olroom. Her elder brother, Grantly, who
lounged smoking in the deep window-seat, swung his feet to the floor with
a plump, and sat facing her as she came in, saying sternly:

"Mary, who on earth was that man you were with? Where did you pick him
up?"

Mary laughed. "I literally picked him up from the very wettest part of
the wood, where all the firs are, you know. He was sitting mournfully in
a young pond, apparently quite incapable of getting up by himself, and
very much afraid of Parker, who was barking furiously."

"Showed his sense; but what was that chap doing there, and who is he?"

"He was trespassing, of course; makes a point of it, he says, but he'd
evidently lost his way, so I put him right. I thought if he and the
pater met there'd be words. He isn't at all a meek young man, and talks
like that _Course of Reading_ Miss Glover loves so."

"If he talked so much, he must have told you something about himself."

"Not much; his name is E. A. Gallup, and he was going to pay a call in
Redmarley."

"What's he like? I only saw his back, and deucedly disreputable it was.
He looked as if he had been rolling drunk."

Mary laughed again. "I shouldn't think _he_ ever got drunk," she said;
"he's far too solemn. In appearance, he's rather like a very respectable
young milkman, fresh-coloured, you know, and sort of blunt everywhere,
but he speaks--if you can imagine a cross between a very superior curate
and the pater--that's what he speaks like, except that there's just an
echo of an accent--not bad, you know, but there."

Grantly took the pipe out of his mouth and pulled the lobe of his ear
meditatively.

"Gallup," he repeated. "Gallup, I've heard something about that name
quite lately. Surely, if you walked with him right from the Forty Firs
and talked all the time, you must have found out something more?"

"He's going to make a speech at Marlehouse to-morrow night; he was
spouting away like anything just before he fell down. That's what made
Parker bark so."

"I've got it," cried Grantly. "He's the Liberal candidate, that's what
he is. He's standing against poor old Brooke of Medenham, and they say
he'll get in, too--young brute."

"Is he a Labour member?"

"No, Liberal, they couldn't run a Labour member at Marlehouse; not enough
cash in the constituency . . . tell you who he is, son of old Gallup that
kept the ready-made clothes shop in the market-place--'Golden Anchor' or
something, they c