hus
employ a greater power in forcing an answer from him. He must have
seen her motion through some cranny of his pertinaciously closed
eyes, for he noticed it by rising from his own chair, with both his
hands firmly fixed upon the table; but still he did not open his
eyes,--unless it might be to the extent of that small cranny.

"Good-bye, Mr. Prong," said she.

Then he altered the form of his hands, and taking them from the table
he dashed them together before his face. "God bless you, Dorothea!"
said he. "God bless you! God bless you!" And he put out his hands as
though blessing her in his darkness. She, perceiving the inutility of
endeavouring to shake hands with a man who wouldn't open his eyes,
moved away from her chair towards the door, purposely raising a sound
of motion with her dress, so that he might know that she was going.
In that I think she took an unnecessary precaution, for the cranny at
the corner of his eye was still at his disposal.

"Good-bye, Mr. Prong," she said again, as she opened the door for
herself.

"God bless you, Dorothea!" said he. "May God bless you!"

Then, without assistance at the front door she made her way out
into the street, and as she stepped along the pavement, she
formed a resolve,--which no eloquence from Mr. Prong could ever
overcome,--that she would remain a widow for the rest of her days.

At twelve o'clock on the morning of the election Mr. Hart was
declared by his own committee to be nine ahead, and was admitted
to be six ahead by Mr. Cornbury's committee. But the Cornbury folk
asserted confidently that in this they saw certain signs of success.
Their supporters were not men who could be whipped up to the poll
early in the day, whereas Hart's voters were all, more or less, under
control, and had been driven up hurriedly to the hustings so as
to make this early show of numbers. Mr. Hart was about everywhere
speaking, and so was Butler Cornbury; but in the matter of oratory I
am bound to acknowledge that the Jew had by much the mastery over the
Christian. There are a class of men,--or rather more than a class,
a section of mankind,--to whom a power of easy expression by means
of spoken words comes naturally. English country gentlemen, highly
educated as they are, undaunted as they usually are, self-confident
as they in truth are at the bottom, are clearly not in this
section. Perhaps they are further removed from it, considering the
advantages they have for such spe