"Well then, put it that her mother's
health—which you told me was ailing—was
such as to prevent her from undertaking
so long and serious a journey, and that she
thought it her duty to remain by her
mother——"

"'Forsaking all other, and cleaving only
unto him,'" quoted Joyce, with gravity.

"Yes, yes, my dear Mr. Joyce, very
proper; but not the way of the world now-
a-days; besides, I'm sure you would not be
selfish enough to have the old lady left
behind amongst strangers. However, grant
it hypothetically—would you still take up
this appointment?"

"I cannot possibly say," replied Joyce,
after a moment's pause. "The idea is
quite new to me. I have never given it
consideration."

"I think I should, under any circumstances,
if I were you," said Lady Caroline,
earnestly, and looking hard at him. "You
have talent, energy, and patience, the three
great requisites for success, and you are, or
I am very much mistaken, intended for a
life of action. I do not advise you to
continue in the course now opening to you.
Even if you start for it, it should be made
but a stepping-stone to a higher and a
nobler career."

"And that is——?"

"Politics! Plunged in them you forget
all smaller things, forget the petty
disappointments and discouragements which we
all have equally to contend with, whatever
may be our lot in life, and wonder that
such trivial matters ever caused you annoyance!
Wedded to them, you want no other
tie; ambition takes the place of love, is a
thousand times more absorbing, and in most
cases offers a far more satisfactory reward.
You seem to me eminently suited for such
a career, and if you were to take my
advice, you will seek an opportunity for
embracing it."

"You would not have me throw away the
substance for the shadow? You forget
that the chance of my life is now before
me!"

"I am by no means so certain that it
is the chance of your life, Mr. Joyce! I am
by no means certain that it is for the best
that this offer has been made to you, or
that the result will prove as you imagine.
But, in any case, you should think seriously
of entering on a political career. Your
constant cry has been on a matter on which we
have always quarrelled, and a reference
to which on your part very nearly sent
me off just now, you will harp upon the
difference of social position; now distinction
in politics levels all ranks. The two
leaders of political parties in the present
day, who really have pas and precedence
over the highest in the land, who are the
dispensers of patronage, and the cynosures
of the world, are men sprung from the
people. There is no height to which the
successful politician may not attain."

"Perhaps not," said Joyce. "But I
confess I am entirely devoid of ambition!"

"You think so now, but you will think
differently some day, perhaps. It is a
wonderfully useful substitute."

"Would you advise me to speak to Lord
Hetherington about my intentions?"

"I think not, just yet, seeing that you
scarcely know what your intentions are. I
think I would wait until after Wednesday.
Good-bye, Mr. Joyce; I have gossiped
away all my spare time, and my letters
must wait till to-morrow. You will not
fail to let me know when you receive your
reply. I shall be most anxious to know."

"This country beauty is playing fast
and loose with him," said Lady Caroline to
herself, as the door closed behind her.
"She is angling for a bigger fish, and he is
so innocent, or so much in love—the same
thing—as not to perceive it. Poor fellow!
it will be an awful blow for him, but it will
come, I feel certain."

INJURED INNOCENTS.

Is it a cry, or a fact, that there is a large
class of our population subsisting exclusively
by dishonest means? Does the professed thief
exist only in the diseased imagination of the
police? Are the records of the Old Bailey
and the Middlesex Sessions, of Millbank and
Scotland Yard, ingenious fictions, or stern
fact? It is well, in matters of this kind, that
the truth should be held constantly and steadily
before the public eye.

If Lord Kimberley's bill be objected to as
going too far, or not far enough, well and
good; but it is well that the public mind should
be firmly impressed with the knowledge that
the habitual criminal is an actual living fact,
and is not to be asserted or explained away by
any amount of statement, or by any process of
unreason whatever. How he is to be dealt
with, is another matter. That it is monstrous
to endure the existence of a class of professional
thieves, and to allow them to prey on society,
unmolested, so long as they have the wit to
avoid detection, is obvious. It would seem to
be equally clear that in legislating to put a stop
to this state of things, the feelings or wishes of
the criminals themselves are about the last
things we have to consider. Either the
professed thief must work and live honestly, or, in