"Listen! Why did you say Lucia in such a tone, a little while ago?" asked his wife.

Gerald Bennet smiled with arch kindness.

"Shall I answer truly?"

"Under pain of displeasure."

"Well," he began, slowly, "when I heard that Laura Magot's husband had failed, as I knew that Lucia Darro's husband had once been jilted by Laura Magot because he failed, I could not help wondering--now, Lucia dear, how could I help wondering?--I wondered how Lucia Darro would feel.

Because--because--"

He made a full stop, and smiled.

"Because what?" asked his wife.

He lingered, and smiled.

"Because what?" persisted his wife, with mock gravity.

"Because Lucia Darro was a woman, and--well! I'll make a clean breast of it--and because, although a man and woman love each other as long and dearly as Lucia Darro and her husband have and do, there is still something in the woman that the man can not quite understand, and upon which he is forever experimenting. So I was curious to hear, or rather to see and feel, what your thoughts were; and, at the moment I spoke, I thought I saw them, and I was surprised."

"Exactly, Sir; and that surprise ought to have shown you that I was no saint. Listen again, Sir. Lucia Darro's husband was never jilted by Laura Magot, for the impetuous and ambitious young man who was engaged to that lady is an entirely different person from my husband. Do you hear, Sir?"

"Precisely; and who made him so entirely different?"

"Hush, Sir! I've no time to hear such folly. I, too, am going to make a clean breast of it, and confess that there was the least little sense of--of--of--well, justice, in my mind, when I thought that Laura Magot who jilted you, who were so unfortunate, and with whom she might have been so happy--"

Gerald Bennet dissented, with smiles and shaking head.

"Hush, Sir! Any woman might have been. That she should have led such a life with Boniface Newt, and have seen him ruined after all. Poor soul!

poor soul!"

"Which?" asked her husband.

"Both--both, Sir. I pity them both from my heart."

"Thou womanest of women!" retorted her husband. "Art thou, therefore, no saint because thou pitiest them?"

"No, no; but because it was not an unmixed pity."

"At any rate, it is an unmixed goodness," said her husband.

The restless glance, the glimmering uncertainty, had faded from his eyes.

He sat quietly on the sofa, swinging his foot, and with his head bent a little to one side over the limp cravat.

"Gerald," said his wife, "let us go out, and walk in the moonlight too."

CHAPTER LXX.

THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PEOPLE.

In a few moments they were sauntering along the street. It was full and murmurous. The lights were bright in the shop windows, and the scuffling of footsteps, more audible than during the day, when it is drowned by the roar of carriage-wheels upon the pavement, had a friendly, social sound.

"Broadway is never so pleasant as in the early evening," said Mr. Bennet; "for then the rush of the day is over, and people move with a leisurely air, as if they were enjoying themselves. What is that?"

They were going down the street, and saw lights, and heard music and a crowd approaching. They came nearer; and Mr. Bennet and his wife turned aside, and stood upon the steps of a dwelling-house. A band of music came first, playing "Hail Columbia!" It was surrounded by a swarm of men and boys, in the street and on the sidewalk, who shouted, and sang, and ran; and it was followed by a file of gentlemen, marching in pairs. Several of them carried torches, and occasionally, as they passed under a house, they all looked up at the windows, and gave three cheers. Sometimes, also, an individual in the throng shouted something which was received with loud hi-hi's and laughter.

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Bennet.

"This is a political procession, my dear. Look! they will not come by us at all; they are turning into Grand Street, close by. I suppose they are going to call upon some candidate. I never see any crowd of this kind without thinking how simple and beautiful our institutions are. Do you ever think of it, Lucia? What a majestic thing the popular will is!"

"Let's hurry, and we may see something," said his wife.

The throng had left Broadway, and had stopped in Grand Street under a balcony in a handsome house. The music had stopped also, and all faces were turned toward the balcony. Mr. Bennet and his wife stood at the corner of Broadway. Suddenly a gentleman took off his hat and waved it violently in the air, and a superb diamond-ring flashed in the torch-light as he did so, while he shouted,

"Three cheers for Newt!"

There was a burst of huzzas from the crowd--the drums rolled--the boys shrieked and snarled in the tone of various animals--the torches waved--one excited man cried, "One more!"--there was another stentorian yell, and roll, and wave--after which the band played a short air. But the windows did not open.

"Newt! Newt! Newt!" shouted the crowd. The young gentleman with the diamond-ring disappeared into the house, with several others.

"Why, Slugby, where the devil is he?" said one of them to another, in a whisper, as they ran up the stairs.

"I'm sure I don't know. Musher promised to have him ready."

"And I sent Ele up to get here before we did," replied his friend, in the same hurried whisper, his fat nose glistening in the hall-light.

When they reached Mr. Newt's room they found him lying upon a sofa, while Musher and the Honorable B.J. Ele were trying to get him up.

"D----n it! stand up, can't you?" cried Mr. Ele.

"No, I can't," replied Abel, with a half-humorous maudlin smile.

At the same moment the impetuous roar of the crowd in the street stole in through the closed windows.

"Newt! Newt! Newt!"

"What in ---- shall we do?" gasped Mr. Enos Slugby, walking rapidly up and down the room.

"Who let him get drunk?" demanded General Belch, angrily.

Nobody answered.

"Newt! Newt! Newt!" surged in from the street.

"Thunder and devils, there's nothing for it but to prop him up on the balcony!" said General Belch. "Come now, heave to, every body, and stick him on his pins."