"We c.o.c.k-a-doodled and pip-pipped till you couldn't hear your ears.

Half couldn't get in, they was climbed up an' hangin' in the windows--little girls too along with the boys. I suppose now that they're as near got a vote as we have, they'll be poked everywhere just the same as if they had as good a right as us," said the boy with the despondence of one to whom all is lost.

"It's a terrible thing they can't be made stay at home out of all the fun like boys think they ought to be. No mistake the woman having a vote is a terrible nark to the men--almost too much for 'em to bear,"

said Dawn, whom I had thought asleep.

"I reckon I'm goin' to every meetin', they're all right fun,"

continued Andrew. "At the both committee room they're givin' out tickets with the men's names on, an' whoever likes can get them an'

wear 'em in their hats. Me an' Jack Bray went to this Johnny Walker's rooms and gammoned we was for him, an' got a dozen tickets, an' when we got outside tore 'em to smithereens; that's what we'll do all the time."

After this Andrew disappeared down the stairs, spilling grease, and being admonished by Dawn as he went as the clumsiest creature she had ever seen.

Silence reigned between us for some time, and in listening to the trains I had forgotten the girl till her voice came across the room.

"I say, don't tell that Ernest anything not nice about me, will you?

I'll take care not to flirt with him, and I wouldn't like him to think me not nice. I wouldn't care about any one else a sc.r.a.p, but he's such a great friend of yours, and as I hope to be with you a lot, it would be awkward; and you know he has _said_ nothing, it might only be my conceit to think he's going the way of other men. He took me to afternoon tea to-day at such a lovely place,--he said he wanted to be good to your friends, that's why he is nice to me. I don't suppose he ever thinks of me at all any other way," she said with the despondence of love.

So this had been chasing sleep from Beauty's eyes, as such trifles have a knack of doing!

"Very likely," I said complacently, and smiled to myself. The only thing to be discovered now was if the young athlete's emotions were at the same ebb, and then what was there against plain sailing to the happy port where honeymoons are spent?

Fortune favours the persevering, and next afternoon an opportunity occurred for procuring the desired knowledge.

Ernest and Ada Grosvenor came in together, and to the casual observer seemed much engrossed with each other, but I noticed that Dawn could not speak or move, but a pair of quick dark eyes caught every detail.

So far so good, but it was necessary for Dawn to think the prize just a little farther out of reach than it was to make it attractive to her disposition, so I set about attaining this end by a very simple method.

Miss Grosvenor had called to invite us to a meeting she had convened, to listen to a public address by a lady who was going to head a deputation to Walker afterwards, and we had decided to go. Mrs Bray's husband also dropped in, and to my surprise proved not the hen-pecked nonent.i.ty one would expect after hearing his wife's aggressive diatribes, but a stalwart man of six feet, with a comely face bespeaking solid determination in every line. And when one comes to think of it, it is not the big bl.u.s.tering man or woman that rules, but the quiet, apparently inane specimens that look so meek that they are held up as models of propriety and gentleness. Miss Grosvenor immediately nailed him for her meeting, and politics being the only subject discussed, he aired his particular bug. This was his disgust at the top-heaviness of the Labour party's demands, and the railway people's easy times as compared with that of the farmer.

"I believe," said he, "in every man, if he can, working only eight hours a-day--though I have to work sixteen myself for precious little return, but these fellows are running the country to blazes. The rules of supply and demand must sway the labour or any other market all the world over, and they'll have to see that and haul in their sails."

"Who are you going to vote for?" inquired Andrew.

"I'm goin' for Henderson, and the missus for Walker."

"It's a wonder you don't compel Mrs Bray to vote for your man."

"No fear; I'm pleased she's taken the opposite chap, just to ill.u.s.trate my opinion on what liberty of opinion should be; but I won't deny," he concluded, with a humorous smile, "that I mightn't be so pleased with her going against me if I was set on either of them, but as it is neither are worth a vote, so that I'm pretty well sitting on a rail myself."

"I thought your first announcement almost too liberal to be true,"

laughed Miss Grosvenor.

"No, I will say that Mr Bray is a man does treat his women proper, and give 'em liberty," said grandma.

"An' a nice way they use it," sniffed Carry _sotto voce_.

As we set out to the meeting Miss Grosvenor mentioned to me that she was endeavouring to find suitable speakers to address her a.s.sociation, and asked did I know of any one. Here was an opening for a thrust in the game of parry I was setting on foot between Dawn and Ernest Breslaw.

"Ask my friend Mr Ernest to deliver an address: 'Women in Politics,'"

I said, "that is his particular subject. He is a most fluent speaker, and loves speaking in public, nothing will delight him more."

"I'll ask him at once," said she.

This was as foundationless a fairy-tale as was ever spun, for Ernest could not say two words in public upon any occasion. That he was usually tendered a dinner and was called upon to make a speech, he considered the drawback of wresting any athletic honours. Whether women were in politics or the wash-house was a sociological abstrusity beyond his line of thought, and not though it cost him all his fortune to refuse could he have decently addressed any a.s.sociation even on beloved sporting matters. Hence his consternation when Miss Grosvenor approached him. At first he was nonplussed, and next thing, taking it as a joke on my part, was highly amused. Miss Grosvenor, on her side, thought he was joking, with the result that there was the liveliest and most laughable conversation between them.

Dawn did not know the reason of it. She could only see that Ernest and Miss Grosvenor were engrossed, and at first curious, a little later she was annoyed with the former.

"I think," she whispered to me, "it's Mr Ernest you'll have to see doesn't flirt with every girl he comes across."

"Perhaps he isn't flirting," I coolly replied.

"Not _now_, perhaps," she said pointedly; "perhaps he's in earnest with one and practises with others."

Arrived at the hall, we found the women swarming around Walker like bees.

"Good Lord! Look what Les. has let himself in for," laughed Ernest; "I wouldn't stand in his shoes for a tenner."

"Go on! Surely you too are partial to ladies?"

"Yes; but--"

"But there must be reason in everythink," I quoted. He laughed.

"Yes; and reason in this sort of thing to suit my taste would be a small medium. But what a fine old sport the old dame Clay would have made--no danger of her not standing up to a mauling or baulking at any of her fences, eh?"

Dawn would not look at Ernest after the meeting and deputation came to an end, but walked home with "Dora" Eweword, laughing and talking in ostentatious enjoyment; while Ernest and the Grosvenor girl were none the less entertained.

"'Pon my soul, I couldn't make a speech to save my life," he reiterated. "My friend only laid you on for a lark, did you not?" he said, turning to me, whom he gallantly insisted upon supporting on his arm--that splendid arm in which the muscles could expand till they were like iron bands.

"Don't you believe him, Miss Grosvenor," I replied; "he's a born orator, but is unaccountably lazy and vain, and only wants to be pressed; insist upon his speaking, he's longing to do so." And then his merry protesting laugh, and the girl's equally happy, rang out on the crisp starlight air, as they went over and over the same ground.

As we neared Clay's I suggested that he should see Miss Grosvenor home, while I attached myself to Dawn and "Dora"; and I invited him to come and sing some songs with us afterwards, for the night was yet young.

To this he agreed, and supposed to be with the other young couple, I slipped behind, and could hear their conversation as they progressed.

"You're not struck on that red-headed mug, are you?" said Eweword, for general though political talk had become, there was still another branch of politics more vitally interesting to some of the electors.

"I'm not the style to be struck on a fellow that doesn't care for me."

"But he does!"

"Looks like it, doesn't it?" she said sarcastically.

"Yes, it does, or what would he be hanging around here so long for?"

"Perhaps to see Ada Grosvenor; I suppose she'd have him, red hair and all."

"Pooh! he never goes there; but he comes to your place though, too deuced often for my pleasure."

"He comes to see the boarder--he's a great friend of hers."