Page:Lady Anne Granard 3.pdf/262

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260
LADY ANNE GRANARD.

man who mounts the Hustings, must not allow himself to be sore-boned, or he invites his opponents to 'touch him on the raw,' not in the exercise of their malice, but their power; an election is a saturnalia."

Mr. Glentworth assented to the truth of the observations, but he so nearly repented engaging in the affair at all, from understanding his own mental temperament, that it required the exertions of all his friends to counteract the weak point in a strong mind. They knew not that it originally was implanted by the disgraceful conduct of his father, and the consequent sorrows of his mother, and in their ignorance communicated a happy influence; in the mob of Keenborough his history must be unknown, since it was so to Lord Allerton and Mr. Wigram; years sometimes have an advantage—his sad story was forgotten.

They removed to the town on which they designed to practice, and Mary and Isabella, accompanied by their cousin Granard, and Sir Henry Scriven, an old friend of their father's, began to make a series of calls on the gentry, requesting their "votes and interest," which, for a while, they found pretty generally accorded, for they were now among