She walked across the room and began to gaze down into the street with her back to Hughie. Her husband, evidently struck with the suitability of this attitude, rose and joined her.

"The fact is, Hughie," began Mrs Leroy, staring resolutely at the house opposite, "Jack and I want to talk to you like a father and mother, and I can do it more easily if I look the other way."

"Same here," corroborated Leroy gruffly.

Hughie started, and surveyed the guilty-looking pair of backs before him with an uneasy suspicion. Surely he was not going to be treated to a third variation on the same theme! "Go on, Jack!" was Mrs Leroy's next remark.

"Čan't be done, m'dear," replied the gentleman, after an obvious effort.

"Well, Hughie," continued Mrs Leroy briskly, "as this coward has failed me, I must say it myself. I want to tell you that people are talking."

"Ursula Harbord, for instance," said Hughie drily.

"Yes. How did you know?" "She delivered a lecture to me this morning. Gave me to understand that she darkly suspects me of being a knave, and made no attempt to conceal her conviction that I am a fool."

"Well, of course that's all nonsense," said Mrs Leroy to a fly on the window-pane; "but really, Hughie, with all the money that her Uncle Jimmy left her, you ought to be able to give Joey more than you do,

Captain Leroy made no reply, but the deep shade of carmine on the back of his neck said "Sneak!" as plainly as possible.

"And you know he would be the last to say anything against you wouldn't you, Jack?"

"Rather!" said Leroy, in a voice of thunder.

"Hughie," said Mrs Leroy, turning impulsively, "won't you confide in me?"

Hughie kicked a coal in the grate in his usual fashion, and sighed.

"I can't, really," he said.

"Fact is, old man," broke in Leroy, in response to his wife's appealing glances, "we didn't want to say anything at all, but the missis thought it best -considerin' the way people are talkin', and all that. Can I be of any use? Been speculatin', or anything?"

"No, Jack, I haven't," said Hughie shortly.

Mrs Leroy gave a helpless look at her husband, and said desperately:

"But, Hughie, we can't leave things like this! You simply don't know what stories are going about. It is ruining your chances with Joey, too. She thinks you are a noodle.'

"I know it," said Hughie. "Well, look here," said Leroy, "can't you give us some sort

of explanation—some yarn we could put about the place to account for this state of things

"What state of things?" said Hughie doggedly. He was in an unpleasant temper. "Well, Hughie," said Mrs Leroy, keeping hers, "here is Joan, known to have been left a lot of money for her immediate use-she admits it herself-living quite humbly and cheaply, and obviously not well off. People are asking why. There are two explanations given. One, the more popular, is that you have embezzled or speculated the money all away. The other, which prevails among the élite"

"The people who are really in the know, you know," explained Leroy.

"Yes: they say," continued his wife, "that Joan won't marry you, so you have retaliated by-by—

"By cutting off supplies," suggested Hughie. "Yes, until

drawn ducks off a pond, "what have you done? Tell us!" Leroy followed his wife across the room. "Get it off your chest, old man," he said, with the air of a father confessor.

Hughie smiled gratefully. He took Mrs Leroy's two hands into one of his own, and laid the other on Jack Leroy's shoulder.

"Jack and Milly," he said earnestly-"my two pals!-I would rather tell you than anybody else; but-I simply can't!

It's not my secret! You'll probably find out all about it some day. At present I must ask you to accept my assurance that I'm not so black as I'm painted."

"Hughie," said Mrs Leroy, "you are simply stupid! We have not come to you out of idle curiosity—”

"I know that," said Hughie heartily.

"And I think you might give us some sort of an inkling -a sort of favourable bulletin

at any rate

There was a long pause. Finally Hughie said:

"Well, it's a pretty story; but, honestly, I'm not in a position to contradict it at present."

Mrs Leroy desisted from plaiting the window cord, swung round, walked deliberately to the fireplace, and laid a hand on Hughie's arm.

"Hughie," she said, in tones which her husband subsequently affirmed would have

"Joey!" said Hughie involuntarily; "Lord forbid!"

Mrs Leroy, startled by the vehemence of his tone, paused; and her husband added dejectedly

"All right, old man! Let's drop it! Sorry you couldn't see your way to confide in us. Wouldn't have gone any further. Rather sick about the whole business-eh? No wonder! Money is the devil, anyway."

Somehow Leroy's words hit Hughie harder than anything

that had been said yet. He wavered. After all

"We've bought the hat, and I'm perfectly ravenous,' announced Joan, appearing in the doorway. "And we've brought Mr D'Arcy. Hughie, are those plover's eggs? Ooh!"

This was no atmosphere for the breathing of confidential secrets. The party resumed its usual demeanour of off-hand British insouciance, and began to gather round the luncheontable. Only Mr D'Arcy's right eyebrow asked a question of Mrs Leroy, which was answered by a slight but regretful shrug of the shoulders.

Hughie's apartment was Lshaped, and the feast was spread in the smaller arm, out of the way of draughts and doorways. Consequently any one entering the room would fail to see the luncheon-table unless he turned to his left and walked round a corner.

Hughie was helping the plover's eggs-it is to be feared that Miss Gaymer received a Benjamin's portion of the same -when Mr Goble suddenly appeared at his elbow and whispered in his ear

"Him again!"

Muttering an apology, Hughie left the table and walked round the corner to the other arm of the room. Lance Gaymer had just entered. His face was flushed and his eyes glittered, and Hughie's halfuttered invitation to him to come in and have some lunch died away upon his lips.

"Hallo, Lance!" he said lamely.

Mr Gaymer replied, in the

deliberate solemn tones of a man who is three parts drunk

and portentously

"I understand you have got a party on here."

"Yes," said Hughie, endeavouring to edge his visitor through the doorway.

"What I want to say," continued Mr Gaymer in rising tones, "is that I accuse you of embezzling my sister's property, and I'm going to make things damned hot for you. Yes— you! Go and tell that to your luncheon party round the corner!" he concluded with a snort. "And-glug-glugglug!"

By this time he had been judiciously backed into the passage, almost out of earshot of those in the room. Simultaneously Mr Goble's large hand closed upon his mouth from behind, and having thus acquired a good purchase, turned its turned its owner deftly round and conducted him downstairs.

Death-like silence reigned at the luncheon - table. Hughie wondered how much they had heard. Not that it mattered greatly, for Master Lance's accusations, making allowances for alcoholic directness, partook very largely of the nature of those already levelled at Hughie by more conventional deputations.

Before returning to his seat, Hughie crossed to the window and looked down into the street.

Mr Lance Gaymer was being assisted into a waiting hansom by the kindly hands of Mr Guy Haliburton.

Hughie, having seen all he expected to see, returned with faltering steps to his duties as a host.

It was a delicate moment, calling for the exercise of much tact. Even Mildred Leroy hesitated. Joan had flushed red, whether with shame, or anger, or sympathy, it was hard to say. Mr D'Arcy regarded her curiously.

But heavy-footed husbands sometimes rush in, with success, where the most wary and diplomatic wives fear to tread. Jack Leroy cleared his throat.

Fill up your glass, Miss Harbord! No heel-taps, Milly!"

There was an irrelevant bonhomie about this whole speech which struck exactly the right note. Mrs Leroy glanced gratefully at her husband, and lifted her glass. The others did the same. But it was Joan who spoke first.

"Hughie!" she cried, with glowing eyes.

"Hughie!" cried every one. "Good health!"

In the times of our prosperity our friends are always critical, frequently unjust, generally a nuisance, and sometimes utterly detestable. But there is no blinking the fact that they are a very present help in trouble.

He

ONE of the most remarkable features in political history is the change which has taken place in the Liberal party on the question of property, particularly in land. In order to realise the greatness of the change it is necessary to indulge in a short historical retrospect. After the chaos produced by the French Revolution, English political thinkers of an advanced type felt it necessary to reconsider their political creed. Rousseau with his Social Compact, and Paine with his Rights of Man, had fallen into disrepute, and it was felt that other and less unpopular watchwords would need to be found if Liberalism was once more to get into touch with practical politics. Jeremy Bentham came to the rescue. He began by characterising the Rights of Man as a "hodge-podge" of fallacies, and by holding up to ridicule the Social Compact. For the old watchwords he substituted his famous formula, the greatest happiness of the greatest number-which, by the way, he borrowed from Francis Hutcheson. The duty of the legislator, according to Bentham, was to use the powers of the State so as to procure the greatest happiness of the greatest number. From the point of view of the legislator, said Bentham, happiness consists in four things-Subsist

ence, Abundance, Equality, and Security. Upon these as foundation Bentham sought to reconstruct the creed of progress under the name of Philosophic Radicalism.

Everything, however, depends on which of these principles receives priority. The French Revolutionists fixed upon Equality, and the result was Pandemonium. Bentham had no wish to repeat the errors of the early Radicals, so he made the fundamental principle of the new creed not Equality, but Security. In his own words

"When Security and Equality are in conflict it will not do to hesitate for a moment. Equality must yield. The first is the foundation of life; subsistence, abundance, happiness, everything depends upon it. "Equality only produces a certain amount of good. Besides, whatever we may do, it will never be perfect; it may exist to-day, but the revolutions of the morrow will overturn it..... If property

should be overturned with the direct intention of establishing an equality of possessions the evil would be irreparable. No more security, no more industry, no more abundance. So

ciety would return to the savage state whence it emerged."

Were Bentham alive to-day he would be able to fortify his political philosophy by means of the scientific conception of society as expounded by Sir Henry Maine as representing the Historical, and by Herbert Spencer as representing the Evolution school. Differing in