have to pay in occasional panics for the serenity they enjoy.  Mr. Seymour Austin candidly avowed to Colonel Halkett, on his arrival at Mount Laurels, that he was advised to take up his quarters in the neighbourhood of Bevisham by a recent report of his committee, describing the young Radical’s canvass as redoubtable.  Cougham he did not fear:  he could make a sort of calculation of the votes for the Liberal thumping on the old drum of Reform; but the number for him who appealed to feelings and quickened the romantic sentiments of the common people now huddled within our electoral penfold, was not calculable.  Tory and Radical have an eye for one another, which overlooks the Liberal at all times except when he is, as they imagine, playing the game of either of them.

‘Now we shall see the passions worked,’ Mr. Austin said, deploring the extension of the franchise.

He asked whether Beauchamp spoke well.

Cecilia left it to her father to reply; but the colonel appealed to her, saying, ‘Inclined to dragoon one, isn’t he?’

She did not think that.  ’He speaks . . . he speaks well in conversation.  I fancy he would be liked by the poor.  I should doubt his being a good public speaker.  He certainly has command of his temper:  that is one thing.  I cannot say whether it favours oratory.  He is indefatigable.  One may be sure he will not faint by the way.  He quite believes in himself.  But, Mr. Austin, do you really regard him as a serious rival?’

Mr. Austin could not tell.  No one could tell the effect of an extended franchise.  The untried venture of it depressed him.  ’Men have come suddenly on a borough before now and carried it,’ he said.

‘Not a borough like Bevisham?’

He shook his head.  ‘A fluid borough, I’m afraid.’

Colonel Halkettt interposed:  ’But Ferbrass is quite sure of his district.’

Cecilia wished to know who the man was, of the mediaevally sounding name.

’Ferbrass is an old lawyer, my dear.  He comes of five generations of lawyers, and he ’s as old in the county as Grancey Lespel.  Hitherto he has always been to be counted on for marching his district to the poll like a regiment.  That’s our strength—­the professions, especially lawyers.’

‘Are not a great many lawyers Liberals, papa?’

‘A great many barristers are, my dear.’

Thereat the colonel and Mr. Austin smiled together.

It was a new idea to Cecilia that Nevil Beauchamp should be considered by a man of the world anything but a well-meaning, moderately ridiculous young candidate; and the fact that one so experienced as Seymour Austin deemed him an adversary to be grappled with in earnest, created a small revolution in her mind, entirely altering her view of the probable pliability of his Radicalism under pressure of time and circumstances.  Many of his remarks, that she had previously half smiled at, came across her memory hard as metal.  She began to feel some terror of him, and said, to reassure herself:  ’Captain Beauchamp is not likely to be a champion with a very large following.  He is too much of a political mystic, I think.’