down here post-haste to
get re-elected. But he had Sir Percy Vivyan against him, and, as I
know to my cost, this benighted country is not fond of those who
preach the gospel of progress. Bellamy, who is a stout Radical, as you
know--chiefly, I fancy, because there is more to be got out of that
side of politics--got the job as Showers' agent. But, three days
before, it became quite clear that his cause, cabinet minister or not,
was hopeless. Then it was that Mrs.--I beg her pardon, Lady--Bellamy
came to the fore. Just as Showers was thinking of withdrawing, she
demanded a private interview with him. Next day she posted off to old
Sir Percy, who is a perfect fool of the chivalrous school, and was
desperately fond of her, and, _mirabile dictu_, that evening Sir Percy
withdraws on the plea of ill-health or some such rubbish, and Showers
walks over. Within three months, Mr. Bellamy becomes Sir John Bellamy,
nominally for his services as town-clerk of Roxham, and I hear that
old Sir Percy is now perfectly rampant, and goes about cursing her
ladyship up hill and down dale, and declaring that he has been
shockingly taken-in. How our mutual friend worked the ropes is more
than I can tell you, but she did work them, and to some purpose."

"She is an uncommonly handsome woman."

"Ah! yes, you're right there, she is A1; but let us stroll out a
little; it is a fine evening for the 30th of April. To-morrow will be
the 1st of May, so it will, a day neither of us are likely to forget."

Philip winced at the allusion, but said nothing.

"By the way," George went on, "I am expecting a visitor, my ward,
young Arthur Heigham, who is just back from India. He will be twenty-
five in a few days, when he comes of age, and is coming down to settle
up. The fact is, that ten thousand of his money is on the Jotley
property, and both Bellamy and myself are anxious that it should stop
there for the present, as if the mortgage were called in it might be
awkward."

"Is he well off?"

"Comfortably; about a thousand a year; comes of an old family too.
Bellamy and I knew his father, Captain Heigham, slightly, when we were
in business. His wife, by the way, was a distant cousin of ours. They
are both dead now; the captain was wiped out at Inkerman, and, for
some unknown reason, left me the young gentleman's sole guardian and
joint trustee with a London lawyer, a certain Mr. Borley. I have never
seen him yet--my ward, I mean--he has always been at