. Winterfield was one of
those women who have always believed that their own sex is in every
respect inferior to the other.

CHAPTER VIII.

CAPTAIN AYLMER MEETS HIS CONSTITUENTS.

On the first evening of their visit Captain Aylmer was very attentive
to his aunt. He was quite alive to the propriety of such attentions,
and to their expediency; and Clara was amused as she watched him
while he sat by her side, by the hour together, answering little
questions and making little remarks suited to the temperament of the
old lady's mind. She, herself, was hardly called upon to join in the
conversation on that evening, and as she sat and listened, she could
not but think that Will Belton would have been less adroit, but that
he would also have been more straightforward. And yet why should
not Captain Aylmer talk to his aunt? Will Belton would also have
talked to his aunt if he had one, but then he would have talked his
own talk, and not his aunt's talk. Clara could hardly make up her
mind whether Captain Aylmer was or was not a sincere man. On the
following day Aylmer was out all the morning, paying visits among his
constituents, and at three o'clock he was to make his speech in the
Town-hall. Special places in the gallery were to be kept for Mrs.
Winterfield and her niece, and the old woman was quite resolved that
she would be there. As the day advanced she became very fidgety, and
at length she was quite alive to the perils of having to climb up the
Town-hall stairs; but she persevered, and at ten minutes before three
she was seated in her place.

"I suppose they will begin with prayer," she said to Clara. Clara,
who knew nothing of the manner in which things were done at such
meetings, said that she supposed so. A town councillor's wife who
sat on the other side of Mrs. Winterfield, here took the liberty of
explaining that as the Captain was going to talk politics there would
be no prayers. "But they have prayers in the Houses of Parliament,"
said Mrs. Winterfield, with much anger. To this the town councillor's
wife, who was almost silenced by the great lady's wrath, said that
indeed she did not know. After this Mrs. Winterfield continued to
hope for the best, till the platform was filled and the proceedings
had commenced. Then she declared the present men of Perivale to be
a godless set, and expressed herself very sorry that her nephew had
ever had anything to do with them. "No good can come of it, my dear,"
she