d Danvers.

DEAR GORDON,--In the ministerial changes announced as rumour in the
public papers, and which you may accept as certain, that sweet little
cherub--is to be sent to sit up aloft and pray there for the life of
poor Jack; namely, of the government he leaves below. In accepting the
peerage, which I persuaded him to do,--creates a vacancy for the
borough of -----, just the place for you, far better in every way than
Saxborough. ----- promises to recommend you to his committee. Come to
town at once. Yours, etc.

G. DANVERS.

Gordon showed this letter to Mr. Travers, and, on receiving the hearty
good-wishes of that gentleman, said, with emotion partly genuine, partly
assumed, "You cannot guess all that the realization of your good-wishes
would be. Once in the House of Commons, and my motives for action are
so strong that--do not think me very conceited if I count upon
Parliamentary success."

"My clear Gordon, I am as certain of your success as I am of my own
existence."

"Should I succeed,--should the great prizes of public life be within
my reach,--should I lift myself into a position that would warrant my
presumption, do you think I could come to you and say, 'There is an
object of ambition dearer to me than power and office,--the hope of
attaining which was the strongest of all my motives of action? And in
that hope shall I also have the good-wishes of the father of Cecilia
Travers?"

"My dear fellow, give me your hand; you speak manfully and candidly as a
gentleman should speak. I answer in the same spirit. I don't pretend
to say that I have not entertained views for Cecilia which included
hereditary rank and established fortune in a suitor to her hand, though
I never should have made them imperative conditions. I am neither
potentate nor _parvenu_ enough for that; and I can never forget" (here
every muscle in the man's face twitched) "that I myself married for
love, and was so happy. How happy Heaven only knows! Still, if you had
thus spoken a few weeks ago, I should not have replied very favourably
to your question. But now that I have seen so much of you, my answer is
this: If you lose your election,--if you don't come into Parliament
at all, you have my good-wishes all the same. If you win my daughter's
heart, there is no man on whom I would more willingly bestow her hand.
There she is, by herself too, in the garden. Go and talk to her."

Gordon hesitated. He knew too well that he had not wo