h laughter.

Rose sank flushed upon a chair, her eyes glancing up with a little
furtive anger in them as the two gentlemen entered the room.

'You found each other easily at Waterloo?' asked Robert.

'Mr. Langham would never have found _me_,' said Rose drily; 'but I
pounced on him at last--just, I believe, as he was beginning to cherish
the hope of an empty carriage and the solitary enjoyment of his
_Saturday Review_.'

Langham smiled nervously. 'Miss Leyburn is too hard on a blind man,' he
said, holding up his eyeglass apologetically; 'it was my eyes, not my
will, that were at fault.'

Rose's lip curled a little. 'And Robert,' she cried, bending forward as
though something had just occurred to her, 'do tell me--I vowed I would
ask--_is_ Mr. Langham a Liberal or a Conservative? _He_ doesn't know!'

Robert laughed, so did Langham.

'Your sister,' he said, flushing, 'will have one so very precise in all
one says.'

He turned his handsome olive face towards her, an unwonted spark of
animation lighting up his black eyes. It was evident that he felt
himself persecuted, but it was not so evident whether he enjoyed the
process or disliked it.

'Oh dear, no!' said Rose nonchalantly. 'Only I have just come from a
house where everybody either loathes Mr. Gladstone or would die for him
to-morrow. There was a girl of seven and a boy of nine who were always
discussing "Coercion" in the corners of the schoolroom. So, of course, I
have grown political too, and began to catechise Mr. Langham at once,
and when he said "he didn't know," I felt I should like to set those
children at him! They would soon put some principles into him!'

'It is not generally lack of principle, Miss Rose,' said her
brother-in-law, 'that turns a man a doubter in politics, but too much!'

And while he spoke, his eyes resting on Langham, his smile broadened as
he recalled all those instances in their Oxford past, when he had taken
a humble share in one of the herculean efforts on the part of Langham's
friends, which were always necessary whenever it was a question of
screwing a vote out of him on any debated University question.

'How dull it must be to have too much principle!' cried Rose. 'Like a
mill choked with corn. No bread because the machine can't work!'

'Defend me from my friends!' cried Langham, roused. 'Elsmere, when did I
give you a right to caricature me in this way? If I were interested,' he
added, subsiding into his usual hesitatin