ooking back on unfortified London with particular melancholy.

Rosamund's word may be trusted that she dropped the letter into a London
post-office in pursuance of her promise to Nevil. The singular fact
was that no answer to it ever arrived. Nevil, without a doubt of her
honesty, proposed an expedition to Paris; he was ordered to join his
ship, and he lay moored across the water in the port of Bevisham,
panting for notice to be taken of him. The slight of the total disregard
of his letter now affected him personally; it took him some time to get
over this indignity put upon him, especially because of his being under
the impression that the country suffered, not he at all. The letter had
served its object: ever since the transmission of it the menaces and
insults had ceased.

But they might be renewed, and he desired to stop them altogether.
His last feeling was one of genuine regret that Frenchmen should have
behaved unworthily of the high estimation he held them in. With which he
dismissed the affair.

He was rallied about it when he next sat at his uncle's table, and had
to pardon Rosamund for telling.

Nevil replied modestly: 'I dare say you think me half a fool, sir. All
I know is, I waited for my betters to speak first. I have no dislike of
Frenchmen.'

Everard shook his head to signify, 'not half.' But he was gentle enough
in his observations. 'There's a motto, Ex pede Herculem. You stepped out
for the dogs to judge better of us. It's an infernally tripping
motto for a composite structure like the kingdom of Great Britain and
Manchester, boy Nevil. We can fight foreigners when the time comes.'
He directed Nevil to look home, and cast an eye on the cotton-spinners,
with the remark that they were binding us hand and foot to sell us to
the biggest buyer, and were not Englishmen but 'Germans and Jews, and
quakers and hybrids, diligent clerks and speculators, and commercial
travellers, who have raised a fortune from foisting drugged goods on an
idiot population.'

He loathed them for the curse they were to the country. And he was one
of the few who spoke out. The fashion was to pet them. We stood against
them; were halfhearted, and were beaten; and then we petted them, and
bit by bit our privileges were torn away. We made lords of them to
catch them, and they grocers of us by way of a return. 'Already,' said
Everard, 'they have knocked the nation's head off, and dry-rotted the
bone of the people.'

'Don't the