tous for
all good things to befall that scapegrace Jack Neverbend, for whom
she thinks that nothing is sufficiently rich or sufficiently grand.
Jack is a handsome boy, I grant, but that is about all that can be
said of him; and in this matter he has been diametrically opposed to
his father from first to last.

It will be seen that, in such circumstances, none of these moments
of triumph to which I have alluded can have come to me within my
own home. There Mrs Neverbend and Jack, and after a while Eva, sat
together in perpetual council against me. When these meetings first
began, Eva still acknowledged herself to be the promised bride of
Abraham Grundle. There were her own vows, and her parent's assent,
and something perhaps of remaining love. But presently she whispered
to my wife that she could not but feel horror for the man who was
anxious to "murder her father;" and by-and-by she began to own that
she thought Jack a fine fellow. We had a wonderful cricket club in
Gladstonopolis, and Britannula had challenged the English cricketers
to come and play on the Little Christchurch ground, which they
declared to be the only cricket ground as yet prepared on the face
of the earth which had all the accomplishments possible for the due
prosecution of the game. Now Jack, though very young, was captain
of the club, and devoted much more of his time to that occupation
than to his more legitimate business as a merchant. Eva, who had
not hitherto paid much attention to cricket, became on a sudden
passionately devoted to it; whereas Abraham Grundle, with a
steadiness beyond his years, gave himself up more than ever to the
business of the Assembly, and expressed some contempt for the game,
though he was no mean player.

It had become necessary during this period to bring forward in the
Assembly the whole question of the Fixed Period, as it was felt that,
in the present state of public opinion, it would not be expedient to
carry out the established law without the increased sanction which
would be given to it by a further vote in the House. Public opinion
would have forbidden us to deposit Crasweller without some such
further authority. Therefore it was deemed necessary that a question
should be asked, in which Crasweller's name was not mentioned, but
which might lead to some general debate. Young Grundle demanded one
morning whether it was the intention of the Government to see that
the different clauses as to the new law respecti