"Good night. If the candidates were as sure of their election as our friend Cobbe is of his, they would sleep till Tuesday without a narcotic or a charm from the good fairies."
CHAPTER XXI.
A HAPPY NEW YEAR.
"A Happy New Year! A Happy New Year!" is on every tongue, and how exhilarating is the cry uttered by thousands. From the weakly voice of our aged loved ones, to the bird-like notes of the wee children, mingling with the merry sleigh-bells, do our politicians take up the refrain; and our manly men, and ambitious women, sing out in various chords, as they swarm to the polls, "A Happy New Year! A Happy New Year!"
And Old Boreas takes up the refrain, and blows till his cheeks crack, down Yonge street, from his northern realm. Yea, forty miles distant, does he send his cold breath. A Happy New Year! A Happy New Year.
And our young men and maidens, our girls and our boys, laugh till the air rings. Hurrah for the north wind, we'll go to the Granite and have a good skate.
And one gathers from the merry medley that our King Coal, and the Sentinel, are this year's favorites; but those who have put money up, and those who have not, must even wait with bated breath till midnight, or till dawn; and in dreamland, see their pet schemes forwarded, their own man in the Mayor's chair.
It was a busy day at Holmnest, a bee-hive with no drones, by eleven a.m. Mrs. Gower has polled her vote; afterwards, with Miss Crew, drove through snow-mantled Rosedale, down villa-lined Jarvis street, through those stores of wealth, Yonge and King streets, along the margin of the silver lake, ere turning the horses' heads to the north-west and Holmnest; visiting, also, some of the poorer streets, in which quarters Miss Crew has found God's poor, many cases having touched her heart, she now leaves little parcels of good things to gladden these homes.
"You will become bankrupt, Miss Crew," said Mrs. Gower, as they are driven home.