a jerky kind of manner. Immediately
afterwards, backing again towards their
chairs, on the extremest edge of which they
propped themselves, they hid their hands
in their coat-sleeves, and looked round in a
furtive manner.

After a few formal speeches, Mr. Potter
proceeded at once to business. Addressing
Joyce, he said it was probably known to
him that the gentleman on whom they had
hitherto depended as a candidate for Brocksopp
had thrown them over, and, at the
eleventh hour, had left them to seek for
another representative. In a few well-
chosen and diplomatically-rounded sentences,
Mr. Potter pointed out that the
task that Mr. Bokenham had imposed
upon them was by no means so difficult a
one as might have been imagined. Mr.
Potter would not, he said, indulge in
any lengthened speech. His business was
simply to explain the wishes of those for
whom he and his partner had the honour
to act—here he looked towards the leaders
of the party, who did not attempt to
disguise the fact that they were growing
rather bored by the Potterian eloquence—
and those wishes were, in so many words,
that Mr. Joyce should step into the place
which Mr. Bokenham had left vacant.

One of the leaders of the party here
manifesting an intention of having some-
thing to say, and wishing to say it, Mr.
Fyfe promptly interposed with the remark
that he should be able to controvert an
assertion, which he saw his young friend
Mr. Joyce about to make, to the effect that
he would be unable to carry on the contest
for want of means. He, Mr. Fyfe, was
empowered to assert that old Mr. Bokenham
was so enraged at his son's defalcation,
which he believed to have been mainly
brought about by Tory agency, Lord
Steppe's father, the Earl of Stair, being a
notoriously bigotted Blue, that he was
prepared to guarantee the expenses of any
candidate approved of by the party and
by the town. Mr. Fyfe here pausing
to take breath, the leader, who had been
previously baulked, cut in with a neat
expression of the party's approval of Mr.
Joyce, and Mr. Spalding murmured a few
incoherent words to the effect that, during
a life-long acquaintance with his young
friend, the people of Brocksopp had been
in entire ignorance that he had anything in
him, politically or otherwise, beyond book
learning, and that was the main reason for
their wishing him to represent them in
Parliament.

Although a faint dawning of the truth
had come across him when Mr. Harrington
announced young Bokenham's defection,
Walter Joyce had no definite idea of the
honour in store for him. Very modestly,
and in very few words, he accepted the
candidature, promising to use every exertion
for the attainment of success. He
was too much excited and overcome to
enter into any elaborate discussion at that
time. All he could do was to thank the
leading members of the party for their
confidence, to inform the parliamentary-agent
firm that he would wait upon them the next
day, and to assure Messrs. Spalding and
Moule that the Liberals of Brocksopp would
find him among them immediately. Did
Walter Joyce falter for one instant in the
scheme of retribution which he had
foreshadowed, now that he was to be its
exponent, now that the vengeance which he had
anticipated, was to be worked out by
himself? No! On the contrary, he was more
satisfied in being able to assure himself of
the edge of the weapon, and of the strength
of the arm by which the blow should be
dealt.

"We calculated too soon upon the effect
of young Bokenham's escapade, darling,"
said Mr. Creswell to his wife, on his return
after a day in Brocksopp. "The field is by
no means to be left clear to us. The walls
of the town are blazing with the placards
of a new candidate in the Liberal interest,
a clever man, I believe, who is to have all
the elder Bokenham's backing, and who,
from previous connexion, may probably
have certain local interests of his own."

"Previous connexion— local interest?
Who can it be?" asked Marian.

"An old acquaintance of yours, I should
imagine; at least the name is familiar to me
in connexion with your father, and the old
days of Helmingham school. The signature
to the address is 'Walter Joyce.' "

FRENCH COURTS OF JUSTICE.

A MORE striking and suggestive contrast,
than that between the French and the English
judicial tribunals, it would be difficult to find;
or one more clearly marking the striking difference
in temperament and mode of thought between
the two races. The forms of French legal
procedure aid in giving a romantic character to
the scenes which pass in the Palais de Justice.
The Procureur Impérial, combining in himself
the powers of public prosecutor, grand jury,
and adviser of the bench, is an official quite
unknown to Anglo-Saxon countries; for his
office implies a great deal more than those