It is softly turning
                  To a downward haze
               (From the charcoal burning),
                  Delays, and strays,
And is scatter'd in twenty different ways.

               But see! at length,
                  At length (will it last?)
               The buoyant strength
                  Of the bounding blast
Hath broken a breach in the grey: and fast

               It is driving the mist hence.
                  There flickers again
               Strange light in the distance:
                  Blue sea and brown plain,
And one long leaden-colour'd slant cone of soft rain!

THE NORTHENVILLE ELECTION.

CHECK TO THEIR QUEEN.

FOR two or three days after the ball given
nominally by Lady Vance, but really by her
brother, the Honourable Captain Streatham,
candidate on the other side, I felt almost as
if we had been defeated. Only ten days
remained before the nomination would come on.
Mr. Mellam left the entire management of
affairs in my hands, and gave me whatever
cheques I asked for without a question.

I have mentioned before that there were two
newspapers in Northenville, the Mercury and
the Independent. Each of these prints had its
"own correspondent" in town, who furnished
the paper with a London letter weekly. The
Independent, which was the organ of our
opponents, was published on Wednesday; the
Mercury, our own paper, appeared on Saturday.
Both papers used to boast of their respective
London correspondents, and the editors of each
used to speak openly of these gentlemen by
name. No one who had ever been in company
with Mr. Dane, of the Independent, could help
knowing that the correspondent of his paper
was Dan O'Rind, one of the cleverest but most
needy men in London, who never had a six-
pence two hours after he had received his
weekly salary. It was through Dan that I
intended to play my trump card, and for that
purpose, armed with a cheque from Mr.
Mellam, I left Northenville for London on the
Friday evening after the grand ball which
Lady Vance had given at the Crown and
Sceptre Inn.

On Saturday morning I was at O'Rind's
chambers, and found, as I expected, that he was
not out of bed. At first I got no answer to my
repeated knocks at the outside door of his rooms,
for Dan's visitors were, as a rule, more numerous
than welcome, and he generally had some little
legal affair on hand which it was more judicious
to ignore than to acknowledge. But after calling
out my name, and being aware that some one
reconnoitred me through a small port hole, I was
admitted into the interior, where I found my
acquaintance in the state of dressing gown, and
his rooms in the state of confusion, which
appears to be choice with the briefless class of
barristers who live fast and "have no work to
do" in a legal sense. But to speak to a man
before he has either tubbed or breakfasted is
not wise, and so I merely bade Dan make haste
with his toilet, and join me in an hour (it was
already past twelve o'clock) at the Albion in
Russell-street, where I would beg him to
partake of as good a luncheon as that excellent
house could give us, and then would put something
in his way which would be a clear one
hundred pounds' gain within next week. Before
the time specified he was at the Albion, where
I had already ordered luncheon, to which he
did great justice. By two P.M. we were in the
smoking-room up-stairs, and there, over cigars
and a couple of "cobblers," I told O'Kind
that I required the services of a clear-headed
lawyer who could speak French and German,
to proceed to Strasbourg, and thence to Baden,
Munich, and Vienna, to examine the register
of births in certain churches, of which a list
would be given him, and report progress to me
in London. The job would probably take him
from four to five weeks to get through, and the
remuneration attached to it would be two
guineas a day, besides all hotel and travelling
expenses. In the mean time I was ready to
hand him over one hundred pounds on account,
provided he started that very night, would he
accept it?

Would he not? The only thing that puzzled
him was the shortness of time in which to find
some one who would write his London letter
for the Northenville Independent. His leaders
for the Damager could be easily provided for
in the office of that paper, but where could he
find a correspondent for the Independent?

That, I said, should be provided for, and in
such a manner that the guinea a week which
that journal paid its correspondent should not
be lost to him during his absence, for I had a
very talented young friend who would be only
too glad to do the work. All he had to do was
to write to Mr. Dane at Northenville, and
state that, having been selected by a legal firm
to prosecute a most important inquiry abroad,
he would be absent from his post for some
weeks, and that in the mean time a well-known
and very talented writer (whose name he was
not at liberty to mention) would continue his
correspondence for the Independent. Letters
from this gentleman to the paper would be
initialled P. W., and all letters from Mr. Dane
to his locum tenens might be addressed to his
chambers in Costs-court.

The letter for Mr. Dane was written there
and then, and at eight o'clock I saw O'Rind off
to Folkestone by the tidal train from the
Victoria-station.

On the following Monday, just as Mr. Dane
was preparing the usual clippings from the
London Observer, the Sunday Times, and other
weekly papers, with which he made up the
"stuffing" for his paper on Wednesday, he
received a telegram from London to the following
effect: