laughter and for tears; and beneath the weight of it the jury system should have tottered to its fall. But Whistler, the very man who could have laid bare its absurdity, was he who had brought it into action. His subsequent attacks on Ruskin's witnesses led him to practise the gentle art on Burne-Jones: "Jones R.A." was the rather schoolboy form of reference to an artist adored by the Paris that is sometimes quoted for London's shame as Whistler's great appreciator. Whistler

(who did not greatly admire Turner) had an artistic as well as a personal quarrel with Burne-Jones. The "R.A." was of course wrong-a "happy fault," and perhaps a conscious one; for when somebody pointed out to Whistler that it should have been "A.R.A." he replied that it was a difference without a distinction.

In his later years Mr. Whistler flitted between Paris and London, spending much of his time under the roof of his friend Mr. "To the rare Few, Heinemann. "I have who, early in Life, have rid found a friend. at last," he Themselves of the used to say. After the Friendship of the death of his wife his spirits many, these pathetic Papers flagged, and he grew more are inscribed." and more absent from and in society. The old wit was enkindled less often than before; though it would flash forth on occasion. The old ironic vein was transformed into a manner almost paternal, as when, at the end of a dinner during which he had scarcely spoken, he turned to an American girl among the guests, till that evening a stranger to him, with the phrase, "I am proud of my beautiful young countrywoman."

CHAPTER XIV. "Presque tous les hommes d'action inclinent à la fatalité, de même que la plupart des penseurs inclinent à la Providence." BALZAC.

Y

AFFORD, which was a small harbour in the reign of Henry II., is now the county town of Frampshire. It stands in a hollow surrounded by hills from which the river Wellow runs to join the Franton stream on its way to the sea. On market-days the High Street, with its few fine Jacobean buildings, gabled and ivy-clad, would be filled by farmers, shepherds, carriers, butchers, and land-agents, carts and horses, vans and donkeys, dogs, boys, and smiling young women. The "Wheatsheaf Inn and the "Bugle," both popular houses, would have their bars, parlours, and stables overcrowded; the bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle would mingle with the sound of voices, the cracking of whips and the rumble of wheels on cobble-stones. But at other times the town would be silent, and during summer the flies droning on the blinds, and during winter the frozen water cracking in the cisterns would be all that was audible in the drowsy thoroughfares.

The office of the house occupied by the elder Federan, and in which the business of the firm, Messrs. Federan & Son, was transacted, faced the Town Hall, a picturesque old building of the fifteenth century, with a solar or range of open shops outside. The office walls were lined by deed-boxes bearing county names of distinction and enlarged maps of various private estates. The diagram, for instance, of Mr. Puddifant's Grange was somewhat larger than the map of Europe. A large table covered with papers, files, deeds of every description, and reference books, stood near a globe and a copying-press in the middle of the room. A small black cat dozed all day on the green rep curtains, which trailed a yard or so on the floor; and a photograph of old Mr. Federan in his youth, with his wife, and Gerald, as a child in christening robes, hung in a carved oak frame over

the mantelpiece. The wheeled-chair in which old Federan now sat for a few hours each morning was rolled near his mahogany desk in front of the window. Here, when work was slack, a musical-box in a rosewood case (purchased at the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace of 1851) would be opened, wound up, and set playing for the old solicitor's amusement he never wearied of "Robert, toi que j'aime," "Drink to me only with thine eyes," ," "Flow gently, sweet Afton," and "The Overture to Zampa." He had been what is called a fine figure of a man in his youth, but he was now bent by disease, and his face, which had once been handsome, had so dwindled with. the years that it seemed to consist of a twitching mouth only, while his eyelids, weighed down by long white lashes, fell so heavily over his eyes that he appeared almost sightless.

A week after Gerald's final interview with Rachel, old Federan was sitting as usual in his chair, making laborious entries in a note-book and glancing up at intervals at the clock. Sometimes he rang a small hand-bell by his side, and, when the summons was answered by the office-boy, he would ask in querulous tones whether Mr. Gerald had not arrived yet. On receiving a negative reply he would shake his head, frown, and continue his difficult calculations. The bell of the Grammar School had barely finished striking the closing-hour, and the laughter and cries of the liberated boys were filling the High Street, when the younger Federan entered the office. He had been to Edinburgh for a client, and the fatigue of the long journey offered an acceptable explanation for his haggard appearance.

"I've been working out some of your ideas," said his father, irritably, "and I'll have nothing to do with them. I follow them quite well, but I will have nothing to do with them.”

Gerald controlled an angry reply, and, leaning affectionately over the old man's shoulder, closed the book in which he was making, with a paralysed hand, illegible figures.

66

My dear father," said he, "in your

state of health, why try and mix in these things? Why not leave them to me?"

"I have been in this business now for fifty years, and my father before me. I do not pretend to keep pace with these modern notions in the way of speculation, but there are certain ideas of honesty which I hope will never grow old-fashioned. I don't see how you could have advised Miss Tredegar to accept Coolidge's offer. Besides, can Coolidge pay? That is the point."

"Would he make the offer," said Gerald, impatiently, "if he could not stand to it? I don't suppose it is his own money."

"Then whose money is it?"

"I don't think that is our business. A man planks down his fifteen thousand pounds on the table: I don't see that we have any right to ask him where it comes from. If the money is not his, then the estate is not his. You cannot put a house and four hundred acres of land in your coat pocket and walk off with it. You are getting fussy, father!"

"I know that Coolidge has no money of his cwn," said the old man, obstinately, "and I know that if there is any purchaser who is willing to pay fifteen thousand pounds for the Franton estate, he would be perfectly willing to pay a great deal

more.

But he wouldn't employ Coolidge. That is not Coolidge's line of business at all. And, in fact, there are a good many things I want to ask you about-things that are puzzling me a good deal. Now, what about your aunt's seven thousand that has to be re-invested? And then that mortgage down at Doulton-and that legacy of Mrs. Helmyng's?"

The young man wiped his forehead and strolled over to the window.

"Here am I barely back from that niggling business at Edinburgh," he exclaimed. "Do give me a moment's breathing-space. It is all right. You have been too ill-I couldn't rush up to you with every little note and every twopenny-halfpenny transaction. It is all right, I tell you. Will you wait till Sunday? I can give you everything you want to know on Sunday afternoon."

"I never work on Sundays. It has always been my principle not to work on Sundays, and, please God, I will not do so now. Sunday is a day of rest."

"Well then, Monday. I have got the most awful headache from this east wind."

Her

As he spoke, he noticed the form of Mrs. Coolidge advancing up the street, and, as she was a woman who rarely ventured out, he was filled with a sudden, instinctive apprehension that she was the bearer of disturbing news. She was tall and slim, with large swaying hips, and the shoulders of an immature girl. face, which had once been of the type associated with the drawings of Burne Jones, had aged from the stress of constant anxieties, and grown almost waxen from a life of many illnesses passed indoors. There was something ominous in the mere outline of this living diagram of disappointment, grief, and despair. As she halted at the street door below, the young man's heart sank, and heavy lines, already too set for his age, appeared as suddenly on his brow as wrinkles do on the smooth sands after a wearing tide.

"There is somebody coming now," he said: "I wonder what she wants."

"Who is it?" said his father.

Gerald was about to give the name, when he checked himself and lied without hesitation: "It is Mrs. Taylor."

"I can see her," said old Federan. "She has come about the land over by Woodbury."

"You can't see her: it is out of the question," said Gerald, firmly. "Now do be guided by me. You will kill your

self. Shall I see her here or shall I go out?" He put his hand on the back of the chair.

"Wheel me out-do!" said the senior partner, bitterly. "I can see you don't want me. I am in your way in more senses than one. Wheel me out by all means!"

Gerald shrugged his shoulders with impatience, wheeled the old man into the adjoining room, in which they usually took their meals, and closed the double doors which divided the living-rooms of the house from the office.

Mrs. Coolidge, as she entered, lifted her veil to its usual line just over her eyebrows, and sank into the first chair she saw.

"Bert has gone!" she said, in a voice which had become a chronic moan.

"Gone? Gone where?” asked Federan. "The old fit has come over him again. He has been as good as gold for months, but lately, when he has been alone, that restlessness-you know it-began. Very