'

'If you care to read it to me. Did a single hieroglyphic figure stand
for so much?'

'I have never deciphered one.'

'You have been speaking to me too long in earnest, Mr. Austin!'

'I accept the admonition, though it is wider than the truth. Have you
ever consented to listen to politics before?'

Cecilia reddened faintly, thinking of him who had taught her to listen,
and of her previous contempt of the subject.

A political exposition devoid of imagery was given to her next day on
the sunny South-western terrace of Mount Laurels, when it was only
by mentally translating it into imagery that she could advance a step
beside her intellectual guide; and she was ashamed of the volatility of
her ideas. She was constantly comparing Mr. Austin and Nevil Beauchamp,
seeing that the senior and the junior both talked to her with the
familiar recognition of her understanding which was a compliment without
the gross corporeal phrase. But now she made another discovery,
that should have been infinitely more of a compliment, and it was
bewildering, if not repulsive to her:--could it be credited? Mr. Austin
was a firm believer in new and higher destinies for women. He went
farther than she could concede the right of human speculation to go; he
was, in fact, as Radical there as Nevil Beauchamp politically; and would
not the latter innovator stare, perchance frown conservatively, at
a prospect of woman taking counsel, in council, with men upon public
affairs, like the women in the Germania! Mr. Austin, if this time he
talked in earnest, deemed that Englishwomen were on the road to win such
a promotion, and would win it ultimately. He said soberly that he saw
more certain indications of the reality of progress among women than any
at present shown by men. And he was professedly temperate. He was but
for opening avenues to the means of livelihood for them, and leaving it
to their strength to conquer the position they might wish to win. His
belief that they would do so was the revolutionary sign.

'Are there points of likeness between Radicals and Tories?' she
inquired.

'I suspect a cousinship in extremes,' he answered.

'If one might be present at an argument,' said she.

'We have only to meet to fly apart as wide as the Poles,' Mr. Austin
rejoined.

But she had not spoken of a particular person to meet him; and how,
then, had she betrayed herself? She fancied he looked unwontedly arch as
he resumed:

'The end of the ar