"
"I hoped you would,--and yet I knew that I was wrong. I thought that
you should count yourself to be worth more than that, and that you
should, as it were, assert yourself. But then it is so difficult
to draw the line between proper self-assertion and proper
self-denial;--to know how high to go up the table, and how low to
go down. I do not doubt that you have been right,--only make them
understand that you are not as other junior lords;--that you have
been willing to be a junior lord, or anything else for a purpose;
but that the purpose is something higher than that of fetching and
carrying in Parliament for Mr. Mildmay and Mr. Palliser."
"I hope in time to get beyond fetching and carrying," said Phineas.
"Of course you will; and knowing that, I am glad that you are in
office. I suppose there will be no difficulty about Loughton."
Then Phineas laughed. "I hear," said he, "that Mr. Quintus Slide,
of the _People's Banner_, has already gone down to canvass the
electors."
"Mr. Quintus Slide! To canvass the electors of Loughton!" and Lady
Laura drew herself up and spoke of this unseemly intrusion on her
father's borough, as though the vulgar man who had been named had
forced his way into the very drawing-room in Portman Square. At that
moment Mr.
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