htest minds. The poor child has recently lost her
husband, and has come to keep Mr. Parsons company in his new house--an
ideal arrangement."

The identity of Mr. Parsons was well known to Lyons. He had met him
occasionally in the past in other parts of the State in connection with
business complications, and regarded him as a practical, intelligent
citizen whose name would be of value to an aspirant for Congressional
honors. It occurred to him as he shook hands with those next in line and
addressed them that it would be eminently suitable if he should pay his
respects to this new-comer to Benham by a visit. By so doing he world
kill two birds with one stone, for he had reasoned of late that he owed
it to himself to see more of the other sex. He had no specific
matrimonial intentions; that is, he was not on the lookout for a wife;
but he approved of happy unions as one of the great bulwarks of the
community, and was well-disposed to encounter a suitable helpmate. He
should expect physical charms, dignity, capacity and a sympathetic mind;
a woman, in short, who would be an ornament to his home, a Christian
influence in society and a companion whose intelligent tact would be
likely to promote his political fortunes. And so it happened that in the
course of the next few days he found himself thinking of Mrs. Littleton
as a fine figure of a woman. This had not happened to him before since
the death of his wife, and it made him thoughtful to the extent of
asking "Why not?" For in spite of his long frock-coat and proper
demeanor, passion was not extinct in the bosom of the Hon. James O.
Lyons, and he was capable on special and guarded occasions of telling a
woman that he loved her.

CHAPTER III.

Miss Luella Bailey was not elected. The unenlightened prejudice of man
to prefer one of his own sex, combined with the hostility of the Reform
Club, procured her defeat, notwithstanding that the rest of her ticket
triumphed at the polls. There was some consolation for her friends in
the fact that her rival, Miss Snow, had a considerably smaller number of
votes than she. Selma solaced herself by the reflection that, as she had
been consulted only at the twelfth hour, she was not responsible for the
result, but she felt nerved by the defeat to concentrate her energies
against the proposed bill for an appointed school board.

Her immediate attention and sympathy were suddenly invoked by the
illness of Mr. Parsons, who had seeme