THE TWO MINISTERS.

 ’The creature’s neither one nor t’other. 
 I caught the animal last night,
 And viewed him o’er by candle-light;
 I marked him well, ’twas black as jet. 
 You stare, but sirs, I’ve got him yet,
 And can produce him.’  ’Pray, sir, do;
 I’ll lay my life the thing is blue.’ 
 ’And I’ll be sworn, that when you’ve seen
 The reptile, you’ll pronounce him green.’ 
 ‘Well, then, at once to end the doubt,’
 Replies the man, ’I’ll turn him out;
 And when before your eyes I’ve set him,
 If you don’t find him black, I’ll eat him.’ 
 He said—­then, full before their sight
 Produced the beast, and lo! ’twas white! 
          
                           Merrick.

Mrs. Ponsonby had seen in the tropics birds of brilliant hues, that even, whilst the gazer pronounced them all one beaming tint of gorgeous purple, would give one flutter, and in another light would flash with golden green or fiery scarlet.  No less startling and unexpected were the aspects of Lord Fitzjocelyn, ’Every thing by starts, and nothing long;’ sometimes absorbed in study, sometimes equally ardent over a childish game; wild about philanthropic plans, and apparently forgetting them the instant a cold word had fallen on them; attempting everything, finishing nothing; dipping into every kind of book, and forsaking it after a cursory glance; ever busy, yet ever idle; full of desultory knowledge, ranging through all kinds of reading and natural history, and still more full of talk.  This last was perhaps his most decided gift.  To any one, of whatever degree, he would talk, he could hardly have been silent ten minutes with any human being, except Frampton or his father, and whether deep reflections or arrant nonsense came out of his mouth, seemed an even chance, though both alike were in the same soft low voice, and with the same air of quaint pensive simplicity.  He was exceedingly provoking, and yet there was no being provoked with him!

He was so sincere, affectionate, and obliging, that not to love him was impossible, yet that love only made his faults more annoying, and Mrs. Ponsonby could well understand his father’s perpetual restless anxiety, for his foibles were exactly of the sort most likely to tease such a man as the Earl, and the most positively unsatisfactory part of his character was the insouciance that he displayed when his trifling or his wild projects had given umbrage.  Yet, even here, she could not but feel a hope, such as it was, that the carelessness might be the effect of want of sympathy and visible affection from his father, whose very anxiety made him the more unbending; and that, what a worse temper might have resented, rendered a good one gaily reckless and unheeding.

She often wondered whether she should try to give a hint—­but Lord Ormersfield seemed to dread leading to the subject, although on all else that interested him he came to her as in old times, and seemed greatly refreshed and softened by her companionship.