he shape of candles the difficulty could be got over, but he feared
that without his moderating influence the majority might come to a
rash decision.

All these persons were clamoring over their various anxieties with the
most naive frankness, the truth coming freely out, whatever it might
be. One distinguished-looking lady in deep mourning, with a sad,
gentle face, alone was resigned and hopeful. It seemed that her
husband had been stopped not long before at the same station. She
thought it possible that she might meet him again.

The station-master listened to the complaints with composed
indifference. He told the loudest that they need not alarm themselves.
The State would survive the absence of the minister. The minister, in
fact, was not thinking of the State at all, but of the party triumph
which he expected; and the peerage which was to be his reward, the
station-master said, would now be of no use to him. The youth had a
second brother who would succeed instead of him, and the tenants would
not be inconvenienced by the change. The fine lady's daughter would
marry to her own liking instead of her mother's, and would be all the
happier for it. The commercial house was already insolvent, and the
longer it lasted the more innocent people would be ruined by it. The
boy whom the lawyer intended to make into a rich baronet was now
working industriously at school, and would grow up a useful man. If a
great estate fell in to him he would be idle and dissolute. The old
man might congratulate himself that he had escaped so soon from the
scrape into which he had fallen. His wife would marry an adventurer,
and would suffer worse from inheriting his fortune. The archbishop was
commended for his anxiety. His solution of the candle problem was no
doubt an excellent one; but his clergy were now provided with a
harmless subject to quarrel over, and if it was adopted they might
fall out over something else which might be seriously mischievous.

"Do you mean, then, that you are not going to send us forward at all?"
the minister inquired sternly.

"You will see," the station-master answered with a curious short
laugh. I observed that he looked more gently at the lady in mourning.
She had said nothing, but he knew what was in her mind, and though he
held out no hope in words that her wish would be gratified, he smiled
sadly, and the irony passed out of his face.

The crowd meanwhile were standing about the platform, whistling tu