that excellent but conventionally-minded gentleman by starting, nay
supporting, theories next to profane in the consideration of a land-
owner. She spoke of Reform: of the Repeal of the Corn Laws as the simple
beginning of the grants due to the people. She had her ideas, of course,
from that fellow Redworth, an occasional visitor at Copsley; and a man
might be a donkey and think what he pleased, since he had a vocabulary
to back his opinions. A woman, Sir Lukin held, was by nature a mute in
politics. Of the thing called a Radical woman, he could not believe that
she was less than monstrous: 'with a nose,' he said; and doubtless, horse
teeth, hatchet jaws, slatternly in the gown, slipshod, awful. As for a
girl, an unmarried, handsome girl, admittedly beautiful, her
interjections, echoing a man, were ridiculous, and not a little annoying
now and them, for she could be piercingly sarcastic. Her vocabulary in
irony was a quiverful. He admired her and liked her immensely;
complaining only of her turn for unfeminine topics. He pardoned her on
the score of the petty difference rankling between them in reference to
his abandonment of his Profession, for here she was patriotically wrong-
headed. Everybody knew that he had sold out in order to look after his
estates of Copsley and Dunena, secondly: and in the first place, to nurse
and be a companion to his wife. He had left her but four times in five
months; he had spent just three weeks of that time away from her in
London. No one could doubt of his having kept his pledge, although his
wife occupied herself with books and notions and subjects foreign to his
taste--his understanding, too, he owned. And Redworth had approved of
his retirement, had a contempt for soldiering. 'Quite as great as yours
for civilians, I can tell you,' Sir Lukin said, dashing out of politics
to the vexatious personal subject. Her unexpressed disdain was ruffling.

'Mr. Redworth recommends work: he respects the working soldier,' said
Diana.