cluded, affecting with a smile a slight shiver.

'Yes, one tires of that,' said Mrs. Lespel. 'I was determined I would
have him here if we could get him to come. Grancey objected. We shall
have to manage Captain Beauchamp and the rest as well. He is sure to
come late to-morrow, and will leave early on Thursday morning for his
canvass; our driving into Bevisham is for Friday or Saturday. I do not
see that he need have any suspicions. Those verses you are so angry
about cannot be traced to Itchincope. My dear, they are a childish
trifle. When my husband stood first for Bevisham, the whole of his
University life appeared in print. What we have to do is to forewarn the
gentlemen to be guarded, and especially in what they say to my nephew
Lord Palmet, for that boy cannot keep a secret; he is as open as a
plate.'

'The smoking-room at night?' Cecilia suggested, remembering her father's
words about Itchincope's tobacco-hall.

'They have Captain Beauchamp's address hung up there, I have heard,'
said Mrs. Lespel. 'There may be other things--another address, though it
is not yet, placarded. Come with me. For fifteen years I have never once
put my head into that room, and now I 've a superstitious fear about
it.'

Mrs. Lespel led the way to the deserted smoking-room, where the stale
reek of tobacco assailed the ladies, as does that dire place of Customs
the stranger visiting savage (or too natural) potentates.

In silence they tore down from the wall Beauchamp's electoral
Address--flanked all its length with satirical pen and pencil comments
and sketches; and they consigned to flames the vast sheet of animated
verses relating to the FRENCH MARQUEES. A quarter-size chalk-drawing
of a slippered pantaloon having a duck on his shoulder, labelled to say
'Quack-quack,' and offering our nauseated Dame Britannia (or else it
was the widow Bevisham) a globe of a pill to swallow, crossed with the
consolatory and reassuring name of Shrapnel, they disposed of likewise.
And then they fled, chased forth either by the brilliancy of the
politically allusive epigrams profusely inscribed around them on the
walls, or by the atmosphere. Mrs. Lespel gave her orders for the walls
to be scraped, and said to Cecilia: 'A strange air to breathe, was it
not? The less men and women know of one another, the happier for them. I
knew my superstition was correct as a guide to me. I do so much wish to
respect men, and all my experience tells me the Turks know