, Elinor. I shouldn't mind giving up the
country, if it wouldn't interfere with your engagements, my dear."

"Oh, my engagements! Much I should care for them if Phil was occupied. I
like, of course, to be with him."

"Of course," said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"And it is good for him, too, I think." This was another of the little
admissions that Elinor regretted the moment they were made. "I mean it's
a pity, isn't it, when a man likes to have his wife with him that she
shouldn't always be there, ready to go?"

"A great pity," said Mrs. Dennistoun, and then she changed the subject.
"I thought it required all sorts of examinations and things for a man to
get into a public office now."

"So it does for the ordinary grades, which would be far, far too much
routine for Phil. But they say a minister always has things in his
power. There are still posts----"

"Sinecures, Elinor?"

"I did not mean exactly sinecures," she said, with an embarrassed laugh,
"though I think those must have been fine things; but posts where it is
not merely routine, where a man may have a chance of acting for himself
and distinguishing himself, perhaps. And to be in the service of the
country is always better, safer, than that dreadful city. Don't you
think so?"

"I have never thought the city dreadful, Elinor. I have had many friends
connected with the city."

"Ah, but not in those horrid companies, mamma. Do you know that company
which we just escaped, which Phil saved my money out of, when it was all
but invested--I believe that has ruined people right and left. He got
out of it, fortunately, just before the smash; that is, of course, he
never had very much to do with it, he was only on the Board."

"And where is your money now?"

"Oh, I can answer that question this time," said Elinor, gayly. "He had
just time to get it into another company which pays--beautifully! The
Jew is in it, too, and the whole lot of them. Oh! I beg your pardon,
mamma. I tried hard to call her by her proper name, but when one never
hears any other, one can't help getting into it!"

"I hope," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "that Philip was not much mixed up with
this company if other people have been ruined, and he has escaped?"

"How could that be?" said Elinor, with a sort of tremulous dignity. "You
don't suppose for a moment that he----. But of course you don't," she
added with a heightened colour and a momentary cloud over her eyes, "of
course you don't. There was a dr