of the time, there was a weight of calm and stern
reasoning embodied in its vigorous periods, which gave to the arguments
of the advocate something of the impartiality of the judge. Unusually
abstracted and unsocial,--for, despite his youth and that peculiar
bashfulness before noticed, he was generally alive enough to all that
passed around him,--Percival paid little attention to the comments that
circulated round the easy-chairs in his vicinity, till a subordinate in
the administration, with whom he was slightly acquainted, pushed a small
volume towards him and said,--"You have seen this, of course, St. John?
Ten to one you do not guess the author. It is certainly not B----m,
though the Lord Chancellor has energy enough for anything. R---- says it
has a touch of S----r."

"Could M----y have written it?" asked a young member of parliament,
timidly.

"M----y! Very like his matchless style, to be sure! You can have read
very little of M----y, I should think," said the subordinate, with the
true sneer of an official and a critic.

The young member could have slunk into a nutshell. Percival, with very
languid interest, glanced over the volume. But despite his mood, and his
moderate affection for political writings, the passage he opened upon
struck and seized him unawares. Though the sneer of the official was
just, and the style was not comparable to M----y's (whose is?), still,
the steady rush of strong words, strong with strong thoughts, heaped
massively together, showed the ease of genius and the gravity of
thought. The absence of all effeminate glitter, the iron grapple with
the pith and substance of the argument opposed, seemed familiar to
Percival. He thought he heard the deep bass of John Ardworth's earnest
voice when some truth roused his advocacy, or some falsehood provoked
his wrath. He put down the book, bewildered. Could it be the obscure,
briefless lawyer in Gray's Inn (that very morning the object of
his young pity) who was thus lifted into fame? He smiled at his own
credulity. But he listened with more attention to the enthusiastic
praises that circled round, and the various guesses which accompanied
them. Soon, however, his former gloom returned,--the Babel began to
chafe and weary him. He rose, and went forth again into the air. He
strolled on without purpose, but mechanically, into the street where he
had first seen Helen. He paused a few moments under the colonnade which
faced Beck's old deserted cros