least
was safe in the new parliament that was to pass a Reform Bill. As
for the Tories generally, they were swept off the board. Scarcely a
constituency, in which was a popular element, was faithful to them. The
counties in those days were the great expounders of popular principles,
and whenever England was excited, which was rare, she spoke through her
freeholders. In this instance almost every Tory knight of the shire lost
his seat except Lord Chandos, the member for Buckinghamshire, who owed
his success entirely to his personal popularity. "Never mind," said
Zenobia, "what does it signify? The Lords will throw it out."

And bravely and unceasingly she worked for this end. To assist this
purpose it was necessary that a lengthened and powerful resistance to
the measure should be made in the Commons; that the public mind should
be impressed with its dangerous principles, and its promoters cheapened
by the exposure of their corrupt arrangements and their inaccurate
details. It must be confessed that these objects were resolutely kept
in view, and that the Tory opposition evinced energy and abilities
not unworthy of a great parliamentary occasion. Ferrars particularly
distinguished himself. He rose immensely in the estimation of the House,
and soon the public began to talk of him. His statistics about the
condemned boroughs were astounding and unanswerable: he was the only man
who seemed to know anything of the elements of the new ones. He was as
eloquent too as exact,--sometimes as fervent as Burke, and always as
accurate as Cocker.

"I never thought it was in William Ferrars," said a member, musingly, to
a companion as they walked home one night; "I always thought him a good
man of business, and all that sort of thing--but, somehow or other, I
did not think this was in him."

"Well, he has a good deal at stake, and that brings it out of a fellow,"
said his friend.

It was, however, pouring water upon sand. Any substantial resistance
to the measure was from the first out of the question. Lord Chandos
accomplished the only important feat, and that was the enfranchisement
of the farmers. This perpetual struggle, however, occasioned a vast deal
of excitement, and the actors in it often indulged in the wild credulity
of impossible expectations. The saloon of Zenobia was ever thronged, and
she was never more confident than when the bill passed the Commons. She
knew that the King would never give his assent to the bill. H