and upon John Murchison's knee, with the local journal, lay a pink
evening paper published in Buffalo.

"Better than I can tell you, Mrs Williams, in all sorts of ways. But
it's good to be back, too. Very good!" Lorne threw up his head and drew
in the pleasant evening air of midsummer with infinite relish while his
eye travelled contentedly past the chestnuts on the lawn, down the vista
of the quiet tree-bordered street. It lay empty in the solace of
the evening, a blue hill crossed it in the distance, and gave it an
unfettered look, the wind stirred in the maples. A pair of schoolgirls
strolled up and down bareheaded; now and then a buggy passed.

"There's room here," he said.

"Find it kind of crowded up over there?" asked Mr Williams. "Worse than
New York?"

"Oh, yes. Crowded in a patient sort of way--it's enough to break your
heart--that you don't see in New York! The poor of New York--well,
they've got the idea of not being poor. In England they're resigned,
they've got callous. My goodness! the fellows out of work over
there--you can SEE they're used to it, see it in the way they slope
along and the look in their eyes, poor dumb dogs. They don't understand
it, but they've just got to take it! Crowded? Rather!"

"We don't say 'rather' in this country, mister," observed Stella.

"Well, you can say it now, kiddie."

They laughed at the little passage--the traveller's importation of one
or two Britishisms had been the subject of skirmish before--but silence
fell among them for a moment afterward. They all had in the blood the
remembrance of what Lorne had seen.

"Well, you've been doing big business," said Horace Williams.

Lorne shook his head. "We haven't done any harm," he said, "but our
scheme's away out of sight now. At least it ought to be."

"Lost in the bigger issue." said Williams, and Lorne nodded.

The bigger issue had indeed in the meantime obscured the political
horizon, and was widely spreading. A mere colonial project might
well disappear in it. England was absorbed in a single contemplation.
Wallingham, though he still supported the disabilities of a right
honourable evangelist with a gospel of his own, was making astonishing
conversions; the edifice of the national economic creed seemed coming
over at the top. It was a question of the resistance of the base, and
the world was watching.

"Cruickshank says if the main question had been sprung a month ago we
wouldn't have gone over. As it i