him once, bound him now; he found himself matched
with Eleanor in a game of human life. The more she proved herself his
equal, the nobler the conquest, and the more the instinct of victory
stirred within him; for pride, a poor sort of pride, began to be
stirred as well as love.

So the bill went on; and prisons and laws and reformatory measures and
penal enactments and industrial schools, and the question of
interfering with the course of labour, and the question of offering a
premium upon crime, and a host of questions, were discussed and
rediscussed. And partly no doubt from policy, partly from an
intelligent view of the subject, but wholly moved thereto by Eleanor,
Mr. Carlisle gradually gave back the ground and took just the position
(on paper) that she wished to see him take.

CHAPTER VII.

IN APRIL.

"Why, how one weeps
When one's too weary! Were a witness by,
He'd say some folly--"

So the bill went on. And the season too. Winter merged into spring; the
change of temperature reminded Eleanor of the changing face of the
earth out of London; and even in London the parks gave testimony of it.
She longed for Wiglands and the Lodge; but there was no token of the
family's going home at present. Parliament was in session; Mr. Carlisle
was busy there every night almost; which did not in the least hinder
his being busied with Eleanor as well. Where she and her mother went,
for the most part he went; and at home he was very much at home indeed.
Eleanor began to feel that the motions of the family depended on him;
for she could find no sufficient explanation in her father's health or
her mother's pleasure for their continued remaining in town. The Squire
was much as he had been all winter; attended now and then by a
physician, and out of health and spirits certainly; yet Eleanor could
not help thinking he would be better at home, and somewhat suspected
her father thought so. Mrs. Powle enjoyed London, no doubt; still, she
was not a woman to run mad after pleasure, or after anything else; not
so much but that the pleasure of her husband would have outweighed
hers. Nevertheless, both the Squire and she were as quietly fixed in
London, to judge by all appearance, as if they had no other place to go
to; and the rising of parliament was sometimes hinted at as giving the
only clue to the probable time of their departure.

Did you ever lay brands together on a hearth, brands with little life
in them too,