t we leave him in
heavy captivity to the thought of oblivion in the unregarding welter
of the near republic, of plunging into more strenuous activities and
abandoning his ideal, in queer inverted analogy to the refuging of weak
women in a convent. We know that his ideal was strong enough to reassert
itself, under a keen irony of suggestion, in the very depth of his
overwhelming: and the thing that could rise in him at that black moment
may be trusted, perhaps, to reclaim his fortitude and reconsecrate his
energy when these things come again into the full current of his life.
The illness that, after two or three lagging days, brought him its
merciful physical distraction was laid in the general understanding
at the door of his political disappointment; and, among a crowd
of sympathizers confined to no party, Horace Williams, as his wife
expressed it, was pretty nearly wild during its progress. The power of
the press is regrettably small in such emergencies, but what restoration
it had Horace anxiously administered; the Express published a daily
bulletin. The second election passed only half-noticed by the Murchison
family; Carter very nearly re-established the Liberal majority. The
Dominion dwelt upon this repeated demonstration of the strength of
Reform principles in South Fox, and Mrs Murchison said they were welcome
to Carter.

Many will sympathize with Mrs Murchison at this point, I hope, and
regret to abandon her in such equivocal approval of the circumstances
which have arisen round her. Too anxiously occupied at home to take her
share in the general pleasant sensation of Dr Drummond's marriage, she
was compelled to give it a hurried consideration and a sanction which
was practically wrested from her. She could not be clear as to the
course of events that led to it, nor entirely satisfied, as she said,
about the ins and outs of the affair; this although she felt she could
be clearer, and possibly had better grounds for being satisfied, than
other people. As to Advena's simple statement that Miss Cameron had
made a second choice of the Doctor, changing her mind, as far as Mrs
Murchison could see, without rhyme or reason, that Mrs Murchison took
leave to find a very poor explanation. Advena's own behaviour toward
the rejection is one of the things which her mother declares, probably
truly, that she never will understand. To pick up a man in the actual
fling of being thrown over, will never, in Mrs Murchison's eyes,