QUITE ANOTHER PAIR OF SOCKS! Mr. Overshute had always been on good terms with Mrs. Fermitage, his "advanced ideas" marching well with her political sentiments, so far as she had any. And upon a still more tender subject, peace and good-will throve between them. The lady desired no better suitor for her niece than Russel Overshute, and had laboured both by word and deed to afford him fair opportunity. Moreover, it was one of her great delights, when time went heavily with her, to foster a quiet little fight between young Russel and his mother. Those two, though filled with the deepest affection and admiration for each other, could scarcely sit half an hour together without a warm argument rising. The late Mr. Overshute had been for years a knight of the shire, and for some few months a member of the Tory Government; and this conferred on his widow, of course, authority paramount throughout the county upon every political question. How great, then, was her indignation, to find subversive and radically erroneous principles coming up, where none but the best seed had been sown. Three generations ago, there had been a very hasty Overshute; but he had been meted with his own measure, and his balance struck upon the block. This had a wholesome influence on the family, while they remembered it; and child after child had been brought up with the most correct opinions. But here was the young head of the house, with a stiff neck, such as used to be adjusted in a nick upon Tower-hill. Mrs. Overshute therefore spent much of her time in lamenting, and the rest in arguing. For none of these things Mrs. Fermitage cared. With her, the idea of change was free. She had long rebelled against her brother's dictation of the Constitution, and believed they were rogues, all the lot of them, as her dear good husband used to say. "Port-wine Fermitage" went too far when he laid down this law for the females. Without a particle of ill-meaning, he did a great deal of mischief. Now Mrs. Fermitage sat well up, in a chair that had been newly stuffed. She was very uncomfortable; and it made her cross, because she was a good-sized woman. She kept on turning, but all for the worse; and her mind was uneasy at her brother's house. The room was gone dark, and the lights going down, while Miss Mary Hookham was revelling in the mansion of the Carrier. Nobody cared to hurry for the sake of anybody else, of course; and Mrs. Fermitage could not see what the good of all her money was. The lady was all the more vexed with others, because her own conscience was vexed with her; and as Overshute came with his quick, firm step, she spoke to him rather sharply. "Well, Russel Overshute, there was a time when you would not have left me to sit in this sad way by myself all the evening. But that was when I had pretty faces near me. I must not expect such attentions now!"