ogress of the political campaign. She was
pleased to think that her stipulation had given her lover a new spur to
his ambition, and she was prepared to believe that his victory would be
due to the exhaustive efforts to win which the cruel possibility of
losing her obliged him to make.

This was a campaign era of torch-light processions. The rival factions
expressed their confidence and enthusiasm by parading at night in a
series of battalions armed with torches--some resplendently flaring,
some glittering gayly through colored glass--and bearing transparencies
inscribed with trenchant sentiments. The houses of their adherents along
the route were illuminated from attic to cellar with rows of candles,
and the atmosphere wore a dusky glow of red and green fire. To Selma all
this was entrancing. She revelled in it as an introduction to the more
conspicuous life which she was about to lead. She showed herself a
zealous and enthusiastic partisan, shrouding the house in the darkness
of Erebus on the occasion when the rival procession passed the door, and
imparting to every window the effect of a blaze of light on the
following evening--the night before election--when the Democratic party
made its final appeal to the voters. Standing on a balcony in evening
dress, in company with Mrs. Earle and Miss Luella Bailey, whom she had
invited to view the procession from the River Drive, Selma looked down
on the parade in an ecstatic mood. The torches, the music, the fireworks
and the enthusiasm set her pulses astir and brought her heart into her
mouth in melting appreciation of the sanctity of her party cause and her
own enviable destiny as the wife of an American Congressman. She held in
one hand a flag which she waved from time to time at the conspicuous
features of the procession, and she stationed herself so that the Bengal
lights and other fireworks set off by Mr. Parsons's hired man should
throw her figure into conspicuous relief. The culminating interest of
the, occasion for her was reached when the James O. Lyons Cadets, the
special body of youthful torch-bearers devoted to advertising the merits
of her lover, for whose uniforms and accoutrements he had paid, came in
sight.

They proved to be the most flourishing looking organization in line.
They were preceded by a large, nattily attired drum corps; their ranks
were full, their torches lustrous, and they bore a number of
transparencies setting forth the predominant qualifica