and since the cold weather had set in he had taken them on a clear
day to gather sticks for a bonfire in the hollow of a hillside,

where he drew out a small feast of gingerbread for them, and improvised
a Punch-and-Judy drama with some private home-made puppets.

Here was one oddity. Another was, that in houses where he
got friendly, he was given to stretch himself at full length on the

rug while he talked, and was apt to be discovered in this attitude
by occasional callers for whom such an irregularity was likely

to confirm the notions of his dangerously mixed blood and general laxity.
But Will's articles and speeches naturally recommended him in

families which the new strictness of party division had marked
off on the side of Reform. He was invited to Mr. Bulstrode's;

but here he could not lie down on the rug, and Mrs. Bulstrode felt
that his mode of talking about Catholic countries, as if there

were any truce with Antichrist, illustrated the usual tendency
to unsoundness in intellectual men.

At Mr. Farebrother's, however, whom the irony of events had brought
on the same side with Bulstrode in the national movement, Will became

a favorite with the ladies; especially with little Miss Noble,
whom it was one of his oddities to escort when he met her in the

street with her little basket, giving her his arm in the eyes of
the town, and insisting on going with her to pay some call where she

distributed her small filchings from her own share of sweet things.
But the house where he visited oftenest and lay most on the rug

was Lydgate's. The two men were not at all alike, but they
agreed none the worse. Lydgate was abrupt but not irritable,

taking little notice of megrims in healthy people; and Ladislaw
did not usually throw away his susceptibilities on those who took

no notice of them. With Rosamond, on the other hand, he pouted and
was wayward--nay, often uncomplimentary, much to her inward surprise;

nevertheless he was gradually becoming necessary to her entertainment
by his companionship in her music, his varied talk, and his

freedom from the grave preoccupation which, with all her husband's
tenderness and indulgence, often made his manners unsatisfactory

to her, and confirmed her dislike of the medicalprofession.
Lydgate, inclined to be sarcastic on the superstitious faith of the people

in the efficacy of "the bill," while nobody cared about the low state
of pathology, sometimes assailed Will with troublesome questions.

One evening in March, Rosamond in her cherry-colored dress with
swansdown trimming about the throat sat at the tea-table; Lydgate,

lately come in tired from his outdoor work, was seated sideways
on an easy-chair by the fire with one leg over the elbow, his brow

looking a little troubled as his eyes rambled over the columns of
the "Pioneer," while Rosamond, having noticed that he was perturbed,

avoided looking at him, and inwardly thanked heaven that she herself
had not a moody disposition. Will Ladislaw was stretched on the rug

contemplating the curtain-pole abstractedly, and humming very low
the notes of "When first I saw thy face;" while the house spaniel,

also stretched out with small choice of room, looked from between
his paws at the usurper of the rug with silent but strong objection.

Rosamond bringing Lydgate his cup of tea, he threw down the paper,
and said to Will, who had started up and gone to the table--

"It's no use your puffing Brooke as a reforming landlord, Ladislaw:
they only pick the more holes in his coat in the `Trumpet.'"

"No matter; those who read the `Pioneer' don't read the `Trumpet,'"
said Will, swallowing his tea and walking about. "Do you suppose the

public reads with a view to its own conversion? We should have a witches'
brewing with a vengeance then--`Mingle, mingle, mingle, mingle, You

that mingle may'--and nobody would know which side he was going to take."
"Farebrother says, he doesn't believe Brooke would get elected

if the opportunity came: the very men who profess to be for him
would bring another member out of the bag at the right moment."

"There's no harm in trying. It's good to have resident members."
"Why?" said Lydgate, who was much given to use that inconvenient

word in a curt tone.
"They represent the local stupidity better," said Will,

laughing, and shaking his curls; "and they are kept
on their best behavior in the neighborhood. Brooke is

not a bad fellow, but he has done some good things on
his estate that he never would have done but for this Parliamentary bite."

"He's not fitted to be a public man," said Lydgate,
with contemptuous decision. "He would disappoint everybody

who counted on him: I can see that at the Hospital.
Only, there Bulstrode holds the reins and drives him."

"That depends on how you fix your standard of public men," said Will.
"He's good enough for the occasion: when the people have made up

their mind as they are making it up now, they don't want a man--
they only want a vote."

"That is the way with you political writers, Ladislaw--crying up
a measure as if it were a universal cure, and crying up men

who are a part of the very disease that wants curing."
"Why not? Men may help to cure themselves off the face of the land

without knowing it," said Will, who could find reasons impromptu,
when he had not thought of a question beforehand.

"That is no excuse for encouraging the superstitious exaggeration
of hopes about this particular measure, helping the cry to swallow

it whole and to send up voting popinjays who are good for nothing
but to carry it. You go against rottenness, and there is nothing

more thoroughlyrotten than making people believe that society can
be cured by a political hocus-pocus."

"That's very fine, my dear fellow. But your cure must begin somewhere,
and put it that a thousand things which debase a population can

never be reformed without this particular reform to begin with.
Look what Stanley said the other day--that the House had been

tinkering long enough at small questions of bribery, inquiring whether
this or that voter has had a guinea when everybody knows that the

seats have been sold wholesale. Wait for wisdom and conscience
in public agents--fiddlestick! The only conscience we can trust

to is the massive sense of wrong in a class, and the best wisdom
that will work is the wisdom of balancing claims. That's my text--

which side is injured? I support the man who supports their claims;
not the virtuous upholder of the wrong."

"That general talk about a particular case is mere question
begging, Ladislaw. When I say, I go in for the dose that cures,

it doesn't follow that I go in for opium in a given case of gout."
"I am not begging the question we are upon--whether we are

to try for nothing till we find immaculate men to work with.
Should you go on that plan? If there were one man who would carry

you a medicalreform and another who would oppose it, should you
inquire which had the better motives or even the better brains?"

"Oh, of course," said Lydgate, seeing himself checkmated by a move
which he had often used himself, "if one did not work with such men

as are at hand, things must come to a dead-lock. Suppose the worst
opinion in the town about Bulstrode were a true one, that would

not make it less true that he has the sense and the resolution
to do what I think ought to be done in the matters I know and care

most about; but that is the only ground on which I go with him,"
Lydgate added rather proudly, bearing in mind Mr. Farebrother's remarks.

"He is nothing to me otherwise; I would not cry him up on any
personal ground--I would keep clear of that."

"Do you mean that I cry up Brooke on any personal ground?" said Will
Ladislaw, nettled, and turning sharp round. For the first time he felt

offended with Lydgate; not the less so, perhaps, because he would have
declined any close inquiry into the growth of his relation to Mr. Brooke.

"Not at all," said Lydgate, "I was simply explaining my own action.
I meant that a man may work for a special end with others whose

motives and general course are equivocal, if he is quite sure
of his personal independence, and that he is not working for his

private interest--either place or money."
"Then, why don't you extend your liberality to others?" said Will,