s it very well."

"But, my dear--" I was going to explain to her that in a question
of such enormous public interest as this of the Fixed Period it
was impossible to consider the merits of individual cases. But she
interrupted me again before I could get out a word.

"Oh, Mr Neverbend, they'll never be able to do it, and I'm afraid
that then you'll be vexed."

"My dear, if the law be--"

"Oh yes, the law is a very beautiful thing; but what's the good of
laws if they cannot be carried out? There's Jack there;--of course
he is only a boy, but he swears that all the executive, and all the
Assembly, and all the volunteers in Britannula, shan't lead my papa
into that beastly college."

"Beastly! My dear, you cannot have seen the college. It is perfectly
beautiful."

"That's only what Jack says. It's Jack that calls it beastly. Of
course he's not much of a man as yet, but he is your own son. And I
do think, that for an earnest spirit about a thing, Jack is a very
fine fellow."

"Abraham Grundle, you know, is just as warm on the other side."

"I hate Abraham Grundle. I don't want ever to hear his name again.
I understand very well what it is that Abraham Grundle is after. He
never cared a straw for me; nor I much for him, if you come to that."

"But you are contracted."

"If you think that I am going to marry a man because our names have
been written down in a book together, you are very much mistaken. He
is a nasty mean fellow, and I will never speak to him again as long
as I live. He would deposit papa this very moment if he had the
power. Whereas Jack is determined to stand up for him as long as he
has got a tongue to shout or hands to fight." These were terrible
words, but I had heard the same sentiment myself from Jack's own
lips. "Of course Jack is nothing to me," she continued, with that
half sob which had become habitual to her whenever she was forced to
speak of her father's deposition. "He is only a boy, but we all know
that he could thrash Abraham Grundle at once. And to my thinking he
is much more fit to be a member of the Assembly."

As she would not hear a word that I said to her, and was only intent
on expressing the warmth of her own feelings, I allowed her to go
her way, and retired to the privacy of my own library. There I
endeavoured to console myself as best I might by thinking of the
brilliant nature of Jack's prospects. He himself was over head and
ears in love with Eva, and it was clear to