, and I shouldn't wonder if their
stings were busy too. Bees are ill-natured as they can be. Well, well,
I don't blame anyone for sitting in the garden such a day as this; only,
as I was saying, gardens have been very dangerous places for women as
far as I know."

Ruth laughed softly. "I shall take a chaperon with me, then, when I go
into the garden."

"I would, dearie. There's the Judge; he's a very suitable,
sedate-looking one but you never can tell. The first woman found in a
garden and a tree had plenty of sorrow for herself and every woman that
has lived after her. I wish Nicholas and John Thomas would come. I'll
warrant they're talking what they call politics."

Politics was precisely the subject which had been occupying them, for
when Tyrrel entered the dining-room, the Squire, Judge Rawdon, and
Mr. Nicholas Rawdon were all standing, evidently just finishing a
Conservative argument against the Radical opinions of John Thomas. The
young man was still sitting, but he rose with smiling good-humor as
Tyrrel entered.

"Here is Cousin Tyrrel," he cried; "he will tell you that you may call
a government anything you like radical, conservative, republican,
democratic, socialistic, but if it isn't a CHEAP government, it isn't a
good government; and there won't be a cheap government in England till
poor men have a deal to say about making laws and voting taxes."

"Is that the kind of stuff you talk to our hands, John Thomas? No wonder
they are neither to hold nor to bind."

They were in the hall as John Thomas finished his political creed, and
in a few minutes the adieux were said, and the wonderful day was over.
It had been a wonderful day for all, but perhaps no one was sorry for a
pause in life--a pause in which they might rest and try to realize what
it had brought and what it had taken away. The Squire went at once to
his room, and Ethel looked at Ruth inquiringly. She seemed exhausted,
and was out of sympathy with all her surroundings.

"What enormous vitality these Yorkshire women must have!" she said
almost crossly. "Mrs. Rawdon has been talking incessantly for six hours.
She has felt all she said. She has frequently risen and walked about.
She has used all sorts of actions to emphasize her words, and she is as
fresh as if she had just taken her morning bath. How do the men stand
them?"

"Because they are just as vital. John Thomas will overlook and scold
and order his thousand hands all day, talk even his