d and all.

Alfred Hardie slipped out, and ran like a deer to tell Mrs. Dodd.

Husband and wife met alone in Mrs. Dodd's room. No eyes ventured to
witness a scene so strange, so sacred.

They all thought in their innocence that Hardie _v_. Hardie was now at
an end, with Captain Dodd ready to prove Alfred's sanity; but the lawyer
advised them not to put the captain to the agitation of the witness-box.

Mr. Thomas Hardie, the defendant, won the case for Alfred by admitting
in the witness-box that his brother Richard had declared that "if you
don't put Alfred in a madhouse, I will put you in one."

The jury found for the plaintiff, Alfred Hardie, and gave the damages at
L3,000. The verdict was received with acclamation by the people, and in
the midst of this Alfred's lawyer announced that the plaintiff had just
gained his first class at Oxford.

Mr. Richard Hardie restored the L14,000, and a few years later died a
monomaniac, believing himself penniless when he possessed L60,000.

Alfred married Julia, and, with the consent of his wife, took his father
to live with them. Then Alfred determined to pay in full all who had
been ruined by the bank failure, and in time the old bank was reopened
with Edward Dodd as managing partner. In the end, no creditor of Richard
Hardie was left unpaid. Alfred went in for politics and became an M.P.
for Barkington; whence to dislodge him I pity anyone who tries.

* * * * *

It Is Never Too Late to Mend

"It is Never Too Late to Mend, a Matter-of-Fact Romance,"
published in 1856, is, like "Hard Cash," a story with a
purpose, the object in this instance being to illustrate the
abuses of prison discipline in England and Australia. Many of
the passages describing Australian life are exceptionally
vivid and imaginative, and exhibit Charles Reade, if not in
the front rank of novelists of his day, at least occupying a
high position.

_I.--In Berkshire_

George Fielding, assisted by his brother William, tilled The Grove--as
nasty a little farm as any in Berkshire. It was four hundred acres, all
arable, and most of it poor, sour land. A bad bargain, and the farmer
being sober, intelligent, proud, sensitive, and unlucky, is the more to
be pitied.

Susanna Merton was beautiful and good; George Fielding and she were
acknowledged lovers, but latterly old Merton had seemed cool whenever
his daughter mentione