as
actually Member of Parliament for the Chelsea Districts, she resolved
that she would be triumphant. She had sacrificed nearly everything
to her desire for his success in public life, and now that he had
achieved the first great step towards that success, it would have
been madness on her part to decline her share in the ovation. If she
could not rejoice in that, what source of joy would then be left for
her? She had promised to be his wife, and at present she was under
the bonds of that promise. She had so promised because she had
desired to identify her interests with his,--because she wished to
share his risks, to assist his struggles, and to aid him in his
public career. She had done all this, and he had been successful. She
strove, therefore, to be triumphant on his behalf, but she knew that
she was striving ineffectually. She had made a mistake, and the days
were coming in which she would have to own to herself that she had
done so in sackcloth, and to repent with ashes.

But yet she struggled to be triumphant. The tidings were first
brought to her by her servant, and then she at once sat down to
write him a word or two of congratulation. But she found the task
more difficult than she had expected, and she gave it up. She had
written no word to him since the day on which he had left her almost
in anger, and now she did not know how she was to address him. "I
will wait till he comes," she said, putting away from her the paper
and pens. "It will be easier to speak than to write." But she wrote
to Kate, and contrived to put some note of triumph into her letter.
Kate had written to her at length, filling her sheet with a loud paean
of sincere rejoicing. To Kate, down in Westmoreland, it had seemed
that her brother had already done everything. He had already tied
Fortune to his chariot wheels. He had made the great leap, and had
overcome the only obstacle that Fate had placed in his way. In her
great joy she almost forgot whence had come the money with which the
contest had been won. She was not enthusiastic in many things;--about
herself she was never so; but now she was elated with an enthusiasm
which seemed to know no bounds. "I am proud," she said, in her letter
to Alice. "No other thing that he could have done would have made me
so proud of him. Had the Queen sent for him and made him an earl, it
would have been as nothing to this. When I think that he has forced
his way into Parliament without any great friend