parson sighed and pressed the matter no further. He desired, he said, to see Dick's grave. Then he hoped to return to England.

Now, Dick had made his plans. In a new country where five years bring amazing changes, it is easy to play pranks even in churchyards. In the San Lorenzo cemetery were many nameless graves, and the sexton chanced to be an illiterate foreigner who could neither read nor write. So Dick identified a forlorn mound as his last resting-place, and told the sexton that a marble cross would be erected there under his (Dick's) direction. Then he tipped the man, and bought a monument, taking care to choose one sufficiently time-stained. There are scores of such in every marble-worker's yard. Upon it were cut Dick's initials, a date and an appropriate text. Within three days of the receipt of Mr. Carteret's letter, the cross was standing in the cemetery. None knew or cared whence it came. Moreover, Dick had passed unrecognized through the town where he had once ruffled it so gaily as Lord Carteret. He had changed greatly indeed, as he said, and, for obvious reasons, he had never visited the mission town since his bogus death burial.

and

Thus it came to pass that Dick and his father travelled together to San Lorenzo, and together stood beside the cross in the cemetery. Presently Dick walked away; and then the old man knelt down, bareheaded, and prayed fervently for many minutes. Later, the father pointed a trembling finger at the initials.

"Why," he demanded, querulously, "did they not give the lad his full name?"

And to this natural question Dick had nothing to say.

"It seems," murmured the old man, mournfully, "that Mr. Crisp, with all his kindness, felt that the name should

So, arm-in-arm, they passed from the pretty garden of sleep. Dick was really moved, and the impulse stirred within him to make full confession there and then. But he strangled it, and his jaw grew set and hard. As yet he was in ignorance of the change in his father's fortunes. Mr. Carteret assumed none of the outward signs of prosperity. He wore the clothes of a poor parson, and his talk flowed along the old channels, a limpid stream not without sparkle, but babbling of no Pactolian sands. And then, quite suddenly and simply, he said that he had fallen heir to a large estate, and that he wished to set aside so much money as a memorial of his son, to be expended as the experience of the bishop of the diocese might direct.

"You-you are a rich man?" faltered

Dick.

"My son, sir, had he lived, would have been heir to five thousand a year."

Dick gasped, and a lump in his throat stifled speech for a season. Presently he asked politely the nature of Mr. Carteret's immediate plans, and learned that he was leaving San Lorenzo for Santa Barbara on the morrow. Dick had determined not to let his father stray from his sight till he had seen him safe out of the country, but he told himself that he must confer with the "Bishop" at once. The "Bishop" must act as go-between; the "Bishop," by Jove! should let the cat out of the bag; the "Bishop" would gladly color the facts and obscure the falsehoods. So he bade his father good-bye, and the old gentleman thanked him courteously and wished him well. To speak truth, Mr. Carteret was not particularly impressed with Mr. Cartwright, nor sorry to take leave of him. Dick soon secured a buggy and drove off. En route he whistled gaily, and at inter

vals burst into song. He really felt absurdly gay.

The "Bishop," however, pulled a long face when he understood what was demanded of him.

"It's too late," said he.

"Do you funk it?" asked Dick, angrily.

"I do," replied his reverence.

"Well, he must be told the facts before he goes south."

Dick little knew, as he spoke so authoritatively, that his father was already in possession of these facts. Within an hour of Dick's departure, Mr. Carteret was walking through the old mission church chatting with one of the padres. From his cicerone he learned that at San Clemente, not twenty miles away, was another mission of greater historical interest, and in finer preservation than any north of Santa Barbara. The padre added that there was an excellent hotel at San Clemente, kept by two Englishmen, Cartwright and Crisp. Of course the name Crisp tickled the parson's curiosity, and he asked if this Crisp were any relation to the late Tudor Crisp, who had once lived in or near San Lorenzo. The padre said promptly that these Crisps were one and the same, and was not to be budged from that assertion by the most violent exclamations on the part of the stranger. A synopsis of the Rev. Tudor's history followed, and then the inevitable question: "Who is Cartwright?" Fate ordained that this question was answered by one of the few men living who knew that Cartwright was Carteret; and so, at last, the unhappy father realized how diabolically he had been hoaxed. Of his suffering it becomes us not to speak, of his just anger something remains to be said.

He drove up to the San Clemente Hotel as the sun was setting, and both Dick and the "Bishop" came forward to welcome him, but fell back panic-stricken

at sight of his pale face and fiery eyes. Dick slipped aside; the "Bishop" stood still, rooted in despair.

"Is your name Crisp?"

"Yes," faltered the "Bishop."
"The Rev. Tudor Crisp?"
"I-er-once held deacon's orders."
"Can I see you alone?"

The "Bishop" led the way to his own sanctum, a snug retreat, handy to the bar, and whence an eye could be kept on the bartender. The "Bishop" was a large man, but he halted feebly in front of the other, who, dilated in his wrath, strode along like an avenging archangel, carrying his cane as it might be a flaming sword.

"Now, sir," said Dick's father, as soon as they were alone, "what have you to say to me?"

The "Bishop" told the story from beginning to end, not quite truthfully. "You dare to tell me that you hatched this damnable plot?"

The "Bishop" lied: "Yes-I did."

"And with the money obtained under false pretences you bought a saloon, you, a deacon of the Church of England."

The "Bishop" lied: "Yes-I did."

"The devil takes care of his own," said the parson, looking round, and marking the comfort of the room. "Not always," said the "Bishop," thinking of Dick.

"Well, sir," continued the parson, "I'm told that money can work miracles in this country. And, by God! if my money can send you to gaol, you shall go there, as sure as my name is George Carteret."

"All right," said the "Bishop." "I -er-I don't blame you. I think you're behaving with great moderation."

"Moderation! Confound it! sir, are you laughing at me?"

"The Lord forbid!" ejaculated Crisp. "Men have been shot for less than this."

"There's a pistol in that drawer," said the "Bishop" wearily. "You can shoot if you want to. Your money can put me into gaol, as you say, and keep you out of it, if-if you use that pistol."

Mr. Carteret stared. The "Bishop" was beginning to puzzle him. He stared still harder, and the "Bishop" blushed; an awkward habit that he had never rid himself of. Now a country parson, who is also a magistrate, becomes in time a shrewd judge of men.

"Will you kindly send for my-for your partner?" he said, suddenly. "Please sit or stand where you are. I think you'll admit that I have a right to conduct this inquiry in my own way."

Accordingly, Dick was sent for, and soon he took his stand beside the "Bishop," facing the flaming blue eyes of his father. Then Mr. Carteret asked him point blank the questions he had put to the other, and received the same answers, the "Bishop" entering an inarticulate demurrer.

"It appears," said Mr. Carteret, "that there are two ways of telling this story. One of you, possibly, has told the truth; the other has unquestionably lied. I confess," he added, drily, "that my sympathies are with the liar. He is the honester man."

"Yes," said Dick. "I am about as big a blackguard as you'll find anywhere, but I'm your son all the same. Father-forgive me."

One must confess that Dick played his last trump in a masterly fashion. He knew that whining wouldn't avail him, or any puling hypocrisy. So he told the truth.

"Is that what you want?" said the father, sarcastically. "Only that: my forgiveness and my blessing?"

Dick's bold eyes fell beneath the thrust.

"The man who drove me here," continued the father, "told me a curious

story. It seems that Mr. Crisp here has toiled and moiled for many years keeping you in comparative luxury and idleness. Not a word, sir. It's an open secret. For some occult reason he likes to pay this price for your company. Having supported you so long, I presume he is prepared to support you to the end?"

"He's my friend," said the "Bishop," stoutly.

"My son," said the old man, solemnly, "died six years ago, and he can never, never," the second word rang grimly out, "be raised from the dead. That man there," his voice faltered for the first time, "is another son whom I do not know-whom I do not want to know-let him ask himself if he is fit to return with me to England, to live with those gentlewomen his sisters, to inherit the duties and responsibilities that even such wealth as mine brings in its train. He knows that he is not fit. Is he fit to take my hand?"

He stretched forth his lean, white hand, the hand that had signed so many cheques. Dick did not try to touch it. The "Bishop" wiped his eyes. The poor fellow looked the picture of misery.

"If there be the possibility of atonement for such as he," continued the speaker-"and God forbid that I should dare to say there is not-let that atonement be made here where he has sinned. It seems that the stoppage of his allowance tempted him to commit suicide. I did not know my son was a coward. Now, to close forever that shameful avenue down which he might slink from the battle, I pledge myself to pay again that five pounds a month during my life, and to secure the same to Richard Cartwright after my death, so long as he shall live. That, I think, is all."

He passed with dignity out of the room and into the street, where the buggy awaited him. Dick remained

standing, but the "Bishop" followed the father, noting how, as soon as he had crossed the threshold, his back became bowed and his steps faltered. He touched the old man lightly on the shoulder.

"May I take your hand?" he asked. "I am not fit, no fitter than Dick, but-" Mr. Carteret held out his hand, and the "Bishop" pressed it gently.

The Cornhill Magazine.

"I believe," said Mr. Carteret, after a pause, "that you, sir, may live to be an honest man."

"I'll look after Dick," blubbered the "Bishop," sorely affected. "Dick will pan out all right-in the end."

But Dick's father shuddered. "It's very chilly," he said, with a nervous cough. "Good-night, Mr. Crisp. Good night, and God bless you." Horace Annesley Vachell.

For many years there has been an unintermittent controversy as to the suffrage for women. One branch of the subject, as it seems to me, has been adequately, perhaps more than adequately, discussed-the advantages of many kinds which the vote would bring to women, and the evidence its use would afford of their intellectual equality with men. The discussion has shown how women, like all other groups of our day in every rank and degree, have been affected by the bewildering growth of modern individualism. We seem still, do what we may, to be our own centre and circumference; full of self-analysis, very sensitive as to our wrongs and virtues, our disabilities and desires. Not that we women are alone in this development; we are but taking a giant's share in a universal change, so insidious and so comprehensive that we are scarcely able to perceive it in ourselves or others, or believe that we were ever different from what we now are. It needs a journey into another century or another climate to make us realize the full extent of the modern individualism.

The discussion, however, of our wrongs and our capabilities is so well

worn, the arguments now grown by constant use so trite, that it is difficult to waken fresh thought in this direction. There is the argument of Justice -that Shadow which all mankind is pursuing, which none has ever reached, from the Substance of which we should still be very far away, even when the vote had been thrown into our lap. There is the argument of Respect-tnat more honor will come our way when the decoration of the ballot paper is hung round our necks, and that the magic of an outward and visible sign will work the miracle of bringing to us a credit and esteem which we are, at least so women seem to confess, unable to win without it. I have always doubted whether this external magic would make much difference, and whether women would not as before take rank in their various circles simply by merit and capacity. Indeed, I feel sure that the credit of a whole class will generally be found to depend on the credit of its representative leaders, of what I may call its aristocracy of brain or character; and that a woman who had won a place as a really distinguished authority in any of the higher questions with which politics are concerned, would have conferred

or

more public esteem on the whole body than the vote will ever do. Let me give a single instance of what I mean. There has been nothing in my memory, till this war, that roused women to the same degree as the question of Home Rule-women I knew, who had never troubled about any public question before, flung themselves with a paroxysm of zeal into one camp or the other, made Primrose Lodges and Liberal Leagues, and discovered the joys of public life. There has been, so far as I know, not one serious thinker writer among them all on the subject of Land, Emigration, Taxation, or a Catholic University. They have contributed nothing to the controversy except heat. When it ceased to be a matter of public talk, they let it alone with careless cynicism. Their business has been merely to register existing public sentiment on one side or the other; nor was one found to stand aside from party, to carry into this great political problem independent research and observation, to ignore the prejudices and add to the science of government in this kingdom. The magazines are open to them, the press and the platform; all the most powerful means of guiding public opinion; the most powerful, too, of winning respect for the whole class. I can imagine enemy saying-Is it any use to add the vote, except, indeed, as the public function which can be discharged with the greatest ease, the least intelligence and, perhaps, the most inconsiderable results? Does the credit and reputation of women lie here?

an

There is another argument I might call the argument of Respectability-a morbid anxiety for uniformity, sprung, I imagine, from a sort of overgrown nodesty and self-distrust in women. It is possible, indeed I think certain, that what is most needed in us for the service of the State is divergence, not similarity. But many of us, passing by

all questions of where it is we really want to go, only feel safe if we can get into the common vulgar track, beaten plain by the whole crowd of ordinary people. The broad road with the wide gate, "and many there be that go in thereat," they judge the most honorable and reputable way to be seen in. By a generosity I cannot share, and a fear which I cannot yield to, they assume that the big crowd is necessarily in the right, however their course may be tending, and that if women take another, and at first more solitary path, it must needs be a sign they are "Helots." I would wish them a loftier pride, a graver self-respect, a firmer spirit and more intellectual originality.

All these considerations of justice and respect and respectability, however, seem to me, after a certain time, unsatisfactory subjects for prolonged discussion. Such considerations are what I may call "impressionist;" they are out of the range of reasoning or demonstration, seen by each person through his own emotional atmosphere, a matter of taste and fancy, round which all the talk and discussion in the world may fret and fume quite innocuously, making no more impression than a thunderstorm on a glass ball.

Plain and common as it may seem, might we not sometimes turn to reflections of a definite kind: to prosaic matters of fact which can be more usefully subjected to the vigor and heat that healthy-minded people carry into

controversial wars?

I presume we are all agreed that our first object, clear and unadulterated, is not to obtain a ticket of honor for ourselves, but to discover our true and reasonable service to the State. For that we must have an exact idea of what the State at any given time most needs. Let us, therefore, appreciate at its true value the vote we wish to acquire. Briefly, my argument against