in flushed with applauses and victory, took his
wife into his arms and kissed her. "I owe this to you, as well as so
much else, Lucy," he said.

"Oh, don't say that! when you know I don't understand much, and never
can do anything; but I am so glad, nobody could be more glad," said
Lucy. Little Tom had been brought in, too, in his nurse's arms, and
crowed and clapped his fat little baby hands for his father; and when
his mother took him and stepped out upon the balcony, from which her
husband was speaking an impromptu address to his new constituents, with
the child in her arms, not suspecting that she would be seen, the cheers
and outcries ran into an uproar of applause. "Three cheers for my lady
and the baby," the crowd shouted at the top of its many voices; and
Lucy, blushing and smiling and crying with pleasure, instead of
shrinking away as everybody feared she would do, stood up in her modest,
pretty youthfulness, shy, but full of sense and courage, and held up the
child, who stared at them all solemnly with big blue eyes, and, after a
moment's consideration, again patted his fat little hands together, an
action which put the multitude beside itself with delight. Sir Tom's
speech did not make nearly so much impression as the baby's
"patti-cake." Every man in the crowd, not to say every woman, and with
still more reason every child, clapped his or her hands too, and shouted
and laughed and hurrahed.

The incident of the baby's appearance before the public, and the early
success he had gained--the earliest on record, the newspapers said--made
quite a sensation throughout the county, and made Farafield famous for
a week. It was mentioned in a leading article in the first newspaper in
the world. It appeared in large headlines in the placards under such
titles as "Baby in Politics," "The Nursery and the Hustings," and such
like. As for the little hero of the moment, he was handed down to his
anxious nurse just as symptoms of a whimper of fear at the alarming
tumult outside began to appear about the corners of his mouth. "For
heaven's sake take him away; he mustn't cry, or he will spoil all," said
the chairman of Sir Tom's committee. And the young mother, disappearing
too into the room behind, sat down in a great chair behind their backs,
and cried to relieve her feelings. Never had there been such a day. If
Sir Tom had not been the thoroughly good-humoured man he was, it is
possible that he might have objected to the in