“But now,” Harriet continued, “what I come for, is to carry you all off to lunch--the children's dinner. My dear, you must see my boys, your nephews.” Agatha stood aghast at the idea of having nephews! “And such boys!” Miss Valery added, interposing. “'The Missus' has good right to be proud of them. If there is one thing in which Harrie succeeds better than another, it is in the management of her children.” “Bah! they manage themselves; I just leave them to nature,” cried Mrs. Dugdale; but her eye--the mother's eye--twinkled with pleasure all the time, which greatly improved its expression, Agatha thought. She walked off gaily with her sister-in-law, Nathanael following. Anne stayed behind, conversing with the old woman who showed the house. She and Mr. Harper had pointedly avoided any private speech with one another. “I declare there is Duke!” cried Mrs. Dugdale suddenly. “Just look at him, meandering up and down the town.” (Agatha laughed at the word; “meandering” seemed so perfectly expressive of Duke Dugdale.) “But my husband always turns up everywhere, except where he's wanted. Does yours? I beg your pardon--since you are watching him as if you thought he were running away. Nonsense, Agatha--(I always call everybody by their Christian names)--Nonsense! He's only shaking hands with his brother-in-law, both looking as pleased as ever they can look.” The next moment Harrie and Agatha came up with the two gentlemen at the door of Mr. Dugdale's house. They were talking politically and earnestly, as men will do--Nathanael having apparently forgotten the bitter cloud of a few minutes since, which yet lay heavy on his wife's heart. At least it seemed so, and his indifference made her angry. Neither spoke to their wives--being busy laying their heads together over a newspaper--until Harrie very unceremoniously began to pull at her husband's coat, which he bore for a time in perfect obliviousness. At last he turned and patted her with his great hand, just as some sage, mild Newfoundland dog would coax into peace the attacks of a wild young kitten. “Nay, now, Missus--don't'ee, love; I'm busy.--And you see, Nathanael, as your brother is sure not to canvass or try for the town, and as Mr. Trenchard is such a fine fellow, your father's friend too, don't you think we could coax him round? By conviction, of course: Trenchard wouldn't take any man's votes except upon conviction.” “Wouldn't he?” said Nathanael, smiling at the simple-minded politician, who believed that everybody's politics were as honest as his own. At which unpropitious moment a number of half-drunken men, with “Vote for Trenchard!” stuck round their broken hats, came round the corner shouting: “Hurrah for Free-trade! Duke Dugdale for ever! Bravo!--and give us a shilling! Amen!” “You see now what comes of your politics,” cried his wife, trying to pull him into the hall. But the good man still stood, bareheaded, a perplexed expression troubling his face.