d Lady Glencora.

"No, Lady Glencora, not so. But as the pretty women lead the men
who have eyes in their head. There is nothing I want so much, Miss
Vavasor, as to become a Radical;--if I only knew how."

"I think it's very easy to know how," said Alice.

"Do you? I don't. I've voted for every liberal measure that has come
seriously before Parliament since I had a seat in either House, and
I've not been able to get beyond Whiggery yet."

"Have you voted for the ballot?" asked Alice, almost trembling at her
own audacity as she put the question.

"Well; no, I've not. And I suppose that is the crux. But the ballot
has never been seriously brought before any House in which I have
sat. I hate it with so keen a private hatred, that I doubt whether I
could vote for it."

"But the Radicals love it," said Alice.

"Palliser," said the Duke, speaking loudly from his end of the table,
"I'm told you can never be entitled to call yourself a Radical till
you've voted for the ballot."

"I don't want to be called a Radical," said Mr Palliser,--"or to be
called anything at all."

"Except Chancellor of the Exchequer," said Lady Glencora in a low
voice.

"And that's about the finest ambition by which a man can be moved,"
said the Duke. "The man who can manage the purse-strings of this
country can manage anything." Then that conversation dropped and the
Duke ate his dinner.

"I was especially commissioned to amuse you," said Mr Jeffrey
Palliser to Alice. "But when I undertook the task I had no conception
that you would be calling Cabinet Ministers over the coals about
their politics."

"I did nothing of the kind, surely, Mr Palliser. I suppose all
Radicals do vote for the ballot, and that's why I said it."

"Your definition was perfectly just, I dare say, only--"

"Only what?"

"Lady Glencora need not have been so anxious to provide specially
for your amusement. Not but what I'm very much obliged to her,--of
course. But Miss Vavasor, unfortunately I'm not a politician. I
haven't a chance of a seat in the House, and so I despise politics."

"Women are not allowed to be politicians in this country."

"Thank God, they can't do much in that way;--not directly, I mean.
Only think where we should be if we had a feminine House of Commons,
with feminine debates, carried on, of course, with feminine courtesy.
My cousins Iphy and Phemy there would of course be members. You don't
know them yet?"

"No; not yet. Are they politi