In the welcome to the visitors by the home committee Mr. Belden also received his part, in their surprised recognition of him, almost amounting to a discovery.

“We had no idea that you were a nephew of Judge Belden,” one of them said to him, speaking for his colleagues, who stood near.

Mr. William Belden bowed, and smiled; as a gentleman, and a rather reticent one, it had never occurred to him to parade his family connections.  His smile might mean anything.  It made the good committeeman, who was rich and full of power, feel a little uncomfortable, as he tried to cover his embarrassment with effusive cordiality.  In the background stood Mr. Groper, wet, and breathing hard, but plainly full of admiration for his tall friend, and the position he held as the centre of the group.  The visitors referred all arrangements to him.

At last they filed on to the platform—­the two cousins together.

“You must find a place for the girls,” said Henry Belden, with the peculiar boyish giggle that his cousin remembered so well.  “By George, they would come; couldn’t keep ’em at home, after they once got Jim Shore to say it was all right.  Of course, Marie Wakeman started it; she said she was bound to go to a political meeting and sit on the platform; arguing wasn’t a bit of use.  When she got Clara on her side I knew that I was doomed.  Now, you couldn’t get them to do a thing of this kind at home; but take a woman out of her natural sphere, and she ignores conventionalities, just like a girl in a bathing-suit.  There they are, seated over in that corner.  I’m glad that they are hidden from the audience by the pillar.  Of course, there’s that fool of a Jim, too, with Marie.”

“You don’t mean to say she’s at it yet?” said his cousin William.

“‘At it yet’!  She’s never stopped for a moment since you kissed her that night on the hotel piazza after the hop, under old Mrs. Trelawney’s window—­do you remember that, Will?”

Mr. William Belden did indeed remember it; it was a salute that had echoed around their little world, leading, strangely enough, to the capitulation of another heart—­it had won him his wife.  But the little intimate conversation was broken off as the cousins took the places allotted to them, and the business of the meeting began.

If he were not the chairman, he was appealed to so often as to almost serve in that capacity.  He became interested in the proceedings, and in the speeches that were made; none of them, however, quite covered the ground as he understood it.  His mind unconsciously formulated propositions as the flow of eloquence went on.  It therefore seemed only right and fitting toward the end of the evening, when it became evident that his Honor the Mayor was not going to appear, that our distinguished fellow-citizen, Mr. William Belden, nephew of Judge Belden of Barnet, should be asked to represent the interests of the county in a speech, and that he should accept the invitation.