lf a million! Do you know
how many poor taxpayers it takes to make up that sum, Cecilia?'

'A great many,' she slurred over them; 'but we must have big ships, and
the best that are to be had.'

'Powerful fast rams, sea-worthy and fit for running over shallows,
carrying one big gun; swarms of harryers and worriers known to be kept
ready for immediate service; readiness for the offensive in case of
war--there's the best defence against a declaration of war by a foreign
State.'

'I like to hear you, Nevil,' said Cecilia, beaming: 'Papa thinks we have
a miserable army--in numbers. He says, the wealthier we become the more
difficult it is to recruit able-bodied men on the volunteering system.
Yet the wealthier we are the more an army is wanted, both to defend our
wealth and to preserve order. I fancy he half inclines to compulsory
enlistment. Do speak to him on that subject.'

Cecilia must have been innocent of a design to awaken the fire-flash
in Nevil's eyes. She had no design, but hostility was latent, and hence
perhaps the offending phrase.

He nodded and spoke coolly. 'An army to preserve order? So, then, an
army to threaten civil war!'

'To crush revolutionists.'

'Agitators, you mean. My dear good old colonel--I have always loved
him--must not have more troops at his command.'

'Do you object to the drilling of the whole of the people?'

'Does not the colonel, Cecilia? I am sure he does in his heart, and, for
different reasons, I do. He won't trust the working-classes, nor I the
middle.'

'Does Dr. Shrapnel hate the middle-class?'

'Dr. Shrapnel cannot hate. He and I are of opinion, that as the
middle-class are the party in power, they would not, if they knew the
use of arms, move an inch farther in Reform, for they would no longer be
in fear of the class below them.'

'But what horrible notions of your country have you, Nevil! It is
dreadful to hear. Oh! do let us avoid politics for ever. Fear!'

'All concessions to the people have been won from fear.'

'I have not heard so.'

'I will read it to you in the History of England.'

'You paint us in a condition of Revolution.'

'Happily it's not a condition unnatural to us. The danger would be in
not letting it be progressive, and there's a little danger too at times
in our slowness. We change our blood or we perish.'

'Dr. Shrapnel?'

'Yes, I have heard Dr. Shrapnel say that. And, by-the-way, Cecilia--will
you? can you?--take me for the witness t