kept behind the blind. She never did anything absurd in the way of early rising on ordinary occasions; but this morning it was impossible to restrain a certain excitement, and though it did her no good, still she got up an hour earlier than usual, and listened. to the music, and heard the cabs rattling about, and could not help it if her heart beat quicker. It was perhaps a more important crisis for Miss Marjoribanks than for any other person, save one, in Carlingford; for of course it would be foolish to attempt to assert that she did not understand by this time what Mr Ashburton meant; and it may be imagined how hard it was upon Lucilla to be thus, as it were, in the very outside row of the assembly-to hear all the distant shouts and sounds, everything that was noisy and inarticulate, and conveyed no meaning, and to be out of reach of all that could really inform her as to what was going on.

She saw from her window the cabs rushing past, now with her own violet-and-green colours, now with the blue-and-yellow. And sometimes it seemed to Lucilla that the blue-and-yellow predominated, and that the carriages which mounted the hostile standard carried voters in larger numbers and more enthusiastic condition. The first load of bargemen that came up Grange Lane from the further end of Wharfside were all Blues; and when a spectator is thus

held on the very edge of the event in a suspense which grows every moment more intolerable, especially when he or she is disposed to believe that things in general go on all the worse for his or her absence, it is no wonder if that spectator becomes nervous, and sees all the dangers at their darkest. What if, after all, old liking and friendship had prevailed over that beautiful optimism which Lucilla had done so much to instil into the minds of her townsfolk? What if something more mercenary and less elevating than the ideal search for the best man, in which she had hoped Carlingford was engaged, should have swayed the popular mind to the other side? All these painful questions went through Lucilla's mind as the day crept on; and her suspense was much aggravated by aunt Jemima, who took no real interest in the election, but who kept saying every ten minutes—“I wonder how the poll is going on-I wonder what that is they are shouting-is it Ashburton for ever!' or 'Cavendish for ever!' Lucilla ? Your ears should be sharper than mine; but I think it is Cavendish." Lucilla thought so too, and her heart quaked within her, and she went and squeezed herself into the corner of the window, to try whether it was not possible to catch a glimpse of the field of battle; and her perseverance was finally rewarded by the sight of the extremity

of the wooden planks which formed the pollingbooth; but there was little satisfaction to be got out of that. And then the continual dropping of aunt Jemima's questions drove her wild. "My dear aunt," she said at last, "I can see nothing and hear nothing, and you know as much about what is going on as I do"-which, it will be acknowledged, was not an answer such as one would have expected from Lucilla's perfect temper and wonderful self-control.

The election went on with all its usual commotion while Miss Marjoribanks watched and waited. Mr Cavendish's committee brought their supporters very well up in the morning-no doubt by way of making sure of them, as somebody suggested on the other side; and for some time Mrs Woodburn's party at Masters's windows (which Masters had given rather reluctantly, by way of pleasing the Rector) looked in better spirits and less anxious than Lady Richmond's party, which was at the Blue Boar. Towards noon Mr Cavendish himself went up to his female supporters with the bulletin of the poll-the same bulletin which Mr Ashburton had just sent down to Lucilla. These were the numbers; and they made Masters's triumphant, while silence and anxiety fell

upon the Blue Boar :

Cavendish,
Ashburton,

283

275

When Miss Marjoribanks received this disastrous intelligence, she put the note in her pocket without saying a word to aunt Jemima, and left her window, and went back to her worsted-work; but as for Mrs Woodburn, she gave her brother a hug, and laughed, and cried, and believed in it, like a silly woman as she was.

It is something quite unlooked-for, and which I never could have calculated upon," she said, thrusting her hand into an imaginary waistcoat with Mr Ashburton's very look and tone, which was beyond measure amusing to all the party. They laughed so long, and were so gay, that Lady Richmond solemnly levelled her opera-glass at them with the air of a woman who was used to elections, but knew how such parvenus have their heads turned by a prominent position. "That woman is taking some of us off," she said; "but if it is me, I can bear it. There is nothing so vulgar as that sort of thing, and I hope you never encourage it in your presence, my dears."

Just at that moment, however, an incident occurred which took up the attention of the ladies at the windows, and eclipsed even the interest of the election. Poor Barbara Lake was interested, too, to know if her friend would win. She was not entertaining any particular hopes or plans about him. Years and hard experiences had humbled Barbara. The Brussels veil which she used to dream of had faded as much from her

memory as poor Rose's Honiton design, for which she had got the prize. At the present moment, instead of nourishing the ambitious designs which everybody laid to her charge, she would have been content with the very innocent privilege of talking a little to her next employers about Mr Cavendish, the member for Carlingford, and his visits to her father's house. But at the same time, she had once been fond of him, and she took a great interest in him, and was very anxious that he should win. And she was in the habit, like so many other women, of finding out, as far as she could, what was going on, and going to see everything that there might be to see. She had brought one of her young brothers with her, whose anxiety to see the fun was quite as great as her own; and she was arrayed in the tin dress-her best available garment--which was made long, according to the fashion, and which, as Barbara scorned to tuck it up, was continually getting trodden on, and talked about, and reviled at, on that crowded pavement. The two parties of ladies saw, and even it might be said heard, the sweep of the metallic garment, which was undergoing such rough usage, and which was her best, poor soul. Lady Richmond had alighted from her carriage carefully tucked up, though there were only a few steps to make, and there was no lady in Carlingford who would have swept "a good gown" over the stones