The Maid of Maiden Lane

"The man is hateful to me."

"He has done a thing that makes him hateful; but perhaps for all that, he has been so miserable about it, as to have the pity of the Uncondemning One. I hear your father coming. I am sure you will have his sympathy in all things."

She left the room as the Earl entered it. He was in unusually high spirits. Some political news had delighted him, and without noticing his son's excitement he said-"The Commons have taken things in their own hands, George. I said they would. They listen to the King and the Lords very respectfully, and then obey themselves. Most of the men in the Lower House are unfit to enter it."

"Well, sir, the Lords as a rule send them there--you have sent three of them yourself--and unfit men in public places, suppose prior unfitness in those who have the places to dispose of. But the government is not interesting. I have something else, father, to think about."

"Indeed, I think the government is extremely interesting. It is very like three horses arranged in tandem fashion--first, you know, the King, a little out of the reach of the whip; then the Lords follow the King, and the Commons are in the shafts, a more ignoble position, but yet--as we see to-day, possessing a special power of upsetting the coach."

"Father, I have very important news from America. Will you listen to it?"

"Yes, if you will tell it to me straight, and not blunder about your meaning." "Sir, I have just discovered that a letter sent to me more than two years ago, has been knowingly and purposely detained from me."

"By whom?"

"A man into whose hands it fell by misdirection."

"Did the letter contain means of identifying it, as belonging to you?"

"Ample means."

"Then the man is outside your recognition. You might as well go to the Bridewell, and seek a second among its riff-raff of scoundrels. Tell me shortly whom it concerns."

"Miss Moran."

"Oh indeed! Are we to have that subject opened again?"

His face darkened, and George, with an impetuosity that permitted no interruption, told the whole story. As he proceeded the Earl became interested, then sympathetic. He looked with moist eyes at the youth so dear to him, and saw that his heart was filled with the energy and tenderness of his love. His handsome face, his piercingly bright eyes, his courteous, but obstinately masterful manner, his almost boyish passion of anger and impatience, his tall, serious figure, erect, as if ready for opposition; even that sentiment of deadly steel, of being impatient to toss his sheath from his sword, pleased very much the elder man; and won both his respect and his admiration. He felt that his son had rights all his own, and that he must cheerfully and generously allow them.