suitable were unavailable. An urgent committee meeting was held, and
Mr. Bullsom at once called attention to an excellent little speech of
Kingston Brooks' at a ward meeting on the previous night. In an hour he
was closeted with the young lawyer, and the affair was settled. Brooks
knew that henceforth the material side of his career would be
comparatively easy sailing.

He had accepted his good fortune with something of the same cheerful
philosophy with which he had seen difficulty loom up in his path a few
months ago. But to-night, on his way home from Mr. Bullsom's suburban
residence, a different mood possessed him. Usually a self-contained and
somewhat gravely minded person, to-night the blood went tingling through
his veins with a new and unaccustomed warmth. He carried himself
blithely, the cool night air was so grateful and sweet to him that he
had no mind even to smoke. There seemed to be no tangible reason for
the change. The political excitement, which a few weeks ago he had
begun to feel exhilarating, had for him decreased now that his share in
it lay behind the scenes, and he found himself wholly occupied with the
purely routine work of the election. Nor was there any sufficient
explanation to be found in the entertainment which he had felt himself
bound to accept at Mr. Bullsom's hands. Of the wine, which had been
only tolerable, he had drunk, as was his custom, sparingly, and of Mary
Scott, who had certainly interested him in a manner which the rest of
the family had not, he had after all seen but very little. He found
himself thinking with fervor of the desirable things in life, never had
the various tasks which he had set himself seemed so easy an
accomplishment, his own powers more real and alive. And beneath it all
he was conscious of a vague sense of excitement, a nervous dancing of
the blood, as though even now the time were at hand when he might find
himself in touch with some of the greater forces of life, all of which