ded. He was
constitutionally timid, and he probably divined in his new helper a man
of no ordinary calibre, whose influence might very well turn out some
day to be of the 'incalculably diffusive' kind. He grew uncomfortable,
begged Elsmere to beware of any 'direct religious teaching,' talked in
warm praise of a 'policy of omissions,' and in equally warm denunciation
of 'anything like a policy of attack.' In short, it became plain that
two men so much alike and yet so different, could not long co-operate.

However, just as the fact was being brought home to Elsmere, a friendly
chance intervened.

Hugh Flaxman, the Leyburns' new acquaintance and Lady Helen's brother,
had been drawn to Elsmere at first sight; and a meeting or two, now at
Lady Charlotte's, now at the Leyburns', had led both men far on the way
to a friendship. Of Hugh Flaxman himself more hereafter. At present all
that need be recorded is that it was at Mr. Flaxman's house, overlooking
St. James's Park, Robert first met a man who was to give him the opening
for which he was looking.

Mr. Flaxman was fond of breakfast parties a la Rogers, and on the first
occasion when Robert could be induced to attend one of these functions,
he saw opposite to him what he supposed to be a lad of twenty, a
young slip of a fellow, whose sallies of fun and invincible good humor
attracted him greatly.

Sparkling brown eyes, full lips rich in humor and pugnacity, 'lockes
crull as they were layde in presse,' the same look of 'wonderly'
activity too, in spite of his short stature and dainty make, as Chaucer
lends his Squire--the type was so fresh ad pleasing that Robert was more
and more held by it, especially when he discovered to his bewilderment
that the supposed stripling must be from his talk a man quite as old as
himself, an official besides, filling what was clearly some important
place in the world. He took his full share in the politics and
literature started at the table, and presently, when conversation fell
on the proposed municipality for London, said things to which the whole
party listened. Robert's curiosity was aroused, and after breakfast
he questioned his host and was promptly introduced to 'Mr. Murray
Edwardes.'

Whereupon it turned out that this baby-faced sage was filling a post, in
the work of which perhaps few people in London could have taken so much
interest as Robert Elsmere.

Fifty years before, a wealthy merchant who had been one of the chief
pi