omen ought to sit in Parliament?'

'Why, no,' was the response, as if after due consideration. 'If they
are there at all they ought to stand.'

'Oh, I can't get you to talk seriously,' rejoined Rhoda, with an air of
vexation, whilst the others were good-naturedly laughing. 'Mr. Smithson
thinks there ought to be female members of Parliament.

'Does he? Have the girls told you that there's a nightingale in Mr.
Williams's orchard?'

It was always thus. Dr. Madden did not care to discuss even playfully
the radical notions which Rhoda got from her objectionable friend. His
daughters would not have ventured to express an opinion on such topics
when he was present; apart with Miss Nunn, they betrayed a timid
interest in whatever proposition she advanced, but no gleam of
originality distinguished their arguments.

After tea the little company fell into groups--some out of doors
beneath the apple-trees, others near the piano at which Virginia was
playing Mendelssohn. Monica ran about among them with her five-year-old
prattle, ever watched by her father, who lounged in a canvas chair
against the sunny ivied wall, pipe in mouth. Dr. Madden was thinking
how happy they made him, these kind, gentle girls; how his love for
them seemed to ripen with every summer; what a delightful old age his
would be, when some were married and had children of their own, and the
others tended him--they whom he had tended. Virginia would probably be
sought in marriage; she had good looks, a graceful demeanour, a bright
understanding. Gertrude also, perhaps. And little Monica--ah, little
Monica! she would be the beauty of the family. When Monica had grown up
it would be time for him to retire from practice; by then he would
doubtless have saved money.

He must find more society for them; they had always been too much
alone, whence their shyness among strangers. If their mother had but
lived!

'Rhoda wishes you to read us something, father,' said his eldest girl,
who had approached whilst he was lost in dream.

He often read aloud to them from the poets; Coleridge and Tennyson by
preference. Little persuasion was needed. Alice brought the volume, and
he selected 'The Lotus-Eaters.' The girls grouped themselves about him,
delighted to listen. Many an hour of summer evening had they thus
spent, none more peaceful than the present. The reader's cadenced voice
blended with the song of a thrush.

'"Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, And in a l