covering
himself, finished his harangue with an appeal that the land made sacred
by those loves, those homes, those graves, might be left solely in the
hands of the men who loved it best, who knew its needs, who yearned for
its highest development, and who, when the needful hour arrived, would
lay down their lives to save its honour.

When he concluded, and was on the point of seating himself very quietly,
without any appearance of being conscious of the great sensation he had
created, and still wearing an admirable touch of melancholy upon his fine
countenance, Major Beaufort rushed towards him, almost upsetting a chair
in his eagerness, and grasped his hand and shook it with a congratulatory
ardour so impressive and enthusiastic as to be a sensation in itself.

There were other speeches afterwards. Fired by the example of his friend,
Major Beaufort distinguished himself by an harangue overflowing with
gallantry and adorned throughout with amiable allusions to the greatest
power of all, the power of Youth, Beauty, and Womanhood. The political
perspicuity of the address was perhaps somewhat obscured by its being
chivalrously pointed towards those fair beings who brighten our existence
and lengthen our griefs. Without the Ladies, the speaker found, we may be
politicians, but we cannot be gentlemen. He discovered (upon the spot,
and with a delicate suggestion of pathos) that by a curious coincidence,
the Ladies were the men's mothers, their wives, their sisters, their
daughters. This being greatly applauded, he added that over these
husbands, these fathers, these brothers--and might be added "these
lovers"--the Ladies wielded a mighty influence. The position of Woman,
even in the darkest ages, had been the position of one whose delicate
hand worked the lever of the world; but to-day, in these more enlightened
times, in the age of advancement and discovery, before what great and
sublime power did the nobleman, the inventor, the literary man, the
warrior, bow, as he bowed before the shrine of the Ladies?

But it was the Colonel who bore away the palm and was the hero of the
hour. When the audience rose he was surrounded at once by groups of
enthusiasts, who shook hands with him, who poured forth libations of
praise, who hung upon his every word with rapture.

"How proud of you he must be," said one of the fairest in the group of
worshippers; "boys of his age feel things so strongly. I wonder why he
doesn't come forward a