a great far-off
country, and who had always concerned himself deeply with the interest
of the working classes.

'Will that,' he asked, 'get me one moment's audience from an English
official department?'

No, they did not suppose it would; they shook their heads. They could
not help him to learn how he was to help them.

The day was cold and dreary. No matter though the season was still
supposed to be far remote from winter, yet the look of the skies was
cruelly depressing, and the atmosphere was loaded with a misty chill.
Ericson's heart was profoundly touched. He saw in his mind's eye a
country glowing with soft sunshine--a country where even winter came
caressingly on the people living there; a country with vast and almost
boundless spaces for cultivation; a country watered with noble rivers
and streams; a country to be renowned in history as the breeder of
horses and cattle and the grower of grain; a country well qualified to
rear and feed and bring up in sunny comfort more than the whole mass of
the hopeless toilers on the chill English fields and in the sooty
English cities. His mind was with the country with which he had
identified his career--which only wanted good strong hands to convert
her into a country of practical prosperity--which only needed brains to
open for her a history that should be remembered in all far-stretching
time. He now excused himself for what had at one moment seemed his
weakness in consenting to receive a deputation for which he could do
nothing. He found that he had something to say to them after all.

The Dictator had a sweet, strong, melodious voice. When he had heard
them all most patiently out, he used his voice and said what he had to
say. He told them that he had directly no right to receive them at all,
for, as far as regards this country, there was absolutely nothing he
could do for them. He was not an official, not a member of Parliament,
not a person claiming the slightest influence in English public life.
Nor even in the country of his adoption did he reckon for much just now.
He was, as they all knew, an exile; if he were to return to that country
now, his life would, in all probability, be forfeit. Yet, in God's good
pleasure, he might, after all, get back some time, and, if that should
be, then he would think of his poor countrymen, in England. Gloria was a
great country, and could find homes for hundreds and hundreds of
thousands of Englishmen. There--he had no scheme