“Good-night, dearest aunty!” said Hope, as she rose and bent down to kiss her.
“My child!” said the older woman, in tones that trembled out of an aching heart.
Hope took her candle, and moved toward the door. As she went she heard Mrs. Simcoe repeating, in the old murmuring sunset strain,
“Convince us first of unbelief,
And freely then release;
Fill every soul with sacred grief,
And then with sacred peace.”
CHAPTER LXXVI. — A SOCIAL GLASS.
The Honorable Abel Newt was elected to Congress in place of the Honorable Watkins Bodley, who withdrew on account of the embarrassment of his private affairs. At a special meeting of the General Committee, Mr. Enos Slugby, Chairman of the Ward Committee, introduced a long and eloquent resolution, deploring the loss sustained by the city and by the whole country in the resignation of the Honorable Watkins Bodley—sympathizing with him in the perplexity of his private affairs—but rejoicing that the word “close up!” was always faithfully obeyed—that there was always a fresh soldier to fill the place of the retiring—and that the Party never summoned her sons in vain.
General Belch then rose and offered a resolution:
“Resolved—That in the Honorable Abel Newt, our representative, just elected by a triumphant majority of the votes of the enlightened and independent voters of the district—a constituency of whose favor the most experienced and illustrious statesmen might be proud—we recognize a worthy exemplar of the purest republican virtues, a consistent enemy of a purse-proud aristocracy, the equally unflinching friend of the people; a man who dedicates with enthusiasm the rare powers of his youth, and his profoundest and sincerest convictions, to the great cause of popular rights of which the Party is the exponent.