Now, considering that Jack Wingfield and Priscilla his wife had composed this address without the least aid from Franklin Forrester, the encomiums which it received from that critic were accepted by them with pride--of a certain sort. But when it is known that Jack, after reading over the address in the newspaper out loud, appealed to Priscilla to say if it contained a single false statement, and that she replied that it really did not contain a paragraph that was absolutely untrue, it may be gathered that their pride in its composition was tempered by some misgivings. When two people find it necessary to assure each other from time to time of the purity of their motives, one may perhaps go so far as to assume that neither of them is absolutely convinced on this point. It is understood that during an election certain ethical indulgence is allowed to the candidates and their immediate supporters, just as, at certain times of fasting, the representatives of the most rigid form of Church government grant exemption to some persons from obedience to the strict letter of the law, and just as ingenious Jews have in all ages contrived to effect a compromise with their conscience in the acceptance of the Mosaic injunctions in regard to the observance of the Sabbath (though the Jew has always paid in something on account, so to speak). But whether or not such an explanation of the ethics of the easy-going may be considered satisfactory by the Judge Flynns--the “high-toneder” people of the world, Jack Wingfield and Priscilla his wife soon found themselves too busy to subject themselves to any tests of the searching character of those that Farmer Wadhurst’s daughter had instituted in his dairy. The use of a spiritual lactometer would be extremely inconvenient during a contested election, and the contest at Nuttingford promised to be an unusually brisk one. They both plunged into it. They had got the start of the other candidate--a solicitor by profession, who had made a former appeal to the same constituency--and they meant to keep ahead of him. From the first it was seen that the sagacity of Mr. Forrester had not misled him when he had suggested that Mrs. Wingfield’s presence would tell largely in favour of the candidate of The Party. Priscilla stood by her husband at all times; but she refused to say to anyone: “I want you to give your vote to my husband.” “It’s entirely a matter between yourselves and him,” she would say with a smile and a wave of her hand. “If you think him the man for you, as I know him to be the man for me, you can’t do better than send him into Parliament as your representative; but if you don’t, well, there’s no harm done--I’ll have the more of him to myself.” Moreover, she never made a suggestion to him as to what the character of any of his speeches should be. It was only when he talked over some question with her and asked her advice that she put forward an opinion.