Brooke, had not been near
Redmarley for years, and left the whole constituency to his agent, who
was nearly as slack as the member for Marlehouse himself.

Eloquent, who had by no means made up his mind as to Female Suffrage,
was much relieved that not a single woman in Redmarley had so much as
breathed its name. His inclinations led him to follow where Mr Asquith
led, but his long training in the doctrines of expediency gave him
pause. He decided that he could not yet range himself alongside of the
anti-suffrage party. As his old father was wont to remark cautiously,
"You must see where you are first," and as yet Eloquent had not clearly
discovered his whereabouts.

He ate his cold turkey with an excellent appetite, feeling that he had
spent a useful if arduous morning. The give-and-take of ordinary
conversation was always a difficult matter for Eloquent, but on this
occasion he related his experiences to his aunt, and was quite
talkative; so that, to a certain extent, she revised her unfavourable
impression as to his conversational powers, and became more hopeful for
his success in the Election. His gloom and taciturnity on Christmas
Day had filled her with forebodings.

In the afternoon he devoted himself to his correspondence. His aunt
gave up the parlour to him and went out to see her friends, while he
sat in stately solitude at a table covered with papers plainly
parliamentary in kind.

For about an hour he worked on undisturbed. Presently he heard the
front gate creak, and looking up beheld a bicycle, a lady's bicycle,
propped against the garden wall. Someone rapped loudly at the front
door, and whoever it was had hard knuckles, for there was no knocker.

Presently Em'ly-Alice, Miss Gallup's little maid, appeared holding a
card between her finger and thumb, and announced--"A young lady come to
see you, please, sir."

For one mad moment Eloquent thought it might perhaps be Mary with some
message for his aunt, but the card disillusioned him. It was a very
shiny card, and on it was written in ink in round, very distinct
writing--

"Miss Elsmaria Buttermish."

He had barely time to take this in before Miss Buttermish herself
appeared.

"I'm glad to have found you at home, Mr Gallup," she announced easily;
"I come on behalf of our beloved leaders to obtain a clear statement of
your views as to 'Votes for Women,' for on those views a great deal
depends. Kindly state them as clearly and concisely a