Did I think myself a very lucky girl?
CHAPTER XXXII.
Frank Forrester did not come down to Marshlands for the elections. He did not come, but he was very near coming.
I met Mary Thorne and the Hoad girls out canvassing two days before. Mary would have passed me with a nod, but Jessie Hoad had something to say.
"I don't think it's at all nice of your father not to let you help us canvass for Mr. Thorne, Margaret Maliphant," said she, tartly. "Father says he can't make it out at all. He always understood that Mr. Maliphant would support the Radical cause, and now that for the first time they have got a candidate who has some chance of getting in, he won't have anything to do with him."
"I suppose my father knows what he is about," answered I, proudly.
"Does he?" retorted she. "It's more than any one else knows, then."
I bit my tongue in my efforts to keep it from saying something rude, yet I am afraid the tone was not quite conciliatory in which I retaliated. "His friends seem to know well enough to trust him! You've only got to ask the people round about to hear whose advice they would soonest follow on the country-side."