Wonder if he is! William Mortiboy is expected to prig. That's a devilish bad beginning for William. William Mortiboy's companions are not, apparently, the heir to anythingnot even what the man in the play calls a stainless name. Polly, I'm afraid you're a bad lot! Anyhow, you might have paid the five bob a week out of all the money you've had in the last four months. But we'll be even with you. Only wait a bit, my lady."

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD.

T was a godly and an ancient custom in
Market Basing, that on a certain Sun-
day afternoon in the year, the children
should have a 66
church parade" all to
themselves, followed by a bun. Of
late years, an addition had been made
to this festival by setting apart a week-
day in the summer for a school feast
and treat. It was generally a dreary
affair enough. The boys and girls
were marshalled, and marched to some
field not far off, where they were turned
loose previous to the tea, and told to
play. As the Market Basing boys saw
no novelty in a field-unlike the Lon-
doner, to whom a bird's nest is a new
discovery, and a field-mouse the most
remarkable of wild animals-these
feasts, although preceded by cake and
followed by tea, had no great charms.
Perhaps they were overweighted by
hymns.

The

Now, Dick, pursuing that career of social usefulness already hinted at, had succeeded, in a very few weeks, in alienating the affections of all the spiritual leaders of the town. way was this. First, he refused to belong to the chapel any more, and declined to pay for a pew in the church, on the reasonable ground that he did not intend to go to either. They came to him-Market Basing was regularly whipped and driven to religion, if not to godliness-to give money to

their pet society, which, they said, called alike for the support of church and chapel, for providing Humble Breakfasts and flannel in winter for the Deserving Poor. This was explained to mean, not the industrious poor nor the provident poor, nor the sober poor, but the poor who attended some place of worship. Dick said that not going to church did not of itself prove a man to be irreligious, artfully instancing himself as a case in point; and refused to help.

Then the secretaries of London societies, finding out that there was another man who had money to give, and was shown already to be of liberal disposition, sent him begging letters through the curates. They all got much the same answer. The missionary societies were dismissed because, as Dick told them, he had seen missionaries with his own eyes. That noble institution in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which exists for the double purpose of maintaining a large staff and converting the Jews, was refused on the ground of no results commensurable with the expense. He offered, indeed, a large sum for a successful mission among the professions-especially the bar-in England. And he rashly proposed a very handsome prize-no less than a thousand pounds-to anybody who would succeed in converting him. Rev. Potiphar Demas, a needy vessel, volunteered; but Dick declined to hear him, because he didn't want to know what Mr. Demas had to say. Now, this seemed discourteous to the reverend gentleman.

All this might have been counterbalanced by his many virtues. For it was notorious that he had given a pension to old Sanderson, the ruined cashier of Melliship's bank; also that he had withdrawn the Mortiboy claims on the Melliship estate: this was almost as if the Americans were to withdraw their Alabama claims, because there was no knowing where they might end. Besides which, it made an immediate difference of four shillings in the pound. Further, sundry aged persons who had spent a long life in cursing the name of Mortiboy, took to praising it altogether, because Dick was helping them all. And the liberality towards his clerks with which he inaugurated his reign was almost enough of itself to make him popular.

But then came that really dreadful business about the old women. This, although he was gaining a golden name by making restitution for his father's ill deeds-like Solomon repairing the breaches which his father David had made-was enough to make all religious and right-minded people tremble

in their shoes. Everybody knows that humility in the aged poor is the main virtue which they are expected to display. In the church at Market Basing was a broad middle aisle, down which was ranged a row of wooden benches, backless, cushionless, hard, and unpromising. On them sat, Sunday after Sunday, at these services, constant, never-flagging, all the old women in the parish. It was a gruesome assemblage: toothless, rheumatic, afflicted with divers pains and infirmities, they yet struggled, Sunday after Sunday, to the "free seats," so called by a bitter mockery, because those who sat in them had no other choice but to go.

On their regular attendance depended not so much their daily bread, which the workhouse might have given them, but their daily comforts; their tea and sugar; their wine if they were ill-and they always were ill; their blankets and their coals. Now, will it be believed that Dick, instigated by Ghrimes, who held the revolutionary maxim that religion, if it is to be real, ought not to be made a condition of charity, actually found out the names of these old trots, and made a weekly dole among them, without any conditions whatever? It was so. He really did it. After two or three Sundays the free seats were empty, all the old women having gone to different conventicles, where they got their religion hot and hot, as they liked it; where they sat in comfortable pews, like the rest of the folk; and where they were treated as if, in the house of God, all men are alike and equal. When the curates called, they were cheeky; when they threatened, the misguided old ladies laughed; when they blustered, these backsliders, relying on their Dick, cracked their aged fingers in the young men's faces.

"He is a very dreadful man," said the rector. shall we do with him ?"

"What

He called. He explained the danger which befell these ignorant though elderly persons in frequenting an uncovenanted place of worship; but he spoke to deaf ears. understood him not.

Dick

It was the time of the annual school feast. Dick was sitting, in that exasperating Californian jacket, in the little bank parlour, consecrated to black cloth and respectability. His legs were on the window sill, his mouth had a cigar in it, his face was beaming with jollity, his heart was as light as a child's. All this was very bad.

Foiled in his first attempt, the rector made a second.

"There is another matter, Mr. Mortiboy, on which I would speak with you."

"Speak, Mr. Lightwood," said Dick. "Don't ask me for any money for the missionaries."

I will not," said good old Mr. Lightwood, mournfully. "I fear it would be of little use."

Dick pulled his beard and grinned. Why this universal tendency of mankind to laugh when, from a position of strength, they are about to do something disagreeable?

"It is not about any of our societies, Mr. Mortiboy. But I would fain hope that you will not refuse a trifle to our children's school feast. We give them games, races, and so forth. With tea and cake. We are very short of funds." "Do you a?" cried Dick. "Look here, sir. What would you say if I offered to stand the whole thing-pay for the burst myself-grub, liquids, and prizes ?"

The rector was dumbfoundered.

It had hitherto been one of his annual difficulties to raise the money for his little fête, for St. Giles's parish was very large, and the parishioners generally poor. And here was a man offering to pay for everything!

Then Dick, who could never be a wholly submissive son of the Church, must needs put in a condition which spoiled it. "All the children, mind. None of your Church children only."

"It has always been confined to our own children, Mr. Mortiboy. The Dissenters have their-ahem! their-theirtreat at another time."

'Very well, then. Here is my offer. I will pay for the supper, or dinner, or whatever you call it, to as many Market Basing children as like to come. I don't care whether they are Jews or Christians. That is their look-out, not mine. Take my offer, Mr. Lightwood. If you refuse, by Jove, I'll have a day of my own, and choose your day. We'll see who gets most youngsters. If you accept, you shall say grace, and do all the pious part yourself. Come, let us oblige each other. I am really sorry to refuse you so often; and here is a chance."

What was to be done with this dreadful man? If you crossed him, he was capable of ruining everything; and to yield to him was to give up half your dignity. But concession meant happiness to the children; and the good old clergyman, who could not possibly understand the attitude of mind of his

new parishioner-seeing only perversity where half was experience and half ignorance-yielded at once and gracefully. Dick immediately assumed the whole conduct of the affair. Without making any reference to church or chapel, he issued handbills stating that sports, to which all the children in the place were invited, would be held on the following Wednesday, in his own paddock at Derngate. Then followed a goodly list of prizes to be run for, jumped for, wrestled for, and in other ways offered to public competition. And it became known that preparations were making on the most liberal scale. There was to be a dinner at one, a tea at five, and a supper at eight. There were to be fireworks. Above all, the races and the prizes.

Dick had no notion of doing a thing by halves. He got an itinerant circus from a neighbouring fair, a wild-beast show, a Punch and Judy, swing-boats, a roundabout, and a performing monkey. Then he hired a magic lantern, and erected a tent where it was to be seen all day. He hired donkeys for races, got hundreds of coloured lamps from town, built an enormous marquee where any number of children might sit down to dinner, and sent out messengers to ascertain how many guests might be expected.

This was the happiest period in Dick's life. The possessor of a princely income, the owner of an enormous fortune, he had but to lift his hand, and misery seemed to vanish. Justice, the propagation of prudential motives, religion, natural retribution for broken laws, all these are advanced ideas, of which Dick had but small conception.

Grace Heathcote described the day in one of her letters to Kate-those letters which were almost the only pleasure the poor girl had at this time :

"As for the day, my dear, it was wonderful. I felt inclined to defend the climate of England at the point of the swordI mean the needle. Dick, of course, threw California in my teeth. As we drove down the road in the waggonette, the grand old trees in the park were rustling in their lovely July foliage like a great lady in her court dress. The simile was suggested to me by mamma, who wore her green silk. Lucy and I were dressed alike-in white muslin. I had pink ribbons, and she wore blue; and round my neck was the locket with F.'s portrait in it, which you sent me-you good, kind, thoughtful Kate! Mamma does not like to see it; but