man Codd was compelled to agree, though he had certainly ne ver seen the hand of a statesman before.

CHAPTER III.

PLEASURE BEFORE BUSINESS.

VIRGINIA, or the snuff-box, as the wits of Chichester used to call it, was a mere garden, covering about an acre of ground, with a neat lodge or cottage in the middle of it. From the road, or lane, it was separated by a high wooden paling, in which there was a small gate, or rather door, provided with a bell, hung in the most beautiful belfry you can imagine, among the boughs of a magnificent horse-chestnut, now covered with its fine hyacinthine flowers in all their summer glory. Mr. Cox pulled the cord, or wire, and the first answer he received was the deep bark of his great dog Constable, a terror not only to the evil-doers of all the country round, but also to many who were not evil-doers, especially the Quakers, who always shuddered at his voice, and were miserable until they were assured that he was chained up in the securest manner.

"He is not the most amiable dog in the world, I must own," said Matthew, "but he defends the cucumbers and the strawberries we must give him credit, Hannah, for that."

"A good public officer, though a bad family-dog," said a familiar voice on the other side of the door, which was instantly opened by our old friend the Vicar, who had already arrived at the hospitable rendezvous.

"I hope you are not alone," said Mr. Cox, shaking the Vicar's hand heartily.

"Very far from it," said his reverence; 66 there are more of us than I believe you bargained for; but a couple of friends gave us an agreeable surprise this morning at breakfast, and we ventured to bring them with us, hoping to give you an equally agreeable surprise this evening at supper."

The next moment produced Mrs. Medlicott from behind a screen of bushes, accompanied by Hyacinth, Mr. Primrose, and Dr. Page.

The visit of the latter to Chichester was merely in perform

ance of his long-standing promise to spend a few days with his friend, the Vicar; but it proved exceedingly opportune for Reuben, for his greatest enemy was a man with whom nobody was so fit to grapple as the Docfor; and, moreover, it required all the influence of so old a friend and crony as Page to overcome the Vicar's repugnance to the new rig (as he called it), which his son was about to run, instead of working steadily at something or another to provide for his wife and children.

The Doctor was the same pleasant, confident, hearty, energetic, ready fellow, in the same flagrantly unmedical costume as when we last saw him on the Welch mountains; but there was a decided change visible in Hyacinth, and the Vicar had noticed it the moment he saw him; it was not in his figure, for a few years had not much increased his portliness, nor in his face, for that wore its habitual agreeable air of "genteel comedy," nor in his manners, for they were airy and mercurial as ever; it was almost entirely in his dress, which was a complete suit of black, although he was not in mourning. In fact, Mr. Primrose was on the point of taking orders, and we may add (although it was then still a secret from the world), on the point of taking a wife also; it having been arranged that he was to espouse the Church and widow at the same time,--a species of bigamy which the bishop was so far from disapproving, that he had already promised him his domestic chaplaincy and the first vacant living: so much better than Reuben did Hyacinth understand the art of thriving by his versatility.

Primrose, however, while about to take that comfortable place in the favour of fortune which Mr. Medlicott spurned, felt it the more his duty to interest himself in his friend's success in the more hazardous enterprise he was now engaged in. If he had been rich, he would have spent his money freely in Reuben's cause; as he was not, he did all that was in his power to do, by promptly and zealously complying with Mrs. Mountjoy's request, that he would hasten to Chichester, and take care that her nephew's promotion in the world should not be stopped for the want of a few hundred pounds.

While daylight lasted, which was not very long, the party rambled about the garden, sometimes pairing off, sometimes meeting in knots where the alleys crossed, and eagerly confabulating all together. Dr. Page was pleased with Dr. Cox; Mr. Primrose was enchanted with Mr. Broad; Mrs. Medlicott found a patient listener in the Alderman; the Vicar and Mrs. Cox had

long been the best friends in the world. Everybody, in short, was charmed with everybody, which is not always the case in more distinguished assemblies. In truth it was an election-committee, and nothing else, so much did the election and Reuben's prospects engross the conversation, until at length Mrs. Medlicott (who looked on the party in that light only) became so excited, and talked so volubly and so wildly about this borough and that borough, the subscriptions to be raised, the speeches to be made, the agents to be employed, what she was resolved to do herself, and what she thought everybody else ought to do, that it ended in her vehemence and prolixity completely bothering and disgusting the men of the party, especially her husband, who protested, as soon as supper was announced, against hearing any more on the subject, appealing to Hannah Hopkins whether there was not 66 a time for all things."

Mrs. Medlicott was most indignant at this appeal to the Quakeress, towards whom she still entertained a grudge, for her share in Reuben's marriage. Her eyes flashed green fire at poor Mrs. Hopkins; at least it looked green, through the medium of her spectacles; but in truth Mrs. Hopkins was as little tired of the discussion as herself: only the good old woman knew no more about elections and boroughs than the man in the moon.

The supper was a good specimen of the domestic arrangements of the Coxes, of which extreme neatness and simplicity were the sensible and agreeable characteristics. Matthews's Quaker marriage had been a source of great comfort and rational enjoyment to him all through life; it brought the best members of that excellent sect about him, and it gave him what mere wealth would not have given, the cheap luxuries of order and cleanliness in perfection. Cleanlines is as inherent in the Quakers as a sect, as it is in the Dutch as a nation. Rachel Cox was not excelled in this respect by the most exemplary housewife in all Holland. The only dust in her house was the snuff in her husband's canisters, and the very sight of her table lent a zest and piquancy to the plainest food that was laid upon it.

It was comparatively easy to avoid talking of election matters, but absolutely impossible to avoid talking of Reuben, when so many of his devoted admirers were present, and when his very absence, as usual, made him only the more thought of. Mr. Primrose had never heard Reuben speak in public. Mr. Broad gave him a delicious account of the speech at the Freemasons' Tavern, and this set every tongue going upon the tire

some cause of Poland, until the Vicar was as much bored by this new topic as he before had been by the general election. He was meditating how to effect a division without offending anybody, when his end was answered by old Mrs. Hopkins, who, being always fond of hearing learned discussions, was now suddenly seized with a desire to hear the opinions of the company on the nature of sympathy: "for," said she, "my Mary and I have puzzled our brains many and many a time about it, and we were never the wiser for our pains. What dost thou think, friend Primrose?"

Primrose was almost too much amused to answer; but at length he said, "that sympathy was one pole of an animal-magnet; antipathy was the other."

The question was then passed to Mrs. Medlicott, who had been disagreeably silent on ceasing to be disagreeably loquacious; but now, being under the necessity of speaking and maintaining her philosophical reputation, she assumed her most didactic tone, and replied, "that it was a very abstruse subject, more abstruse than probably Mrs. Hopkins had any notion of;—there was a great deal about it in Kant's philosophy; more, indeed, than she was disposed herself to concur in; she hardly hoped to be perfectly understood; but the view she was disposed to take was, that sympathy was that which formed the species, while it absorbed, or, in a transcendental sense, annihilated the individual."

"There, Madam, I must make bold to differ from you," cried the Alderman, "for when I, as an humble individual, sympathised with the Poles, at the urgent request of my friend beside me, I was certainly not annihilated, for here I am to say so."

"But you were absorbed, sir, were you not?" said Primrose, with a side-glance at Mrs. Medlicott, as if he fully participated in the contempt which her countenance already showed she entertained for the simple Alderman.

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Yes, you were absorbed, Alderman,-I must do you the justice to say you were absorbed,” said Mr. Broad.

The Alderman "owned the soft impeachment;" and now it came to poor Mrs. Cox's turn, who soon gave the riddle up, with a despairing sigh, which made everybody laugh; the Vicar, however, maintained that it was a capital practical definition.

"What dost thou say thyself, friend Thomas?"

"Well, Hannah,” replied the Vicar, laying down his knife and fork, and looking as metaphysical as he could;-" Well,

Hannah, let us see— -What is sympathy? Now suppose I was just now to feel an inclination for a glass of this old port, and that you were to feel at the same time, or that I were to inspire you with a wish to have a glass too-I should be strongly disposed to say that was sympathy."

Mr. Cox filled the Qakeress's glass to the brim.

"Our host's port, Hannah, is better than my philosophy," said the Vicar, drinking to her, and laying down his glass.

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I like friend Matthew's port, and I like thy philosophy," said the old woman, growing mellow rapidly;-"dost thou remember the fable of the shepherd and the philosopher? My Mary would be happy to repeat it for thee, if she was here."

Mrs. Cox was so good-natured to Mrs. Hopkins, or so cruel to her company, as to express a hope that Hannah would favour the company with the fable herself, in her daughter's absence; and beyond a doubt the hope would have been indulged, had not Mrs. Medlicott (who was in no very equable temper after the dry rub her husband had given her before supper) risen from the table abruptly, and with a most unconvivial allusion to the progress of time, put an end to the merry meeting.

"We have spent a very pleasant evening," said the Vicar, putting on his hat.

"A little business, in my opinion, might have been mixed with the pleasure, at a moment like this," said Mrs. Medlicott bitterly, and putting on her bonnet.

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Morning is the time for business," said her husband.

"I agree with his reverence," said old Matthew.

The Doctor, as a medical man, was of the same opinion. Mr. Broad agreed with the Doctor, and the Alderman, as a matter of course, concurred entirely with Mr. Broad. The result of this general concurrence was an arrangement to meet for the dispatch of business at breakfast the following morning, at the Vicarage. It was not, however, understood that either Mrs. Hopkins or Mrs. Cox should attend the committee; and the Vicar would not have been displeased if his wife could have been included in the same understanding.