"You hussy! What have you got to say about my husband? Prove it, and I'd make short work of him; and if it's lies, I'll bring you into court for it."

"I'll leave it for you to prove; you're one of those who thinks every yarn entertaining till they touch yourself."

"Two to one on Carry every time when me grandma's the umpire," grinned Andrew round the corner.

"Carry, you've had enough to say. I forbid any more in my house," said grandma, rising to order.

"I declare this a drawn fight," said Andrew.

"You can have it out with Mrs Bray in her own house if you want, but no more of it here," continued grandma.

"Don't you dare come to my house," said Mrs Bray.

"_Your_ house! no fear; I never a.s.sociate with scandal-mongers,"

contemptuously retorted Carry, as Mrs Bray made a precipitate departure, emitting something about a hussy who didn't know her place as she went.

"I'm surprised at you!" said grandma. "Her tongue does run on a little sometimes, but you ought to remember she's old enough to be your mother, and girls do owe somethink to women with families."

"And women with families and homes ought to remember they owe something to girls that aren't settled, because they haven't got a man caught yet to keep them."

"Well, this ain't my quarrel, an' don't you bring it up to me again. A woman that's rared a family, and two of them like I have done, has enough with her own dissensions."

It was rather a sullen party at tea that evening, so Dawn's return from Sydney immediately after, with her cheeks radiant from travel in the quick evening express, and herself br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with her day's adventures, formed a welcome relief.

"I had a great time coming home," said she. "Mr Ernest and Dora Eweword both went to Sydney this morning, and Mr Ernest and I raced into a carriage to escape Dora, and we did; and he must have asked the guard, for he found our carriage, but he had only a second-cla.s.s ticket, and wouldn't be let in."

"And how came you to be in a first-cla.s.s carriage?" inquired grandma.

"I can't stand that; there's expense enough as it is, and your betters travel second."

"It wasn't my fault. Mr Ernest bought the tickets like a gentleman should (it says in the etiquette book), and I couldn't fight with him there and then,--you're always telling me to be more genteel."

"But I don't want strangers paying anything for my granddaughter."

"You needn't mind in this instance," I interposed.

"Mr Ernest probably wished to be gentlemanly to Dawn because she has been so good to me." Once more I saw the little derisive smile flit across the exquisite face, but she said--

"Yes; he said that you're looking so well it must be our nursing, and that he will try and get grandma to take him in if he falls ill."

"I wonder if he's going to get took bad--love-sick--like the other blokes," said Andrew.

Dawn cast a murderous glance at him, and covered the remark by making a bustle in sitting to her tea, and in retailing minute details of her singing lesson.

We retired early, and she produced from the basket in which she carried her music a most pretentious box of sweets and various society newspapers.

"Mr Ernest said you might like some of these, and I was to have a share because I carried them home, though he got the 'bus and brought me to the door, so I hadn't to walk a step."

"Good boy! What did he talk about to-day?"

"I asked him about all the actresses he has seen. He's going to give me the autographed photos he has of them. You wouldn't think he'd like to part with them, but he says he's tired of them all now--they're nearly all married, and are back numbers. Actresses are only thought of for a little while, he says."

"That is the natural order of things, and applies to others as well as actresses. Pretty young girls are not pretty for long. They should see to it that they are plucked by the right fingers while their bloom is attractive. The old order falls ill-fittingly on some, but is fair in the main,--we each have our fleeting hour."

"Yes; but where is there a desirable plucker?" said the practical girl. "There are scarcely any good matches and the few there are have so many running after them that I wouldn't give 'em the satisfaction of thinking I wanted them too."

True, good matches are few. In these luxurious times the generality of girls' ideas of a good match being very advanced--in short, a man of sufficient wealth to keep them in petted idleness. There can be no shade of reproach on women for this ambition, it is but one outcome of the evolution of civilisation, and is merely a species of common-sense on their part; for the ordinary routine of marriage, as instanced by the testimony of thousands of women ranked among the comfortably and happily married, is so trying that girls do well to try for the most comfortable berths ere putting their heads in the noose.

"And Dora, where was he all this time?" I asked.

"Oh, he brought Ada Grosvenor home; thought that would spite me. She was in town too, and you should just hear her after this. The silly rabbit can't open her mouth but she tells you what this man did and that one said to her, when all the time it's nothing but some ordinary courtesy they ought to extend to even black gins."

EIGHTEEN.

THE FOUNDATION OF THE POULTRY INDUSTRY.

Peace was restored in the Clay household through my interviewing Carry and offering to teach her music and allow her the use of my piano if she would do some of Dawn's work for two days during every second week. The next irritation arose from the male portion of the family.

Now, we had all been so vigorously on political entertainment bent, that no one had given a thought to Uncle Jake and his doings or political opinions, or whether he had any, but it transpired, though a "mere man," he had been pursuing his course with as much attention to electioneering technique as the most emanc.i.p.ated woman among us.

On the afternoon following Carry's little difference with Mrs Bray, Ada Grosvenor called to invite us to accompany her to hear Olliver Henderson, the ministerial candidate, who was to address the women at the hall first, and the men at Jimmeny's pub. afterwards, and we all went. Next morning at breakfast, when we had set to work upon the "dosed" porridge, Andrew again catechised his grandma concerning the casting of her vote.

"I'm goin' for young Walker of course; as for that other feller!"

said she cholericly, "I was that sick of his stuttering and muttering, an' holdin' his meetin's at Jimmeny's (we all know that that means free drinks), an' after waitin' all my life fer it I'm not goin' to cast the only vote that maybe I'll live to have, for a feller that buys his votes with grog. There's precious little to choose between them. They only want the glory of bein' in parliament for theirselves, and for the time bein' have rose a flute about the country goin' to the dogs and them bein' the people to save it; but once the election's over that's all we'll hear of 'em, and though they'd lick our boots now, they're so glad to know us, they'd forget all about us then. The one who can blow the loudest will get in, and as it must be one it might as well be this feller that can talk, an' could keep up his end of the stick in parliament, as there's no doubt this talkin' an' blow has become such a great trade one has to go to the wall without it."

"Well, I'm going for Walker too, because he's something to look at,"

said Carry.

"The women was goin' to put in _clean_ men an' do strokes," sneered Uncle Jake, "an' it turns out they'd vote for the best-lookin'

man,--nice state of affairs that is."

"Ah! it's all very fine for a man to buck w'en a thing treads on his own toes; it would be thought a terrible thing for a woman to vote for a good-lookin' man an' pa.s.s over merit, but that's what's been done to women all the time. The good-lookin' ones got all the honours, whether they deserved 'em or not, and those complainin' agen this was jeered at an' called 'Shrieking sisters,' but it's a different tune now."

"Uncle, _darling_, who are you going to vote for?" inquired Andrew.

"For Henderson, of course, an' I reckon all the women here with votes ought, too."

"And why, pray?" asked grandma, her eyes flashing a challenge, while her faithful guardswomen, Carry and Dawn, suspended work to see how the argument ended.

"For the look of the thing to start with. It don't look well to see the wimmen of the family goin' agen the men."

"No, it don't look like Nature as men make believe it ought to be, for once to see a woman have a opinion of her own, and not the man just telling that his opinion wuz hers too, without knowing anythink about it, an' women having to hold their tongue for peace' sake because they wasn't in a position to help theirselves. An' if it seems so dreadful that way, you better come over to our side, as there's more of us than you, an' majority ought to rule."

"What did you do at _your_ meeting last night, uncle?" inquired Dawn.