y a cold, subtle spirit like Leslie,
will find poor defence in the elegant precept, 'Remember to act as
a gentleman.' Such moral embroidery adds a beautiful scarf to one's
armour; but it is not the armour itself! Ten o'clock, as I live! Push
on, Pisistratus! and finish the chapter."

MRS. CAXTON (benevolently).--"Don't hurry. Begin with that odious Randal
Leslie, to oblige your father; but there are others whom Blanche and I
care much more to hear about."

Pisistratus, since there is no help for it, produces a supplementary
manuscript, which proves that, whatever his doubt as to the artistic
effect of a Final Chapter, he had foreseen that his audience would not
be contented without one.

Randal Leslie, late at noon the day after he quitted Lansmere Park,
arrived on foot at his father's house. He had walked all the way, and
through the solitudes of the winter night; but he was not sensible of
fatigue till the dismal home closed round him, with its air of hopeless
ignoble poverty; and then he sunk upon the floor feeling himself a
ruin amidst the ruins. He made no disclosure of what had passed to his
relations. Miserable man, there was not one to whom he could confide,
or from whom he might hear the truths that connect repentance with
consolation! After some weeks passed in sullen and almost unbroken
silence, be left as abruptly as he had appeared, and returned to London.
The sudden death of a man like Egerton had even in those excited
times created intense, though brief sensation. The particulars of the
election, that had been given in detail in the provincial papers, were
copied into the London journals, among those details, Randal Leslie's
conduct in the Committee-room, with many an indignant comment on
selfishness and ingratitude. The political world of all parties formed
one of those judgments on the great man's poor dependant, which fix a
stain upon the character and place a barrier in the career of ambitious
youth. The important personages who had once noticed Randal for Audley's
sake, and who, on their subsequent and not long-deferred restoration to
power, could have made his fortune, passed him in the streets without
a nod. He did not venture to remind Avenel of the promise to aid him in
another election for Lansmere, nor dream of filling up the vacancy which
Egerton's death had created. He was too shrewd not to see that all hope
of that borough was over,--he would have been hooted in the streets and
pelted fro