k in postponing it
from year to year. But Mr. Monk had become urgent, and the old Duke
had admitted the necessity. There must surely have been a shade of
melancholy on that old man's mind as, year after year, he assisted
in pulling down institutions which he in truth regarded as the
safeguards of the nation;--but which he knew that, as a Liberal, he
was bound to assist in destroying! It must have occurred to him, from
time to time, that it would be well for him to depart and be at peace
before everything was gone.

When he went from Matching Mr. Monk took his place, and Phineas Finn,
who had gone up to London for a while, returned; and then the three
between them, with assistance from Mr. Warburton and others, worked
out the proposed scheme of the new county franchise, with the new
divisions and the new constituencies. But it could hardly have been
hearty work, as they all of them felt that whatever might be their
first proposition they would be beat upon it in a House of Commons
which thought that this Aristides had been long enough at the
Treasury.

CHAPTER LXIX

Mrs. Parker's Fate

Lopez had now been dead more than five months, and not a word had
been heard by his widow of Mrs. Parker and her children. Her own
sorrows had been so great that she had hardly thought of those of the
poor woman who had come to her but a few days before her husband's
death, telling her of ruin caused by her husband's treachery. But
late on the evening before her departure for Herefordshire,--very
shortly after Everett had left the house,--there was a ring at
the door, and a poorly-clad female asked to see Mrs. Lopez. The
poorly-clad female was Sexty Parker's wife. The servant, who did not
remember her, would not leave her alone in the hall, having an eye to
the coats and umbrellas, but called up one of the maids to carry the
message. The poor woman understood the insult and resented it in her
heart. But Mrs. Lopez recognised the name in a moment, and went down
to her in the parlour, leaving Mr. Wharton upstairs. Mrs. Parker,
smarting from her present grievance, had bent her mind on complaining
at once of the treatment she had received from the servant, but the
sight of the widow's weeds quelled her. Emily had never been much
given to fine clothes, either as a girl or as a married woman; but
it had always been her husband's pleasure that she should be well
dressed,--though he had never carried his trouble so far as to pay
the