But she was soon condemned to a disappointment proportioned to her
delight. Though Godolphin had hitherto taken no interest in party
politics, his prejudices, his feelings, his habits of mind, were all the
reverse of democratic. When he once began to examine the bearings of the
momentous question that agitated England, he was not slow in coming to
conclusions which threatened to produce a permanent disagreement between
Constance and himself.

"You wish me to enter Parliament, my dear Constance," said he, with his
quiet smile; "it would be an experiment dangerous to the union
re-established between us. I should vote against your Bill."

"You!" exclaimed Constance, with warmth; "is it possible that you can
sympathise with the fears of a selfish oligarchy--with the cause of the
merchants and traffickers of the plainest right of a free people--the
right to select their representatives?"

"My dear Constance," returned Godolphin, "my whole theory of Government is
aristocratic. The right of the, people to choose representatives!--you
may as well say the right of the people to choose kings, or magistrates,
and judges--or clergymen and archbishops! The people have, it is true,
the abstract and original right to choose all these, and every year to
chop and change them as they please, but the people, very properly, in all
states, mortgage their lementary rights for one catholic and practical
right--the right to be well governed. It may be no more to the advantage
of the state that the People (that is, the majority, the populace) should
elect uncontrolled all the members of the House of Commons--than that they
should elect all the pastors of their religion. The sole thing we have to
consider is, will they be better governed?"