And so the little conference ended. George had certainly gained nothing. Caroline had gained this, that she had made known her resolution, and had, nevertheless, not lost her lover. To all the expressions of her determination not to marry till George should be a barrister, aunt Mary had added a little clause--that such decision might at any moment be changed by some new act of liberality on the part of uncle Bertram. In aunt Mary's mind, the rich uncle, the rich grandfather, was still the god that was to come down upon the stage and relieve them from their great difficulty.
As George returned to town with his friend, his love was not quite so triumphant as it had been that morning on his road to church.
Author of "Barchester Towers," "Doctor Thorne," etc.
London: Chapman & Hall, 193 Piccadilly. 1859.
London: Printed by W. Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street.
I. THE NEW MEMBER FOR THE BATTERSEA HAMLETS. II. RETROSPECTIVE.--FIRST YEAR. III. RETROSPECTIVE.--SECOND YEAR. IV. RICHMOND. V. JUNO. VI. SIR LIONEL IN TROUBLE. VII. MISS TODD'S CARD-PARTY. VIII. THREE LETTERS. IX. BIDDING HIGH. X. DOES HE KNOW IT YET? XI. HURST STAPLE. XII. THE WOUNDED DOE. XIII. THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL IN LOVE. XIV. MRS. LEAKE OF RISSBURY. XV. MARRIAGE-BELLS.
THE NEW MEMBER FOR THE BATTERSEA HAMLETS.
I must now ask my readers to pass over two years with me. It is a terrible gap in a story; but in these days the unities are not much considered, and a hiatus which would formerly have been regarded as a fault utterly fatal is now no more than a slight impropriety.
But something must be told of the occurrences of these two years. In the first place, no marriage had taken place--that is, among our personages; nor had their ranks been thinned by any death. In our retrospective view we will give the _pas_ to Mr. Harcourt, for he had taken the greatest stride in winning that world's success, which is the goal of all our ambition. He had gone on and prospered greatly; and nowadays all men at the bar said all manner of good things of him. He was already in Parliament as the honourable member for the Battersea Hamlets, and was not only there, but listened to when it suited him to speak. But when he did speak, he spoke only as a lawyer. He never allowed himself to be enticed away from his own profession by the meretricious allurements of general politics. On points of law reform, he had an energetic opinion; on matters connected with justice, he had ideas which were very much his own--or which at least were stated in language which was so; being a denizen of the common law, he was loud against the delays and cost of Chancery, and was supposed to have supplied the legal details of a very telling tale which was written about this time with the object of upsetting the lord-chancellor as then constituted.