gelly a "house" (as the teetotal gentlemen called it) which had less breeding than the Royal George opposite, but was possessed of a finer spirit. It was on the Tontine, therefore, that the opinions of West Drum converged. In the earlier hours contributions to the facts of the case were received impartially. Criticism enters with the later brews. Thus, when Jock Macnab related how, when he was having a daunder at day-break "to reflec' on the situation," he saw a man very like Maister Hariford near the auld pit-shaft at Dolgench, there was no sign of the scepticism of the later stage when, Jock's poaching habits being well known, he was told that "if it really was the gentleman, it was a peety he didna snare 'm.

"What d'you think about it?" one asked a little wizened old man who, so far, had said nothing, but contented himself with sucking his whisky through his front teeth, the protrusion of which, together with his tenacity in argument, led to his being named "The Weasel.

"I think it's demned ungentlemanly condik," he replied. "Here I've got something to say to Maister Hariford on the question o' the Truck Act; an' he's bolted. What the devil's the use o' stirring up idees if you'll no' wait and hear them expounded? It's like setting a hen on eggs and routing it out o' the nest afore the hatching."

A young wag thought that perhaps he might hatch his idee in the Radical demonstration to come off that night.

"Man," said The Weasel, "it's easy seein' that with all yer thinking you've never experienced the joys o' incubation. D'ye think there's any fun in thinking? It's the giving it words and watching the transmogrifying effects on the enemies' countenances that fills ye with a kind o❜— a kind o' jelicose feeling."

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Jelly coes be ! Whaur's the candidate?" shouted a fiery-faced farmer who had ridden miles for the collieshangie; and "Whaur's the candidate ?" was echoed round the room.

"There's something under it a'," said Sandy, the Dairyman.

"That's a terrible wise remark,'' snorted the farmer. "It's like Magnus Brown's, the byreman, when my coo deed last week. Depend upon't,' says Magnus, that coo deed o' something or anither."

By-and-bye The Weasel, who had been ferreting the candidate's ungentlemanliness, arrived at the conclusion that at least his disappearance settled the Election.

"Ye canna elect a man that's no' here. It would be like drinking the health o' a man that was deed."

While these speculations, and many others of a similar kind, were going busily on, another surprise was in preparation for West Drum, which, indeed, had never, as the local newspapers unanimously remarked, experienced such an exciting time within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. On the morning of the second day after the Conservative candidate's disappearance, the Drumshire Chronicle came out with an extraordinary letter from Sir Robert Graham. Sir Robert had not taken any active part in the contest; but all Drumshire knew that since he had worried his wife to death-which achievement had reacted on his conscience so much that, in order to make expiation by becoming better than ever, he had abjured Episcopacy for the United Presbyterian Church, and Toryism for Liberalism, thinking thereby to procure a greater measure of graceSir Robert had been a member of the Party of Progress. What, then, was Drumshire's surprise on reading Sir Robert's letter, which was a denunciation of the Liberal candidate, winding up with an announcement that he, Sir Robert, was so much disgusted with the plight into which Liberalism had sunk that he felt bound to dissociate himself from the Party, imperially and locally, and to do all he could to secure the election of Mr. Hertford !

But how, as The Weasel bad asked, was Mr. Hertford to be elected when nobody knew where he was? That was West Drum's first thought on reading Sir Robert's letter. The next thought was a very bitter pill to the Dungelly Atheist-an old argumentative weaver from whom everybody shrank, but upon whom (he being a grand hand at the heckling) the Liberal Party, with which he associated himself, could not afford to turn the cold shoulder.

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Aye, aye!" he said with a sigh, as he laid the paper down, and contemplatively stirred the fire in his lonely room up Lornie's Close. "An' I believe that mony o' they puir deevils o' U.P.'s and Baptists wull gang wi' him, tae."

Whether the Atheist's foreboding was justified by events will not be known until

the evening of the polling day; but there can be no doubt that when Hertford appeared on the scene again, which was on the day of publication of Sir Robert's manifesto, the popular favor for him was not diminished. His opponents, of course, jeered loudly, and there was an outbreak of sarcastic squibs; but his own side were too much relieved to put exacting questions to him.

That night, after addressing a packed meeting with a cogent eloquence such as even the Atheist was fain to admit had never been known in West Drum since Mr. Bradlaugh had visited the constituency, Hertford, while his supporters were pressing round him with congratulations, was gently and jocosely reproached for not having sent to the chairman of the meeting he had disappointed a message saying that he had been called away. Hertford laughingly turned the question aside.

Now, the real reason why he had sent no word when he ran away was that he had not been sure that he would ever set foot in Drumshire again. That all de pended on what Sir Robert Graham might say in answer to a certain letter which had been posted so as to arrive at Cairntaws on the morning when the delighted Liberals would be asking, "Whaur's the Tory candidate?" Since he had gone to the constituency, the Tory candidate had been engaged in more than the winning of West Drum. He had been working out the little plan which he had conceived on the morning when he had resumed his acquaintance with Miss Graham; and, although only Sir Robert and his household knew it, she too had quitted Drumshire when the Tory candidate had disappeared. They had crossed the Forth and gone through a little private ceremony before the Sheriff of Midlothian. Then Elsie Graham had written to her father saying that she had become Mrs. Hertford. he liked, she would be happy to return to Cairntaws instantly, and live there until it was convenient for all concerned to have a wedding pageant before Canon Fleming at St. Michael's, Chester Square. If he did not like, George and she would be quite content to take the Sheriff's word for it that they were duly married; and they would return no more to Drumshire. Still, she did hope that her dear father would prefer the first alternative: it would be so

If

nice to be married in church to a rising young Member of Parliament.

With Sir Robert's decision we are already acquainted. What he had been accustomed to consider his invincible integrity was put to a test which it could not stand. The battle within his mind was won by the vanity into which all his virtues were soluble. He was outraged at the completely successful defiance of his authority, which had never before, since he had succeeded to the estate of Cairntaws, been so much as questioned; but he could be avenged only by bringing a scandal upon himself, and the thought that the world would laugh at him was more than he could endure. Therefore the baronet told Elsie that she might come home, and resolved to make the best of a bad job by arranging, if possible, to be father-in law of a legislator. Hence Sir Robert's sudden disapproval of Liberalism.

When Elsie, in answer to her letter, received the command to come home instantly, Hertford, although he would have been delighted to go off on a honeymoon instead of going back to Drum, was as happy as the girl herself. After all, it was as well, he realized, to act according to regulation. His conscience being satisfied with the thought that he had been quite ready to defy convention if defiance should be necessary, he wrote a hasty letter to his aunt, with whom he had been in constant correspondence since the episode began, and then prepared for the return to West Drum. And on reaching his hotel after the meeting with which the contest had been so auspiciously resumed, he found a letter which put to flight any lingering doubt as to the propriety of his proceedings, and sent him musing happily.—

"HARLEY STREET, W.,
"June 27, 1892,

"MY DEAR GEORGE,— "Just before I met you in the Park three weeks ago I was saying to myself, Why didn't that nephew of mine run off with the girl?' And now you've done it! Well, I suppose you'll be bothered with scruples of ing that you have wronged her father. Disone kind or another. Perhaps you are thinkmiss the scruples. The most heinous of the few cardinal sins that I can think of is that which a man and a woman commit when, lik ing each other, they allow anything or anybody to prevent their union. The two of you, therefore, were not only justified in taking the law into your own hands: you were

bound to do as you did. Convention-conscience! What are these? There's much to be said for convention; but there's very little to be said for the conscience which, unless you are much changed for the better since I saw you, will be making you half-regret your escapade. The saying that conscience makes cowards of us all is less true than that cowardice makes consciences of us all. I've little patience with conscience as a rule. Intellect is but instinct run to seed, and conscience is often moral flabbiness giving itself airs. Critics of literature say that no good story has a moral; and we are all pretty well agreed with them. But why has it not occurred to any one to say that a life with a moral is just as bad as a story with a moral? It really is. The eminent Scotchman who, addressing Sunday-school children, told about a boy with no father or mother, and in rags, who, by industry and perseverance and

religion, had risen to be rich and powerful, and then said to them, impressively, ' I am that boy!'-that man was as great an outrage as David Grieve. For, as Carlyle said, life is meant to be an action, not a thought-and certainly not a moral. The less we think and the more we act, the better. So now, having won your bride, win West Drum; and then, conscience paying tribute to convention, come to be married decently and in order. I shall be proud of you both.-Believe me to remain, always yours affectionately, "JULIA CHESTERTON.”

"Sheer Paganism, I fear," said Hertford, filling his pipe. "And yet As Mr. Ruskin says of the Bible, so may one say of life: it is a great book of which not one word is to be understood but through an act."-National Review.