"I only want justice done. I only want to see that you don't do yourself more injustice with the country. What is your case?"

The Squire stated it eagerly and volubly-delighted to have a chance of justifying himself before a perfectly unbiassed person. Case, sir? it is all on my side. I allowed her and three lubberly sons to keep the farm on after Granmore's death, on certain conditions as to crops and fences, not one of which has been fulfilled; they have neither brains, energy, or capital to fulfil them. She is ruining my land. She is destroying the capital on which she professes to be paying interest. She is living on me. She is breaking every law of political economy; and I have given her notice. I cannot have my land destroyed by other people's widows: but, after all, it is as good as your land now, and, if you say let her stay, she shall stay. Only I warn you that, if you are going to manage the estate on these principles, you had better let me marry Miss Granby in real earnest, and accept a rent charge."

"Well," said Arthur, "in strict justice your case is a good one; she has certainly no more right to ruin your land than to pick your pocket. Send the baggage

packing. You are only a capitalist, you know, and must, in mere honesty towards the State, behave as any other capitalist. If she is actually over-cropping the land, she ought to go on every ground. I am quite convinced." And so Arthur rose, whistling.

"Is there no middle course?" said the Squire, before he had reached the door.

"Eh?"

Any middle course. Nothing short of turning her out?"

"" Oh yes, there is a middle course, if you think yourself justified in pursuing it. Renew her lease for a shorter term on more stringent conditions, and lend her some money at four per cent. to start with. She knows what she is about fast enough. That is a middle course. I don't recommend it, or otherwise; I only point it out." "Well, I will follow your advice then, young sir. Is it the new fashion at Oxford to incur obligations and shirk out of the acknowledgment of them,-to persuade a man to do what you wish in such an ill-conditioned manner that the obligation actually appears to be on your side? I will do as you wish, Arthur, and most humbly thank you for asking me."

Arthur left the room, and was gone about ten minutes. When he returned he came in very gravely, and laid his hand on the Squire's shoulder.

Father," he said, "I thank you very heartily for all your kindness to me, more particularly in this matter about the farm. I will, in everything, follow your wishes as far as they do not interfere with my private judgment. I have not behaved well to you to-night, and I ask your forgiveness."

CHAPTER XIX.

SOME OF ARTHUR'S PLANS FOR HIMSELF.

IT cost him something to say those last words, even to his own father..

How far can a man, even of the strongest will, succeed in curing the faults of his character? He may repress them, and hide them from the eyes of other people almost entirely, but they are there incubating. And when the moral system gets out of order, the moral gout gets twitching again. A man has generally contracted all the faults of character he will ever be plagued with this side of the grave before he is sixteen; some being hereditary, some coming through foolish education, and some through evil opportunity. The life of the most perfect saint would be the life of a man who by misfortune had found himself at years of dis

cretion the heir to a noble crop of evil moral instincts, including of course the accursed root of the whole evil tree, selfishness; and yet who had succeeded, through all states of ill health, poverty, and the temptation of prosperity, in keeping them in repression; in never even betraying to the world the fact of the temptation; the fact of the evil disposition existing at all; knowing himself to be often in wish a sinner, yet, acting throughout his life in every relation like a saint. Such a character is possible, and yet even of such a character one could not say that he had cured his worse instincts; one could only say that he had most nobly suppressed them.

There are those who hold the very noble and glorious belief that, through the grace of God, and the persistent imitation of Christ, evil instincts themselves become eradicated, and at the last that the soul itself quits the body in perfect accord with her Saviour. Of such a divine creed let us speak with reverence, and deep admiration. We have not to do with such great and deep matters here; but only to watch how circumstances acted on a clever man's habits of mind, changing them from time to time.