watched me?"
he continued. "Why did you let me go this way! Have I been up to Miss
Waldron's?"

"Once or twice for a few minutes," answered Madame le Claire. "You
have been very busy indeed; and yesterday Miss Waldron went out of
town."

"I think," said Judge Blodgett, "that you will find a letter from her
in your room. Alderson brought it up from the counting-house."

"Well, you must excuse me," said Mr. Amidon. "I want to talk this all
over with you early in the morning; but I must go to my room now. No,
thank you, Clara, I really can not stay to your supper. To-morrow you
must tell me how you kidnapped me--I never can repay you for your
faithful service to me. Good night!"

The discerning reader has already anticipated that Mr. Amidon went
straight to the letter and opened it.

"Dearest Eugene," it said, "I want to give you a word to say that I am
proud of the love and confidence which every one has for you, and to
say that I do not regard the place to which you are to be elected as
unimportant, or one which you should decline. Of all men you are best
able to protect our town against corruption, and to lift its civic life
to a higher plane. I wish I might help your fellow townsmen to confer
_you_ upon _it_. Maybe I can help in cheering you along the way after
this is done.

"I have all sorts of pride in and ambition for you. Hitherto, you have
confined yourself too closely to the practical and productively
utilitarian. I shall watch with all the interest you can desire me to
feel, this new career of yours, beginning so modestly and so much
against your will; but reaching, I feel sure, to the state and national
capitals.

"Do you know, I have always imagined myself capable of founding
Primrose Leagues, and becoming a real political force? Spend the
afternoon with me Sunday, and we'll talk it over--come early.

"Yours in loving partizanship,

"Elizabeth."

Florian sat for a long time pondering over this letter. It was the
thing about which his thought centered the next morning. When the
judge said that he was at work on the letter of withdrawal, Amidon
remarked that there was no hurry, as he should not use the letter until
after a conference with Miss Waldron. Then he went to spend his Sunday
afternoon with his fiancee, according to her invitation.

The "dear Eugene," and the tone of co-proprietorship in this new
"career" of his which seemed so deliciously intimate in her letter,
fa