horse's tail, as have bowed or spoken to any
one – particularly any woman – who was the
shadow of a shade below her in the scale of
fashionable life. To her house in Berkeley-square
never, during the London season, came
any one that was not cream of the cream. But
Lady Vance belonged to, and formed part of the
Carmine party. She believed it to be just as
much her duty to please the wives and daughters
of the free and independent who might be thus
induced to support her brother, as it had been the
duty of the English guards to face the privations
and annoyances of a winter before Sebastopol.
And famously she did her duty. Lady Vance,
accompanied by some of her fashionable female
friends, was from Llanholme Hall, her husband's
place. The entertainers seemed determined to
make themselves as popular as possible with
the entertained, and they succeeded. Our
meeting the electors at the different
public-houses, had done us harm with the women
of the place. Their husbands, fathers, and
brothers, were already far too much given to
beer and spirits; treating them to more drink
had not increased their domestic happiness.
But Lady Vance's ball was quite another affair.
A woman will go anywhere if it gives her a
chance of dressing. And when to this is added
the chance of intercourse with a lady who
visited royalty itself – the temptation was great
indeed. The girls, too, would have noble lords
to dance with.

This was one of the moves of the enemy
whom I had despised, Tom Spavit, of County
Court renown. Another of his moves was the
opening of the two or three public-houses
in the neighbourhood of the Crown and
Sceptre, so that those who came merely to look
at the company were offered refreshment "by
command of Lady Vance," who was the nominal
giver of the ball. It was so managed as to
appear the most natural thing in the world.
The middle, and lower middle, classes had been
asked to dance and sup in the assembly room –
could there be any harm in offering a little
refreshment to those of the humbler orders who
came to look on? If the entertainment had
been given in Sir Charles Vance's park, would
not refreshment have been provided for all
comers? And if so, why could it not be done
in town?

But this was not all. Spavit had me again.
When the ball was on foot, I noticed that Lady
Vance went one by one to each of the married
women in the room, particularly to all who could
not, or would not, dance, and entered into
conversation with them. Of course I did not dance:
I was there to watch the enemy. With each
matron her ladyship spoke to, her words seemed
to have the same effect. At first there was
respectful awe. To that would gradually
succeed intense surprise, and, lastly, great pleasure.
What can her ladyship be saying to them? I
wondered. Surely she is not slipping a twenty-
pound note into the hands of each Northenville
matron? And yet I observed that before
speaking to each of these females, Lady Vance
took from Spavit a small slip of paper, which
she first consulted, and then hid away in her
hand. Were these bits of paper cheques?
Altogether the affair puzzled me greatly. On one
occasion I was talking to a Mrs. Hodgson,
whose husband I had been trying in vain for
two days to get a promise from in favour of
Mr. Mellam. As I talked to Mrs. Hodgson,
Lady Vance approached, spoke to her by name,
sat down beside her, and actually began
asking how her little girl, who had lately been
down with the measles, was, and whether that
very fine baby boy of hers had cut his double
teeth? Poor Mrs. H. was in the seventh heaven.
How Lady Vance – the great Lady Vance, whom
Mrs. Hodgson had now and again caught a hasty
vision of as her ladyship's carriage dashed
through Northenville on its way to the railway
station – came to know even her name; or how
her ladyship came to know that she had six
children, and that one had lately had the measles,
was more than Mrs. Hodgson could possibly
understand. But when Lady Vance, who knew
perfectly well that I was the active agent on our
side, and looked at me in triumph as she
spoke – when her ladyship capped all by saying
she had at home some medicine which was an
infallible remedy for teething, that the recipe
had been given her by the Queen's doctor, as
being the same now used in the royal nursery;
I felt that if Hodgson the absent did not vote
for Lady Vance's brother, he would have a bad
time of it with the partner of his joys and
sorrows. And I was right. The influential
tradesman, and all who went with him did vote
on the other side, and very much they injured
us thereby.

That night, after the ball, as each female
citizen took the arm of her husband on her
way home, the topic of conversation was
the same with every couple, namely the
immense delight each mother had experienced
when hearing her children talked of, praised,
and prescribed for by a fashionable lady, the
wife of a baronet and the daughter of an
earl. Lady Vance was a humbug, but she
was undoubtedly a very pleasant one, and
evidently knew her business as a canvasser.
I had the curiosity next day to enquire,
and found out that not only to Mrs. Hodgson,
but to two or three other mothers of
teething children, Lady Vance had sent the
medicine she prescribed – probably purchased
in Northenville – and not only sent it, but sent
it with the neatest little note to each, the
paper being headed "Llanholme Court,
Northenville," and the envelope bearing a
monogram which was the wonder and the admiration
of the Hodgson household for many a long
day. Nor was the manner of delivering
these little medicine bottles a matter left to
chance or the post. The biggest of Lady Vance's
London footmen, was sent over – much to his
disgust – in the break, and himself delivered
each note and small parcel with her ladyship's
kind regards.

Now, was this bribery? I say it was. Mr.