Chippinge Borough by Stanley J. Weyman — Read

In the political world the last week of April and the first week of May of that year were fraught with surprises. It is probable that they saw more astonished people than are to be found in England in an ordinary twelvemonth. The party which had monopolised power for half a century, and to that end and the advancement of themselves, their influence, their friends, and their dependants, had spent the public money, strained the law, and supported the mob, were incredibly, nay, were bitterly surprised when they saw all these engines turned against them; when they found dependants falling off and friends growing cold; above all, when they found that rabble, which they had so often directed, aiming its yells and brickbats against their windows.

But it is unlikely that any Tory of them all was more surprised by the change in the political aspect than Arthur Vaughan-when he came to think of it-by the position in which he had put himself. Certainly he had taken no step that was not revocable. He had said nothing positive; his honour was not engaged. But he had said a good deal. On the spur of the moment, moved by the strange attraction which the girl had for him, he had spoken after a fashion which only farther speech could justify. And then, not content with that, as if fortune were determined to make sport of his discretion, he had been led by another impulse-call it generosity, call it jealousy, call it what you will-to say more to Bob Flixton than he had said to her.