hn having left her. But for all answer to the
hint he threw out John said slowly, and with a somewhat unctuous
relish: "My sister has turned into a remarkably handsome woman!"--words
which sent the lightning-thought through Mahony that, had Polly
remained the insignificant little slip of a thing of earlier days, she
would not have been asked to fill the prominent place she did this
evening.

John sent his adieux and excuses to Polly. He had done what was
expected of him, in showing himself at a public entertainment, and a
vast mass of correspondence lay unsorted on his desk. So Mahony moved
forward alone.

"Oh, Richard, there you are! Oh dear, what you've missed! I never
thought there could be such acting." And Polly turned her great dark
eyes on her husband; they were moist from the noble sentiments of THE
TRUE BRITON.

The day of the election broke, a gusty spring day cut up by stinging
hail-showers, which beat like fusillades on the galvanised iron roofs.
Between the showers, the sun shone in a gentian-blue sky, against which
the little wooden houses showed up crassly white. Ballarat made
holiday. Early as Mahony left home, he met a long line of conveyances
heading townwards--spring carts, dogcarts, double and single buggies,
in some of which, built to seat two only, five or six persons were
huddled. These and similar vehicles drew up in rows outside the
public-houses, where the lean, long-legged colonial horses stood
jerking at their tethers; and they were still there, still jerking,
when he passed again toward evening. On a huge poster the "Unicorn"
offered to lunch free all those "thinking men" who registered their
vote for "the one and only true democrat, the miners' friend and
tyrants' foe, John Turnham."

In the hope of avoiding a crush Mahony drove straight to the
polling-booth. But already all the loafers and roughs in the place
seemed to be congregated round the entrance, after the polite custom of
the country to chivy, or boo, or huzza those who went in. In waiting
his turn, he had to listen to comments on his dress and person, to put
up with vulgar allusions to blue pills and black draughts.

Just as he was getting back into his buggy John rode up, flanked by a
bodyguard of friends; John was galloping from booth to booth, to verify
progress and put the thumbscrew on wobblers. He beamed--as well he
might. He was certain to be one of the two members elected, and quite
likely to top the poll by a respe