be all over."

"I am shaken to my very centre."

"It is doubtless a great blow to you," rejoined Mr. Ferrars, "and I wish
to alleviate it. That is why I was looking for you. The King will,
of course, send for the Duke, but I can tell you there will be a
disposition to draw back our friends that left us, at least the younger
ones of promise. If you are awake, there is no reason why you should not
retain your office."

"I am not so sure the King will send for the Duke."

"It is certain."

"Well," said his companion musingly, "it may be fancy, but I cannot
resist the feeling that this country, and the world generally, are on
the eve of a great change--and I do not think the Duke is the man for
the epoch."

"I see no reason why there should be any great change; certainly not in
this country," said Mr. Ferrars. "Here we have changed everything that
was required. Peel has settled the criminal law, and Huskisson the
currency, and though I am prepared myself still further to reduce the
duties on foreign imports, no one can deny that on this subject the
Government is in advance of public opinion."

"The whole affair rests on too contracted a basis," said his companion.
"We are habituated to its exclusiveness, and, no doubt, custom in
England is a power; but let some event suddenly occur which makes a
nation feel or think, and the whole thing might vanish like a dream."

"What can happen? Such affairs as the Luddites do not occur twice in a
century, and as for Spafields riots, they are impossible now with Peel's
new police. The country is employed and prosperous, and were it not so,
the landed interest would always keep things straight."

"It is powerful, and has been powerful for a long time; but there are
other interests besides the landed interest now."

"Well, there is the colonial interest, and the shipping interest," said
Mr. Ferrars, "and both of them thoroughly with us."

"I was not thinking of them," said his companion. "It is the increase of
population, and of a population not employed in the cultivation of the
soil, and all the consequences of such circumstances that were passing
over my mind."

"Don't you be too doctrinaire, my dear Sidney; you and I are practical
men. We must deal with the existing, the urgent; and there is nothing
more pressing at this moment than the formation of a new government.
What I want is to see you as a member of it."

"Ah!" said his companion with a sigh, "do you really th