triumphantly returned at a
bye-election; and two years later, when a repetition of the tactics, so
successful in the previous contest, led to a petition, and to the
disappearance of the heir to the Elsmere property from parliamentary
life.

Of these matters, however, he was ignorant, and Mrs. Seaton did not
enlighten him. Drawing herself up a little, and proceeding in a more
neutral tone than before, she proceeded to put him through a catechism
on Oxford, alternately cross-examining him and expounding to him her own
views and her husband's on the functions of Universities. She and the
Archdeacon conceived that the Oxford authorities were mainly occupied in
ruining the young men's health by over-examination, and poisoning their
minds by free-thinking opinions. In her belief, if it went on, the
mothers of England would refuse to send their sons to these ancient but
deadly resorts. She looked at him sternly as she spoke, as though
defying him to be flippant in return. And he, indeed, did his polite
best to be serious.

But it somewhat disconcerted him in the middle to find Miss Leyburn's
eyes upon him. And undeniably there was a spark of laughter in them,
quenched, as soon as his glance crossed hers, under long lashes. How
that spark had lit up the grave, pale face! He longed to provoke it
again, to cross over to her and say, 'What amused you? Do you think me
very young and simple? Tell me about these people.'

But, instead, he made friends with Rose. Mrs. Seaton was soon engaged in
giving the vicar advice on his parochial affairs, an experience which
generally ended by the appearance of certain truculent elements in one
of the mildest of men. So Robert was free to turn to his girl neighbour
and ask her what people meant by calling the Lakes rainy.

'I understand it is pouring at Oxford. To-day your sky here has been
without a cloud, and your rivers are running dry.'

'And you have mastered our climate in twenty-four hours, like the
tourists--isn't it?--that do the Irish question in three weeks?'

'Not the answer of a bread-and-butter miss,' he thought to himself,
amused, 'and yet what a child it looks.'

He threw himself into a war of words with her, and enjoyed it extremely.
Her brilliant colouring, her gestures as fresh and untamed as the
movements of the leaping river outside, the mixture in her of girlish
pertness and ignorance with the promise of a remarkable general
capacity, made her a most taking, provoki