“Waal, now, I reckon that’ll put an e-end ter Teck Jepson a-settin’ up ter Marcelly,” said Clem Sanders, hopefully. He was within the forge, leaning against the elevated hearth, feeling a certain inhospitable relief that the shop had been restored to its normal uses, and the judges and the ballot-box, the clerk and the table, and all the paraphernalia of suffrage, animate and inanimate, had been removed. He was not ill-natured nor malicious, but the disaster augured demolition of his rival’s hopes, and his own sprang up revivified by the prospect. His heart had not been so light for many a day,—not since he had played cards gayly and victoriously with Mose Hull, all unconscious that Satan perched on the anvil behind him to overlook his hand, while the window-shutter was drawn ajar, and an uncomprehended entity looked in, solemn, dismayed, aghast. Since then the forge had been deserted after nightfall. No longer the mountain youth congregated here. No longer the cliffs echoed the hilarious songs and outbursts of rotund and rollicking laughter. No longer athwart the solemn obscurity of the brooding night were flung fluctuating shafts of red and yellow light, summoning out a trembling glimpse of the gigantic trees, or broad, lucent stretches of the river, and making the grim, immovable old crags seem to advance and retreat at the whimseys of the breathing bellows. Parson Donnard himself could not have desired the shop to be more solitary and silent than it was now since its admonished frequenters were fain to be dull and quiet about the domestic hearth. “From all I hev hearn, she war jes’ a-foolin’ Jepson, ter git him ter work fur her dad in the ’lection,” Nevins observed; he cast the merest suggestion of a glance at Clem Sanders as he lifted his eyes, adding, “I reckon thar war a good many in the same boat with Teck, too. I never hearn afore of a gal takin’ the ’lection ter heart same ez men folks. Ginerally gals dunno what thar kinfolks air runnin’ fur, an’ pays mo’ ’tention ef the hen-house war blowed over in a high wind, or a mink hed throttled the fow-_els_,’n ef thar dad air ’lected or beat. Wimmen ginerally dunno ef jedge air higher ’n sher’ff, or sher’ff ’n constable. I never hearn tell o’ sech a gal ez this hyar Marcelly Strobe.” He spoke with acerbity, recognizing her as a potent and perhaps decisive adverse influence, the majority being so small.