so badly, so I suppose, Hanaper, I must be
content with that—faute de mieux, as old Pichegru
used to say."

"Where's Ridley's last paper?" said Harding
Hanaper, with his face bent over documents, as
if he was going to cool it in copious cold water.
"Send down for it. Have a copy made of this
—quick. O! well, what is it now, Pocock?"

"You know, of course you do, the Lee
Boo Island is vacant. Baines died there last
April."

"Ah, yes, to be sure. You were asking for it
—I remember—I dare say. But you should think
about it—a man of your time of life, you know—
climate, and all that—–"

"O, I have considered that," said Sir Hopkins.
"So, if there is nothing else going, I am sure,
after all my long services, and really after having
arranged those Waipiti troubles—–"

"Ah, exactly," said Mr. Hanaper, wearily;
"that's a long time ago. Besides, they broke
out again the other day, you know. By the way,
about the Lee Boo Island. The chief was down
himself here last night, asking about it. What
was that, Manning? Now, Sir Hopkins, I am up
to my eyes—mail going out, you know—Manning
will tell you everything."

Manning said to Sir Hopkins, " Sorry, sir,
about the Lee Boo, but the chief said he was
keeping it for Mr. Trail. In fact, he has given it
to him."

"Given it to him!" shrieked Sir Hopkins.
"What is the meaning of this? It is shameful,
disgraceful! I'll expose the whole system. I'll
bring it before parliament! What do they mean?
What do you mean?"

And with his face contorted and crumpled into
lines of piteous agony, he looked from one to the
other.

"Hush, hush!" said Mr. Hanaper; "recollect
the office, Sir Hopkins."

"I'll bring it before parliament," said the
unhappy diplomatist. "I'll appeal to the country.
This is the way old and faithful servants are
treated. It shall be taken up, I can tell you.
I'll—–"

"Now, Sir Hopkins, we are busy, as you see.
We can't have this sort of thing. Please let us
go to business."

"And Miss Manuel telling me. She promised
—you know she did."

Hanaper smiled.

"If that was your prop, Sir Hopkins, it was a
reed, and a broken one. I don't think you are
number one there. Better to tell you, for the
next time."

Wretched Sir Hopkins went his way almost
staggering—all crow's feet, as it were. From
that little churchyard at Eastport a skeleton hand
seemed to reach him.

We can see Major Carter, older and more
worn and not so crisp—with a Mrs. Carter—
flitting round the watering-places he loved, making
acquaintances. Some powerful friends had
come forward on that exposé, and the words,
"Shameful conspiracy," were used pretty
frequently. It was found by the Crown officials
that the capital case, as to legal proof, was
very weak indeed—so weak, that it was not
advisable to think of a trial. It must be said,
too, that the shareholders in the Irrefragable
were dissatisfied with the exposé. Yet Major
Carter wisely forbore to press his claim on the
company; and, by a sort of mutual compromise,
the dead past was allowed to bury its own dead.
Faithful, trusting Mrs. Wrigley believed in him
all the time, and went abroad with him. And, it
must be said, that Major Carter could always
appeal to his treatment of the second Mrs. Carter
as a sufficient refutation of the "foul slanders"
that had been heaped upon him in reference
to the first.

Now, too, is Pauline Manuel at rare intervals
on English ground: when she comes to see
a brother, who is placed in a quiet asylum,
where his wildness is soothed and tempered
on the gentlest principles. At other seasons,
she too hovers about the foreign world, and,
wherever she goes, people wonder at her sad
handsome face, and think there must be some
story connected with her.

Now, too, at a quiet cathedral town, on the
grass and walks of the close, under the friendly
skirt of the cathedral itself, live three persons
together. The cathedral is not rich, nor has it a
numerous ecclesiastical chapter. A railway has
not touched it yet: so very few remark the grim
old man and his daughter, and the feeble husband,
whom they both support. The feeble husband
walks as though a false step would shatter his
frame like glass or china. The feeble husband's
eyes are dim, and grow dimmer each day, and
round and about the eyes his face has been
crushed and bruised out of shape through an old
and terrible accident. A skilful doctor did wonders
with that face, raising it, and piecing it,
and restoring it (he wrote "a case" on it for
some Medical Transactions); but he could not
restore the quick intuition and ready appreciation,
and so every one in the cathedral town
knows that the feeble husband's words come
from him more slowly than he walks (as though
they run risk, too, of being shattered), and that it
takes a long time to follow a question or a remark.

Of this old and dreadful accident he ought to
have died properly, but the skilful doctor saved
him. As his eyes grow more dim, so does his
intelligence; keeping pace with the failing of the
eyes. It seems long long ago. Sometimes, no
doubt, the dull thickness clears away—the murky
vapours in his brain clear away; and perhaps he
then, for a moment, sees the old soft days down
at the watering-place, when he seemed to be
young, and airy, and elegant, and happy; and
these bright figures moved to and fro before him.
It was another Fermor then, different from the
Fermor who came later, and who, in its turn, was
different from the old young man, and the bruised
beaten Fermor, whose dim eye was, as it were,