G. DANVERS.


Gordon showed this letter to Mr. Travers, and, on receiving the hearty
good-wishes of that gentleman, said, with emotion partly genuine,
partly assumed, "You cannot guess all that the realization of your
good-wishes would be. Once in the House of Commons, and my motives
for action are so strong that--do not think me very conceited if I
count upon Parliamentary success."

"My clear Gordon, I am as certain of your success as I am of my own
existence."

"Should I succeed,--should the great prizes of public life be within
my reach,--should I lift myself into a position that would warrant my
presumption, do you think I could come to you and say, 'There is an
object of ambition dearer to me than power and office,--the hope of
attaining which was the strongest of all my motives of action? And in
that hope shall I also have the good-wishes of the father of Cecilia
Travers?"

"My dear fellow, give me your hand; you speak manfully and candidly as
a gentleman should speak. I answer in the same spirit. I don't
pretend to say that I have not entertained views for Cecilia which
included hereditary rank and established fortune in a suitor to her
hand, though I never should have made them imperative conditions. I
am neither potentate nor /parvenu/ enough for that; and I can never
forget" (here every muscle in the man's face twitched) "that I myself
married for love, and was so happy. How happy Heaven only knows!