'Listen to him, if you do meet him,' she replied.

His look was rather grave.

'Lespel 's a Whig,' he said.

The colonel answered. 'Lespel was a Whig. Once a Tory always a Tory,--
but court the people and you're on quicksands, and that's where the Whigs
are. What he is now I don't think he knows himself. You won't get a
vote.'

Cecilia watched her friend Nevil recovering from his short fit of gloom.
He dismissed politics at breakfast and grew companionable, with the charm
of his earlier day. He was willing to accompany her to church too.

'You will hear a long sermon,' she warned him.

'Forty minutes.' Colonel Halkett smothered a yawn that was both retro
and prospective.

'It has been fifty, papa.'

'It has been an hour, my dear.'

It was good discipline nevertheless, the colonel affirmed, and Cecilia
praised the Rev. Mr. Brisk of Urplesdon vicarage as one of our few
remaining Protestant clergymen.

'Then he ought to be supported,' said Beauchamp. 'In the dissensions of
religious bodies it is wise to pat the weaker party on the back--I quote