l will be held this afternoon,
according to the suggestion of my neighbour here."

"Sir Ralph Oldtower has convenient neighbours," remarked Lord Luxmore.

"Of my neighbour, Mr Halifax," repeated the old baronet, louder, and
more emphatically. "A gentleman,"--he paused, as if doubtful whether
in that title he were awarding a right or bestowing a courtesy, looked
at John, and decided--"a gentleman for whom, ever since I have known
him, I have entertained the highest respect."

It was the first public recognition of the position which for some time
had been tacitly given to John Halifax in his own neighbourhood. Coming
thus, from this upright and honourable old man, whose least merit it
was to hold, and worthily, a baronetage centuries old, it made John's
cheek glow with an honest gratification and a pardonable pride.

"Tell her," he said to me, when, the meeting having dispersed, he asked
me to ride home and explain the reason of his detention at
Kingswell--"Tell my wife all. She will be pleased, you know."

Ay, she was. Her face glowed and brightened as only a wife's can--a
wife whose dearest pride is in her husband's honour.

Nevertheless, she hurried me back again as quickly as I came.

As I once more rode up Kingswell Hill, it seemed as if the whole parish
were agog to see the novel sight. A contested election! truly, such a
thing had not been known within the memory of the oldest inhabitant.
The fifteen voters--I believe that was the number--were altogether
bewildered by a sense of their own importance. Also, by a new and
startling fact--which I found Mr. Halifax trying to impress upon a few
of them, gathered under the great yew-tree in the churchyard--that a
man's vote ought to be the expression of his own conscientious opinion;
and that for him to sell it was scarcely less vile than to traffic in
the liberty of his son or the honour of his daughter. Among those who
listened most earnestly, was a man whom I had seen before to-day--Jacob
Baines, once the ringleader of the bread-riots, who had long worked
steadily in the tan-yard, and then at the flour-mill. He was the
honestest and faithfulest of all John's people--illustrating
unconsciously that Divine doctrine, that often they love most to whom
most has been forgiven.

The poll was to be held in the church--a not uncommon usage in country
boroughs, but which from its rarity struck great awe into the Kingswell
folk. The churchwarden was placed in the