"Yes--to Miss Jocund, who will be delighted to make your acquaintance. I
shall tell her to take pains with you, but there will be no need to tell
her that; she always does take pains with girls who promise to do her
credit. I am afraid there is not time to send to Paris for the blue
bonnet you must wear next Thursday, but she will make you something
nice; you may trust her. This wonderful election is the event of the
day. We have resolved that Mr. Cecil Burleigh shall head the poll."

"How shall you ensure his triumph? Are you going to canvass for him?"

"No, no, that is out of date. But Lady Angleby threatens that she will
leave Brentwood, and never employ a Norminster tradesman again if they
are so ungrateful as to refuse their support to her nephew. They are
radicals every one."

"And is not she also a radical? She talks of the emancipation of women
by keeping them at school till one-and-twenty, of the elevation of the
masses, and the mutual improvement of everybody not in the peerage."

"You are making game of her, like my Arthur. No, she is not a radical;
that is all her _hum_. I believe Lord Angleby was something of the sort,
but I don't understand much about politics."

"Only for the present occasion we are blue?" said Bessie airily.

"Yes--all blue," echoed Mrs. Stokes. "Sky-blue," and they both laughed.

"You must agree at what hour you will go into Norminster on Monday--the
half-past-eleven train is the best," Colonel Stokes said.