reign ones made my dear papa jealous and uncomfortable."

"Then you liked them?" said Agnes at once.

"Enormously. You see, I am always an alien among English people."

Agnes, following an instinct of kindness, pressed her arm and murmured,
"No, no."

"Yes, my dear, yes. And this is why I am devoted to Mr. Disraeli, and so
much interested in Robert Orange. We three are citizens of the world."

"But English people who have lived, for any length of time, abroad are
quite as sensible and tolerant as you are. Take Mr. Rennes, of whom we
are just speaking."

"To be sure. But artists and poets are like stars--they belong to no
land. A strictly national painter or a strictly national poet is bound
to be parochial--a kind of village pump. And you may write inscriptions
all over him, and build monuments above him, but he remains a pump by a
local spring. David Rennes is a genius."

"I am glad you think so," said Agnes, with flushing cheeks. "I wonder
whether he will ever be an Academician?"

"Would you feel more sure of his gifts--in that case?"

There was a slight note of sarcasm in the question.

"It is stupid of me, I know," said Agnes frankly, "but one can't help
feeling rather shy until one's opinions are officially endorsed."

"How British!"

"I suppose it is my bringing-up. It sounds very feeble. I often feel
that if I once began--really began--to think for myself I wouldn't stick
at anything."

"That is British, too," said Sara, laughing. "You are a true _Jane_
Bull! But as you are going to marry a public man, that is as well. Your
life will have many absorbing interests."

"Oh yes," returned Agnes; "I hope to help Beauclerk in his constituency,
and with the members of his Association."

"So far as I can make out they are a weak, selfish lot, but these
qualities do not affect the question of his duties toward them."

"You express, better than I could, my own feeling. I fear they don't
always appreciate his motives."

"Beauclerk," said Sara slowly, "is impulsive. He is never afraid of
changing his mind. Many people are called firm merely because they
haven't the moral courage to own their second thoughts."

Agnes drew a long sigh, slackened her pace, and stood looking at the
strange, autumnal lights in the sky, the martins flying over the
paddocks toward the wood, and the crescent moon which already shone out
above them.

"I suppose it does mean lack of courage, half the time," she said at
last; "a