Her eyes showed a trifle of irritation, but the tears were all
gone.
"Why didn't Tom tell me that he was going to run against my father?" she
inquired of herself over and over. "I think he might have trusted me, so I
do. It's mean of him. And if he should beat papa! Papa could bear that."
She sprang to her feet and walked across the room, stopping on the way to
rub her apple-bloom cheeks before a looking-glass. Vaguely enough, but
insistently, the outline of a political plot glimmered in her consciousness
and troubled her understanding. Plainly her father and Tom Bannister were
rival candidates, and just as plainly each was scheming to make it appear
that the negroes were supporting his opponent; but the girl's little head
could not gather up and comprehend all that such a condition of things
meant. She supposed that a sort of disgrace would attach to defeat, and she
clasped her hands and poised her winsome body melodramatically when she
asked herself which she would rather the defeat would fall upon, her father
or Tom. She leaned out of the window and saw Colonel Sommerton walking down
the road towards town, with his cigar elevated at an acute angle with his
nose, his hat pulled well down in front, by which she knew that he was
still excited.
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