suddenly taken lame, and he seized that opportunity
to tell me that my father was an impostor in pretending to be a judge of
cattle; that he was a tyrant, screwing his tenants in order to indulge
extravagant habits of hospitality; and implied that it would be a
great mercy if we did not live to apply to him, not for a pony, but for
parochial relief. I went away indignant. But he sent me the pony. I am
sure he will give you his vote."

"Meanwhile," said George, with a timid attempt at gallantry, as they now
commenced the quadrille, "I take encouragement from the belief that I
have the good wishes of Miss Travers. If ladies had votes, as Mr. Mill
recommends, why, then--"

"Why, then, I should vote as Papa does," said Miss Travers, simply. "And
if women had votes, I suspect there would be very little peace in any
household where they did not vote as the man at the head of it wished
them."

"But I believe, after all," said the aspirant to Parliament, seriously,
"that the advocates for female suffrage would limit it to women
independent of masculine control, widows and spinsters voting in right
of their own independent tenements."

"In that case," said Cecilia, "I suppose they would still generally go
by the opinion of some man they relied on, or make a very silly choice
if they did not."

"You underrate the good sense of your sex."

"I hope not. Do you underrate the good sense of yours, if, in far more
than half the things appertaining to daily life, the wisest men say,
'Better leave _them_ to the _women_'? But you're forgetting the figure,
_cavalier seul_."

"By the way," said George, in another interval of the dance, "do
you know a Mr. Chillingly, the son of Sir Peter, of Exmundham, in
Westshire?"

"No; why do you ask?"

"Because I thought I caught a glimpse of his face: it was just as Mr.
Steen was bearing me away down that plantation. From what you say, I
must suppose I was mistaken."

"Chillingly! But surely some persons were talking yesterday at dinner
about a young gentleman of that name as being likely to stand for
Westshire at the next election, but who had made a very unpopular and
eccentric speech on the occasion of his coming of age."

"The same man: I was at college with him,--a very singular character. He
was thought clever; won a prize or two; took a good degree: but it was
generally said that he would have deserved a much higher one if some of
his papers had not contained covert jests either