Abel Gallup was never tired of impressing upon Eloquent that "the people had the power, and the people had the votes to send you to parlyment or keep you out. Don't you be misled, my boy, by them as would wish you to try to please the gentry by and bye. The gentry's few and the people's many. I don't say a word against the gentry, mind, they're all right in their proper place, and very pleasant they be, some of them, but when the time comes for you to stand, just you remember that even hereabout there's hundreds of little houses for one manshun, and in every one of those little houses there's a vote, and you can have it if you go the right way about. When you're _in_, Eloquent, then you can hob-a-nob with the gentry if it so pleases you; but _till_ you're in, remember it's the working man as can make or mar you." Eloquent's aunt, Miss Gallup, had for many years "kept" the post-office and general shop in the village of Redmarley; but when her brother asked her to come and look after his home and his motherless child, she did not hesitate. She resigned her position of post-mistress, sold the good-will of her shop, and went to live in Marlehouse at "The Sign of the Golden Anchor." She did not lose her interest in Redmarley, however; she had many friends there, and it was one of the treats of little Eloquent's childhood to drive there with his aunt "in a shay," to spend the afternoon in the woods, and have tea afterwards either with the housekeeper at the "Manshun" or in one of the cottages in the village. In those days, only one old gentleman lived at the "Manshun." He "kept himself very much to himself," so aunt said, and Eloquent never saw him except from an upper window in the Golden Anchor, when he happened to drive through Marlehouse. Neither did the little boy ever see much of the interior of the "Manshun" itself, except the housekeeper's room, which was down a passage just inside the back entrance. It was during these visits to the housekeeper at Redmarley that it first dawned upon Eloquent that there could be two opinions as to the absolute righteousness of the Liberal Cause. Moreover, he found out that his aunt's political views were not on all fours with those of his father. This last discovery was quite a shock to him, and there was worse in store. For while he sat in solemn silence devouring bread and jam at the housekeeper's well-spread table, with his own ears he heard her dare to speak of the Grand Old Man as "that there Gladstone," and the butler, an imposing gentleman in black, actually described him as "a snake in the grass."