The troubles never even got into the gossip column of the _Tilborough
County Despatch_, in connection with the busy candidature of the popular
sporting baronet for the vacant seat, and the retirement of Watcombe,
the brewer, who was reported to have been beaten by his opponent "hands
down." For it was considered to be easier to let bygones be bygones,
especially as Trimmer, the trustworthy agent of the Lisle estate, was
reported to have resigned--the notice might have said disappeared--and
in course of time, under the careful guidance of Lady Lisle, Mrs Sydney
Smithers did not make such a very unpresentable little lady after all.
It took time, though, for Syd's pretty wife was in the habit of making
slangy slips redolent of the music-hall, as, for instance, when she made
Lady Tilborough and the doctor, who both petted her and Syd, laugh till
they wiped their eyes, by saying of Lady Lisle--
"Oh, yes, she's ever so good to me, and I love her down to the ground;
but she's such a caution, don'tcherknow!"