’Alfred, I do hope you won’t go on in this way whilst Letty is here.  You mayn’t think it, but you pain her very much.’

’Pain her!  It’s her education.  She’s had none yet, no more than you have.  It’s time you both began to learn.’

It being close upon the hour for tea, the young lady of whom there was question was heard to ring the door-bell.  We have already had a passing glimpse of her, but since then she has been honoured by becoming Alfred’s affianced.  Letty Tew fulfilled all the conditions desirable in one called to so trying a destiny.  She was a pretty, supple, sweet-mannered girl, and, as is the case with such girls, found it possible to worship a man whom in consistency she must have deemed the most condemnable of heretics.  She and Adela were close friends; Adela indeed, had no other friend in the nearer sense.  The two were made of very different fibre, but that had not as yet distinctly shown.

Adela’s reproof was not wholly without effect; her brother got through the evening without proceeding to his extremest truculence. still the conversation was entirely of his leading, consequently not a little argumentative.  He had brought home, as he always did on Saturday, a batch of ultra periodicals, among them the ’Fiery Cross,’ and his own eloquence was supplemented by the reading of excerpts from these lively columns.  It was a combat of three to one, but the majority did little beyond throwing up hands at anything particularly outrageous.  Adela said much less than usual.  ’I tell you what it is, you three!’ Alfred cried, at a certain climax of enthusiasm, addressing the ladies with characteristic courtesy, ’we’ll found a branch of the Union in Wanley; I mean, in our particular circle of thickheads.  Then, as soon as Mutimer’s settlement gets going, we can coalesce.  Now you two girls give next week to going round and soliciting subscriptions for the “Fiery Cross.”  People have had time to get over the first scare, and you know they can’t refuse such as you.  Quarterly, one-and-eightpence, including postage.’

‘But, my dear Alfred,’ cried Adela, ’remember that Letty and I are not Socialists!’

’Letty is, because I expect it of her, and you can’t refuse to keep her in countenance.’

The girls laughed merrily at this anticipated lordship; but Letty said presently—­

’I believe father will take the paper if I ask him.  One is better than nothing, isn’t it, Alfred?’

‘Good.  We book Stephen Tew, Esquire.’

‘But surely you mustn’t call him Esquire?’ suggested Adela.

‘Oh, he is yet unregenerate; let him keep his baubles.’

‘How are the regenerate designated?’

‘Comrade, we prefer.’

‘Also applied to women?’

’Well, I suppose not.  As the word hasn’t a feminine, call yourselves plain Letty Tew and Adela Waltham, without meaningless prefix.’

‘What nonsense you are talking, Alfred!’ remarked his mother.  ’As if everybody in Wanley could address young ladies by their Christian names!’