million! And how well he spoke at the great county meeting about the
war, and the laund, and them bloodthirsty Mounseers! If their members
were loike him, Muster Fox would look small!"

The day declines; the town empties; whiskeys, horses, and carts are
giving life to the roads and the lanes; and the market is deserted, and
the bank is shut up, and William Mainwaring walks back to his home at the
skirts of the town. Not villa nor cottage, that plain English house,
with its cheerful face of red brick, and its solid squareness of shape,--
a symbol of substance in the fortunes of the owner! Yet as he passes, he
sees through the distant trees the hall of the member for the town. He
pauses a moment, and sighs unquietly. That pause and that sigh betray
the germ of ambition and discontent. Why should not he, who can speak so
well, be member for the town, instead of that stammering squire? But his
reason has soon silenced the querulous murmur. He hastens his step,--he
is at home! And there, in the neat-furnished drawing-room, which looks
on the garden behind, hisses the welcoming tea-urn; and the piano is
open, and there is a packet of new books on the table; and, best of all,
there is the glad face of the sweet English wife. The happy scene was
characteristic of the time, just when the simpler and more innocent
luxuries of the higher class spread, not to spoil, but refine the middle.
The dress, air, mien, movements of the young couple; the unassuming,
suppressed, sober elegance of the house; the flower-garden, the books,
and the music, evidences of cultivated taste, not signals of display,--
all bespoke the gentle fusion of ranks before rude and uneducated wealth,
made in looms and lucky hits, rushed in to separate forever the gentleman
from the parvenu.

Spring smiles over Paris, over the spires of Notre Dame and the crowded
alleys of the Tuileries, over thousands and thousands eager, joyous,