estion of my vote, and my liking. I like a Tory
Government, and I don't like the Liberals. I like gentlemen; I don't like
a party that attacks everything, and beats up the mob for power, and
repays it with sops, and is dragging us down from all we were proud of.'

'But the country is growing, the country wants expansion,' said
Beauchamp; 'and if your gentlemen by birth are not up to the mark, you
must have leaders that are.'

'Leaders who cut down expenditure, to create a panic that doubles the
outlay! I know them.'

'A panic, Nevil.' Cecilia threw stress on the memorable word.

He would hear no reminder in it. The internal condition of the country
was now the point for seriously-minded Englishmen.

'My dear boy, what have you seen of the country?' Colonel Halkett
inquired.

'Every time I have landed, colonel, I have gone to the mining and the
manufacturing districts, the centres of industry; wherever there was
dissatisfaction. I have attended meetings, to see and hear for myself. I
have read the papers . . . .'

'The papers!'

'Well, they're the mirror of the country.'

'Does one see everything in a mirror, Nevil?' said Cecilia: 'even in the
smoothest?'

He retorted softly: 'I should be glad to see what you see,' and felled
her with a blush.

For an example of the mirror offered by the Press, Colonel Halkett
touched on Mr. Timothy Turbot's article in eulogy of the great Commander
Beauchamp. 'Did you like it?' he asked. 'Ah, but if you meddle with
politics, you must submit to be held up on the prongs of a fork, my boy;
soaped by your backers and shaved by the foe; and there's a figure for a
gentleman! as your uncle Romfrey says.'

Cecilia did not join this discussion, though she had heard from her
father that something grotesque had been written of Nevil. Her
foolishness in blushing vexed body and mind. She was incensed by a silly
compliment that struck at her feminine nature when her intellect stood in
arms. Yet more hurt was she by the reflection that a too lively
sensibility might have conjured up the idea of the compliment. And again,
she wondered at herself for not resenting so rare a presumption as it
implied, and not disdaining so outworn a form of flattery. She wondered
at herself too for thinking of resentment and disdain in relation to the
familiar commonplaces of licenced impertinence. Over all which hung a
darkened image of her spirit of independence, like a moon in eclipse.

Where lay his w