heridan, amateur spinster, have been all sympathy for one who was
palpably more an alarmed bridegroom than a mere candidate?

Should not her maiden heart have been touched by this plausible aspect
of George's dilemma, rather than her mere brain to have been steeled to
a humorous disparagement tinged with bitterness?

And yet, "What rot!" muttered Miss Sheridan,--"silly rot, bally rot,
tommy rot, and all the other kinds!"

Hereupon she creased a brow not meant for creases and defaced an
admirable nose with grievous wrinkles of disdain. "Sacred names of wife
and mother!" This seemed regrettably like swearing as she delivered
it, though she quoted verbatim. "Sacred names of petted imbeciles!" she
amended.

Then, with berserker fury, crumpling her _Sentinel_ into a ball, she
venomously hurled it to the depths of a waste basket and religiously
rubbed the feel of it from her fingers. As she had not even glanced at
the column headed "Births, Deaths, Marriages," it will be seen that her
agitation was real. And surely a more discerning sympathy might have
been looked for from the seasoned Martin Jaffry. A bachelor full of
years and therefore with illusions not only unimpaired but ripened, who
more quickly than he should have divined that his nephew for the moment
viewed all womankind as but one multiplied Genevieve, upon whom it would
be heinous to place the shackles of suffrage?

Perhaps Uncle Martin did divine this. Perhaps he was a mere trimmer,
a rank side-stepper, steeped in deceit and ever ready to mouth the
abominable phrase "political expediency." It were rash to affirm this,
for no analyst has ever fathomed the heart of a man who has come to his
late forties a bachelor by choice. One may but guess from the ensuing
meager data.

Uncle Martin at a certain corner of Maple Avenue that morning, fell
in with Penfield Evans, who, clad as the lilies of a florist's window,
strode buoyantly toward his office, the vision of his day's toil pinkly
suffused by an overlaying vision of a Betty or Sheridan character. Mr.
Evans bubbled his greeting. "Morning! Have you seen it? Oh, _say_, have
you seen it?"

The immediate manner of Uncle Martin not less than his subdued garb
of gray, his dark gloves and his somber stick, intimated that he saw
nothing to bubble about.

"He has burned his bridges behind him." The speaker looked as grim as
any bachelor-by-choice ever may.

"Regular little fire-bug," blithely responded Mr. Evans, m