Everybody was agog about the election, and we was looking at some placards posted against a wall, when Mr. Locky, the innkeeper, came along, and after bidding us good-morning he asked Jone what party he belonged to.  “I’m a Home Ruler,” said Jone, “especially in the matter of tricycles.”  Mr. Locky didn’t understand the last part of this speech, but I did, and he said, “I am glad you are not a Tory, sir.  If you will read that, you will see what the Tory party has done for us,” and he pointed out some lines at the bottom of a green placard, and these was the words:  “Remember it was the Tory party that lost us the United States of America.”

“Well,” said Jone, “that seems like going a long way off to get some stones to throw at the Tories, but I feel inclined to heave a rock at them myself for the injury that party has done to America.”

“To America!” said Mr. Locky, “Did the Tories ever harm America?”

“Of course they did,” said Jone; “they lost us England, a very valuable country, indeed, and a great loss to any nation.  If it had not been for the Tory party, Mr. Gladstone might now be in Washington as a senator from Middlesex.”

[Illustration:  “I’m a Home Ruler”]

Mr. Locky didn’t understand one word of this, and so he asked Jone which leg his rheumatism was in; and when Jone told him it was his left leg he said it was a very curious thing, but if you would take a hundred men in Chedcombe there would be at least sixty with rheumatism in the left leg, and perhaps not more than twenty with it in the right, which was something the doctors never had explained yet.

It is awfully hard to go away and leave this lovely little cottage with its roses and vines, and Miss Pondar, and all its sweet-smelling comforts; and not only the cottage, but the village, and Mrs. Locky and her husband at the Bordley Arms, who couldn’t have been kinder to us and more anxious to know what we wanted and what they could do.  The fact is, that when English people do like Americans they go at it with just as much vim and earnestness as if they was helping Britannia to rule more waves.

While I was feeling badly at leaving Miss Pondar your letter came, dear madam, and I must say it gave heavy hearts to Jone and me, to me especially, as you can well understand.  I went off into the summer-house, and as I sat there thinking and reading the letter over again, I do believe some tears came into my eyes; and Miss Pondar, who was working in the garden only a little way off—­for if there is anything she likes to do it is to weed and fuss among the rose-bushes and other flowers, which she does whenever her other work gives her a chance—­she happened to look up, and seeing that I was in trouble, she came right to me, like the good woman she is, and asked me if I had heard bad news, and if I would like a little gin and water.