Time went on; and then it came suddenly into the heads of sundry people, that George Lawford, Esquire, of Lawford, would most ably represent their interests in parliament; and accordingly he was warmly solicited to allow himself to be nominated. His father thought of his own parliamentary life, now lying behind him at the distance of many years, and to him it seemed encircled with a golden halo. Yes, his son, his favourite son, as he now called him, must certainly serve his country, as his father had done before him. George was not unwilling: Dr. and Mrs. Colville warmly seconded it; but then came a difficulty-George was no public speaker; the election would be contested violently; there was a deal of popular talent on the other side; pamphlets and broadsides were already in circulation; George must have some one beside him who could write and even speak for him. "If I had only Frank's powers!" said George. Mrs. Colville had thought the same thing, and so had her husband; and then, as by a simultaneous impulse of mind, the whole family conclave spoke out. Would it not be as well to make use of Frank? there had been displeasure enough shown by them. To be sure, Frank might have served them just as well, had he been a barrister; but then, as he chose to be an author, why not make use of him? Poor Frank! no doubt he would embrace, with joy, such an opportunity of reconciliation with his family; and then, when his brother was in parliament, he might be able to do something for him; and, as this unfortunate cacoethes scribendi seemed natural to him, they must have a little charity towards him, just as they would, if he had a crooked spine. "To be sure we must," said Mrs. Colville, who had come to the Hall for the occasion, "we must all remember, that Frank is our own flesh and blood!" His father wrote to him immediately a letter at Camilla's dictation. A good deal was said of his delinquency; of his having run counter to the wishes of his father, of the grief which his pertinacity had occasioned, and of the willingness there was, notwithstanding, in the parental heart, to pity and to forgive. Now, he was told, an opportunity offered to serve his brother George in his own peculiar way; and, by serving George, to oblige his family. IIis family were willing, the letter said, to make this occasion the means of family union; the past should be forgotten, and good understanding henceforward exist among them. The whole affair was then explained to him; and he was desired immediately to come down, so that, on the spot, he might employ all his powers for the service of his brother. Instead of going down however as requested, Frank replied by letter to the family proposal of peace; and this letter fell like a thunderbolt among them. It was a long and eloquent letter; a letter full of affection, and which had not been written without emotion. The purport of it was, that much as Frank desired a reunion with his family, willing as he would be, at any personal risk to himself, to serve any one of them; yet, he grieved to say, that in this one particular alone, he could do nothing. The most honest and singleminded inquiry after truth, had led him to adopt political opinions opposite to those of his family. It was a matter of principle and duty with him, not of pleasure or will; and that, however painful it was to differ or separate himself in any way, from those with whom natural affection allied him, he had no alternative, if they regarded his conduct as offensive, because every principle of religion and duty would force him to adhere to what he considered as truth. No words can describe the wrath, and indignation, and scorn, which this letter produced. He was a traitor to God, and to his family. This was what his abandonment of a gentlemanly profession had led him to! They knew that it would lead to no good; Dr. Colville had said, from the first, that there was nothing but rank radicalism in his books, however disguised; he was a disgrace to the family! and it was a thousand pities that ever they had asked his assistance. The most angry letters were sent him in reply. His father disowned him as his son; Mrs. Colville as her brother; George foretold the loss of his own election through him; and even poor Adolphus put forth a feeble philippic. As George had foretold, he lost his election; and lost with it a deal of money, which made it harder still to bear: all of which, as a matter of course, was ascribed to Frank. CHAPTER V. Frank Lawford had yet a third sin to commit, and that was his marriage; but a peculiar event led to that, which we must relate. He was walking one day along Harley Street, when a horse in a private little carriage, in which an elderly lady was seated, took fright, and almost immediately dashed it to pieces against some impediment in the road. The lady was in the utmost alarm and danger; when Frank, without a moment's consideration for himself, rushed forward, and bore her in his arms to a place of safety. Every one admired his promptitude and presence of mind. The old lady was most grateful; and, giving her address, begged him to call upon her. This led to an intimate acquaintance. She unfolded to him her particular circumstances: told him that she had no immediate connexions in the world, excepting an old Scotch cousin, with whom, as a child, she had been brought up. To him she had left the bulk of her property, and to his children, one of whom was a missionary in the East Indies; another, a clergyman in Scotland; and the third, a daughter, who gained her living as a daily governess. The father and daughter lived in London; but a misunderstanding of some years' existence kept herself and them apart. The old gentleman was, in case she died without a will, her heir-at-law; but it was her intention, she said, to surprise him by her liberality. She knew him very well, and his proud spirit he would not come near her, lest he should seem to be courting her favour; but she would be his and his children's benefactor after all. But there was more to leave, the old lady went on to say, than what she meant for the Macintyres: she should have a residuary legatee, and perhaps and with this she nodded and said, that Mr. Frank would never have reason to regret having risked himself to save her. There was something very cordial and maternal about this old Mrs. Vaughan; and, in reply to all her inquiries respecting his family and his prospects, he frankly told all — that he was disowned by his family, and why. Mrs. Vaughan was herself a radical in politics-Heaven help her! She went a long way beyond Frank; advocated universal suffrage, and universal equality in every way, for rich and poor, black and white, man and woman, alike. All which was good and right as a principle; but then, Mrs. Vaughan was very extreme in her opinions for all that; thought that women should choose their own husbands very much more independently than they now did; and that they should sit in parliament as well as men. It was on these subjects, she said, that she and her cousin Macintyre had quarrelled. Frank was the least in the world startled when he saw, in this lady, the exaggerated reflex of his own opinions; but he nevertheless made her a present of a handsomely bound set of his own works, which she very carefully read, and criticised very freely. At Mrs. Vaughan's, Frank met a certain Mr. Morgan, an author likewise by profession, a round-faced, sallow-complexioned young man, of very obsequious and deferential manners; but whose political and general opinions much more accorded with the old lady's, than his own. Frank felt a sort of instinctive dislike to Morgan; Morgan's ultra notions seemed to create a reaction in his mind; and long, and often very warm, were the arguments between them in Mrs. Vaughan's presence, where alone he met Morgan, and to please and flatter whom Frank suspected these opinions to be held. Like old Mr. Macintyre, Frank felt frequently a sort of delicacy in going uninvited to Mrs. Vaughan's, lest it should seem to be for selfish ends; besides which, the society of Morgan, whom he was always sure to meet there, was extremely distasteful to him. He One day when Frank had been absent a whole month, he received a note from the housekeeper, informing him that Mrs. Vaughan was very ill and wished to see him. found her evidently sinking fast: she was still sensible, pressed his hand, reproached him for his long absence, and spoke with tears of her gratitude. Morgan was not there; and with a feeling of self-reproach for having really neglected her-she who had been as a mother to him when his own father and family had cast him off-he resolved, during the rest of her life, to devote himself to her. He stayed with her the whole day; read prayers to her, to which she was too weak to respond; and only left her at night on the assurance of the physician that he saw no immediate danger, promising to return early the next morning. The next morning when he returned she was no more. Her death affected him greatly, much more than he could have imagined. He was invited by her executors to attend her funeral and be present at the reading of her will. There were present, beside himself, the executors, Mr. Morgan, and Mr. Macintyre and his daughter. Mr. Macintyre was an old man; he probably, however, looked older than he really was, from his snow-white hair and a degree of paralytic weakness, which had given a bending feebleness to his whole person. He entered the room, leaning on the arm of his daughter, a young lady of perhaps threeand-twenty, whose countenance was less remarkable for beauty than a pensive, earnest expression, which told that sorrow had made 14 early demands upon a mind naturally re- Miss Macintyre moved slightly but cour- Frank There seemed some little hesitation and uncertainty among the executors, every one of whom saw a some one else there in that character whom he did not expect. length, however, at a nod from Mr. Morgan, At which Mr. Macintyre internally called impertinent, the seals were broken and the reading of the will commenced. glanced round the assembly: every countenance appeared calm excepting Morgan's, which was deeply flushed, and the quick, restless movement of whose eye betokened something extraordinary. He divined how it was. The will bore date but a few months previously. Three thousand pounds was left to Mr. Macintyre; considerable sums to various charities; her large edition of the works of Thomas Paine, and her Bayle's Dictionary, bound in calf, to Frank Lawford, Esquire, and the whole remainder of her property, real and personal, to Joseph Morgan, Esquire, subject only to the payment of a few stipulated annuities. The will was listened to with apparent patience in the hope of some codicil or other. But no codicil there was none. Joseph Morgan was residuary legatce, and Frank Lawford had a few books. "This is not the will!' Macintyre. exclaimed Mr. "This was not the will of five years ago, in which I was an executor!" exclaimed one or two, whose names as executors were now omitted. "This is her last will and testament !" said Mr. Morgan, with an ill-suppressed exultation. Frank Lawford felt now, for the first time, that really, after all, the old lady's will had been a matter of importance to him. He was excited and displeased; he felt that he had been deceived, if not ill-used. "Let us go!" said Catherine Macintyre to her father, on whom she feared the effects of this unlooked-for testamentary document. 66 said he, and what "Three thousand pounds only! without noticing his daughter; do you suppose the residuary legatee's share may be this Morgan, whom nobody knows any thing about what will he get?" asked the old gentleman from one of the executors under the former will, and who, not being named in the new one, had thus lost the two hundred pounds which were left to each executor for his trouble, and thus felt himself also an aggrieved party. "Not much under twenty thousand pounds," replied he," when all the annuities are reckoned out." Poor Macintyre swore that he would have the will set aside; called Morgan a knave and an artful interloper, and a scene of angry contention began. "Let besought Catherine, casting at the same us go, dearest father, again moment a glance towards Frank Lawford, as if asking for his assistance. almost fiercely, as Frank came forward and "Who are you?" asked Mr. Macintyre, politely offered to assist the old gentleman out. "This is Mr. Frank Lawford," said one of the disappointed executors. "Till within these six months he too stood very well in tion of him is like an insult." Mrs. Vaughan's will; and now the very men "Do me the favour, Mr. Frank Lawford," the coach, which is at the door. I must said Mr. Macintyre, "to see my daughter to know more about this iniquitous will; but this is no place for her." Catherine prayed him to return with her; but he was already in fierce contention with Morgan. "I will remain with your father," said From this day the fates of Catherine and As Catherine had feared, Mrs. Vaughan's fords of Lawford, that Frank was married by this time Frank's actions had ceased to surprise his family; "and yet," said Mrs. Colville, "this last act has put the finishing stroke to his former extraordinary conduct. Had Frank," argued she, “ 'distinguished himself by marriage, other things, in course of time, might have been passed over; but a false step in marriage leaves nothing to be repaired!" It was Christmas day. Thousands of homes were prepared in London for that day's festivity. The rich feasted the rich, the great feasted the great, and the noble the noble. There was a dinner-party also that day at Frank Lawford's, and the whole house had a look of festivity. Agnes, and her young brothers, had decorated the walls with evergreens; sprigs of holly, with their clustering berries, peeped out from above the heavy frame of their father's portrait, that beautiful portrait painted by Phillips in his best manner; a wreath of bay encircled the noble brow of his marble bust, which Chantrey, out of love to the author, had presented to his wife, and which stood among his books,-those household gods of his, in his library. But it was in the dining-room that there was most show of festivity; a garland of evergreen wreathed the chandelier, and at four o'clock the window curtains were drawn, and the lamps lighted, and the side-board shone out with its glass, and plate, and verdant evergreens. The table was spread for twelve; five individuals composed the family; the father and mother, Agnes the only daughter, and the two boys, Arthur a tall manly fellow, who looked fit to combat with the whole world, and little Harry as he was called, more as a term of endearment, than because of his size. Harry was turned eleven, slender in form, and timid in temper, gentle as a girl, and with a soft and delicate complexion, and beautiful wavy hair of a golden brown, which gave an expression of tender beauty to his whole person. He might have been justly painted as a St. John in childhood, and his character corresponded with that of the beloved Apostle. The father revised his will, leaving merely a small annuity to Frank, much less than to poor Adolphus, who had now sunk into a state of imbecility; and then, in the full belief that all his earthly duties had been thoroughly performed, at the age of eighty-six, went down to the grave of his fathers. Frank was out of England at the time of his father's death, and thus had no opportunity of craving his father's blessing, even if the old man would have given it. He, however, had so long been used to disappointment and trial, that let it come how and when it would he was found, like the true soldier on watch, ready to meet the enemy. A happy man nevertheless, whether fortune smiled or frowned, was Frank Lawford; for his sound mind, and his sound heart, and the love that surrounded him, as with an atmosphere of heaven, made his life a perpetual rejoicing. His literary career had also been a bright one. He had taken a high and sure place among the noblest minds of his country. Those great truths, of which at first he had been, as it were, the solitary apostle, advanced, and, advocated by his eloquent pen, had now rooted themselves into the great national heart, as a part of its own vitality. For all this, his had been an arduous and anxious life; and at fifty-seven all the provision that he had been able to make for his family, was These were the family; the expected guests the sum of two thousand pounds, for which were seven. An excellent smell of capitally his own life was insured. In a worldly cooked viands came up from the kitchen; point of view, rich stock-brokers, and bankers, the wine was decanted; Mr. Frank Lawford and holders of railway shares, would have had done it with his own hands, and very said, that he had provided wretchedly for his good wine it was; excellent port and sherry family. Sad thoughts of the same kind -none other; and such as he would have often clouded his own mind; but then, in given to the best lord in the land. The those dark moments, neither he nor those fat family awaited their guests in the diningmoney-bags took into account, that Frank room, and punctually as the clock struck Lawford would leave to his children what four the dinner was served, and at that momoney alone would never purchase,-finement the back-gate bell rang, not the front education, the noblest principles, and his bell, and little Harry exclaimed joyfully that own unblemished name. CHAPTER V. But let us now take a peep into that happy home at Kensington, which for so many years he had called his own. they were come! In they came, the welcome guests! and were received at the diningroom door as they came in, and then conducted to their seats. 66 Ay, bless you, madam, how good it is of you to do so much for a poor body like me," said the clean, white-haired old man, with the spare form, and the friendly eye, whom Mrs. Lawford placed at her right hand. "God bless you, sir; and a merry Christmas, and a happy new year," said the halfblind, elderly needle woman, whom Mr. Lawford placed in the similar seat by him. "Take the seat near the fire, Mrs. Collins," said Mrs. Lawford, to an emaciated and half-famished-looking young woman, in poor but decent mourning, with an anxious countenance, who led by the hand a pale but intelligent-looking boy, "you will find that seat warm, and Johnny will sit beside you." With a blush that crimsoned her melancholy face, and a tear in her eye, she took the offered seat, appreciating the thoughtful kindness of giving her and the boy those seats, for they two were the worst clad in the whole company, and were thus chilled to the bone. "Here is a seat for you," said Agnes, leading up an old man, a sort of Trotty Veck, in his Sunday clothes, and with a little cheerful face, all smiles and courtesy, like a sunshiny winter's day,-" here's a seat for you on my side the table," said she, placing him opposite the dejected young widow. Five guests were seated when the two last entered, and were cordially welcomed by all present. The dress and appearance of these last comers indicated much more of comfort in home and circumstances than was apparent in that of the others. The one was a man about fifty, of rather a severe countenance, but with, as phrenologists would say, striking intellectual developments. His strong iron-gray hair was cut in a precise fashion, and turned back from his forehead; his deep-set gray eye, which seemed to penetrate with a stoical coldness whatever met its glance, looked out from under a pair of thick shaggy eyebrows: there was, however, an expression of earnestness and heart about the lower part of the face, which somewhat neutralized the stern severity of its upper features. The whole head and face indicated a character in which two opposite natures prevailed, and left the beholder in doubt as to which would be the dominant one. His dress Iwas that of a well-to-do artisan. A wellworn, yet not by any means a thread-bare suit, showed that he was one that required its duty from every thing that belonged to him. He looked like a man who had money for a new suit when it was needed, but who would not buy one until then. With him there entered the room-not leaning on his arm, although she looked as if she knew that to be the mode in genteel society-a young girl of perhaps twenty, his daughter, and the apple of his eye, whose trim and elegant figure gave to her otherwise plain attire a rather modish and—if one may be allowed the word with reference to a poor girl-a distingué air. Her countenance was soft and remarkably pleasing; her fine black hair as smooth and glossy as silk; and the distinct pencilling of her exquisite eyebrows, which in colour exactly resembled her hair, accorded beautifully with a rich and peachlike complexion. The eyes, of a deep violet colour, had a laughing and rather coquettish expression, to which a little rosy mouth, with its curved and pouting lips, had been made to match. At the back of her head, as if with the design of concealing as little of her fine hair as possible, was set a jaunty little cap, modestly, but tastily trimmed with pink ribbons. Her dress was black French merino, made tight to the bust, and up to the throat, where it was relieved by a very small, white, fine linen collar. She looked, but for a certain bashfulness, or rather the air of one not quite at her ease, like a young gentlewoman in her morning-dress. These two were William Jeffkins and his daughter Fanny. Fanny had now been in service in the country for six months, and this was her first visit to her father. Jeffkins and his daughter were evidently, in a worldly point of view at least, the most respectable of all the guests, and accordingly were received by them all with bows and politeness. Every one would have given up their seats to them, more especially the merry old man who sat by Agnes and the half-blind old needlewoman. But the Jeffkins' places had been appointed beforehand, and so the dinner commenced. Such was a specimen of a Christmas dinner party at Frank Lawford's; and never could there be more joyous or more delighted guests, or more gratified hosts. It would have been a very convincing argument against any despiser or condemner of the poor to have witnessed the politeness of these poor people one towards another. The old man, to whom a good dinner made an era in his life, and who at eighty could count up every good dinner he had ever eaten, begged that "this lady" or "that gentleman" might be served before him- he was in no hurry; and the merry old man, with his white hair and his stiff joints, apologised to his neighbour |