"I can go nowhere," his father replied. "We must get home, Gus; that is all we can do now."
At that moment, a little pony chaise came down the street, driven by a young girl of about sixteen. Seated bolt upright beside her was a lady considerably older, whose face wore a nervous, anxious expression. Possibly the pretty grey pony held political opinions of another order to those of Mr. Philip Darnell; but whatever the cause, the sight of a small hand-cart on which were mounted several huge blue-and-white placards, standing near the house in which this candidate had established his headquarters, had a disturbing influence on the little animal. He shied violently, and would not proceed, but kept backing towards the opposite pavement in a way which greatly alarmed the elder lady.
"Oh, Edith!" she cried. "What did I tell you? I said it was not safe for us to come alone. Oh, do stop it, and let me get out! I am not nervous as a rule, but this is too much."
"Dear aunt, there is no danger," said the girl in a sweet, calm voice. "Don will be all right in a moment; it is only that he is a staunch Tory, and does not like—Oh, thank you!"
The thanks were for Gus, who had darted forward and laid his hand on the pony's bridle. Patting pony's neck, and soothing it with coaxing words and sounds, he quickly succeeded in leading it past the objectionable cart. The girl thanked him with a radiant smile, then leaning forward dropped a sixpence in palm. Gus looked after her as she drove away with a strange sensation of pleasure; it was not the sixpence only that made him glad, it was her kind look, her smile.
He turned to his father with sparkling eyes. "Now, we can have some breakfast," he said.
But his father, too, was looking after the chaise with an eager, wistful gaze.
"How strange that the voice should be so like," he murmured; "and an Edith, too, just such another Edith!"
"Did you know her, father?" asked Gus, full of wonder.
"Know her, boy! Do I look like a man that would know ladies?"