Of course there are a good many
of them in the country. So that Mr Horace Williams was
justified to some extent in his kindly observation upon
the excusable egotism of youth. Two or three letters,
however, came in while Lorne was considering the relation
of plates and rivets to the objects of his deputation.
They were all congratulatory; one was from the chairman
of the Liberal Association at its headquarters in Toronto.
Lorne glanced at them and stowed them away in his pocket.
He would read them when he got home, when it would be a
pleasure to hand them over to his mother. She was making
a collection of them.
He had a happy perception that same evening that Mr
Milburn's position was not, after all, finally and
invincibly taken against the deputation and everything
--everybody--concerned with it. He met that gentleman at
his own garden gate. Octavius paused in his exit, to hold
it open for young Murchison, thus even assisting the act
of entry, a thing which thrilled Lorne sweetly enough
when he had time to ponder its possible significance.
Alas! the significance that lovers find! Lorne read a
world in the behaviour of Dora's father in holding the
gate open. He saw political principle put aside in his
favour, and social position forgotten in kindness to him.
He saw the gravest, sincerest appreciation of his recent
success, which he took as humbly as a dog will take a
bone; he read a fatherly thought at which his pulses
bounded in an arrogance of triumph, and his heart rose
to ask its trust.
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