“Come in and let us talk it over,” Lucilla said, feeling that no time was to be lost. It was a conference very different from that which, had Mr. Chiltern been so well advised as to die ten years before, might have been held in Dr. Marjoribanks’s drawing-room over his successor’s prospects; but at the same time there was something satisfactory to the personal sentiments of both in the way in which this conversation had come about. When Lucilla took off her hat and sat down to give him all her attention, Mr. Ashburton could not but feel the flattering character of the interest she was taking in him. She was a woman, and young (comparatively speaking), and was by no means without admirers, and unquestionably took the lead in society; and to be divined by such a person was perhaps, on the whole, sweeter to the heart of the aspirant than if Colonel Chiley had found out his secret, or Dr. Marjoribanks, or even the Rector: and Lucilla for her part had all that natural pleasure in being the first to embrace a new interest which was natural under the circumstances. “Let us talk it all over,” she said, giving Mr. Ashburton a chair near her own. “If I believed in spirit-rapping, you know, I should be sure that was what it meant. I was not thinking of you in the least, and all at once, like a flash of lightning—Mr. Ashburton sit down and tell me—what is the first thing that must be done?”
“If I could ask you to be on my committee, that would be the first thing to be done,” said Mr. Ashburton, “but unfortunately I can’t do that. Let me tell you in the first place how very much I am obliged—”
“Don’t say that, please,” said Miss Marjoribanks, with her usual good sense, “for I have done nothing. But papa can be on the committee, and old Colonel Chiley, who is such a one for politics; and of course Sir John—that will be a very good beginning; and after that—”
“My dear Miss Marjoribanks,” Mr. Ashburton said, with a smile, and a little hesitation, “Sir John takes exactly the other side in politics; and I am afraid the Doctor and the Colonel are not of the same way of thinking; and then my opinions—”
“If they are not of the same way of thinking we must make them,” said Lucilla: “after having such an intimation, I am not going to be put off for a trifle; and besides, what does it matter about opinions? I am sure I have heard you all saying over and over that the thing was to have a good man. Don’t go and make speeches about opinions. If you begin with that, there is no end to it,” said Miss Marjoribanks. “I know what you gentlemen are. But if you just say distinctly that you are the best man—”
“It would be an odd thing to say for oneself,” said Mr. Ashburton, and he laughed; but, to tell the truth, he was not a man of very quick understanding, and at the first outset of the thing he did not understand Lucilla; and he was a little—just a very little—disappointed. She had divined him, which was a wonderful proof of her genius; but yet at the bottom she was only an ignorant woman after all.
“I see it all quite clear what to do,” said Miss Marjoribanks. “You must have the Colonel and Sir John, and everybody. I would not pay the least attention to Tories or Whigs, or anything of the sort. For my part I don’t see any difference. All that has to be said about it is simply that you are the right man. Papa might object to one thing and the Colonel might object to another, and then if Sir John, as you say, is of quite another way of thinking—But you are the man for Carlingford all the same; and none of them can say a word against that,” said Lucilla, with energy. She stopped short, with her colour rising and her eyes brightening. She felt herself inspired, which was a new sensation, and very pleasant; and then the idea of such a coming struggle was sweet to Miss Marjoribanks, and the conviction burst upon her that she was striking out a perfectly new and original line.
As for her candidate, he smiled, and hesitated, and paid her pretty little compliments for a few minutes longer, and said it was very good of her to interest herself in his fortunes. All which Lucilla listened to with great impatience, feeling that it had nothing to do with the matter in hand. But then after these few minutes had elapsed the meaning of his fair adviser, as he called her, began to dawn upon Mr. Ashburton’s mind. He began to prick up his mental ears, so to speak, and see that it was not womanish ignorance, but an actual suggestion. For, after all, so long as he was the Man for Carlingford, all the rest was of little importance. He took something out of his pocket, which was his address to
