"If he is not a Conservative will you let that stand in his way, and
doom that little child to go on taking work off other people's
shoulders?"

"My dear Elizabeth," he protested, "what has my decision for or against
him to do with dooming little children to go on doing anything? I really
cannot be governed by sentiment."

"If you don't give it to him--" and I held up an awful finger of warning
as he retreated, at which he only laughed.

When the parson came to say good-night and good-bye, as he was leaving
very early in the morning, I saw at once by his face that all was right.
He bent over my hand, stammering out words of thanks and promises of
devotion and invocations of blessings in such quantities that I began to
feel quite pleased with myself, and as though I had been doing a
virtuous deed. This feeling I saw reflected on the Man of Wrath's face,
which made me consider that all we had done was to fill the living in
the way that suited us best, and that we had no cause whatever to look
and feel so benevolent. Still, even now, while the victorious candidate
is dreaming of his trebled income and of the raptures of his home-coming
to-morrow, the glow has not quite departed, and I am dwelling with
satisfaction on the fact that we have been able to raise eight people
above those hideous cares that crush all the colour out of the lives of
the genteel poor. I am glad he has so many children, because there will
be more to be made happy. They will be rich on the little income, and
will no doubt dismiss the wise and willing eldest baby to appropriate
dolls and pinafores; and everybody will have what they never yet have
had, a certain amount of that priceless boon, leisure--leisure to sit