can promise you that.
Now, Miss Grey, who is to have the seat?"

"Are you really serious in this, Mr. St. Paul?"

"As serious as I ever was in my life about anything--a good deal more
serious, I dare say, than I often was about graver things and more
important men. Now then, Miss Grey, which of these two fellows is to
sit for Keeton?"

"But why do you make this offer to me?" she asked, with some
hesitation. "What have I to do with it?" There was something alarming
to her in his odd proposition, about which he was evidently quite
serious now.

"Why do I make the offer to you? Well, because I should like to please
you, because you are a sort of woman I like--a regular good girl, I
think, without any nonsense or affectation about you. Now that's the
whole reason why I offer this to you. I don't care much myself either
way, except to annoy my brother, and that can be done in fifty other
ways without half the trouble to me. I was inclined to draw out of the
whole affair, until I remembered that you knew both the fellows, and I
thought you might have a wish for one of them to go in in preference to
the other--they can't both go in, you see--and so I made up my mind to
give you the chance of saying which it should be. Now then, Miss Grey,
name your man."

He put his hands into his pockets, and coolly waited for an answer. He
had not the appearance of being in the least amused at her perplexity.
He took the whole affair in a calm, matter-of-fact way, as if it were
the most natural thing in the world.

Minola was perplexed. She did not see what right he could have to
control the coming contest in any way, and still less, what right she
could have to influence him in doing so. The dilemma was one in which
no previous experience could well guide her. She much wished she had
Mr. Money at hand to give her a word of counsel.

"Come, Miss Grey, make up your mind--or rather tell me what you have
already made up your mind to, for I am sure you have not been waiting
until now to form an opinion. Which of these two men do you want to see
in Parliament?"

There did not seem any particular reason why Minola or any girl might
not say in plain words which of two candidates she would rather see
successful.

Mr. St. Paul appeared to understand her difficulty, for he said in an
encouraging way--

"After all, you know, if you had women's rights and all that sort of
thing, you would have to give your vote for one or other of these
f