tuning-fork to keep
them at their pitch of enthusiasm. He encountered Mr. Caddis, and it was
an encounter. Mr. Caddis represented his political opinions; but here
was this cur of a Caddis whineing his niminy note from his piminy nob,
when he was asked for his hearty echo of the praises of this jolly good
fellow come to waken the neighbourhood, to be a blessing, a blazing
hearth, a fall of manna:--and thank the Lord for him, you desertdog! 'He
's a merchant prince, and he's a prince of a man, if you're for titles.
Eh? you "assent to my encomiums." You'll be calling me Mr. Speaker next.
Hang me, Caddis, if those Parliamentary benches of yours aren't freezing
you from your seat up, and have got to your jaw--my belief!'

Mr. Caddis was left reflecting, that we have, in the dispensations
of Providence, when we have a seat, to submit to castigations from
butcherly men unaccountably commissioned to solidify the seat. He could
have preached a discourse upon Success, to quiet the discontentment of
the unseated. And our world of seats oddly gained, quaintly occupied,
maliciously beset, insensately envied, needs the discourse. But it was
not delivered, else would it have been here written down without mercy,
as a medical prescript, one of the grand specifics. He met Victor,
and, between his dread of him and the counsels of a position subject
to stripes, he was a genial thaw. Victor beamed; for Mr. Caddis had
previously stood eminent as an iceberg of the Lakelands' party. Mr.
Inchling and Mr. Caddis were introduced. The former in Commerce, the
latter in Politics, their sustaining boast was, the being our stable
Englishmen; and at once, with cousinly minds, they fell to chatting upon
the nothings agreeably and seriously. Colney Durance forsook a set of
ladies for fatter prey, and listened to them. What he said, Victor did
not hear. The effect was always to be seen, with Inchling under Colney.
Fenellan did better service, really good service.

Nataly played the heroine she was at heart. Why think of her as having
to act a character! Twice had Carling that afternoon, indirectly and
directly, stated Mrs. Burman to be near the end we crape a natural, a
defensible, satisfaction to hear of:--not wishing it--poor woman!--but
pardonably, before man and all the angels, wishing, praying for the
beloved one to enter into her earthly peace by the agency of the other's
exit into her heavenly.

Fenellan and Colney came together, and said a word