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"Speak no more of death," he said. "More life and fuller -that you want. You must get wider interests. Live in the world of books that pure, substantial, and good world of which Wordsworth speaks, and you will never be alone any more."

"Books is rot," Sally said, wiping her eyes with her disengaged knuckles. "What's a good of readin' that a dog sat on a log, or a fat cat is not a 'at. I never see a dog on a log, and I never supposed a fat cat were a 'at."

"Poor child!" said the painter, his eyes growing humid. "Is then Literature-divine Literature-nothing to you, but a congeries of propositions concerning cats and dogs? Be it my task to reveal to you a new heaven and a new earth."

"I ai'nt 'ad a old 'eaven yet," murmured Sally. "Indeed you have not," he said compassionately. future is before you."

"But the

"That ain't much consolation. It can't be be'ind me, can it ?"

66 No, Mistress Critic; but I mean a bright future."

"That's better. But as for books, I don't see 'ow books 'll make me less alone," she continued slyly. "I'd rather keep company with you than with a million books."

"You may think so now; but you will soon, I trust, know better."

She shook her head archly and pressed his hand. "Is that rheumatic old man 'appy that keeps the bookstall over the way?" she asked.

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Certainly, if he sips his own sweets. Believe me, there are people who would rather have a dead book talk to them than a living man!"

Sally would believe anything that came from his lips. She only wanted to sit there, holding his hand.

"That's nothin'," she said. "Some kids is fond o' playin' in simmitries. Is you one of them people that likes to talk to dead books better than to living men?"

"To a large extent. I love my books beyond almost everything

on earth."

"Ye loves 'em!" echoed Sally. "Well, I've yerd o' kissin' the book; but I'd rather kiss the livin'- " She left the sentence incomplete, as expecting the sense to be taken up, and turned her head away in modest anticipation.

"Your absurdities are delightful," said the painter smiling. "You have mistaken the exception for the rule. I do not think the greatest book-lovers and bibliophiles-they are not the same thing, Sally, though you might think so from the etymology-ever kiss their books. But, bless my soul! Is that the church clock striking three? You will get no sleep at all."

"I don't want no sleep," pleaded Sally, with fluttering heart. “I wants to 'ear about the books." The painter's face filled with

triumph. "Didn't I say you would soon grow interested? But it is really too late now."

"Didn't yer say it's never too late to mend ?" she urged. "And I wants to begin to mend now. If yer tells me what to read, I will read 'em all as soon as I can, and be a lady more than ever."

"That is a good idea." "And when I am gone," he thought, "my spirit will supervise her culture."

"I will draw up a list of twenty at once," he said. "It won't take long."

66

Oh, do make a longer one," she cried. He smiled at the enthusiasm of the young disciple, and consented to make a selection of the best hundred books. How the drudge was to obtain them neither thought of for the moment.

Sally rose with alacrity, found a sheet of paper, and the painter, laying it upon his half-finished letter, began to write. Sally stood behind his chair watching him, with one hand resting lightly upon his shoulder.

"Let us be systematic," he said, "and begin with the Ancients." "Who are they?"

"The Greeks and Romans who lived some thousands of years ago."

I

Sally opened her eyes. "What! Could they write? thought there wasn't no School Boards then. And does anybody read 'em now?"

"Only a few read them; but a good many parse the verbs. But of course you must procure the English translations. Of Plato's works, the Republic will be best for our purposes. Aristotle's metaphysics-no, it's too dry."

"I ain't afeared o' dry physic," said Sally.

"Then you shall have Hegel, too. That will make three; then, Epictetus, Eschylus, Sophocles, some of Euripides-but I am forgetting my limited field. The Georgics—that's all in Latin; Marcus Antoninus-and, by the way, I mustn't forget the Vedas. For English, first and foremost, Wordsworth; then Shakespeare, and a curious, almost-forgotten novel, called, The Mould of Form, containing the truest touches. The Bible of course

"

"But what'll missis say?" interrupted Sally in awe-struck tones. Their voices had grown loud and unrestrained, and her arm had gradually all but coiled round her master's neck. A pained look came into his eyes.

"We must not mind what missis says," he replied. knows nothing."

"She

"I didn't! you pair o' wipers!" shrieked a terrible voice behind them. "But thank Gord I've found it out afore it's too late!"

The guilty couple started violently, and the inkbottle was overturned on the table-cloth. There on the last step of the stairs stood Mrs. Dawe, wild-eyed, like an avenging fury. Her bosom heaved convulsively under her dirty-white nightgown, and beneath her dingy night-cap her gray hair bristled with horror.

"So this is the gal ye've damaged me for, is it?" she cried. "But thank Gord! I've stopped the elopement!

"

The "gal's" tongue clove to the roof of hermouth. She could say nothing, but clung affrighted to her lover.

CHAPTER XIII.

AVE ATQUE VALE.

THE eventful day, on which the Premier was to ask leave to introduce a Bill for regulating the Government of Ireland, dawned bright and fresh, and London awoke with the feeling that it would not sleep another night without learning the authentic details of the measure, the prognostication of which had agitated the civilised world.

The excitement throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland, was almost unprecedented. Never had the struggle for seats in the House been keener, both among the members and the outside world. Intellect, wealth, beauty, rank, intrigued for a few inches of room, and the new Chancellor of the Exchequer was on the point of moving that the House should be farmed to the highest bidder, when he recollected that the suggestion would give more éclat to his forthcoming Budget. The Irish Members held an anticipatory wake all night in the House over the defunct Act of Union, and the morning found them carousing on the Tory benches. Presently the rows became covered with hats (as empty-headed as some of their owners) which kept watch, some like battered old guards, and others like spruce young sentinels. After breakfast the members, the knowing old stagers in smoking-caps, and the green ones in their own hair or want of hair, repaired to the terrace, where a gymnastic entertainment was in progress. Cunning casuists departed in cabs, to return at eve. Those whose consciences were less profound amused themselves as best they could; some in filling the hats with Gospel propaganda, others in round games, and others still in negro theatricals.

Around the House was gathered from an early hour a dense crowd of working-men mingled with sightseers, waiting to cheer the Floppington they idolised. The morning papers were filled with Parliamentary reports, and as people read the exciting details, their excitement multiplied itself on seeing itself in print. Meantime, the Premier, like a prudent general, kept himself as retired in person as he was reserved in speech. Pressure of business would not yet permit relaxation. All the world wondered at and applauded this herculean perseverance. And what made him an even more

impressive figure at this critical juncture was the many-sidedness of the man. In the midst of a session, the like of which for external activity and internal intrigue had never been known within the memory of the generation; when the Premier had rarely, if ever, failed to be in his place in the House; when he had delivered great speeches by the score; when he had passed one great measure and prepared another; that he should yet find time to meet the scientists on their own ground and demolish their flimsy materialism-this raised the world's admiration to its highest pitch. The current number of the Nineteenth Century, containing the article which had extorted the eulogies of theologians of all sects, and which had already set at work the pens of eminent physiologists and physicists, sold by tens of thousands. Nor did the Premier's modest disclaimer of originality, his naïve confession that not one of the ideas was his own, detract from the fame of this admirable piece of work.

While the Premier was preparing for the great effort of the evening, Jack Dawe was trying to avert his bitter thoughts by the perusal of the morning papers, but the attempt only intensified their bitterness. A wave of custom had borne off his mother on its foaming crest, and he was left in the little parlour in momentary freedom.

There are periods of anguish which the most circumstantial of biographers is compelled to pass by in respectful silence, and only a literary vivisectionist would venture to lay bare the quivering nerves of the sensitive painter, or calmly anatomise his sufferings since the nocturnal intrusion of Mrs. Dawe. Suffice it to say that his every action was regulated with the most ruthless tyranny. He was never allowed to exchange a word with the poor drudge, grown more unkempt, slipshod, and smutty than ever, who occasionally sent him an appealing look of utter misery that cut him to the heart; and the persistent invective with which he was deluged, both on account of his presumed relations to Sally and of the lawsuit now at hand, prostrated him physically and mentally, so that he had not yet been able to resume his painting (thus affording not the least among the many minor subjects of his mother's unjust reproach).

What wonder if the idea of flight had been gradually growing more and more definite; with the under-thought of an after-rescue of his fellow-sufferer. He who runs away may live to run away another day, and the partial success of his first escape, though that was rather an expulsion, emboldened the poor painter to meditate a higher flight.

This time he should not be recaptured so easily; he would quit the metropolis altogether, and bury himself in some obscure village on the coast. The prospect if he remained at home was indeed horrible to contemplate. For to say nothing of the worry and sick hopelessness of this Golgotha in other respects, the bone of contention of the breach of promise suit was forced down his throat till he almost choked. Never was man impaled on the horns of

in

a more fearful dilemma. To appear at the trial was impossible. Cold shivers ran through him when he thought of the privacies, of which every life is full, laid bare before the world in that fierce light which beats upon a breach of promise suit; of the inevitable sneering recital of his own erotic verses and all the endearing inanities of passion; while he stood quivering under the cruel laughter of the audience. But then, if he did not appear, he felt that his reason would give way under the old woman's nagging, now at least sometimes tempered by persuasive cajolery. After the damages were assessed it would be impossible to live under the same roof with his mother, and to delay his escape was only to protract his torture. He must allow the case to go by default, and send the damages to Eliza after the trial. For some days he had been coming down in his best clothes with the idea of going away them, but he had not as yet wrought up his activity to the required tension. The mute appeal in Sally's eyes and the remembrance of her wild threats had always detained him. But that recollection was growing dim; in like manner as the threatened assassination of the Premier had long grown shadowy and dreamlike in his imagination. It was impossible to seriously connect the super-vital Minister or the active little drudge with the idea of mortality. Moreover, a letter received the day before had somehow doubled the strength of his determination. As the painter read of the mad enthusiasm of the country for the disestablisher of the empire, and incidentally for the disestablishment, he clenched his fists in despair. But as he read on, he felt himself seized by the feverish excitement which burned in the common breast. That longing to be present on the great occasion, and to hear the great orator, which had agitated the mind of royalty itself, and which had so possessed him on the memorable night of the Second Reading, again kindled his spirit in a passion of hopeless desire. It was with a bitter smile that he began to reperuse the above-mentioned letter which he now took from his pocket.

"Mr. Floppington has even asked the Speaker to allow him to place you under the grating of the House; but this could not be conceded. He begs that in future you will make earlier application " -he read. "O gratitude of men !" he cried, "art thou then, in very truth, nothing but a lively sense of future favours!" And, in very truth, he might have expected more courtesy and consideration from a man whose life he had endeavoured to save. He must have repeated his warnings, indeed, to judge by another passage of the letter; and it was to be expected that the occasion of his demand for a seat would remind him of his olden fears. "Mr. Floppington," ran the passage in question, "again begs that you will cease to trouble him with such communications. He is of opinion that the case you now put is yet another ruse, and he absolutely refuses to take the steps you advise."

But, for the present, Jack's attention was engrossed by the firstquoted fragment. "He begs that in future you will make earlier

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