f a country village, he could not have regarded us
as more equal, so far as the world went. And for the rest, he rather
insinuated that poor Fanny, the great heiress, was not worthy of me,
than that I was not worthy of Fanny.

I felt that there was no wisdom in stammering and blushing out denials
and equivocations; so I stretched my hand to Sir Sedley, took up my hat,
and went. Instinctively I bent my way to my father's house. I had not
been there for many days. Not only had I had a great deal to do in the
way of business, but I am ashamed to say that pleasure itself had so
entangled my leisure hours, and Miss Trevanion especially so absorbed
them, that, without even uneasy foreboding, I had left my father
fluttering his wings more feebly and feebly in the web of Uncle
Jack. When I arrived in Russell Street I found the fly and the spider
cheek-by-jowl together. Uncle Jack sprang up at my entrance and cried,
"Congratulate your father. Congratulate him!--no; congratulate the
world!"

"What, uncle!" said I, with a dismal effort at sympathizing liveliness,
"is the 'Literary Times' launched at last?"

"Oh! that is all settled,--settled long since. Here's a specimen of the
type we have chosen for the leaders." And Uncle Jack, whose pocket was
never without a wet sheet of some kind or other, drew forth a steaming
papyral monster, which in point of size was to the political "Times"
as a mammoth may be to an elephant. "That is all settled. We are only
preparing our contributors, and shall put out our programme next week or
the week after. No, Pisistratus, I mean the Great Work."

"My dear father, I am so glad. What! it is really sold, then?"

"Hum!" said my father.

"Sold!" burst forth Uncle Jack. "Sold,--no, sir, we would not sell it!
No; if all the booksellers fell down on their knees to us, as they will
some day, that book should not be sold! Sir, that book is a revolution;
it is an era; it is the emancipator of genius from mercenary
thraldom,--That Book!"

I looked inquiringly from uncle to father, and mentally retracted my
congratulations. Then Mr. Caxton, slightly blushing, and shyly rubbing
his spectacles, said, "You see, Pisistratus, that though poor Jack has
devoted uncommon pains to induce the publishers to recognize the merit
he has discovered in the 'History of Human Error,' he has failed to do
so."

"Not a bit of it; they all acknowledge its miraculous learning, its--"

"Very true; but they don't think it