CHAPTER III.

SIR TOBY stepped down-stairs quite radiant; his victory was complete, and had been effected with less loss to the other side than he had anticipated. "Now," thought he, "there's only this woman Groves to be got over, and the thing is done."

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Only those three fellows on the bridge to manage," was probably Lars Porsena's disparaging remark, when he stood with his great host so close to the gates of the Eternal City, but upon the other side of the water; and yet everybody knows, thanks to Lord Macaulay, how that business came off. The worthy knight was as totally unprepared for the pluck and mettle exhibited by his antagonist, as was the Tuscan prince in the famous case of Cocles and Two Others. He had no notion of the Roman spirit of independence which animated that wife of the Chartist tailor in Rag Street; any such thing was quite beyond Sir Toby's experience, nor is it indeed common among the female sex

in England. The voter's wife is unquestionably a more cringing and unprincipled person than the voter;—and "I'm sure we can't afford to displease our landlord," is an argument almost always assisted by the silvery voice of women. They have indeed but very little regard for political conscience at all, nor even for political opinion, although to be sure there is a certain vague preference for "the gentlemanly interest," which pervades all ranks of them. We tremble to think of what nearly every woman of the middle classes-barristers' wives, rectors' wives, merchant princes' wives (more than any)—will willingly do to oblige a titled person. We have seen them treat very scornfully good affectionate husbands-become ashamed of their own mothers-snub at their own dinner-table their dearest and oldest friends-talk mincingly upon fashionable matters which they are unacquainted with, and ignore good comfortable habits which have been theirs their whole lives long-in order, as they think, to gratify by all that sacrifice some strange nobleman, whom they will never see again, and who will forget their very names by the next week: nor, unfortunately, are these silly women naturally base or foolish, but such as are in other respects virtuous, kind hearted, and, as they themselves fully believe, eminently Christian folk. A lady, with whom we were once

weak enough to remonstrate upon her extravagant flattery and adulation of a certain elevated but most unworthy object, remarked that, "If we read our Bible a little oftener, we should act in a similar manner;" whereupon we promised to study it more frequently upon the condition of her learning by heart the first half of the second chapter of St. James. A sensible friend of ours, with a wife and grown-up family, has pasted some of the remarks of that Apostle upon the first leaf of his "Peerage and Baronetage," with, we understand, the best results; his eldest daughter alone refuses to read any such insult to the landed aristocracy of her native land. Oh, middle class ladies of England! well would it be if these evils which you thus inflict were limited to your guests, your husbands, and yourselves; and that nepotism, jobbing, favouritism, did not spring up on every hand, because of you, with such plentiful crop of failure; how distressed you would be if you did but know this truth, that neither old-women-generals, nor old-women-statesmen, are to be blamed for Crimean disaster one half so much as the real women of England, who are never old-yourselves. do most seriously wish that you were more like Mrs. Groves. That lady, indeed, received Sir Toby Ruffles with a certain snappishness which we should be sorry to see you imitate, but it was

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not exhibited towards the little girl, Maria Keggs, (late at sixpence a-week at Mr. Birt's) then present, who had called in Rag Street to see her "dear darling baby," whom she had been acquainted with just four days. "Take care of the poor, and the rich will take care of themselves," was Mrs. G.'s own proverb, and a far better than that similar one connected with our pecuniary interests; nevertheless, she was certainly not justified in addressing the knight before he had opened his mouth (and in her own house too!) in this fashion:'Now, if you're coming here to persuade me to give up this child, and take to one of your young swells instead, you may save your breath to cool your 'tatoes; I shan't-so there." She well knew, poor woman, what he was come about, and that his offer would be a very advantageous one for her own family, so felt it necessary to fortify her resolution at once by the strongest expressions. Her republican spirit had been completely roused, too, by the way in which Mr. Hollis had spoken to her upon the subject previously; and it was in reference to that former interview, we suppose, that she suddenly, and with great asperity, brought her speech to a conclusion with, "We mayn't be duchesses, perhaps, you may tell him, but we're

not cows.'

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Except that cows are sweet, and have remark

ably fine eyes, my dear Mrs. Groves," said the wily doctor, "I certainly see no resemblance. The fact is, that our little friend here being so healthy and likely to do well, and Mrs. Hollis's infant being evidently delicate, we thought that the proposed change might be quite safely made. In a matter of conscience, of course we do not consider profit; but I am sure that I may say, on the part of Mr. Hollis, that you are at liberty to name your own terms, and whatever they may be they will be acceded to."

The heart of the tailor's wife by nature leant to the side of strictest virtue; but a number of motives, which were not unnatural either, were hard at work to pull it in the other direction ;-six children, all of tender years, had a heart-string each, and were applying to it a force more powerful by far than lever or pulley. Scantily clothed, scantily fed they were at present, nor was there any provision for the future to be expected for any one of them from Church, or State, or Horse Guards the politics of their father were decidedly anti-ministerial, and even should these be changed the family influence would still be far from overwhelming. Her eye wandered over the little apartment for reasons to justify a change of purpose, and the drugget-less floor, the window stuffed with rags, the pinched-up fire-place, with its

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