es and a queen
upon the board. It was, indeed, worse than this,--for the adversary
had appropriated to his own use the castles and the queen of the
unhappy vanquished one. This Church Reform was the legitimate
property of the Liberals, and had not been as yet used by them only
because they had felt it right to keep in the background for some
future great occasion so great and so valuable a piece of ordnance.
It was theirs so safely that they could afford to bide their time.
And then,--so they all said, and so some of them believed,--the
country was not ready for so great a measure. It must come; but there
must be tenderness in the mode of producing it. The parsons must be
respected, and the great Church-of-England feeling of the people must
be considered with affectionate regard. Even the most rabid Dissenter
would hardly wish to see a structure so nearly divine attacked and
destroyed by rude hands. With grave and slow and sober earnestness,
with loving touches and soft caressing manipulation let the beautiful
old Church be laid to its rest, as something too exquisite, too
lovely, too refined for the present rough manners of the world! Such
were the ideas as to Church Reform of the leading Liberals of the
day; and now this man, without even a majority to back him, this
audacious Cagliostro among statesmen, this destructive leader of all
declared Conservatives, had come forward without a moment's warning,
and pretended that he would do the thing out of hand! Men knew that
it had to be done. The country had begun to perceive that the old
Establishment must fall; and, knowing this, would not the Liberal
backbone of Great Britain perceive the enormity of this Cagliostro's
wickedness,--and rise against him and bury him beneath its scorn
as it ought to do? This was the feeling that made a real Christmas
impossible to Messrs. Ratler and Bonteen.

"The one thing incredible to me," said Mr. Ratler, "is that
Englishmen should be so mean." He was alluding to the Conservatives
who had shown their intention of supporting Mr. Daubeny, and whom
he accused of doing so, simply with a view to power and patronage,
without any regard to their own consistency or to the welfare of
the country. Mr. Ratler probably did not correctly read the minds
of the men whom he was accusing, and did not perceive, as he should
have done with his experience, how little there was among them of
concerted action. To defend the Church was a duty to each of the