Then he could only press her hand, and leave her. Mark Sutherland remained three weeks longer in the neighbourhood of Cashmere. During his stay he lodged at the village of C., because he found it impossible to remain at Cashmere, where the presence of India, in her grief and desolation, seemed to scorch his very soul like a spiritual fire. He laboured very industriously, and, with the assistance of efficient lawyers and clerks, reduced the chaos of the Cashmere accounts into something like order, and made the way straight for the future course of India and her attorney. At the end of the third week he completed his work, and bade adieu to India and to Cashmere. And in twelve days he was at home again. He was met near the house by Billy, who, with two baskets upon his arms, was proceeding upon some household errand. “Well! and so it’s you, is it!” observed that functionary, setting down his baskets. “And so you’ve comed at last!” “How is your mistress, Billy?” inquired Mr. Sutherland. “Not bein’ of a nigger, hain’t got no missus. Ef you means _her_, in yonder, how does you ’spects her to be being, along o’ the school and the head-eat-oriels, and the clients? You better go see how she is! Yes, and I can tell you, you better go see arter your paper, _too_! or you won’t have any ’scribers left!” “Why, how so?” “Humph! how so? Why Mr. Bolling, he took it into his head as he’d write a great head-eat-oriel leader—I could o’done it as well myself ef I’d had anybody to take down my words in writin’—’cause I used to be a _class_ leader, or least way I used to belong to a class. Well, unbeknownest to Mrs. Sutherland, Mr. Bolling he puts on his spectacles and sits down to write a leader. Lord, it took him a week, and then it took a whole side of the paper to print it! And when it come out—ugh! whew! brikey! my eyes! ef it didn’t put the whole town and county into a hubbub. _Every_body was mad, and threatened to stop their paper—the Dimocrats said how you’d turned Whig; and the Whigs said you’d turned Dimocrat; and the Consarvatives said you’d become a revolutioniser and a ’cendiary; and the Free-S’ilers said how you’d betrayed your pairty! If you could get ’lected to a lamp-lighter’s place _this_ go, _I’m_ a Hunker!” said Billy, hitching up his baskets, and trudging off towards the town. Very much disturbed by what he had heard, Mark Sutherland hastened on homeward. That his paper was injured, and his income diminished, were comparatively small matters; that his election was lost, was not a very great one; but that public confidence was shaken, and his influence impaired, was a misfortune. Anathematising Mr. Bolling’s both-side-isms, which now seemed to have reached _all_-side-ism, he passed through the green gate leading into his own lawn.