Her face glowed and brightened as only a wife's can--a wife whose dearest pride is in her husband's honour.
Nevertheless, she hurried me back again as quickly as I came.
As I once more rode up Kingswell Hill, it seemed as if the whole parish were agog to see the novel sight.

A contested election! truly, such a thing had not been known within the memory of the oldest inhabitant.
The fifteen voters--I believe that was the number--were altogether bewildered by a sense of their own importance.

Also, by a new and startling fact--which I found Mr.Halifax trying to impress upon a few of them, gathered under the great yew-tree in the churchyard--that a man's vote ought to be the expression of his own conscientious opinion; and that for him to sell it was scarcely less vile than to traffic in the liberty of his son or the honour of his daughter.

Among those who listened most earnestly, was a man whom I had seen before to-day--Jacob Baines, once the ringleader of the bread-riots, who had long worked steadily in the tan-yard, and then at the flour-mill.

He was the honestest and faithfulest of all John's people--illustrating unconsciously that Divine doctrine, that often they love most to whom most has been forgiven.
The poll was to be held in the church--a not uncommon usage in country boroughs, but which from its rarity struck great awe into the Kingswell folk.