office. For the sake of the
race I maintain this ground," she concluded in words that had been put
into her mouth by one of the speakers at Ada Grosvenor's election
league, and the appearance of the ladies put an end to further
contention.

Dawn's judgments were remorseless, as becoming clean-souled, fearless
youth as yet unacquainted with the great gulf 'twixt the ideal and
real, and untainted by that charity and complaisance which, like
senility, come with advancing years.

The aunt was elderly and unprepossessing, and the stepmother of the
type bespeaking champagne and too much eating for the exercise taken,
for her head was partly sunk in a huge mass of adipose substance that
had once been bosom, and the other proportions of her figure were in
keeping.

The cups were spread in the dining-room, so thither we repaired to eat
and drink while representations of Jim Clay and Jake Sorrel, senior,
who had wept for the sufferings of the convicts, glowered down upon
the gathering of plebeians who were half swells and the swells who
were wholly plebeian.

Presently grandma and I excused ourselves and left Dawn with her
relations.

"What do you think of 'em? Are they any better than Dawn an' me?" said
the old dame as we got out of hearing. "How do I compare with that old
sack of charcoal?"

Ay, how did she compare? As a slight, active, handsome woman, still
vigorous at seventy-six, with one who, though thirty years her junior, was
already almost helpless from obesity and natural clumsiness,--that's how
she compared!

"Them's some of the swells for you--one of the 'old families,' who
think they're made of different stuff to you an' me. What do you think
of Dawn, Jim Clay's granddaughter, who drove the coach, when placed
beside her aunt, the granddaughter of an admiral in the army?"

"She looks as though Jim Clay had been a general in the navy and she
had done justice to her heredity," I gravely replied.

"Andrew, come here an' tell me how you managed 'em, an' what you think
of the great bugs now you've seen 'em," commanded the old lady of that
individual, as he emerged from the kitchen with both hands full of
cake.

"Did you walk up to 'em an' say, 'Are you Mr and Mrs Mudeheepe, I'm
Mrs Clay's grandson?' like I told you."

"No; I seen it on their luggage without arskin' them, an' one look at
'em was enough for me. I didn't bother tellin' 'em who I was. I didn't
care if they had fell down an' broke their necks--