very much surprised. "Oh,
mine was a mere humdrum affair, a plain statement of the reasons for the
vote I should give. And Gordon's was anything but that. You did not like
his opinions?"

"I don't know what his opinions are. But I did not like his ideas."

"I don't quite understand you. What ideas?"

"The new ones; by which it is shown how rapidly a great state can be
made small."

Here Mr. Belvoir was taken aside by a brother member, on an important
matter to be brought before the committee on salmon fisheries, on which
they both served; and Kenelm, with his companion, Sir Peter, threaded
his way through the crowded lobby and disappeared. Emerging into the
broad space, with its lofty clock-tower, Sir Peter halted, and pointing
towards the old Abbey, half in shadow, half in light, under the tranquil
moonbeams, said,--

"It tells much for the duration of a people when it accords with the
instinct of immortality in a man; when an honoured tomb is deemed
recompense for the toils and dangers of a noble life. How much of the
history of England Nelson summed up in the simple words,--'Victory or
Westminster Abbey.'"

"Admirably expressed, my dear father," said Kenelm, briefly.

"I agree with your remark, which I overheard, on Gordon's speech,"
resumed Sir Peter. "It was wonderfully clever; yet I should have been
sorry to hear you speak it. It is not by such sentiments that Nelsons
become great. If such sentiments should ever be national, the cry will
not be 'Victory or Westminster Abbey!' but 'Defeat and the Three per
Cents!'"

Pleased with his own unwonted animation, and with the sympathizing
half-smile on his son's taciturn lips, Sir Peter then proceeded more
immediately to the subjects which pressed upon his heart. Gordon's
success in Parliament, Gordon's suit to Cecilia Tr