persistency when
he didn't want them at all; and in thinking of this, to him, new type
of girl, there flowed into his mind the lines:

"Walking in maiden wise,
Modest and kind and fair,
The freshness of spring in her eyes
And the fulness of spring in her hair."

Gawk, indeed! that little boy ought to have his head smacked.

And having come to a definite condition at last, he found he had
reached his aunt's house. The lamp was lit in the parlour and the
blind was down, for it was already quite dark. He had taken
twenty-five minutes to walk from Mr Ffolliot's gates to his aunt's
house.

Miss Gallup, plump, ruddy, and garrulous, very like her brother Abel
with her round pink face and twinkling eyes, was greatly delighted to
see him.

"You've come to your old aunt first thing, Eloquent," she cried
triumphantly, "which is no more than I expected, though none the less
gratifying, and you nearly a member and all. How things do come to
pass, to be sure. I wish as your poor father had lived to see this
day, and you going into parlyment with the best of 'em."

"Don't say 'going in,' aunt," Eloquent expostulated. "It's quite on
the cards that they won't elect me. Personally, I think they would
have done better to put up a stronger candidate. Marlehouse is always
looked upon as a safe Tory seat; you know Mr Brooke has been member for
a long time, and was unopposed at the last election."

"An' never opens his mouth in London from one year's end to the other,
sits and sleeps, so I've heard, and leaves the rest to do all the
talking and bills and that. My dear boy, don't tell me! Marlehouse
folk's got too much sense to give the go-by to one as can talk and was
born amongst 'em, and they all know you."

"But, Aunt Susan, I thought you were ever such a Tory. What has become
of all your political convictions, if you want me to get in?"

Miss Gallup laughed. "Precious little chance; I had of _'aving_ any
convictions all the years I kept house for your dear father; an' a
pretty aunt I'd be if I could go against you now. Politics is all very
well, but flesh and blood's a deal more, an' a woman wouldn't be half a
woman if she didn't stand by her own. It don't seem to matter much
which side's in. There'll be plenty to find fault with 'em whichever
it is, and anyway from all I can hear just now you're on the winnin'
side, so 'vote for Gallup,' says I, an' get someone as'll speak up for
you--and not sit mumc