guarantee that we do not lose the wisdom of past experience in our
struggle with what is doubtful. Liberalism stakes too much on the chance
of gain. It is uncomfortably seated on half-a-dozen horses; and it has
to feed them too, and on varieties of corn.'

'Yes,' Miss Halkett said, pausing, 'and I know you would not talk down to
me, but the use of imagery makes me feel that I am addressed as a
primitive intelligence.'

'That's the fault of my trying at condensation, as the hieroglyphists put
an animal for a paragraph. I am incorrigible, you see; but the lecture
in prose must be for by-and-by, if you care to have it.'

'If you care to read it to me. Did a single hieroglyphic figure stand
for so much?'

'I have never deciphered one.'

'You have been speaking to me too long in earnest, Mr. Austin!'

'I accept the admonition, though it is wider than the truth. Have you
ever consented to listen to politics before?'

Cecilia reddened faintly, thinking of him who had taught her to listen,
and of her previous contempt of the subject.

A political exposition devoid of imagery was given to her next day on the
sunny South-western terrace of Mount Laurels, when it was only by
mentally translating it into imagery that she could advance a step beside
her intellectual guide; and she was ashamed of the volatility of her