"this is a little sudden, I had not expected him so soon."

Who? who papa ?"

"Young William Craven; he is coming to-morrow. Still I am very glad. A room can't take long to get ready."

This was supposed by the populace to be Charlotte's admirer, en titre, So, conscious glances went round, and the girl who had lately been in office as a "terrible child," but was still holding on, as it were, a minister without portfolio, jogged her neighbour and laughed aloud. The sensible girl was not the least perturbed. "The front room, I suppose, papa?" she said.

"How long is he to stay, papa, dear?" said one of the family.

"A week, he writes," said Mr. Franklyn; "but of course we won't let him go so early. He is a most

agreeable young man to have in a house. You will all like him."

The ex-terrible child said demurely, "Of course! What does Charlotte say? Eh, Charlotte? She is the only one that knows him as yet."

"You will see to-morrow," said the sensible girl; "it will be a wholesome lesson for you to curb your impatience."

"Something splendid!" "A noble youth of course!" "All the virtues !" "Adonis! Brave, haughty, gallant," &c., &c.

These were all so many shafts launched at Charlotte. Not one hit. "She is getting red-look!" said the ex-terrible.

"Foolish children," said the sensible girl, quite cool and unmoved, "you should be all sent up to your nurseries."

Up at Chesterfield-street, things were gloomy enough. The lady of the house was to be ill in permanence, better one day, and more than worse the next. Doctors came in flocksfour at least -on the day fixed for a consultation; and their four decent carriages, quiet, demure vehicles, kept about the premises, in a sort of procession, as though they had come already for the funeral, and were waiting for the hearse.

Two of the medical gentlemen wore white ties, and were about as clean and varnished as clergymen; the others were rude, disorderly persons, not too nice with their razors. The sick lady up stairs was, metaphorically speaking, in the hands of one of the medical gentlemen, she was the Case, and his Case. He had taken out his licence, and these were his shooting grounds. He took his three friends up stairs to exhibit his prey or quarry, not without a certain pride. He lectured over her, fondly; said now and then, "You see, eh?" to which they answered in dry chorus, "Ha, hem, quite so!"

He took his stethoscope out, applied it to the chest of the patient, and for some minutes seemed to be looking with his ear through a sort of telescope. His brethren, then, all came

in turn, and looked as though looking with their ears through a telescope. The profound wisdom and ineffable depth of knowledge portrayed in each professor's face, as he withdrew his face from the operation, it would be impossible to describe. This species of autopsy on a living subject being concluded, they then withdrew, gravely, and even sadly, and adjourned to a private chamber below to consider their verdicts and take sherry and biscuits. That verdict was scarcely encouraging. Lungs "touched"-liver "touched" a good deal-general interior economy all more or less touched"—and above all, heart "gone."

"You see," said Sir Hervey Parkes to Jenny Bell, trying to work his throat free, as it were, out of his white collar; "you see, it is very critical, very critical indeed. Our patient's life is on a thread-on a thread-a breath-a_motion-you understand. No agitations-no sudden shockseverything soothing-ev-e-ry-thing soo-o-thing you understand."

Jenny's mournful eyes fixed themselves wistfully on the physician-inchief. Oh so sadly and wistfully. "What?" she said, and her round full fingers became clasped together; "No hope, sir? Do you mean that?

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Oh! sir." The distinguished physician took her for the affectionate and best loved of all the daughters. He had been pleased with her quiet manner all along. She deserved his approbation. My dear Miss Maxwell," he said, making an uneasy effort to work himself free from his collar, "I don't say that. We may work through for-0, dear me, yes-an indefinite period. But we must have care; an emulcient treatment-if you can follow me in the use of the term-strictly emulcient. I must speak plainly, and put no fine points on the matter-hem, you will understand. But the fact is our dear parent-yours, that is-is in a critical way. A breath- --a gust and"- Here the eminent practitioner finished the sentence with a gentle snap of his fingers. "Still with care-Oyes-with care, with kee-air," and he finished this sentence with an up-and-down movement of his head which, in the language of the human person, is significant of mild encouragement. He was very much pleased with Jenny, and went away saying to his brethren: and so "well regulated" (that was his word) a girl for a sick chamber he had rarely encountered. It was Jenny's function

to press the daily fee into the reluctant palm, according to the surreptitious laws of the guild. She performed the unholy action with the conspirator-like stealth proper. Shall we live to see the time when the barristerial community shall accept their fees in a stealthy, skulking fashion, with averted eyes, and a hand protruding backwards from the folds of the gown, into which adroit attorney shall chink his gold? Is the Guild of Mediciners the only one whose delicacy is to be consulted?

The suffering lady, then up stairs, was to float on smoothly to the end of her days. Every nerve of the family was to be strained to ensure her quiet. Every one was to creep up and down and about the house with cat-like steps. The worst was, she was sharp of temper, testy, a faded fashionable lady, long out of office, chafing against restraint, and eager for the fray again. She put no faith in these old laly stories of "heart gone," and "touched lungs ;" she would be well in a month or two. So here was the problem, that "emulcient treatment it would be hard to fit to such a subject.

MR. MAXWELL was wholly outside such associations, yet, not indifferent as a husband. He was more dull. What could he do? He was being worked like a beast of burthen; he was being driven round and round in a sort of committee ring, performing legal scenes in the circle," from morning till night, with attorney gentlemen in the centre scourging him round and round. The committee gentlemen sat in the boxes and looked on. He really would have grieved-grieved sincerely-had he been given time for that emotion. But his brain was greedily absorbing everything-feelings, emotions, sensibilities, even will. The demon of sixth House of Lords cases had entered into him, and had swept the whole premises clean. It had brought other demons' reports, and the statutes-terrible lodgers-who kept the House all to themselves. What could he do, save, indeed, furnish to Jenny,

who gently suggested it to him in the morning, supplies of those golden eggs which the medical profession requires the patient-goose or goosepatient, to have new-laid every day.

But besides, Mr. Maxwell, Q.C., was now plunged deep into a tremendous pool of railway battle, and was struggling across through heaps of floating, stagnant matter. There was now actually before the committee (Mr. Marshley, M.P., chairman) the Scour Valley Railway Bill, promoted by the Monster Leviathan Line of the country, the huge Polypus Company, which was stretching out feelers north and south and west, and in those directions crawling over the face of the land. One of their feelers took a little bend, which on the map might be as the curve of the little finger; and these giants now proposed sweeping direct through this lovely Scour Valley, a sweet pastoral nook, dear to anglers and trout lovers,

in order to cut off about eight miles of country. As the grand Polypus flew screaming through the kingdom, express, this was supposed to save ten precious minutes of vast importance to gentlemen of the bag. And yet, reasonable as this project would appear, in those days when economy of time is so justly considered, it was opposed-opposed grudgingly, snarlingly, not with tooth and nail merely, but with claws and fangs, and talonsopposed incomprehensibly by another monster society, a sort of Midland Polypus, in whose instance the Legislature, having made a clean cut transversely across the kingdom, gave them a sort of interest, which stretched away at both sides, and every year increased. These two grand Polypi, one crawling away northerly and westerly, the other diagonally, indirectly as it were, shared the country between them, and in some way obstructed any smaller schemes which broke out in those directions. Welcome to each were their legitimate spoils. But there were angles where the Polypi came near, and almost entangled their feelers; and there were little choice and dainty spots over which the shadow of the Northern feelers hovered, and over which the Midland longed to crawl, and over these debatable bits there was terrible railway "bad blood" and locomotive Soreness. So was it with the Scour Valley line, for which, up to that moment, no one had been solicitous, and of which few had heard. A wretched little water-shed. The eight mile saving of time was a pure blind. It was all a mere sham, and over that wretched little corner the two monster societies fought out their deadly quarrel.

The committee room where the judges sat was as a sort of museum lecture-room, frame-work being in troduced, on which were spread out plans, sections, elevations, a perfect acreage of cartridge paper, as though that branch of the Honourable House had turned itself into a gigantic laundry, and was striving to get through a large order in the table-cloth direction with as much speed as possible. Things were set out with a lavish effort at simplification, a magnifying over and over again, so as to bring the idea (whatever idea it was) home

to the meanest (committee) capacity. You could walk at an easy pace round the room, and follow the whole course of the Scour Valley line, displayed in brilliant colours, and brought conveniently on a level with the human eye. This was on a scale of some three yards or so to a mile, which are magnificent proportions in engineering plans. But lest even this magnitude should not reach to the committee, there were elegant extracts, as it were, of the Scour Valley line portrayed in gigantic cartoons at higher elevations, like the full length portrait of "a gentleman" at exhibitions; to be reached and have its beauties expounded by the agency of a wand. These works of art were distinguished by monster lettering, and the flashiest of colouring, so as to reach speedily to the committee's intellectual level. Its easy lessons might have done for a metropolitan infant school, with diagrams hung round, speaking with a superfluous intelligibility to the eye.

Thus on the lower level was made out indistinctly a little pale blue bridge which actually crossed this notorious river Scour by two arches. Higher up, this bridge had of a sudden developed into Brobdignag proportions, and had every stone distinct and conspicuous. A little more to the right, in the same region, was the bridge again, only cruelly cut across from pathway to pathway, and labelled "SECTION.'

A good deal turned upon this bridge, and on the Scour generally. The bridge was of the Northern Polypi; but in a handsome sort of way the Western Polypi were coming forward to protect the owners of the adjacent banks, fishing rights, and general privileges, and were even prepared with a plan of their own, which would take the line-their own-across the Scour at a high level through a lattice bridge. There were models, too, of both bridges, witnesses in platoons from the Scour Valley, squires and engineers in regular corps. There was what is called a "strong" bar for the promoters (Great Northern Polypi) : Mr. Parsee, M.P., Q.C., the eminent Parliamentary Counsel; Mr. Wynne, Q.C., Mr. Boggs, Q.C., and Holt, of the Outer Bar. For the Western Polypi, Mr. Sergeant Gall, Mr. Boshley, Q.C., Mr. Maxwell, Q.C., and Flookesley, of the Junior Bar. There were the local

solicitors from Scour Valley at so much a day "attendance;" there were the eminent Parliamentary solicitors, who had the "carriage" of the bill, Messrs. Jones, Bannocks, and Co., with their "attendance" also. There were lovely briefs new every morning laid on counsels' breakfast tables with the eggs; short-handwriters' notes written out at express speed all the day previous, and during a good slice of the night. There was much printing, much lithographing prettily done and coloured, and bound up with counsels' briefs, and furnishing those gentlemen with some field for absent or vacant scribbling. Everything was lavish and of the best, the paper the very finest. The eminent parliamentary agents spared nothing, knowing pretty well that nothing would be spared to them. They showed all the considerate munificence of undertakers (as they were indeed in some sense) at a moment of a bereavement.

Mr. Maxwell was on the opponents' side, the injured Westerns, who had been forestalled by the greedy Northerns. The fight was desperate. No one would have known him: the absent, vacant, timorous man of domestic life, now become noisy, combative, and actually collaring Boggs, Q.C. with ferocity. The two rolled over each other, gripping their throats, with loud snarlings, many times in the day, until Mr. Marshley, M.P., came and tore them asunder. They wrangled over witnesses as over bones. Mrs. Maxwell never knew the Maxwell of the committee rooms; it was another man. Had she heard his voice she would have passed by, and not owned him.

The witnesses-such witnesses!who stood there, herded helplessly like the cattle which some of them drove; who hung about the galleries with a timid air-with a proud air; who sucked sticks; who wore agricultural coats, with capes; who hugged primitive umbrellas affectionately; who seemed to have a vested property in the local solicitor, and elung to that unhappy officer as with a sense that he was responsible for their maintenance and keep in the great Babylon; who were get ting lost, and being brought back ignominiously; who were getting drunk and utterly helpless-a perfect

burden on the wretched solicitor, who, besides the labour of telling over his men about a dozen times in the day, like a sergeant his soldiers, was besides incumbered with this helpless caput mortuum, sadly gone in drink. This alcoholic affliction at times took the shape of phrensied violence, of loud screams, and general combativeness, which were, however, not to be controlled by the arm of the law, the introduction of which would wound a witness's sensibilities, but had to be soothed into tranquillity by the wretched local solicitor in person.

The engineers were remarkable. On them seemed to rest the whole burden of the case, and they knew it. Four were marshalled on each side,-short and wiry engineers, tall and burly engineers, spectacled and unspectacled engineers, all fighting the battle with the zest and hostility which belongs to that and the medical guild.

When Mr. Tummins, C.E., the local professional, was placed in the chair, to support the Northern Polypus view of the Scour Valley, and had his plans put into his hands, and was examined by Boggs, Q.C., with a skill and fluency, and familiarity with technical terms, which would have led a careless public to suppose he had handled theodolites in infancy, and had been busy taking levels all his life, four pairs of engineering eyes glared at him from the other side of the table, and at each answer four heads came together and tossed contemptuously, and four mouths uttered disparaging whispers. But what was this to the time when Mr. Bagley, C.E., the "eminent" engineer who had constructed the famous Bilston Reservoir, and built that wonderful viaduct of fifty-six arches across the river Leathy, under which a seventyfour might pass with the greatest

ease

an extremely probable voyage)- and which was justly the wonder of the empire, but had made the shareholders bankrupt; when this gentleman took his seat in the chair, and with a calm, smooth impassibility, gave his testimony, the engineering eyes opposite were awed into respect. Only one, Mr. Cox, C.E., almost "eminent," also associated with some 'daring" bridges,

which had excited wonder, but impoverished shareholders, was consumed with a secret gnawing envy, and turned yellow. His examination-Mr. Parsee, M.P., the eminent Parliamentary counsel, had reserved him for himself as a sort of legal tit-bit-occupied nearly two days, and when the committee rose, it was known that his cross-examination would be undertaken next morning by Mr. Maxwell, Q.C.

These counsel of Parliament have wonderful gear and machinery, strangely universal. The wheels and cogs and drums of their brain fit, by a little adjustment, any description of material. They are omnivorous, and can take in and work up wheat and chaff indifferently, medicine and drugs, machinery and the nice laws of mechanics, mathematics and formulas, optics, refraction of lenses -as when dealing with a lighthouse patent, and all the niceties of poisons, so as to be fitted to do

battle for a couple of hours with Doctor Taylor. Let all this multifarious range be once "briefed" to them, and it is ready for entering the machine. It is all one in the legal parlour the night before; a single handle sets all to work. Round fly the wheels with hum and burr. The properties of matter, the coefficients, the densities of iron, the strain it will take without breaking, and such awful matter (awful, at least, in being played with viva voce-reasoned upon coram publico) as the formula: