"You have been in Italy, then?"
"I have, Sir," he answered, "I have had my Italian days like Longfellow;" and, looking into the fire, he continued low, almost to himself:—
"… Land of the Madonna:
How beautiful it is! It seems a garden
Of Paradise … Long years ago
I wandered as a youth among its bowers
And never from my heart has faded quite
Its memory, that like a summer sunset,
Encircles with a ring of purple light
All the horizon of my youth."
As Chrysler regarded him then and heard this free expression of feeling he could not but feel that Haviland was a foreigner, different from the British peoples.
"And yet," mused Haviland, in a moment again, "Have we not a more than
Italy in this beautiful country of our own?"
After weighing his companion in thought for a few moments longer, according to a habit of his, the elder man recollected another matter:—
"You have resigned your seat in the Dominion House to enter the
Provincial. Why is that?"
"A new turn has arrived in affairs, sir. The Honorable Genest's fever has broken him down. He cannot fill a place where activity is needed. Until the fever, he was an influence, you know, in the Dominion House, while I was in the Local. After it, he arranged that we should exchange seats, as the Legislature has latterly been so quiet. Lately, however, Picault's corruptionists, whom we thought crushed, have made another assault for the moneys, bullied, lied, and bribed, weighed their silver to the Iscariots, and edged Genest out of his seat."
"Who is their man here?"
"Libergent, lawyer. The election was annulled for frauds, but by moving the heavens and earth of the Courts they saved Libergent from disqualification, and now he appears again against us. Our cause calls for energetic action, in the Legislature, so Genest and I are changing places back again."