"Would you rather we should care nothing about you?" his wife asked tremulously.
"No, dear," he answered; "for I know that your fears are in proportion to your loving."
The next day Mr. Yorke and his daughters went to hear the address. Edith remained at home with her aunt, who never went into a crowd. The road, the tent, and all about it were full of people. The enthusiasm was immense. When the speaker appeared, the audience stood up, the men shouting, the women waving their handkerchiefs—what for it would be hard to say. Probably they did not know themselves, unless they meant to express thus their admiration for success. For this man was the very embodiment of worldly success. Wealth and honors had come to him, not unsought, but without toil, and with little deserving. Success showed forth from his smooth, handsome face with its bright eyes and ready smile, even from the plump white hand, at whose wave thousands of voters said yea or nay. His expression was one of pleasant excitement and self-complacency, such as a man like him may naturally feel in such circumstances. He was a fluent speaker, had a musical voice, and a graceful manner.
Mr. Yorke listened to his exordium with great and anxious interest, and, as from generalities the orator gradually became more specific, his face darkened. It was, in fact, nothing more than a Know-Nothing tirade, with the usual appeal to the passions instead of the reason, and the old hackneyed abuse of the clergy.
Mr. Yorke rose like a tiger. "Come, girls," he said quite audibly. "I can't listen to any more of this trash."
His daughters followed him quietly; but, their seats being prominent, they could not get out without exciting attention, and the first to see them was the speaker. He faltered a little in his speech, and a faint color rose to his face; but he recovered himself immediately, and waved his hand to stop the hisses that were beginning to rise. But he felt the defection. He knew well that he was a politician, not a statesman, and he would rather have had Mr. Yorke's countenance than that of any ten other men present.
Mr. Yorke did not dine with the senator that day as he had promised to. "When I made the engagement, I did not know that you had become a wire-puller," he wrote briefly, in making his excuse.
Mr. Blank's face paled slightly as he read the note, but he crushed it carelessly the moment after. "Charles Yorke was always a hunker," he remarked.
"Carl, I want you to print a leader from me, this week," Mr. Yorke said to his son that evening.
We have not said that Carl, having finished his law-studies, instead of practising, had undertaken the editorship of the Seaton Herald.