ut for this evening," Victoria replied.

"That's all right," was Mr. Crewe's gracious reply. "I knew you'd be
sufficiently broad-minded to come, and I hope you won't take offence at
certain remarks I think it my duty to make."

"Don't let my presence affect you," she answered, smiling; "I have come
prepared for anything."

"I'll tell Tooting to give you a good seat," he called back, as he
started onward.

Hastings Weare looked up at her, with laughter-brimming eyes.

"Victoria, you're a wonder!" he remarked. "Say, do you remember that tall
fellow we met at Humphrey's party, Austen Vane?"

Yes."

"I saw him on the street in Ripton the other day, and he came right up
and spoke to me. He hadn't forgotten my name. Now, he'd be my notion of a
candidate. He makes you feel as if your presence in the world meant
something to him."

"I think he does feel that way," replied Victoria.

"I don't blame him if he feels that way about you," said Hastings, who
made love openly.

"Hastings," she answered, "when you get a little older, you will learn to
confine yourself to your own opinions."

"When I do," he retorted audaciously, "they never make you blush like
that."

"It's probably because you have never learned to be original," she
replied. But Hastings had been set to thinking.

Mrs. Pomfret, with her foresight and her talent for management, had given
the Ladies' Auxiliary notice that they were not to go farther forward
than the twelfth row. She herself, with some especially favoured ones,
occupied a box, which was the nearest thing to being on the stage. One
unforeseen result of Mrs. Pomfret's arrangement was that the first eleven
rows were vacant, with the exception of one old man and five or six
schoolboys. Such is the courage of humanity in general! On the arrival of
the candidate, instead of a surging crowd lining the sidewalk, he found
only a fringe of the curious, whose usual post of observation was the
railroad station, standing silently on the curb. Within, Mr. Tooting's
duties as an usher had not been onerous. He met Mr. Crewe in the
vestibule, and drew him into the private office.

"The railroad's fixed 'em," said the manager, indignantly, but sotto
voce; "I've found that out. Hilary Vane had the word passed around town
that if they came, somethin' would fall on 'em. The Tredways and all the
people who own factories served notice on their men that if they paid any
attention to this meeting they'd lose th