ther; and every now and then Grey
would slip down to Bilton, and by making himself pleasant to the
shop-keepers, and talking appropriately to the farmers, would act
as his friend's most effective election-agent. The Dissolution
came in July, 1852, and Philip Vaughan was returned unopposed for
the Free and Independent Borough of Bilton.

Then followed a halcyon time. The two friends had long known that
they had only one heart between them; and now, living under the
same roof and going into the same society, they lived practically
one life. There was just enough separation to make reunion more
delightful--a dull debate at the House for Vaughan, or a dusty
field-day at Aldershot for Grey; but for both there was the early
gallop in Rotten Row, the breakfast which no third person ever
shared, the evening of social amusement, and the long, deep, intimate
talk over the last cigar, when the doings of the day were reviewed
and the programme for to-morrow was sketched.

Grey had always been popular and always lighthearted. Vaughan, as
a schoolboy and an undergraduate, had been unpopular and grave.
But now people who knew them both observed that, at any rate as far
as outward characteristics showed, the two natures were becoming
harmonized. Vaughan was a visibly lighter, brighter, and more
companionable fellow; and Grey began to manifest something of that
manly seriousness which was wanted to complete his character. It
is pleasant to contemplate "one entire and perfect chrysolite" of
happiness, and that, during these bright years of opening manhood,
was the rare and fragile possession of Philip Vaughan and Arthur
Grey.

* * * * *

John Bright was once walking with one of his sons, then a schoolboy,
past the Guards' Memorial in Waterloo Place. The boy asked the
meaning of the single word inscribed on the base, CRIMEA. Bright's
answer was as emphatic as the inscription: "A crime." There is no
need to recapitulate in this place the series of blunders through
which this country, in Lord Clarendon's phrase, "drifted towards
war." Month by month things shaped themselves in a way which left
no reasonable doubt about the issue. The two friends said little.
Deep in the heart of each there lay the conviction that an event
was at hand which would "pierce even to the dividing asunder of
soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow." But each held the
conviction with a difference. To Grey it meant the appr