Amelia very seldom had intuitions; but one seemed to visit her then.  “Do you know, Laura, it really seems to me less shocking that you should be attached to Joseph (if you are, which I don’t believe), than that you should be so excessively ashamed of it, with no better cause.”

This she said quite sincerely, having risen for the moment into a clearer atmosphere than that in which she commonly breathed.  It was a great advance for her; but then, on the other hand, she had never felt so easy about the result as that old man’s talk had now made her.  Laura never could do it!

So off they set to the flower-show, which was held under a large tent in a field.  Laura heard the hum and buzz about her; the jolly wives of the various gardeners and florists admiring their husbands’ prizes; the band of the militia playing outside; Brandon’s delightful voice—­how she wished that Joseph’s was like it!—­all affected her imagination; together with the strong scent of flowers and strawberries and trodden grass, and the mellow light let down over them through the tent, and the moving flutter of dresses and ribbons as the various ladies passed and repassed, almost all being adorned with little pink and blue flowers, if only so much as a rose-bud or a forget-me-not—­for a general election was near, and they were “showing their colours” (a custom once almost universal, and which was still kept up in that old-fashioned place).

Wigfield was a droll little town, and in all its ways was intensely English.  There was hardly a woman in it or round it who really and intelligently concerned herself about politics; but they were all “blues” or “pinks,” and you might hear them talk for a week together without finding out which was the Liberal and which was the Conservative colour; but the “pinks” all went to the pink shops, and the “blues” would have thought it WRONG not to give their custom to those tradesmen who voted “blue.”

You might send to London for anything you thought you wanted; but the Marchioness herself, the only great lady in the neighbourhood, knew better than to order anything in Wigfield from a shop of the wrong colour.

The “pinks” that day were happy.  “Markiss,” in the person of his gardener, had three prizes; “Old Money-Bags” (Mr. Augustus Mortimer’s name at election time) had two prizes, in the person of his son’s gardener; in fact, the “pinks” triumphed almost at the rate of two to one, and yet, to their immortal honour, let it be recorded that the “blues” said it was all fair.

John Mortimer shortly went to fetch his father, and returned with him and all his own younger children.  Mr. Mortimer had long been allowed to give three supplementary prizes, on his own account, to some of the exhibitors who were cottagers, and on this occasion his eyes, having been duly directed by his son, were observed to rest with great admiration on the big lettuces.  Raby’s wife could hardly believe it when she