wages—which are barely twelve shillings a-week—five shillings a-week for more than two months to a poor labouring man, to prevent his going to the workhouse, and being parted from his wife and children.'
'Noble, indeed!' said Lancelot. 'I do not wonder now at the effect his conversation just now had on me.'
'Has he been talking to you?' said Honoria, eagerly. He seldom speaks to any one.'
'He has to me; and so well, that were I sure that the poor were as ill off as he says, and that I had the power of altering the system a hair, I could find it in my heart to excuse all political grievance-mongers, and turn one myself.'
Claude Mellot clapped his white woman-like hands.
'Bravo! bravo! Oh wonderful conversion! Lancelot has at last discovered that, beside the 'glorious Past,' there is a Present worthy of his sublime notice! We may now hope, in time, that he will discover the existence of a Future!'
'But, Mr. Mellot,' said Honoria, 'why have you been so unfaithful to your original? why have you, like all artists, been trying to soften and refine on your model?'
'Because, my dear lady, we are bound to see everything in its ideal,—not as it is, but as it ought to be, and will be, when the vices of this pitiful civilised world are exploded, and sanitary reform, and a variety of occupation, and harmonious education, let each
