"Yes," said the judge, "and he took you at your word and trotted McCorkle out, and you trimmed them up. But it's all made up with him, now, and you and he and Alvord are as thick as thieves. You've got a jewel of a campaign manager in that man Alvord----" "Judge," cried Amidon, "I want you to get up a letter of withdrawal--you have watched the miserable business, and know more of it than I do--one that will make me as little ridiculous as possible, you know. I don't care for the people in general, but there are some whose good opinion I prize----" "I know, Florian," said the judge. "I know. But you can't expect to cut a very good figure, you know." "Well, manage it as well as you can, and--I suppose you've watched me?" he continued. "Why did you let me go this way! Have I been up to Miss Waldron's?" "Once or twice for a few minutes," answered Madame le Claire. "You have been very busy indeed; and yesterday Miss Waldron went out of town." "I think," said Judge Blodgett, "that you will find a letter from her in your room. Alderson brought it up from the counting-house." "Well, you must excuse me," said Mr. Amidon. "I want to talk this all over with you early in the morning; but I must go to my room now. No, thank you, Clara, I really can not stay to your supper. To-morrow you must tell me how you kidnapped me--I never can repay you for your faithful service to me. Good night!" The discerning reader has already anticipated that Mr. Amidon went straight to the letter and opened it. "Dearest Eugene," it said, "I want to give you a word to say that I am proud of the love and confidence which every one has for you, and to say that I do not regard the place to which you are to be elected as unimportant, or one which you should decline. Of all men you are best able to protect our town against corruption, and to lift its civic life to a higher plane. I wish I might help your fellow townsmen to confer _you_ upon _it_. Maybe I can help in cheering you along the way after this is done. "I have all sorts of pride in and ambition for you. Hitherto, you have confined yourself too closely to the practical and productively utilitarian. I shall watch with all the interest you can desire me to feel, this new career of yours, beginning so modestly and so much against your will; but reaching, I feel sure, to the state and national capitals. "Do you know, I have always imagined myself capable of founding Primrose Leagues, and becoming a real political force? Spend the afternoon with me Sunday, and we'll talk it over--come early. "Yours in loving partizanship, "Elizabeth."