would be more likely than a Colonial Secretary to expose himself to attack. I repeat, then, that if your colonies had been far better governed than they have been, your success (speaking hypothetically, John) would afford no argument in favour of the consignment of India to the tender mercies of a single independent Secretary of State.

And now, John, I have done. At least I have done for the present. You may take away from me my Government, but you cannot take from me my reputation. Depriving me of my Government, you consign me to History; and History is my best friend. I feel in my heart, brother, that when I become a tradition, my real glory will commence. You may think lightly of it now, John. In the hurry of politics-in the strife of parties-amidst the roar of a great rebellion - it may seem a small thing to you that on some fine summer morning the Government of the East India Company quietly ceases to be. But years-nay, centuries hence-upon the great fact, that an English Company-a Company originally of mere traders-consigned into the hands of the Imperial Government the care of an immense empire, reared, nurtured, and maintained by the enterprise of a mercantile corporation, and by the skill, the courage, and the integrity of their servants an empire over scarcely less than two hundred millions of inhabitants, of different races and religions-upon this great fact, I say, years, nay, centuries hence, thinking men will comment with wonder and admiration in all the languages of the civilised globe. Such a spectacle the world has never seen before. You may howl at me; you may spit at me; you may drag me with contumely and insult from my throne; but the great fact of which I speak will be still a fact, and time will make you only more sensible of its magnitude and nobility. You may keep that empire, or you may lose it, John; but it will be the empire of the East India Company all the same. The property may change hands; the edifice may be repainted and replastered-you may

no

grave the royal arms over the gateways, and let no one pass without the passport of the Queen; but still there will be the fact that I built the house, that I acquired and extended the marvellous domainand that it has cost you thing but some good English blood, which could not have been shed more worthily than in the extension of the empire of civilisation. I write this in no spirit of self-laudation. I do not say that no one but myself could have established this marvellous empire, stretching, as it now does, from the banks of the Indus to the banks of the Irrawaddy. But I humbly and reverently express my belief that an Almighty Providence would not have favoured in like manner the ambitious efforts of an imperial power, seeking to aggrandise itself by armed triumphs in new countries. It was, I humbly believe, because I never sought for territorial wealth or political power; because my mandates were ever the mandates of peace; because I charged my servants not to fortify their factories, not to enlist troops, not to make any parade of military strength, that the Almighty selected me as the humble instrument (I say it reverently) of His magnificent designs. God might have baffled your calculations, prostrated your ambition, and humbled your pride, John. Smiting with the sword, you might have perished by the sword. But I went for merchandise, and I obtained empire. My designs were overruled, my policy defeated. I became, in spite of myself, a power, without a royal title, but still one of the sovereigns of the earth. I did the best I then could to perform worthily the functions imposed upon me; and although no prophet in my own country, people from strange regions looked with admiration upon my doings, and with jealousy upon my success. You thought you would have done it better, John. knows! Be thankful that, under Providence, I have done so well; and if it be willed that I am to resign the charge of my empire into your hands, receive the trust reverently, and in a solemn but a humble spirit, deeply

God

impressed with a sense of the magnitude of the undertaking, and the difficulty of the work which lies before you. I have no wish to rule a day longer than is good for India and for England. If the country, calmly, dispassionately, deliberately, with full knowledge and after ample investigation, will that I should abdicate, I shall abdicate, not grudgingly

or querulously, but cheerfully and thankfully, and say to you, John, with a hearty shake of the hand, "There! I have fulfilled my mission, I have run my race. I have given you the Anglo-Indian empire. Keep it; and be blest."

I am, your affectionate Brother,
JOHN COMPANY.

GEORGE MORLEY, a few weeks after the conversation last recorded, took his departure from Montfort Court, prepared, without a scruple, to present himself for ordination to the friendly bishop. From Waife he derived more than the cure of a disabling infirmity; he received those hints which, to a man who has the natural temperament of an orator, so rarely united with that of the scholar, expedite the mastery of the art which makes the fleeting human voice an abiding, imperishable power. The grateful teacher exhausted all his lore upon the pupil whose genius he had freed-whose heart had subdued himself. Before leaving, George was much perplexed how to offer to Waife any other remuneration than that which, in Waife's estimate, had already overpaid all the benefits he had received-viz. unquestioning friendship and pledged protection. It need scarcely be said that George thought the man to whom he owed

VOL. LXXXIII.-NO. DIX,

fortune and happiness was entitled to something beyond that moral recompense. But he found, at the first delicate hint, that Waife would not hear of money, though the ex-Comedian did not affect any very Quixotic notions on that practical subject. "To tell you the truth, sir, I have rather a superstition against having more money in my hands than I know what to do with. It has always brought me bad luck. And what is very hard-the bad luck stays, but the money goes. There was that splendid sum I made at Gatesboro'. You should have seen me counting it over. I could not have had a prouder or more swelling heart if I had been that great man Mr Elwes the miser. And what bad luck it brought me, and how it all frittered itself away! Nothing to show for it but a silk ladder and an old hurdy-gurdy, and I sold them at half-price. Then, when I had the accident which cost me this eye, the railway

T

people behaved so generously, gave me £120-think of that! And before three days the money was all gone!" "How was that?" said George, half-amused, half-pained - "stolen, perhaps?"

"Not so," answered Waife, somewhat gloomily, "but restored. A poor dear old man, who thought very ill of me and I don't wonder at itwas reduced from great wealth to great poverty. While I was laid up, my landlady read a newspaper to me, and in that newspaper was an account of his reverse and destitution. But I was accountable to him for the balance of an old debt, and that, with the doctor's bills, quite covered my £120. I hope he does not think quite so ill of me now. But the money brought good-luck to him, rather than to me. Well, sir, if you were now to give me money, I should be on the look-out for some mournful calamity. Gold is not natural to Some day, however, by-and-by, when you are inducted into your living, and have become a renowned preacher, and have plenty to spare, with an idea that you would feel more comfortable in your mind if you had done something royal for the basket-maker, I will ask you to help me to make up a sum, which I am trying by degrees to save-an enormous sum-as much as I paid away from my railway compensation -I owe it to the lady who lent it to release Sophy from an engagement which I certainly without any remorse of conscience-made the child break."

me.

"Oh yes! What is the amount? Let me at least repay that debt." "Not yet. The lady can waitand she would be pleased to wait, because she deserves to wait it would be unkind to her to pay it off at once. But, in the meanwhile, if you could send me a few good books for Sophy?-instructive; yet not very, very dry. And a French dictionary-I can teach her French when the winter days close in. You see I am not above being paid, sir. But Mr Morley, there is a great favour you can do me."

"What is it? Speak."

Cautiously refrain from doing me a great disservice! You are going

'Certainly. Yet I have one relation to whom I should like, with your permission, to speak of you, with whom I could wish you acquainted. He is so thorough a man of the world that he might suggest some method to clear your good name, which you yourself would approve. My uncle, Colonel Morley-"

On no account!" cried Waife, almost fiercely, and he evinced so much anger and uneasiness, that it was long before George could pacify him by the most earnest assurances that his secret should be inviolably kept, and his injunctions faithfully obeyed. No men of the world consulted how to force him back to the world of men that he fled from! No colonels to scan him with martinet eyes, and hint how to pipeclay a tarnish! Waife's apprehensions gradually allayed, and his confidence restored, one fine morning George took leave of his eccentric benefactor.

Waife and Sophy stood gazing after him from their garden-gate. The cripple leaning lightly on the child's arm. She looked with anxious fondness into the old man's thoughtful face, and clung to him more closely as she looked.

Will you not be dull, poor grandy?--will you not miss him?"

"A little at first," said Waife, rousing himself. "Education is a great thing. An educated mind, provided that it does us no mischief-which is not always the case- cannot be withdrawn from our existence without leaving a blank behind. Sophy, we must seriously set to work and educate ourselves!"

"We will, grandy, dear," said Sophy, with decision and a few minutes afterwards-"If I can become very, very clever, you will not pine so much after that gentlemanwill you, grandy?”

Winter was far advanced when Montfort Court was again brightened by the presence of its lady. A polite letter from Mr Carr Vipont had reached her before leaving Windsor, suggesting how much it would be for the advantage of the Vipont interest if she would consent to visit for a month or two the seat in Ireland, which had been too long neglected, and at which my lord would join her on his departure from his Highland moors. So to Ireland went Lady Montfort. My lord did not join her there; but Mr Carr

Vipont deemed it desirable for the Vipont interest that the wedded pair should reunite at Montfort Court, where all the Vipont family were invited to witness their felicity or mitigate their ennui.

But, before proceeding another stage in this history, it becomes a just tribute of respect to the great House of Vipont, to pause and place its past records and present grandeur in fuller display before the reverential reader. The House of Vipont! -what am I about? The House of Vipont requires a chapter to itself.

The House of Vipont! Looking back through ages, it seems as if the House of Vipont were one continuous living idiosyncrasy, having in its progressive development a connected unity of thought and action, so that through all the changes of its outward form it had been moved and guided by the same single spiritLe roi est mort-vive le roi !"-A Vipont dies-live the Vipont! Despite its high-sounding Norman name, the House of Vipont was no House at all for some generations after the Conquest. The first Vipont who emerged from the obscurity of time, was a rude soldier of Gascon origin, in the reign of Henry II.-one of the thousand fighting men who sailed from Milford Haven with the stout Earl of Pembroke, on that strange expedition which ended in the conquest of Ireland. This gallant man obtained large grants of land in that fertile island--some Mac or some O' vanished, and the House of Vipont

rose.

During the reign of Richard I., the House of Vipont, though recalled to England (leaving its Irish acquisitions in charge of a fierce cadet, who served as middleman), excused itself from the Crusade, and, by marriage

with a rich goldsmith's daughter, was enabled to lend monies to those who indulged in that exciting but costly pilgrimage. In the reign of John, the House of Vipont foreclosed its mortgages on lands thus pledged, and became possessed of a very fair property in England, as well as its fiefs in the sister isle.

The House of Vipont took no part in the troublesome politics of that day. Discreetly obscure, it attended to its own fortunes, and felt small interest in Magna Charta. _ During the reigns of the Plantagenet Edwards, who were great encouragers of mercantile adventure, the House of Vipont, shunning Creci, Bannockburn, and such profitless brawls, intermarried with London traders, and got many a good thing out of the Genoese. In the reign of Henry IV. the House of Vipont reaped the benefit of its past forbearance and modesty. Now, for the first time, the Viponts appear as belted knights-they have armorial bearings-they are Lancasterian to the backbone-they are exceedingly indignant against heretics--they burn the Lollards-they have places in the household of Queen Joan, who was called a witch, but a witch is a very good friend when she wields a sceptre