Sweet and Twenty Read Online Free PDF

“A good deal must depend on Mr. Alistair. If he is a strong candidate, you will have a hard task on your hands.”
    “Yes, I’m eager to meet Mr. Alistair.”
    The ladies retired to the saloon and the gentlemen soon joined them. On this occasion Mr. Hudson sought out a seat beside Miss Watters. She had been waiting with some eagerness to see where he chose to place himself, and was aware of a slight flutter in her breast when he came toward her without even a glance at Sara. She was soon enlightened as to the unflattering nature of his attention: he wished to ask her to address a batch of envelopes for him and to send out some circulars he was having printed up outlining Mr. Fellows’imaginary qualities as a good Member of Parliament. She was not entirely displeased with him, however, when he said with a warm smile that he looked forward to the pleasure of delivering the material in person and learning more from her of conditions in the West Riding.
    The matter settled, they both turned to hear Mr. Fellows expounding to Sara his views of the repressive and reactionary Tories.
    “What do they repress?”she asked, batting her long lashes at him.
    “Everything,”he answered comprehensively.
    “Dear me, that is very bad of them,”she said. “And what do they react against?”
    “Us Whigs, mostly,”he told her with a knowing smile.
    “Fancy that nice Mr. Alistair being such a reactor. I wouldn’t have expected it of him.”
    “He is of very good family and an excellent man in other ways. But they sent him off to Cambridge, you know. He was never at Oxford at all, and very likely that’s why he became a Tory.”
    “Papa was used to say he’d make some girl a fine husband, and I think he meant me. But of course Papa was a Tory himself. He called Lord Allingham ‘a dashed Whig aristocrat.’He always reacted against everything too, my papa—kittens and cream buns and going to the village. I wish he had been a Whig.”
    “He would have, had he lived, Miss Monteith, depend on it. Well, very likely he has become one in heaven, for you may be sure there are no Tories there. Basingstoke was saying only t’other day a Tory is a Whig who has not yet seen the light, and if your papa had lived to see the light he would have become a Whig, as I did, and as I mean to see the whole riding do.”
    “What riding?”
    “Our riding!”he answered.
    “Oh.”In her head she pictured a bunch of horsemen riding along, and frowned.
    They continued to converse in this manner for fifteen minutes, each gaining a very good idea of the other’s limitations. For his part, Mr. Hudson felt his heart sink when he saw what a paucity of material he had to make look wise and sensible.
    * * * *
    The elderly ladies, especially Miss Monteith, were happy to see Sara get on so famously with Mr. Fellows, and thought it as good as a proposal when he said he would come with Mr. Hudson tomorrow to deliver the envelopes for addressing.
    “And to plan the timing of our tea party,”Martha
added, for this had been one of the major subjects of
discussion after dinner. The tea party was to start a wave that would wash Mr. Fellows into power.
    “Yes, by Jove, I dolike a tea party,”Mr. Fellows said. “And with so many ladies present it will be a decorous do. That will please you, Mr. Hudson. No ad hominem tactics before the ladies, what?”
    “Ad mulierem, perhaps,”Mr. Hudson answered, but received only a blank stare from all his listeners. “It seems an excellent idea,”he said, and thought to himself, another afternoon wasted. But no date had been set and he’d get out of it if better things to do occurred to him.
    In the carriage, on the way home, Aunt Martha ruled the conversation. “Really, I find Mr. Fellows most conversable. A very nice gentleman. And Mr. Hudson too seems to have proper ideas. His gray hair gives him a dignified appearance. He will handle this campaign with propriety; I’m glad to see he has no ideas of blackening his