As it happened, Harriet’s Attempt seized the Skirts of Happy Chance exactly at the right moment. Election fever had been rampant during the last six weeks, setting everybody canvassing his neighbour with delirious zeal. First, a county by-election had been rushed through in a glorious fourteen days of crowded life, taking the eye of the whole country by the fact that it was fought upon a pioneer question of national importance. Then the County Council reorganisation came on, loosing all the grinders at each other’s throats; and when that had passed, leaving the different divisions to settle down for the next three years, the District and Parish Councils followed. All sorts of unaccountable hatreds and differences were abroad, as well as still stranger enthusiasms for individuals who had not counted a snap of the fingers before. It was amazing how blood bubbled and boiled for or against some harmless person whose existence had hitherto mattered about once in a blue moon. Both men and women made each election a question of personal insult or exaltation, and said so as often and as loudly as possible; while the grinders ran from pillar to post, setting everybody by the ears, and talking loudest of all. Into this whirlpool was flung the announcement of Harriet’s candidature as Rural District Councillor for Bluecaster. The district was still seething, but the strain was beginning to tell, and its enthusiasm showed signs of needing a fillip. Harriet gave it this fillip. The older generation was scandalised, the younger amused or contemptuous; while the earnest ladies who sit on Boarding-out and School Committees pronounced it publicly to be horrid presumption, and privately wished that they had thought of doing it themselves. In her own neighbourhood, however, when the first shock was over, she soon began to find supporters. Thorne was disliked by most outside his own peculiar, gullible clan. The story of the milk-fracas soon got round, bringing the farmers solidly to Harriet’s defence. Wild Duck milk needed no bush, and though Thorne’s slummites had a pleasant habit of shrieking “Milk O!” after his opponent, they did not succeed in bringing the blush of shame to the Knewstubb cheek of innocence. Ratepayers of standing signed her nomination, and all went merry as a marriage-bell. And in his thin, deceitful-looking, wedge-shaped boots, Ollivant Thorne shook.