"I didn't know she knew any of them. But it seems it is the second
Walshingham girl--Phoebe. It's impossible to trace a girl's thoughts and
friends. She persuaded her to go."

"But did she understand?"

"That's the serious thing," said Lady Ella.

She seemed to consider whether he could bear the blow.

"She understands all sorts of things. She argues.... I am quite unable
to argue with her."

"About this vote business?"

"About all sorts of things. Things I didn't imagine she had heard of.
I knew she had been reading books. But I never imagined that she could
have understood...."

The bishop laid down his knife and fork.

"One may read in books, one may even talk of things, without fully
understanding," he said.

Lady Ella tried to entertain this comforting thought. "It isn't like
that," she said at last. "She talks like a grown-up person. This--this
escapade is just an accident. But things have gone further than that.
She seems to think--that she is not being educated properly here, that
she ought to go to a College. As if we were keeping things from her...."