any impartial people, which was the most odious nation in the world? Each would (to reverse the ballot about Themistocles) put its own immediate enemy first, but all would, beyond a doubt, put England second.

Thus Maurice, irritable with suffering of all kinds, of mind, and heart, and body; from his burns, from the pangs of despised love, and from the insolence of office of the Castle.

We give his ravings without fear of offence to our readers; because no Englishman worthy of the name could conceive that such things should be said sincerely of his race by anyone outside Bedlam, or, rather, outside Broadmoor. Any true Englishman will pity if he does not despise with that good temper which comes of one's withers being unwrung-a man whose hatred makes him see everything (as in the looking-glass land) absolutely reversed. But when the lion takes to painting the man, the savage ferocity of the brute breaks out, and the revenge of centuries of the arrow, spear, and

VOL. II.

R

bullet guides the brush. The man, on the other hand conscious of being the most supremely perfect creature that has ever appeared-at least on this planet-can afford to look at the figure of a Yahoo presented to him as his portrait, with a pitying smile-not without wonder why the lion should hate him so. Let anyone go to the Zoological Gardens and judge between him and this brute, whose hatred is so diabolical. There they will see lions, which he might have shot as he used to shoot them, mercifully caged! But the devilish ferocity of this creature is not to be exorcised by kindness upon kindness.

243

CHAPTER XXIX.

HOME.

Oh purblind race of miserable men!
How many among us at this very hour

Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves,

By taking true for false, or false for true ?-Enid.

MILES, notwithstanding his eagerness to get Norah away at once from Springthorpe, would have stayed there till Maurice was fit to return with them, had the latter allowed him. But Maurice wouldn't hear of their remaining. He, too, hoped, though with a far fainter hope than, Miles', that time and absence might wear out the worthless image of this Reid Summers from her heart. Apart, however, from this selfish hope, Maurice felt, with Miles, that Norah's health demanded her removal from a place where her trouble would be kept green. We

will not say that he was quite unbiassed by a

fear in the background of his mind that Reid Summers, on seeing Norah, or hearing that she was still in the town, might not yet sacrifice his fortune and the favour of his father and family to his love for her. For we need hardly say that both Miles and Maurice were as convinced of Reid's love for Norah as of Norah's love for Reid; and that they set down his hesitation. about proposing to his dread of forfeiting thereby his father's favour and his future prospects.

It was arranged, therefore, that Miles and Norah should leave Maurice behind, and they started by the train they had originally arranged to take. Miles in his impulsive generosity must needs purchase to present to the station-master a gold ring in acknowledgment of his sympathy last night. For Miles, though very generous, was very grateful (two characteristics seldom correlated), and the man's kindness made upon him a deep impression at an impressionable

moment.

If the station-master had been a Frenchman or an Italian, he would have understood this Quixotic gift; but, being an Englishman, and moreover a Yorkshireman, he simply thought Miles a bit soft.' He couldn't imagine a piece of portable property' of that value being given in acknowledgment of anything so intangible as sympathy. At first he was under the firm impression that Miles wanted something more from him; and when at last he had to let this idea go, he came to the only other possible conclusion, that the gentleman was a bit soft.' And no doubt, from a Yorkshire point of view, Miles was a bit soft' where money was concerned. We are not sure that the station-master wouldn't have had a higher opinion of Miles-taken all round— if, on his hurrying at once, as he did to a jeweller's to have the ring tested and valued, he had been told it was gilt. He would certainly, however, in that case, have had a higher opinion of Miles' mental powers.

6