what wood was the best for ballot-boxes. Buckram said oak, because it was British; Barker was for cedar, because it was antiseptic. Buckram could see no sense in cedar, and Barker thought oak the height of absurdity. Neither would give up his crotchet, and at length they split upon the wood. The ballot party broke up into two furious factions; each called a cab, and went home in it; and the question of secret suffrage received a blow which it did not recover for three sessions.

CHAPTER XIX.

Neque virgo est usquam, neque ego, qui e conspectu illam amisi meo.
Ubi quæram ubi investigem, quem percuncter, quam insistam viam ?

I've lost the lady, and in losing her

Have lost myself. Where shall I seek her now?
Of whom inquire? I know not where to turn.

TERENCE.

Retrospective-Philip and Grace—a Dangerous Crisis-A bad Cook proves a good Woman-Escape of the Miser's Niece-Grace is pursued by Philip to London, and from thence to Germany-Overtakes unfortunate Miss Medlicott at Baden-Baden-What she was doing when he found her.

THE day of the dinner at Far Niente was big with important incident. In the morning of that day Philip Spread rejoined his family, looking worn, fatigued, and dejected. His pursuit had been as fruitless as his love had been imprudent. His conduct had occasioned a great deal of uneasiness to his family, and would have distressed them a great deal more had their confidence in Miss Medlicott's firmness of character, high principles, and superiority to every selfish consideration been less than it was. They only did the fugitive girl justice. The circumstances attending her flight from her uncle's house, and the fruitless chase of her lover are now to be briefly related. Philip had not only revealed to Grace the passion with which she had inspired him, but had been so rash and so impetuous as to make her a proposition of marriage. Perhaps he would not have proceeded so violently had her situation been different; but his anxiety to rescue her from her heartless relatives led him to outstep the bounds of prudence, and of filial duty also. Grace, upon her part, though grateful for his concern, and not indisposed to return his love, was too high-minded to involve him in a connection which she had so much reason to think could not but be highly objectionable in the eyes of his family. He urged his suit with ardor, but without shaking her resolution; still he persevered, took every opportunity of meeting her, pressed her with every argument he could use, with all his rhetoric when they met, and with

letters when he could not otherwise address her; but nothing could overcome her determination; and the only result of a suit so fervent, which it was impossible for her to grant, was to increase her embarrassments, and suggest the idea of extricating herself from them by flight from Liverpool. This bold and perilous step, however, she did not resolve upon taking, until, one night, after experiencing particularly ungentle usage from Mrs. Narrowsmith, who, destitute of all motherly feelings, had the novercai instincts in perfection. Grace had to lock herself up in " room, and otherwise fortify the door, to save herself from personal violence; and even these measures of defense would not have been sufficient had not Mrs. Dorothea Potts, although not much of a cook, been somothing of a woman, and induced or obliged her barbarous mistress to abandon, for that time, her step-motherly designs. No sooner was the dreary house silent that night than Grace noiselessly removed the furniture with which she had barricaded her bed-room door, unlocked it with the same care, and crept to the neighboring attic occupied by Mrs. Potts. Dorothea was asleep, and not very easily awakened. When at length she awoke, Grace rapidly communicated her resolution to fly, and make her way to London by the express train at daybreak. In London she would easily obtain a livelihood as a teacher of music, or, at the worst, she would again have recourse to the good clergyman who had received her after the shipwreck, and throw herself, for a time, upon his protection.

She thought for a moment of the Spreads; but the unfortunate attachment of Philip was only an additional reason for adhering to the former plan. Mrs. Potts acted well; she proffered her aid with wonderful alacrity for a cook disturbed in her slumbers, and with the aid of a lucifer-box, lighted a candle, and proceeded to assist Grace in the few preparations she had to make for her dangerous expedition. Not until that moment did it occur to poor Miss Medlicott that she was totally unprovided with money! Here again Mrs. Potts behaved in a manner which no cook in a royal kitchen, which not Alexis Soyer himself, could have easily surpassed. She had hoarded a sum of seventeen pounds, seventeen shillings, and three-pence half-penny in the treasury of a worsted stocking; most of it was her honest earning, part of it the fruit, perhaps, of some little peculation in kitchen-stuff. Ten pounds of this treasure she insisted upon advancing to Grace, who reluctantly and gratefully received it, shedding a tear upon the coarse hand so ready to do a delicate service. They crept down stairs together. It was now approaching five o'clock. In the hall another difficulty encountered

them, which it was surprising had not been anticipated, at least by Dorothea. The street-door was locked, and the key in the miser's bed-room, according to the custom of the house. It was impossible to escape with safety by any of the windows. Mrs. Potts, however, was not without a shift in this emergency. Directing Grace to remain perfectly quiet, she ascended again, and knocked at Mr. Narrowsmith's door. A venomous dog, between a terrier and a mastiff, which always partook the miser's bed, started up and barked furiously. The miser himself was at the door in an instant. Dorothea informed him that she suspected that there were thieves upon the roof, pilfering the lead, and desired him to light his candle. The light, as soon as it was kindled, revealed the keys of the house upon a chair beside the bed, and the moment her master came forth, followed by his dog, and went up stairs to protect his property, Mrs. Potts slipped into the room, and laid hands upon the keys of the fortress.

The morning being bitterly cold, Mr. Narrowsmith did not unnecessarily protract his observations, so that in less than a quarter of an hour Mrs. Potts was enabled to rejoin Grace below stairs. She now noiselessly unlocked the door, unbarred, unbolted, and unchained it, for it had as many fastenings as the gate of a jail; and, followed by the agitated, but courageous girl, issued silently into the dark street, and closing the door as much as it were possible to do without shutting it (so as to be able to re-enter unperceived), took the way to the terminus of the Liverpool and London rail-way. In half an hour Miss Medlicott was racing toward the metropolis with the speed of a post-hurricane between Antigua and Barbadoes. Mrs. Potts, having gone thus far in the affair, now felt that she ought to go a step farther, and acquaint young Mr. Spread (of whose passion she was aware) with the hazardous step that Grace had taken. It was in this way that Philip obtained that early news of the poor girl's departure which enabled him to follow her the same morning, by the next train that started for London. The letter which he left behind him for his parents has been already mentioned; they lamented the impetuosity of his proceedings, but could not but acknowledge that, in following the promptings of love, he had also obeyed the dictates of humanity. The dangers to which a young, attractive, and inexperienced, girl would infallibly be exposed in the "high-viced city" to which she had desperately committed herself, were only too easily imagined. But Philip's pursuit was vain. When he arrived in London he was much in the situation of Antiphilus of Syracuse:

"I to the world am like a drop of water,
That in the ocean seeks another drop;
And falling there, to find his fellow forth,
Unseen, inquisitive, confounds itself."

After a fortnight spent in unavailing researches, following twenty false scents, hunting all manner of places of refuge, probable and improbable, possible and impossible, offices for providing governesses, asylums for destitute females, boarding-schools, lodging-houses, even theaters, wherever he could trace any thing of the feminine gender, named Medlicott, he was just on the point of abandoning the chase, when he saw in a newspaper, among a list of passengers who had recently sailed for Ostend, in a packet called the Fire-Fly, the name of a Miss Medlicott, of whom, upon inquiry, he received a description, which left no doubt upon his mind but that it was Grace. He followed by the next packet, missed her at Antwerp, nearly came up with her at Aix-la-Chapelle, arrived at Cologne the very day she left it for Coblentz, and would have overtaken her at Coblentz if she had not just preceded him to Ems; from Ems she led him a dance to Schlangenbad, from Schlangenbad to Wiesbaden, from Wiesbaden to Mayence; there he almost had a hold of her, but she slipped out of his hands like a spirit, and hovered before him to Baden-Baden, where he at length overtook the fair fugitive, at the Bädischer-Hoof. It was evening; she was gone with her party to the Kur-Saal. Poor Grace!—what a change of scene was that for her! Philip ranged the rooms, scrutinized every face he met, and was just beginning to think that fortune was about to baffle him once more, when he heard the name of Miss Medlicott"Unfortunate Miss Medlicott!" - pronounced at his elbow, and turning quick round, was just in time to see the lady thus unpleasantly alluded to lose fifty florins at rouge-et-noir! She was as like Grace as he was to Hercules.

This was but one of several unavailing efforts; it was the first research in which he had ever exhibited perseverance; at length, however, he abandoned all hope of recovering the lost lady, and pale and dispirited retraced his steps to England.