ir extraordinary interest in the election
though never in the common roads of life.

"But why the deuce," said Jeff, "Andrea and his gang look so mournful I
can't see."

"Why," said Lydia, "don't you know? They voted for you, and their votes
were thrown out."

"For me?"

"Yes, Madame Beattie told them to. She'd planned it before she went
away, but somehow it fell through. They were to put stickers on the
ballot, but at the last the stickers scared them, and they just wrote in
your name."

"Lydia," said Jeff, "you're making this up."

"Oh, no, I'm not," said Lydia. "Mr. Choate told me. I knew it was going
to happen, but he's just told me how it was. They wrote 'Prisoner Blake'
in all kinds of scrawls and skriggles. They didn't know they'd got to
write your real name. I call it a joke on Madame Beattie."

To Lydia it looked like a joke on herself also, though a sorry one. She
thought it very benevolent of Madame Beattie to have prepared such a
dramatic surprise, and that it was definite ill-fortune for Jeff to have
missed the full effect of it. But the earth to Lydia was a flare of
dazzling roads all leading from Jeff; he might take any one of them.

To Amabel the confusion of voting was a matter of no interest, and Jeff
said nothing. Lydia was not sure whether he had even really heard. Then
Amabel said if there were going to be speeches she hardly thought she
cared for them, and they walked home with her and left her at the door,
though not before she had put a kind hand on Jeff's shoulder and told
him in that way how grateful she was to him. After she had gone in Jeff,
so curious he had to say it before they started to walk away, turned
upon Lydia.

"How do you know so much about her?" he began.

"Madame Beattie? We used to talk together," said Lydia demurely.

"You knew her confounded plans?"

"Some of them."

"And never told?"

"They were secrets," said Lydia. "Come, let's walk along."

"No, no. I want you where I can look at you, so you won't do any
romancing about that old enchantress. If you know so much, tell me one
thing more. She's gone. She can't hurt you."

"What is it?" asked Lydia.

"What did she tell those fellows about me?"

"Andrea?"

"Andrea and his gang. To make them treat me like a Hindoo god. No, I'll
tell you how they treated me. As savages treat the first white man
they've ever seen till they find he's a rotten trader."

"Oh," said Lydia, "it can't do any harm to tell you