masterly way in which it was treated.

"So Ralph's brains are of great use, after all;" she said.

"He is thrown away at Fair Acres. Harry says so, and I don't think it is
fair or just. I never could get over Melville's horrid selfishness, and
I don't wish to get over it."

"Piers!" Joyce said, reproachfully; "remember he is your brother."

"We have all good cause to remember it," was the muttered rejoinder.

And now, as they passed through the villages nearer Bristol, large knots
of people were congregated here and there. Some stared at the carriage
as they passed, some hissed, and angry voices cried:

"No Popery!" and "Reform!"

When within some four miles of the city, Susan Priday leaned over and
said:

"There is a great crowd coming on behind us, ma'am; they look a very
rough lot."

The carriage was going up a steep hill, and just as it had slowly
reached the top, some fifty or sixty men came out from a lane, which
turned off towards Bath, and called out to the post-boy to stop.

They were fierce, wild-looking men, and, as the post-boy tried to take
no notice and whip on his horses, the bridles were seized and the
carriage was surrounded.

Then a number of voices shouted--

"Reform! Reform! Are ye for Reform? you grand folks; if ye are, speak
out!"

"Let go the horses' heads!" said Piers. "Let go! How dare you obstruct
the high road?"

"Aye! aye! you young fool; we'll teach you manners!" and one of the men
clenched his fist and shook it at Piers. In another moment the crowd
from behind, which Susan Priday had seen, came breathlessly up the hill,
women with children in their arms, all screaming, at the top of their
voices, "Reform! Reform!"

One woman held up a child with a pinched, wan face, and said--

"You rich folks, you'd trample on us if you could, and we are starving!
Look here!" and she bared the legs of the poor emaciated baby. "Look
here! Look at your fat, stuffed-out childer, and look at _this_!"

"Look 'ee here, missus; we are a-going to Bristol to cry for Reform. If
you say you will have nothing to do with the tyrant, Wetherall, and his
cursed lot, you may go on. If not, we'll seize the carriage, we'll turn
ye all out into the road, and we'll drive in state to the big meeting in
Queen's Square! My! what a lark that will be!"

"Listen," Joyce said, standing up in the carriage with her child in her
arms; "I am on my way home with these little children. Surely you will
not stop me a