cheerful and a very undemocratic aspect, but in realizing it, the
thought, like something flashing black, crossed her--how attractive such
a style must be to a Frenchwoman!

'He may look a little worn,' she acquiesced.




CHAPTER XVIII

CONCERNING THE ACT OF CANVASSING

Tories dread the restlessness of Radicals, and Radicals are in awe of the
organization of Tories. Beauchamp thought anxiously of the high degree
of confidence existing in the Tory camp, whose chief could afford to keep
aloof, while he slaved all day and half the night to thump ideas into
heads, like a cooper on a cask:--an impassioned cooper on an empty cask!
if such an image is presentable. Even so enviously sometimes the writer
and the barrister, men dependent on their active wits, regard the man
with a business fixed in an office managed by clerks. That man seems by
comparison celestially seated. But he has his fits of trepidation; for
new tastes prevail and new habits are formed, and the structure of his
business will not allow him to adapt himself to them in a minute. The
secure and comfortable have to pay in occasional panics for the serenity
they enjoy. Mr. Seymour Austin candidly avowed to Colonel Halkett, on
his arrival at Mount Laurels, that he was advised to take up his quarters
in the neighbourhood of Bevisham by a recent report of his committee,
describing the young Radical's canvass as redoubtable. Cougham he did
not fear: he could make a sort of calculation of the votes for the