ed to himself, and
now joined Levy, as the candidates drove slowly off.

"Has not Mr. Leslie received from the squire an answer to that letter of
which you informed me?"

"Yes, my Lord, the squire will be here to-morrow."

"To-morrow? Thank you for apprising me; his rooms shall be prepared."

"I suppose he will only stay to see Leslie and myself, and pay the
money."

"Aha! Pay the money. Is it so, then?"

"Twice the sum, and, it seems, as a gift, which Leslie only asked as a
loan. Really, my Lord, Mr. Leslie is a very clever man; and though I am
at your commands, I should not like to injure him. With such matrimonial
prospects, he could be a very powerful enemy; and if he succeed in
parliament, still more so."

"Baron, these gentlemen are waiting for you. I will follow by myself."

CHAPTER XXV.

In the centre of the raised platform in the town-hall sat the mayor.
On either hand of that dignitary now appeared the candidates of the
respective parties,--to his right, Audley Egerton and Leslie; to his
left, Dick Avenel and Leonard.

The place was as full as it could hold. Rows of grimy faces peeped in,
even from the upper windows outside the building. The contest was one
that created intense interest, not only from public principles, but
local passions. Dick Avenel, the son of a small tradesman, standing
against the Right Honourable Audley Egerton, the choice of the powerful
Lansmere aristocratic party,--standing, too, with his nephew by his
side; taking, as he himself was wont to say, "the tarnation Blue Bull
by both its oligarchical horns!"--there was a pluck and gallantry in the
very impudence of the attempt to convert the important borough--for one
member of which a great earl had hitherto striven, "with labour dire and
weary woe" into two family seats for the House of Avenel and the triumph
of the Capelocracy.

This alone would have excited all the spare passions of a country
borough; but, besides this, there was the curiosity that attached to
the long-deferred public appearance of a candidate so renowned as the
ex-minister,--a man whose career had commenced with his success at
Lansmere, and who now, amidst the popular tempest that scattered his
colleagues, sought to refit his vessel in the same harbour from which
it had first put forth. New generations had grown up since the name of
Audley Egerton had first fluttered the dovecotes in that Corioli. The
questions that had then seemed so important wer