--conspicuous by its absence.
Of a corresponding tendency in the second department of her literary
character,--or perhaps I should say in a certain middle field where
morals and aesthetics move in concert,--it is very difficult to give an
example. A tolerably good one is furnished by her inclination to
compromise with the old tradition--and here I use the word "old"
_without_ respect---which exacts that a serious story of manners shall
close with the factitious happiness of a fairytale. I know few things
more irritating in a literary way than each of her final chapters,--for
even in "The Mill on the Floss" there is a fatal "Conclusion." Both as
an artist and a thinker, in other words, our author is an optimist; and
although a conservative is not necessarily an optimist, I think an
optimist is pretty likely to be a conservative.

GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY.

CHAPTER XLI.

"You say the pedler was a hundred yards behind my husband. Which of the
two men was walking fastest?"

Thomas Hayes considered a moment. "Well, Dame, I think the Squire was
walking rather the smartest of the two."

"Did the pedler seem likely to overtake him?"

"Nay. Ye see, Dame, Squire he walked straight on; but the pedler he took
both sides of the road at onst, as the saying is."

_Prisoner._ Forgive me, Thomas, but I don't know what you mean.

_Hayes_ (compassionately). How should ye? You are never the worse for
liquor, the likes of you.

_Prisoner_ (very keenly). O, he was in liquor, was he?

_Hayes._ Come, Dame, you do brew good ale at Hernshaw Castle. Ye needn't
go to deny that; for, Lord knows, 't is no sin; and a poor fellow may be
jolly, yet not to say drunk.

_Judge_ (sternly). Witness, attend, and answer directly.

_Prisoner._ Nay, my lord, 't is a plain country body, and means no ill.
Good Thomas, be so much my friend as to answer plainly. Was the man
drunk or sober?

_Hayes._ All I know is he went from one side o' the road to t' other.

_Prisoner._ Thomas Hayes, as you hope to be saved eternally, was the
pedler drunk or sober?

_Hayes._ Well, if I must tell on my neighbor or else be damned, then
that there pedler was as drunk as a lord.

Here, notwithstanding the nature of the trial, the laughter was
irrepressible, and Mrs. Gaunt sat quietly down (for she was allowed a
seat), and said no more.

To the surgeon who had examined the body officially, she put this
question: "Did you find any signs of violence?"