mons, and succeed
there, I hope he will never become my leader; for if he thought
Christianity in the way of his promotion, he would bring in a bill for
its abolition."

"In that case would he still be your leader?"

"My dear Kenelm, you don't know what is the spirit of party, and how
easily it makes excuses for any act of its leader. Of course, if Gordon
brought in a bill for the abolition of Christianity, it would be on the
plea that the abolition was good for the Christians, and his followers
would cheer that enlightened sentiment."

"Ah," said Kenelm, with a sigh, "I own myself the dullest of blockheads;
for instead of tempting me into the field of party politics, your talk
leaves me in stolid amaze that you do not take to your heels, where
honour can only be saved by flight."

"Pooh! my dear Chillingly, we cannot run away from the age in which we
live: we must accept its conditions and make the best of them; and if
the House of Commons be nothing else, it is a famous debating society
and a capital club. Think over it. I must leave you now. I am going
to see a picture at the Exhibition which has been most truculently
criticised in 'The Londoner,' but which I am assured, on good authority,
is a work of remarkable merit. I can't bear to see a man snarled and
sneered down, no doubt by jealous rivals, who have their influence in
journals, so I shall judge of the picture for myself. If it be really
as good as I am told, I shall talk about it to everybody I meet; and in
matters of art I fancy my word goes for something. Study art, my dear
Kenelm. No gentleman's education is complete if he does n't know a good
picture from a bad one. After the Exhibition I shall just have time for
a canter round the Park before the debate of the session, which begins
to-night."

With a light step the young man quitted the room, humming an air from
the "Figaro" as he descended the stairs. From the window Kenelm watched
him swinging himself with careless grace into his saddle and riding
briskly down the street,--in form and face and bearing a very model of
young, high-born, high-bred manhood. "The Venetians," muttered Kenelm,
"decapitated Marino Faliero for conspiring against his own order,--the
nobles. The Venetians loved their institutions, and had faith in them.
Is there such love and such faith among the English?"

As he thus soliloquized he heard a shrilling sort of squeak; and a
showman stationed before his window the stage on w