“It’s so good of you, Ken, to take Tom Gates into your employ,” said the girl, pressing her cousin’s arm.  “And I’m sure he’ll be true and grateful.”

“I really need him, Beth,” said the boy.  “There is getting to be too much correspondence for Mr. Watson to attend to, and I ought to relieve him of many other details.  It’s a good arrangement, and I’m glad I thought of it.”

They had almost reached Elmhurst when they met the Honorable Erastus Hopkins driving along the road.  On the seat beside him was a young girl, and as the vehicles passed each other Beth gave a start and clung to the boy’s arm.

“Oh, Ken!” she cried, “did you see?  Did you see that?”

“Yes; it’s my respected adversary.”

“But the girl!  It’s Lucy—­I’m sure it’s Lucy!  She’s the living image of Mrs. Rogers!  Stop—­stop—­and let’s go back!”

“Nonsense, Beth,” said the boy.  “It can’t be.”

“But it is.  I’m sure it is!”

“I saw the girl,” he said.  “She was laughing gaily and talking with the
Honorable Erastus.  Is that your idea of the mad, broken-hearted Lucy
Rogers?”

“N-no.  She was laughing, Ken, I noticed it.”

“And she wasn’t unhappy a bit.  You mustn’t think that every pretty girl with dark eyes you meet is Lucy Rogers, you know.  And there’s another thing.”

“What, Ken?”

“Any companion of Mr. Hopkins can be easily traced.”

“That’s true,” answered the girl, thoughtfully.  “I must have been mistaken,” she added, with a sigh.

CHAPTER XII

BETH MEETS A REBUFF

The campaign was now growing warm.  Mr. Hopkins had come to realize that he had “the fight of his life” on his hands, and that defeat meant his political ruin.  Close-fisted and miserly as he was, no one knew so well as the Honorable Erastus how valuable this position of Representative was to him in a financial way, and that by winning re-election he could find means to reimburse himself for all he had expended in the fight.  So, to the surprise of the Democratic Committee and all his friends, Mr. Hopkins announced that he would oppose Forbes’s aggressive campaign with an equal aggressiveness, and spend as many dollars in doing so as might be necessary.

He did not laugh at his opponents any longer.  To himself he admitted their shrewdness and activity and acknowledged that an experienced head was managing their affairs.

One of Mr. Hopkins’s first tasks after calling his faithful henchmen around him was to make a careful canvass of the voters of his district, to see what was still to be accomplished.

This canvass was quite satisfactory, for final report showed only about a hundred majority for Forbes.  The district was naturally Republican by six hundred majority, and Hopkins had previously been elected by a plurality of eighty-three; so that all the electioneering of the girl politicians, and the expenditure of vast sums of money in painting fences and barns, buying newspapers and flaunting Forbes banners in the breezes, had not cut into the Hopkins following to any serious extent.