“Of course.”

“That will pretty well absorb this first meeting.  The ladies will manage that, I think; and when this is provided for, I will try what I can do at the committee; but there is no good in bringing it forward at this great public affair, when every ass can put in his word.  Everything depends on whom they choose for the new mayor.  If Whitlock comes in, there is some chance of sense and reason being heard.  Good night.”

As Raymond said, the more immediate object of the meeting fixed for the ensuing day, was to provide for the employment of the numerous women thrown out of employment by the destruction of the paper-mills.  A subscription was in hand, but not adequate to the need; and moreover, it was far more expedient to let them maintain themselves.

How this was to be done was the question.  Cecil told her husband that at Dunstone they made the women knit stockings; and he replied by recommending the suppression of Dunstone.  How strange it was that what she had been used to consider as the source of honour should be here held in what seemed to her disesteem!

Lady Tyrrell’s ponies were tinkling up to the door of the hotel where the meeting was to be held, and her gracious smile recalled Cecil’s good-humour; Raymond saw them to their seats, and then had to go and take the chair himself on the platform—­first, however, introducing his wife to such of the ladies present as he recollected.

She thought he wanted her to sit between melancholy white faced Mrs. Fuller and a bony spinster in a poke-bonnet whom he called Miss Slater; but Cecil, concluding that this last could have no vote, and that the Vicarage was secure, felt free to indulge herself by getting back to Lady Tyrrell, who had scarcely welcomed her before exclaiming, “Mrs. Duncombe, I did not know you were returned.”

“I came back on the first news of your flare-up,” said the newcomer.  “I only came down this morning.  I would not have missed this meeting for anything.  It is a true woman’s question.  A fair muster, I see,” looking round with her eye-glass, and bowing to several on the platform, especially to Raymond, who returned the bow rather stiffly.

“Ah! let me introduce you,” said Lady Tyrrell.  “Mrs. Raymond Charnock Poynsett.”

“I am very glad to see you embarked in the cause,” said the lady, frankly holding out her hand.  “May we often meet in the same manner, though I honestly tell you I’m not of your party; I should go dead against your husband if we only had a chance.”

“Come, you need not be so aggressive,” laughed Lady Tyrrell; “you haven’t a vote yet.  You are frightening Mrs. Poynsett.”  It was true.  Even Cecil Charnock was born too late to be one of the young ladies who, in the first decades of the reformed Parliament, used to look on a Liberal as a lusus naturae, whom they hardly believed to be a gentleman.  But a lady who would openly accost the Member’s bride with a protest against his politics, was a being beyond her experience, and the contemplation fairly distracted her from her husband’s oratory.