Mr Lorne Murchison, and by his friend from the old country, Mr Alfred Hesketh.  He, Farquharson, would not take the words out of the mouths of these gentlemen, much as he envied them the opportunity of uttering them.  The French Academy, he told them, that illustrious body of literary and scientific men, had a custom, on the death of a member and the selection of his successor, of appointing one of their number to eulogize the newcomer.  The person upon whom the task would most appropriately fall, did circumstances permit, would be the departing academician.  In this case, he was happy to say, circumstances did permit—­his political funeral was still far enough off to enable him to express his profound confidence in and his hearty admiration of the young and vigorous political heir whom the Liberals of South Fox had selected to stand in his shoes.  Mr Farquharson proceeded to give his grounds for this confidence and admiration, reminding the Jordanville electors that they had met Mr Murchison as a Liberal standard-bearer in the last general election, when he, Farquharson, had to acknowledge very valuable services on Mr Murchison’s part.  The retiring member then thanked his audience for the kind attention and support they had given him for so many years, made a final cheerful joke about a Pagan divinity known as Anno Domini, and took his seat.

They applauded him, and it was plain that they regretted him, the tried friend, the man there was never any doubt about, whose convictions they had repeated, and whose speeches in Parliament they had read with a kind of proprietorship for so long.  The Chair had to wait, before introducing Mr Alfred Hesketh, until the backbenchers had got through with a double rendering of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” which bolder spirits sent lustily forth from the anteroom where the little girls kept their hats and comforters, interspersed with whoops.  Hesketh, it had been arranged, should speak next, and Lorne last.

Mr Hesketh left his wooden chair with smiling ease, the ease which is intended to level distinctions and put everybody concerned on the best of terms.  He said that though he was no stranger to the work of political campaigns, this was the first time that he had had the privilege of addressing a colonial audience.  “I consider,” said he handsomely, “that it is a privilege.”  He clasped his hands behind his back and threw out his chest.

“Opinions have differed in England as to the value of the colonies, and the consequence of colonials.  I say here with pride that I have ever been among those who insist that the value is very high and the consequence very great.  The fault is common to humanity, but we are, I fear, in England, too prone to be led away by appearances, and to forget that under a rough unpolished exterior may beat virtues which are the brightest ornaments of civilization, that in the virgin fields of the possessions which the good swords of our ancestors wrung for us from the Algonquins and the—­and the other savages—­may be hidden the most glorious period of the British race.”