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“May I have the pleasure to learn this lady’s name?” asked Lord William very politely, turning to the old Squire.

“She’s just an eccentric body, my Lord,” said he; “and, I’m sorry to say, a violent enemy to your Lordship’s cause.”

“Hoity-me-toity!” says Kitty. “I’m Christian Lebow, that used to be Bottrell: which means that your forefathers and mine, my Lord, came over to England together, like the Macanns and the Martins, though maybe some time before, and not in a cattle-boat. No enemy am I to your Lordship, nor to the Major here, as I’ll prove any day you choose to drink a dish of tea with me or to taste my White Ale; but only to the ill company you keep with these Martins and Newtes, that have robbed sixty honest men of their votes and given one to me that can’t use it. I can’t use it to keep you out of Parliament-house. I would if I could–honest fighting between gentlefolks; but I may use it before the Election’s over to make these rogues laugh on the wrong side of their faces.”

She used to say afterwards that the words came into her mouth like prophesying: but I believe she just spoke out in her temper, as women will. At any rate, Lord William smiled and bowed, and said he, “The Major and I will certainly do ourselves the pleasure of calling and tasting your ale, Mrs. Lebow.”

“The recipe is three hundred years old,” said Kitty, and swept him a curtsey, the like of which for stateliness you don’t see nowadays: it wants practice and sea-room. And all her eight daughters curtsied to the daps behind her in a half-moon, to the delight of Major Dyngwall, that had been studying Lally the youngest (which is short for Eulalia), through his eyeglass. And with that, to the admiration of the multitude, they faced about and went sailing up the street.

III.

Well, I suppose in the heat of the fight–the nomination taking place a few days afterwards, and the struggle being a mighty doubtful one, for all the trick of the Rating List, against which the Tories had sent up an appeal–Lord William forgot all about his promise to call and taste Mrs. Lebow’s White Ale. It came into his mind of a sudden on the day before the Election, being Sunday morning, and he breakfasting with the Major and half a dozen of their supporters up at Tregoose, where old Squire Martin kept open house for the Whigs right through the contest.

“Plague take it!” says he, running his eye down the Voters’ List between his sips of coffee. “I’ve clean neglected that old lady and her brew. I suppose ’tis dreadful stuff?” he goes on, rather anxious-like, lifting an eye towards the old Squire.

“I’ve never had the privilege to taste it,” says the Squire.

“Oh, ’tis none so bad,” puts in the Major carelessly.

“Why, Dyngwall–how the Dickens alive do you know?”

“I dropped in the other day–in fact, I’ve called once or twice. The old lady’s monstrous entertaining,” answered the Major, pretty pink in the face.

“O-ho!” Lord William screwed up one eye. “And so, belike, are the eight handsome daughters? But look ye here, Dyngwall,” says he, “I can’t have you skirmishing on your own account in this fashion. If there’s a baby left to be kissed in this town–or anything older, for that matter–we go shares, my lad.”

“You needn’t be so cussedly offensive, need you?” says the Major, firing up, to the astonishment of all.

Lord William looks at him for a moment. “My dear fellow,” says he, “I beg your pardon.”

And the Major was mollified at once, the two (as I said) being old friends.

“But all the same,” says his Lordship to himself, “I’d best go call on this old lady without losing time.” So he put it to Squire Martin: “I’ve a promise to keep, and tomorrow we shall be busy-all. Couldn’t we start early to-day, and pay Mrs. Lebow a visit on our way to church?”