rages at his detracting pupils; but ends with
roars of laughter at their impudence. I am told
he still hopes to meet with justice some day, and
to give justice a chance, he goes to bed at ten,
for, says he,
          Jinny us, jinny us,
          Take care of your carcase,
and explains that no genius ever lived to ninety
without being appreciated.

"If Chatterton and Keats had attended to this,
they would have been all right. If James Watt
had died at fifty he would have been all wrong;
for at fifty he was a failure: so was the painter
Etty, th' English Tishin." And then he
accumulates examples.

His last distich bearing on Hard Cash is worth
recording. "Miss Julee," said he, "y' are goen to
maerry int' a strange family—
         Where tli' ijjit puts the jinny us
         In—til a madhus,"
which, like most of the droll things this man
said, was true: for Soft Tommy and Alfred were
the two intellectual extremes of the whole tribe
of Hardies.

Mrs. Archbold, disappointed both in love and
revenge, reposed her understanding and soothed
her mind with Frank Beverley and opium. This
soon made the former deep in love with her, and
his intellect grew by contact with hers. But one
day news came from Australia that her husband
was dead. Now, perhaps I shall surprise the
reader if I tell him that this Edith Archbold
began her wedded life a good, confiding, loving,
faithful woman. Yet so it was: the unutterable
blackguard she had married, he it was who
laboured to spoil her character, and succeeded
at last, and drove her, unwilling at first, to other
men. The news of his death was like a shower-bath;
it roused her. She took counsel with
herself, and hope revived in her strong head and
miserable heart. She told Frank, and watched
him like a hawk. He instantly fell on his knees,
and implored her to marry him directly. She
gave him her hand and turned away, and shed
the most womanly tear that had blessed her for
years. "I am not mad, you know," said poor
Frank; "I am only a bit of a muff." To make
a long story short, she exerted all her intelligence,
and with her help Frank took measures
towards superseding his Commission of Lunacy.
Now, in such a case, the Lord Chancellor always
examines the patient in person. What was the
consequence? Instead of the vicarious old Wolf,
who had been devouring him at third and fourth
hand, Frank had two interviews with the
Chancellor himself: a learned, grave, upright gentleman,
who questioned him kindly and shrewdly;
and finding him to be a young man of small
intellectual grasp, but not the least idiotic or mad,
superseded his commission in defiance of his
greedy kinsfolk, and handed him his property.
He married Edith Archbold, and she made him
as happy as the day was long. For the first year
or two she treated his adoration with good-natured
contempt; but, as years rolled on, she
became more loving, and he more knowing. They are
now a happy pair, and all between her first honest
love and this her last, seems to her a dream.

So you see a female rake can be ameliorated
by a loving husband, as well as a male rake by a
loving wife.

It sounds absurd, but that black-browed jade
is like to be one of the best wives and mothers
in England. But then, mind you, she had always
—Brains.

I don't exactly know why Horace puts together
those two epithets, "just" and "tenacious
of purpose." Perhaps he had observed they go
together. To be honest, I am not clear whether
this is so on the grand scale. But certainly
these two features did meet remarkably in one
of my characters—Alfred Hardie. The day the
bank broke, he had said he would pay the creditors.
He now set to work to do it by degrees.
He got the names and addresses, lived on half his
income, and paid half away to those creditors:
he even asked Julia to try and find Maxley out,
and do something for him. "But don't let me
see him," said he trembling, "for I could not
answer for myself." Maxley was known to be
cranky, but harmless, and wandering about the
country. Julia wrote to Mr. Green.

Alfred's was an up-hill game; but fortune
favours the obstinate as well as the bold. One
day, about four years after his marriage with
Julia, being in London, he found a stately
figure at the corner of a street, holding out his
hand for alms, too dignified to ask it except by
that mute and touching gesture.

It was his father.

Then, as truly noble natures must forgive the
fallen, Alfred was touched to the heart, and
thought of the days of his childhood, before
temptation came. "Father," said he, "have
you come to this?"

"Yes, Alfred," said Richard composedly: " I'
undertook too many speculations, especially in
land and houses; they seemed profitable at first
too; but now I am entirely hampered: if you
would but relieve me of them, and give me a
guinea a week to live on, I would forgive all your
disobedient conduct."

"Come home with me, sir," said the young
man.

He took him to Barkington, bag and baggage;
and his good Christian wife received the old man
with delight; she had prayed day and night for
this reconciliation. Finding his son so warm,
and being himself as cool, Richard Hardie
entrapped Alfred into an agreement, to board and
lodge him, and pay him a guinea every Saturday
at noon; in return for this Alfred was to manage
Richard's property, and pocket the profits, if
any. Alfred assented: the old man chuckled at
his son's simplicity, and made him sign a formal
agreement to that effect.

This done, he used to sit brooding and miserable
nearly all the week till guinea time came; and
then brightened up a bit. One day Alfred sent