Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/259

Rh "But, Tom, they have much seeming provocation."

"See again," he would say, "the tender love of democracy; the tyranny of the precious pair, and the handful that self-interest has already gathered about them. Any one would sell the other and their whole cause for a song. The possession of money or power transforms your most exemplary democrat into a demon of oppression, the moment he gets his chance."

"That is only another way of saying," replied Hilda, "that human nature is a monopoly of no one class. To improve the social state it is not sufficient to shift the balance of power. You must elevate the moral nature and touch the heart."

On the evening in question, Mrs. Courtenay asked Mr. Dowling to accept, in memory of her late husband, the walking-stick, almost sole memento of him who was gone. Dowling showed it to his wife, who was putting the finishing touches on her patchwork quilt. As moonlight flooded the room, Maud sang softly Blockley's setting of 'Enoch Arden's Dream.' Hilda and Tom continued their conversation beside the open window. Mrs. Courtenay lay on the sofa lost in thought, listening to the words her husband had loved—

"Richard," whispered Mrs. Dowling, in a strange, soft voice, as if her thoughts were far away, while nervously, as one blind, she returned the walking-stick to her husband, "I suppose it is the music, or the moonlight, or all the sad memories influencing me; but I see so clearly the doctor clinging to his cane for life, and a