"She is one of our brightest minds. The poor child has recently lost her husband, and has come to keep Mr. Parsons company in his new house--an ideal arrangement."
The identity of Mr. Parsons was well known to Lyons. He had met him occasionally in the past in other parts of the State in connection with business complications, and regarded him as a practical, intelligent citizen whose name would be of value to an aspirant for Congressional honors. It occurred to him as he shook hands with those next in line and addressed them that it would be eminently suitable if he should pay his respects to this new-comer to Benham by a visit. By so doing he world kill two birds with one stone, for he had reasoned of late that he owed it to himself to see more of the other sex. He had no specific matrimonial intentions; that is, he was not on the lookout for a wife; but he approved of happy unions as one of the great bulwarks of the community, and was well-disposed to encounter a suitable helpmate. He should expect physical charms, dignity, capacity and a sympathetic mind; a woman, in short, who would be an ornament to his home, a Christian influence in society and a companion whose intelligent tact would be likely to promote his political fortunes. And so it happened that in the course of the next few days he found himself thinking of Mrs. Littleton as a fine figure of a woman. This had not happened to him before since the death of his wife, and it made him thoughtful to the extent of asking "Why not?" For in spite of his long frock-coat and proper demeanor, passion was not extinct in the bosom of the Hon. James O. Lyons, and he was capable on special and guarded occasions of telling a woman that he loved her.
Miss Luella Bailey was not elected. The unenlightened prejudice of man to prefer one of his own sex, combined with the hostility of the Reform Club, procured her defeat, notwithstanding that the rest of her ticket triumphed at the polls. There was some consolation for her friends in the fact that her rival, Miss Snow, had a considerably smaller number of votes than she. Selma solaced herself by the reflection that, as she had been consulted only at the twelfth hour, she was not responsible for the result, but she felt nerved by the defeat to concentrate her energies against the proposed bill for an appointed school board.