rn which they well deserved.

'Will you take a seat in my carriage home, Lord Cadurcis?' said his
leader, for it was notorious that Cadurcis had been mobbed on his
arrival.

'Thank you, my lord,' said Cadurcis, speaking very audibly, 'I
prefer returning as I came. We are really both of us such unpopular
personages, that your kindness would scarcely be prudent.'

The house had been full; there was a great scuffle and confusion as
the peers were departing; the mob, now considerable, were prepared for
the appearance of Lord Cadurcis, and their demeanour was menacing.
Some shouted out his name; then it was repeated with odious and
vindictive epithets, followed by ferocious yells. A great many
peers collected round Cadurcis, and entreated him not to return on
horseback. It must be confessed that genuine and considerable feeling
was now shown by all men of all parties. And indeed to witness this
young, and noble, and gifted creature, but a few days back the idol
of the nation, and from whom a word, a glance even, was deemed the
greatest and most gratifying distinction, whom all orders, classes,
and conditions of men had combined to stimulate with multiplied
adulation, with all the glory and ravishing delights of the world, as
it were, forced upon him, to see him thus assailed with the savage
execrations of all those vile things who exult in the fall of
everything that is great, and the abasement of everything that is
noble, was indeed a spectacle which might have silenced malice and
satisfied envy!

'My carriage is most heartily at your service, Lord Cadurcis,' said
the noble leader of the government in the upper house; 'you can enter
it without the slightest suspicion by these ruffians.' 'Lord Cadurcis;
my dear lord; my good lord, for our sakes, if not for your own;
Cadurcis, dear Cadurcis, my good Cadurcis, it is madness, folly,
insanity; a mob will do anything, and an English mob is viler than
all; for Heaven's sake!' Such were a few of the varied exclamations
which resounded on all sides, but which produced on the person to whom
they were addressed only the result of his desiring the attendant to
call for his horses.

The lobby was yet full; it was a fine thing in the light of the
archway to see Cadurcis spring into his saddle. Instantly there was a
horrible yell. Yet in spite of all their menaces, the mob were for a
time awed by his courage; they made way for him; he might even have
rode quickly on for some few ya