He entered the room, closing the door behind him.  Quincy threw himself rather discontentedly into a chair.  He fancied he heard laughing in the next room, but he knew Alice would be disappointed, and he himself felt in no mood for laughter.

Leopold opened the library door.  “Quincy, I’ve induced her to undertake the task,” he said.  “Do spare a moment from your work, Mrs. Ernst; I wish to introduce to you Mr. Quincy Adams Sawyer, the husband of the author of that coming literary sensation, Blennerhassett.  Mr. Sawyer,” he continued, “allow me to present you to my wife, Mrs. Rosa Ernst.”  And as he said this, Leopold and Rosa stood side by side in the doorway.

“When did you do it?” finally ejaculated Quincy, rushing forward and grasping each by the hand.  “Leopold, I owe you one.”  And then they all laughed together.

By some means, Dr. Culver said by the liberal use of money, Barker Dalton secured the regular nomination from Quincy’s party.  The latter kept his word and entered the field as an independent candidate.  A hot contest followed.  The papers were full of the speeches of the opposing candidates, and incidents connected with their lives.  But in none relating to Quincy was a word said about his marriage, and the fact was evidently unknown, except to a limited few.  When the polls closed on election day and the vote was declared, it was found that Sawyer had a plurality of two hundred and twenty-eight and a clear majority of twenty-two over both Dalton and Burke, the opposing candidates.  Then the papers were full of compliments for Mr. Sawyer, who had so successfully fought corruption and bribery in his own party, and won such a glorious victory.

But Quincy never knew that the Hon. Nathaniel Adams Sawyer had used all his influence to secure his son’s election, and for every dollar expended by Dalton, the Hon. Nathaniel had covered it with a two or five if necessary.

The publication of Blennerhassett had been heralded by advance notices that appeared in the press during the month of October.

These notices had been adroitly written.  Political prejudices, one notice said, would no doubt be aroused by statements made in the book, and one newspaper went so far as to publish a double-leaded editorial protesting against the revival of party animosities buried more than two generations ago.  The leaven worked, and when the book was placed in the stores on the eleventh of November, the demand for it was unparalleled.  Orders came for it from all parts of the country, particularly from the State of New York, and the resources of the great publishing house of Hinckley, Morton, & Co. were taxed to the utmost to meet the demand.

While Quincy was fighting Dalton in the political field, another campaign was being planned in the clever diplomatic brain of Aunt Ella.  It related to the introduction of Alice, the “farmer’s daughter,” to the proud patrician family of Sawyer, as Quincy’s wife—­no easy matter to accomplish satisfactorily, as all agreed.