ed when he was told that the bill
for so insignificant a piece of work came to L247 13s. 9d. He had
seen no occasion for spending even the odd forty-seven pounds. But
then he was member for Loughton; and as he passed the evening alone
at the inn, having dined in company with Messrs. Grating, Shortribs,
and sundry other influential electors, he began to reflect that,
after all, it was not so very great a thing to be a member of
Parliament. It almost seemed that that which had come to him so
easily could not be of much value.

On the following day he went to the castle, and was there when the
Earl arrived. They two were alone together, and the Earl was very
kind to him. "So you had no opponent after all," said the great man
of Loughton, with a slight smile.

"Not the ghost of another candidate."

"I did not think there would be. They have tried it once or twice and
have always failed. There are only one or two in the place who like
to go one way just because their neighbours go the other. But, in
truth, there is no conservative feeling in the place!"

Phineas, although he was at the present moment the member for
Loughton himself, could not but enjoy the joke of this. Could there
be any liberal feeling in such a place, or, indeed, any political
feeling whatsoever? Would not Messrs. Grating and Shortribs have done
just the same had it happened that Lord Brentford had been a Tory
peer? "They all seemed to be very obliging," said Phineas, in answer
to the Earl.

"Yes, they are. There isn't a house in the town, you know, let
for longer than seven years, and most of them merely from year to
year. And, do you know, I haven't a farmer on the property with a
lease,--not one; and they don't want leases. They know they're safe.
But I do like the people round me to be of the same way of thinking
as myself about politics."

On the second day after dinner,--the last evening of Finn's visit to
Saulsby,--the Earl fell suddenly into a confidential conversation
about his daughter and his son, and about Violet Effingham. So
sudden, indeed, and so confidential was the conversation, that
Phineas was almost silenced for awhile. A word or two had been said
about Loughlinter, of the beauty of the place and of the vastness of
the property. "I am almost afraid," said Lord Brentford, "that Laura
is not happy there."

"I hope she is," said Phineas.

"He is so hard and dry, and what I call exacting. That is just the
word for it. Now Laura