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was not aware of the fact that my wife's brother-in-law was a candidate, so engrossed have I been by the events I allude to. The use of my name on the occasion was utterly unauthorized, as you ought (I think) to have taken for granted. If there is any thing I can do to extricate you from this embarrassment, you will find me "Your's, most truly,

"To Peter Barker, esq., M. P., The Albany, London."

"ARTHUR SPREAD.

Now, let Mr. Peter Barker's future course be what it may, he is legally, and to all intents and purposes, a member of the imperial legislature, charged with serious responsibilities, saddled with momentous duties, liable to serious penalties, and, moreover, a kind of target set up by the Constitution for the political bores of all England to shoot at, besides being in a special manner the property of the bores of Boroughcross.

In the course of a very few days his breakfast-table began to be covered with letters, applications, petitions, suggestions, communications of all kinds, pertinent and impertinent to his new station. There were a dozen applications for civil offices from independent electors, and three modest requests that the bachelor would step down to the Horse-Guards and get cornetcies and other commissions for sons of the writers; there were two petitions, in tin cases, against a standing army; three for the instant removal of the bishops from the House of Lords; two for the erection of maypoles in rural districts; and a very voluminous one from the ladies of Boroughcross, praying the House to prohibit the importation of cigars, and remove, at the same time, all restraint upon the trade in Flemish lace and Dutch tulips. At the sight of this multitudinous correspondence Barker felt bewildered, as if he had been dreaming, and he actually laughed hysterically as he turned over the papers.

As a matter of course, he would accept the Chiltern Hundreds, and shake himself free from all this embarrassment, as he would throw off the oppression of a nightmare. This was the simple, natural, obvious course; but is it the uniform way of the world to take the simple, natural, obvious course? At all events, Mr. Barker did not take it, and the reason why he did not (at least the only reason assignable with any degree of probability) is now to be stated. Mr. Spread, upon receiving the hasty letter which the reader has just perused, lost no time to communicate to the electors of Boroughcross the flat refusal of his friend to avail himself of the honor they had done him. Mrs. Harry Farquhar and her Treasury lordling

were instantly in the field again, and Mr. Barker, though so celebrated a cynic, was too little of a moral philosopher to resist the temptation of revenging himself upon the pretty shrew of Norwood, which he did most amply, by determining to retain his seat for one session at least. The Boroughcross Independent had been duly forwarded to him, containing Tom Turner's "spicy article," and Barker would have had no difficulty in discovering Mrs. Harry's smart hand in it, even if it had not been entitled "Peter the Hermit."

Perhaps, had the secrets of his heart been known, some degree of personal vanity would have been found conspiring with vindictiveness, to suggest the strange resolution to which Barker came upon this occasion, so utterly inconsistent with the principles and course of his past life.

Among the numerous annoyances, great and small, to which he had now become exposed, in consequence of his entrance into public life, were the repeated allusions in the newspapers to his movements and intentions, what motions he was to make, what party he was to act with, what bills he was to introduce. Many of these teasing paragraphs were inserted designedly to plague him; his eccentricities and morbid hatred of publicity being well known in the clubs and political circles. One day he read in the Morning

Post:

“Mr. Barker, the new member for Boroughcross, has arrived at his chambers in the Albany."

Another day he saw in the Globe:

"We have reason to believe that the question of vote by ballot will be brought before the House after Easter, by the member for Bath, and it is said the motion will be seconded by Peter Barker, esq., M.P. for Boroughcross."

A few days later he found the following in the Daily News: "Mr. Barker, M.P., is about to accept the high and responsible office of Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds; there will positively be a new election for Boroughcross."

It was probably to this announcement that he was indebted for the following letter, which he received shortly after :

March 15, 234 Silver-street.

"HONORABLE SIR-I trust your goodness will excuse the liberty I take of intruding on your valuable time, now the property of your country; but your kindness to me on a former occasion emboldens me to apply to you again, now that Providence has placed you in

the high position to which you talents justly entitle you; and to which, knowing your honorable ambition, I always predicted that, sooner or later, you would arrive. Finding, from the organs of public intelligence, that you are about to accept the lucrative and influential situation of the Children Hundreds (which I presume is an office connected with the all-important subject of national education), I am induced humbly to beg you will cast a favorable eye upon my poor nephew, Alexander, who now writes an excellent official hand (having been instructed by myself), and is otherwise competent to fill the office of Private Secretary, or confidential clerk, beside being particularly fond of children, which would, of course, be expected in your department. I beg to inclose specimens of my boy's chirography, with twenty-three testimonials of his moral character, and trusting again that you will pardon this intrusion- Cum tot sustineas'-as Horace says,

"I have the honor to remain,

66

"Your grateful and obedient servant,
MATTHEW QUILL,
"Your old writing-master.

"To the Right Honorable Peter Barker, M.P., &c., &c., &c.,

"The Albany."

Owing to a concurrence of circumstances not unusual in the political world-two changes of administration in three weeks, and the usual Easter recess-it so happened that the spring was pretty far advanced before Barker took the oaths and his seat for BoroughIt was on a Friday; and the same evening he received, to his considerable surprise, the following short note, in a well-known manly, honest hand.

cross.

"The Rosary, April 21.

"MY DEAR BARKER-Here we are-pretty well settled-come down to us to-morrow and stay until Monday. I would offer you the haunted chamber, but we have not discovered it yet. There will always be a tub for you here, where you can lie all day in the sun, snarling at the Irish church, and wrangling with Mrs. Spread -like Dean Swift and Lady Acheson.

"Peter Barker, esq., M.P., The Albany, London."

Ever yours,

"ARTHUR SPREAD.

The bachelor felt half disposed to decline this friendly invitation; not that he was offended at the free allusions to his cynical char

acter, but that he felt somewhat ashamed of himself in his altered, almost revolutionized, position, and had a little fear of encountering his old friend, whose perception of humor he knew to be keen, and who might well be excused indulging in a little banter upon the rapid decline, if not the complete fall, of Barker's vaunted system. But then, on the other hand, he knew by ample experience, that Spread was never the man to push the fairest jest beyond the limits of good-nature and good-manners; and, further (what probably ultimately decided the point), he always felt himself comfortable under his friend's roof, and had found it particularly agreeable during the last visit. Whether that was owing to Mrs. Briscoe's attentions, or to Laura Smyly's charms, is not a question into which we are called upon to enter.

On the Saturday morning before he started for the Rosary, the member for Boroughcross again saw in the Times the alarming advertisement which has already been extracted from the columns of that newspaper. It was beginning to make him seriously uneasy, and the more so, because, on several occasions, as he walked the streets, he saw (fortunately without encountering) the identical young man to whom, it was so clear, that the advertisement referred. The bachelor, with this fair nephew dogging his steps, felt like Frankenstein, pursued by the misshapen creature of his hands; and, far from thinking himself" deeply concerned" in accepting Mr. Ramsay's invitation, he never, in all his life, experienced so little desire to visit Chancery-lane.

CHAPTER XVII.

Now turning from the wintry signs, the Sun
His course exulting through the Ram had run,
And whirling up the skies, his chariot drove
Through Taurus and the lightsome realms of love,
Where Venus from her orb descends in showers
To glad the ground and paint the fields with flowers.

The Flower and the Leaf.

The Rosary-The Spreads at Breakfast―Their Visitors, feathered and unfeathered-Finches and Smylys-Laura Smyly stays at the Rosary-Mr. Spread escorts Adelaide back to Far Niente, the seat of Dean BedfordThe Dean and Mrs. Bedford in their noontide Slumbers-Mrs. Harry Farquhar imitates Mohammed-Arrival of the Bachelor-Owlet appears in the Twilight-Explains the Religious Uses of Church Theatricals-Barker's Hit at the Deans-More detailed Account of the Rosary, and what made it a particularly pleasant House.

THE Rosary, to which Barker was now about to be introduced, and where important events were destined to take place, was exactly the place for a family like the Spreads, with ample means, hospitable habits, elegant tastes, and cheerful dispositions. The domain was extensive, undulating, and not overplanted; it extended to the river-side, and abounded with walks and terraces, shady without gloom, and courting the sun, without being exposed to the unkindly blasts. Embraced from northwest to northeast by rising grounds, and imbosomed in woods, from every malignant point of the compass it was screened completely. There were two spacious gardens, laid out with an equal eye to productive power and picturesque effect. There were hot-houses and green-houses, graperies and pineries, a dial for Philip to regulate with his sextant, and an apiary, under a sunny wall, to aid his researches into insectmathematics. In fact, it would be hard to say what the Rosary had not a wash-house, a tool-house, a cow-house, a pigeon-house, a boat-house, a brew-house, an ice-house, and a bake-house, a dairy, and an aviary, a fowlery, and a piggery. Then there was nothing naked, unsightly, or neglected in any corner of the place; not a

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