was a mistake to be expected of a Tory, but not of Mr. Gladstone,
who seems always seeking the broadest principles of justice in his
statesmanship."

"Yes, we regard Mr. Gladstone as a very great man, Miss Forsythe. He is
broad enough. You know we consider him a rhetorical phenomenon.
Unfortunately he always 'muffs' anything he touches."

"I suspected," Miss Forsythe replied, after a moment, "that party spirit
ran as high in England as it does with us, and is as personal."

Mr. Lyon disclaimed any personal feeling, and the talk drifted into a
comparison of English and American politics, mainly with reference to the
social factor in English politics, which is so little an element here.

In the midst of the talk Margaret came in. The brisk walk in the rosy
twilight had heightened her color, and given her a glowing expression
which her face had not the night before, and a tenderness and softness,
an unworldliness, brought from the quiet hour in the church.

"My lady comes at last,
Timid and stepping fast,
And hastening hither,
Her modest eyes downcast."

She greeted the stranger with a Puritan undemonstrativeness, and as if
not exactly aware of his presence.

"I should like to have gone to vespers if I had known," said Mr. Lyon,
after an embarrassing pause.

"Yes?" asked the girl, still abstractedly. "The world seems in a vesper
mood," she added, looking out the west windows at the red sky and the
evening star.

In truth Nature herself at the moment suggested that talk was an
impertinence. The callers rose to go, with an exchange of neighborhood
friendliness and invitations.

"I had no idea," said Mr. Lyon, as they walked homeward, "what the New
World was like."

III

Mr. Lyon's invitation was for a week. Before the end of the week I was
called to New York to consult Mr. Henderson in regard to a railway
investment in the West, which was turning out more permanent than
profitable. Rodney Henderson--the name later became very familiar to the
public in connection with a certain Congressional investigation--was a
graduate of my own college, a New Hampshire boy, a lawyer by profession,
who practiced, as so many American lawyers do, in Wall Street, in
political combinations, in Washington, in railways. He was already known
as a rising man.

When I returned Mr. Lyon was still at our house. I understood that my
wife had persuaded him to extend his visit--a proposal h