"No More Kings."
After her father's report and the departure of Nellie Fane, Miss Tora Smith had been pleased to reconsider her judgment of Dale Bannister, and to modify it to some extent. The poems and the suspicion, taken in conjunction, each casting a lurid light on the other, had been very bad indeed; but when Tora's mind was disabused of the suspicion, she found it in her heart to pardon the poems. Although she treated Sir Harry Fulmer with scant ceremony, she had no small respect for his opinion, and when he and the Colonel coincided in the decision that Dale need not be ostracized, she did not persist against them. She was led to be more compliant by the fact that she was organizing an important Liberal gathering, and had conceived the ambition of inducing Dale to take part in the proceedings.
"Fancy, if he would write us a song!" she said; "a song which we could sing in chorus. Wouldn't it be splendid?"
"What would the Squire say?" asked Sir Harry.
Tora smiled mischievously.
"Are you," she demanded, "going to stand by and see him captured by the Grange?"
"He ought to be with us, oughtn't he?" said Sir Harry.
"Of course. And if our leader had an ounce of zeal——"
"I'll write to him to-day," said Sir Harry.