y maps but
are believed by geographers to exist. Thus when my mother, in the course
of one of her letters, mentioned casually that Canon Beresford had
lunched with her, I knew, as Noah did when the dove no longer returned
to him, that the flood had abated.

My uncle was also successful, too successful, in his effort. His
definite denial of my connection with the _Anti-Tommy-Rot Gazette_
obtained credence with the Committee of the Conservative and Unionist
Parliamentary Association. My name retained its place on their books
and they continued to put me forward as a candidate for the East Connor
division of Down at the General Election.

I only found this fact out by degrees, for nobody seemed to think it
worth while to tell me. My uncle said afterward that my ignorance, in
which he found it very difficult to believe, was entirely my own fault.
I cannot deny this: though I still hold that I ought to have been
plainly informed of my destiny and not left to infer it from the figures
in the accounts which were sent to me from time to time. When I went to
Portugal I left my money affairs very much in the hands of my mother and
my uncle. I had what I wanted. They spent what they thought right in
the management of my estate, in subscriptions and so forth. The accounts
which they sent me, very different indeed from the spirited statements
of Selby-Harrison, bored me, and I did not realize for some time that I
was subscribing handsomely to a large number of local objects in places
of which I had never even heard the names. I now know that they are
towns and villages in the East Connor division of Down, and my uncle
has told me that this kind of expenditure is called nursing the
constituency.

The first definite news of my candidature came to me, curiously enough,
from Lalage. She wrote me a letter during the Christmas holidays:

"There was a party (flappers, with dancing and a sit-down supper, not
a Christmas tree) at Thormanby Park last night. I got a bit fed up with
'the dear girls' (Cattersby's expression) at about nine o'clock and
slipped off with Hilda in hope of a cigarette. (Hilda's mother's cook
got scarlatina, so she had to give in about Hilda coming here for the
hols after all. Rather a climb down for her, I should say.) It was jolly
lucky we did, as it turned out, though we didn't succeed in getting the
whiff. Lord Thormanby and the Archdeacon were in the smoking room, so we
pretended we'd come to look for Hilda's