On the following day Aylmer was out all the morning, paying visits among his constituents, and at three o'clock he was to make his speech in the Town-hall.

Special places in the gallery were to be kept for Mrs.
Winterfield and her niece, and the old woman was quite resolved that she would be there.

As the day advanced she became very fidgety, and at length she was quite alive to the perils of having to climb up the Town-hall stairs; but she persevered, and at ten minutes before three she was seated in her place.
"I suppose they will begin with prayer," she said to Clara.

Clara, who knew nothing of the manner in which things were done at such meetings, said that she supposed so.

A town councillor's wife who sat on the other side of Mrs.Winterfield, here took the liberty of explaining that as the Captain was going to talk politics there would be no prayers.